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This idea is not aimed at startups. It's a huge problem for large enterprises, albeit less so for product companies than for captive IT orgs creating internal
by eitally 14y ago
This idea is not aimed at startups. It's a huge problem for large enterprises, albeit less so for product companies than for captive IT orgs creating internal systems & utilities. If you, or anyone else, would like specific examples from one company -- along with discussion of remediation attempts -- feel free to email me. When the economy went south in 2007/2008 we dismissed about 18% of our global IT org and didn't start to rebuild until late 2011. Those 3+ years of stagnation nearly killed several business critical systems.
- mbesto 14y agoFair enough -- loads of enterprise IT and IT software experience on my back... captive IT orgs creating internal systems & utilities. Again, so what? These are _costs_ centers and therefore treated as such. As long as the accounting team can add to the general ledger and the trucks ship the goods, the company doesn't go broke and people get paid. If you need innovation for your company to survive, then you do the innovator's solution - create an organisation outside the rules and realms of your existing structure to innovate. This is all too wishful and pie in the sky type thinking.
- eitally 14y agoI should have been clearer: innovation debt when combined with technical debt is the issue. When the internal systems stagnate and become a) unstable, b) un-supportable, c) un-upgradable, there is a direct impact to business operations, and escaping from the cycle is time consuming and painful. I did exactly as you suggested, btw, and created a team whose explicit charter is innovation & directed R&D.
- mbesto 14y agoAgreed. Feel free to get in touch if you wanna discuss further. (details in profile) I've seen this type of thing pretty much everywhere. c) un-upgradable, there is a direct impact to business operations I'd love to know how to measure this. Any VP of Tech/CIO would be fired if this happened.
- Retric 14y agoThinking in terms of skimping on 'cost centers' is stupid. From the development side nothing changes when managing software for internal use vs. selling that same software. What people forget is if your internal software improves in functionality you capture 100% of that value, the only problem is assigning that savings to the software vs the shipping department or whatever. What is often forgotten is time is the hardest thing to gain in software development. 1 person for 10 years can get a lot more done than 10 people for 1 year.