Make iTechies Professionals Again-A Reality Check
When I began writing here, I resolved to post at least once every ten days. I broke that promise and now feel remorseful, but I’m determined not to let it become a habit
To recap, I wrote a series of posts on the evolution of the IT division of labor and the significant waste and abuse it entails. In this series, I did not focus on the fraud that often follows where waste and abuses are rampant.
I started by discussing my experiences as an enterprise architect doubting whether it is truly a standalone career in this post.
Next, I outlined my theme and introduced it here as a prologue.
To emphasize my theme, I coined two catchphrases: “Make iTechies Professional again” (MiTPA) and “Managers of Managers of Managers” (MpowerM’s) and used them to write a light-hearted open letter to Elon Musk, Sergey Brin, and Mark Zuckerberg pleading to address the division of labor issue which is essentially a problem of lack of professionals
and followed it with a level set to get everyone on the same page.
To continue with the series, I reached out to several friends and family members working in various industries and asked them about their organizational structures and typical program/project setups. As an ex-enterprise architect with experience in many programs, I was familiar with the general setup in legacy service-based industries.
To compare and contrast, I choose two “professionals driving” human endeavors:
NASA’s Commercial Crew Program,
which is a partnership between NASA and private companies such as SpaceX and Boeing to develop spacecraft
, and Brain surgery,
which is typically performed by a team of professionals in a hospital with lengthy onboarding and preparation processes built-in along with execution.
Both these endeavors involve a high level of complexity and enormous risk and cost that can rival any IT product/program development.
Thanks to my assistant chatGPT, I gathered data on these two endeavors.
First, the NASA Commercial Crew Program, which has the below structure
A. NASA’s Commercial Crew Program Office -
- A Chief with program managers, engineers, and support personnel
- Typically span 24–36 months from the early planning stage to the final mission launch.
- Roughly 60 personnel
B. SpaceX
- Overall org structure is not available but approximately 40 personnel work with the Commercial Crew Program office for the entire duration of typically 24–36 months
- Additional 1000 people for the build and execution of the mission for six months
C. Mission Control
- Flight director, mission control manager, controllers, and support personnel
- Org structure for the Crew-2 mission had three layers
- Top layer with one Flight director Anthony Vareha, and one Mission Control Manager Emily Nelson.
- The second layer consists of lead controllers who are responsible for subsystems and the third layer consists of controllers who are responsible for specific systems or subsystems.
- ~1000 people for six months
The rough estimate of the last successful mission (Crew-2) is between $400-$500 million.
Now let's look at the first brain surgery conducted by Dr. Harvey Cushing in 1902 and the rough organizational structure that one could speculate with the help of chatGPT
Chief Doctor (Top Layer):
- Dr. Harvey Cushing
Associates (Second layer):
- a couple of anesthesiologists and a couple of surgery assistants
Nurses and Support personnel (Third layer):
- A dozen nurses and other support personnel for pre and post-care of the patients
chatGPT insisted to take with a grain of salt the total cost and duration. It would have been three to four months duration with a few thousand dollars then that could be $150K with inflation adjusted.
Even though the whole endeavors are highly complex and highly risky, the overall structure is not that rocket science. Let's peek into what’s happening in the IT world of MPowerMs.
A couple of my friends sent me these two illustrations that represent what is happening in legacy IT service industries, and other product-based companies are not too far behind.
My friend told me the below picture is an invitation for a program-related meeting that includes a few VPs. She also mentioned that this is one of the several meetings planned for two or three months. It's a mind-boggling illustration
Heavily redacted but key areas are left open to tease us.
Yes, you are reading it correctly — Some +374 were required and +197 were optional for five hours. If VPs are included in these types of calls, then it is certain it is normalized and nobody can do anything. I was no wonder surprised when she flatly refused to connect me with the organizer of such calls for an academic curiosity call. What could be so complex that these many people have to meet like this to solve it?
The next illustration is from another friend from another IT-based company and that could give us a hint. I had to add my favorite catchphrase in the picture to make it spicier.
I don't know whether anyone knows what these layers are really for and whether any kind of logical and scientific thinking is behind them. Two managers, two directors, and one sr director under two VPs for a data science department. Are they building a sentient quietly?
It is important to remind that
a 2018 study conducted by the Project Management Institute revealed that 14% of IT projects fail outright, with an additional 31% falling short of their objectives or exceeding their budgets.
Another study conducted by McKinsey revealed that large IT projects, defined as those with budgets exceeding $15 million, typically exceed their budgets by an average of 45%, run 7% beyond their allotted timeframe, and deliver only 56% of the expected value.
The root cause of this issue, in my opinion, lies in the shortage of genuine professionals. If we do not take deliberate steps to nurture and empower professionals in the same manner as other fields, the current inefficiencies and waste will only continue to grow.
Cheers,
RR
PS: These opinions are my own and not of my employer or family or friends.
