This may just be my recent experience talking, but I think the problem in corporate IT is an excess of formalism.. or Religion. You have the "Enterprise Archite

This may just be my recent experience talking, but I think the problem in corporate IT is an excess of formalism.. or Religion. You have the "Enterprise Architects" running around thinking that if you abstract everything away, that someone will be able to grok the whole process and eliminate redundancies and magically you'll have a better organization. Then you have the Agile people, and the Six Sigma people, and the RUP people, and the IT Governance Nazis... Add to that the typical corporate risk aversion, and the "nobody ever got fired for yet another kick-off for a new initiative with a Three Letter Acronym," and what you end up with is vast overspending to deliver very little value. Naturally, this kind of bullshit is a huge disincentive to innovation. If you actually had a good idea, there are so many obstacles to trying it and getting things done that the smart people end up grinded down and flee for greener more flexible pastures. This not just for the average developer who has an idea-- it goes all the way up to the C-suite. For corporate America to fix this, you need CTOs and CEOs who are willing to be ruthless about paring down ridiculous initiatives and barriers to getting things done. Radically simplified IT governance, along with a genuine attitude shift towards accepting non-zero risk, is what will enable corporate IT innovation.