Introduction:

The  1st Generation I.T. Organization is the prevalent I.T. organizational model today. Ironically it is the model that delivers the least value to its stakeholders and participants.

This organization is founded on control through complexity, overstated risk and by the fear of the unknown. It is ruled by the personal power of its management. The Generation 1 I.T. department works from the premise that technology is out there to get you. It is they, the gatekeepers, that keep you and your business safe.

Managers typically come through the technical ranks of these organizations. As a result of their technical abilities and the organization’s dependence on their “proprietary” knowledge and understanding of the company’s systems, they are promoted to positions of authority, overseeing the work of others. These managers tend to hire more people like themselves into their teams.

Breaking free from these shackles typically requires reformatory intervention, and organizational open heart surgery. Only open minded progressive managers survive when the premise for this organization is challenged by more mature future Generations. The business is calling for deliverance and liberation from this type of I.T. Organization.

Characteristics

Generation 1 organizations will exhibit many of the following characteristics to some degree.

1. •Doing things in-house is preferred: The company with a Generation 1 I.T. model falsely considers its I.T. function as a "strategic" asset instead of effective I.T. being considered as a business strategy. I.T. assets are rarely strategic. The I.T. department obliges and insists on building bespoke applications, re-engineering and over customizing package applications and owning all infrastructure for their own “unique” purposes. The business is perceived "unique", and therefore the company employs a significant complement of I.T. staff to do tasks, and maintain solutions that are "custom". Many of these could easily have been sourced from a specialist provider in the market.
   

2. •There is no clear functional delineation of duties in the organization: Most staff are required to fulfill most functions. For example: A staff member may be required to design, develop, support, administer and project manage. The I.T. organization is highly dependent on its “specialist” staff that have been there usually for many years engineering, reengineering and over engineering custom solutions.
   

3. •Operations and Change functions are blurred: The same teams and individuals are charged not only with implementing and evolving a solution, but also with administering and operating the solution. This leaves the company's solutions vulnerable to group think with little or no checks and balances between people modifying a solution and people operating and administering a solution. Typically, changes are implemented on the fly by the same people that do not think through design and build impacts on a solution's architecture. Testing becomes an afterthought, releases suffer from poor quality, and production systems are vulnerable to failures and outages.
   

4. •The organization has poor process maturity: A 1st Generation I.T. organization struggles through non repeatable, highly customized, over bureaucratized process complexity that remains a mystery to most of the operators within the organization and those that are intended to be served by I.T.. Merely knowing how to navigate processes in such an organization is considered merit for long term tenure.
   

5. •I.T. position descriptions are tool and technology focused with little clarity of the role within the organization or its processes: These position descriptions focus on a Professional's technical knowledge because it is hard to describe role responsibilities within a process that doesn't exist.
   

6. •Projects are an I.T. only affair, and not necessarily linked with a company wide portfolio strategy: The value of I.T. projects is not as great as it could be, if there was more active direct involvement from the business. The I.T. organization often operates in isolation from its business customers when projects are initiated or executed. Business stakeholders “trusts” that I.T. knows what is best. There is little rigor to business requirement elicitation and business process analysis. Few "business" stakeholders are involved in I.T. projects. The I.T. organization believes it knows what is best for its business customer, and proceeds accordingly. It appears as if the business abdicated responsibility to I.T..
   

7. •One typically finds solutions from almost every possible vendor in these organizations: Many different platform investments are made with no clear life-cycle planning. There is little to no formal consideration of strategic architecture investments in line with business strategy. Yet, the solutions that you do find hardly meet the expectations of users.
   

8. •These organizations are manager rich and clarity poor: Too many managers are appointed to navigate an immature process maze. Typically these managers spend more time in power struggles with each other, than with with their teams on executing quality service delivery. Managers do not understand their roles and manage by exception and rumor. A standard answer by these managers to solving a problem is to appoint another person in the hope that they will resolve the issue. More and more staff are injected to fix issues, which typically have little to do with the technology or the solution on hand, and everything to do with poor process maturity, politicking and role ambiguity.
   

9. •There is a prevailing “them and us” relationship with business customers: The relationship between the I.T. organization and its business customers is typically strained. Each one sees the other as the difficult party. I.T. costs are enormous, and value is perceived to be low.
   

10. •Heroism is rewarded in a 1st Generation I.T. organization: The individual that can resolve a crisis is exalted ahead of the individual that successfully avoids a crisis in the first place. These organizations are very proud of their crisis management capabilities. A capability they are forced to exhibit daily.
    

11. •These I.T. organization's are person, task or product oriented instead of services oriented: When positioning themselves with clients (internal or external) to the business they over emphasize the abilities of their consultant, or the features of their tools, instead of delivery performance and customer delight.
    

12. •Separation of the I.T. organization into an infrastructure and applications department: Infrastructure and software are managed separately even through functional activities (and even skills sets) are duplicated in many instances. This can evolve to the extent that two separate I.T. organizations co-exists.
    

13. •The business with this type of an I.T. organization manages its I.T. function as a risk, instead of as an asset: They never know what will happen next. Every event is usually a costly experience regardless of it being a new implementation or mitigating an existing crisis.