Sunday, June 10, 2012

Leadership is required for management and governance

Management and governance functions can not reasonably be expected to be driven bottom up.

No designer wants a governing body telling them what the can and can't; should or shouldn't do. It is the nature of good designers to want the freedom to do what ever they think is best.

Many designers barely tolerate the client i.e. they would rather design in the absence of this and frequently consider the clients needs, aesthetics, predilections etc. an impediment to a good design. I recall a house I was once in that had paster moulded cherubims coming out of the wall and a range of those tasteless eclectic abominations that the client had demanded. The client was happy with the result but did comment - "we went through three architects, they just kept leaving".

Designers of course accept the need for a client. But you can't expect them to run seeking further sets of constraints on their creativity. Architects don't go looking for extra town planning and codes of practice to comply with.

Nor can you expect designers to seek to publish patterns and techniques that they have spent a decade mastering so everyone else can be as good as them.

In the realm of IT it staggers me that many IT organizations look to their solution design (architecture) function to define its approach.

It is critical that the CIO and IT executive team stand up and take responsibility for ensuring the best utilizing of   the existing IT porfolio; that the best extensions to that portfolio (from the organization's perspective); correct application of best practice (patterns, principles etc.); effective harvesting of best practice (patterns); etc.

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