The basic problem in this field is that the work is intensely technical, but the senior management do not see that good techies must be paid as highly as managers. The net result is that beyond a certain level, good techies must become bad managers in order to get paid any more.
Pennell also failed big-time by trying to rush his staffing reduction by threatening redundancy. This forced all staff to look for new jobs, and in addition to the reductions wanted by Pennell, a lot of other techies also resigned or retired, and with these other people a lot of expertise has also left the organisation. This is then a textbook example of how not to do it.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
