IT needs a military style Special Forces
Generally the larger the client, the larger the service provider/consultancy hired. Large organisations are inherently inefficient. More people, more bureaucracy, more politics, more screw-ups, more waste.
In military operations, have you ever wondered why the SAS/SBS are so bloody good at what they do? Small teams of highly competent, highly skilled individuals, trained to work efficiently as a unit, while at the same time able to function independently if cut-off from the chain of command to complete the mission if necessary.
UK IT sorely needs an equivalent of the Special Forces.
You gather the best, send them on an SAS style IT assessment course, weed out the dross putting them through various scenarios to test their abilities in all relevant areas including leadership and business knowledge, and induct the top 1% into your elite unit.
When a major outage occurs like the one at the LSE where critical national interests are affected, the IT special forces units are sent in to perform 'surgery'
They are impartial, effective, apolitical and brutally frank, seeking only to achieve mission goals and get out. If they recommend that a person/team/service provider is fired, they are without questions.
When not 'deployed' they are constantly training, exhausting all scenarios and learning the latest techniques and technologies.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
