Re: an interesting story here.
"IT projects might succeed (according to organisation-defined not IT-defined criteria), and sometimes success might even cost less than today's failures cost organisations."
IT Projects succeeding or failing usually has very little (in fact nothing) to do with the underlying Operating System. Also, IT defined criteria *is* the organization defined criteria. Not following? Ok.
Junior person in hospital wants to transmit pictures of abused kid who's come into the hospital to social services so they can investigate if the parent is abusing the kid. Junior person specs the requirement as:-
1) "I want a computer with an internet connection so I can email a picture of an abused kid to Social Services".
Simple, right?
IT requirement for the same job probably reads something along the lines of requirement "method of making abuse report and securely transferring images to Social Services".
1) We must be able to prove that we have sent it.
2) We must be able to prove that they have received it
3) We must be able to prove that we have made the report in a format that can be input to their internal systems.
4) We must be able to prove that they have actioned the report to fulfil our duty of care to the patient.
5) We must be able to prove that the images have been sent securely.
6) We must be able to provide an auditable trail of who has seen, received, discussed (etc) the child and said pictures in case Social Services takes the case to court and demands that our staff give evidence.
In the hypothetical situation above, Do you really think that IT put all of the other requirements in for their own amusement, or do you think the IT people were tasked by the hospital to ensure that their IT systems follow all of the local requirements like the hospitals duty of care, privacy of the people involved, governing body requirements, laws, etc?
Biting the hand that feeds IT
