An old post, but it sparked my curiousity and made me chuckle.
I guess the first thing is that management are on the "leveraged" band-wagon and seem to prefer technical solutions that do not involve people.
We always have problems getting the corp office to approve capitol projects unless it impacts / improves production. So when we mentioned we needed to upgrade for a supporting department. No matter how well we demonstrated that this project would be extremely worth while with a great return on the dollar - "REJECT" was tatooed on the proposal before the ink dried on the proposal.
Our requests became more frantic over the years as the system became more antiquated.
Finally, it became a Y2K issue - still not response. Then as we were starting to close off existing Y2K issues, the project stuck out like a huge beaming tungstin flare. All of a sudden a huge project was started - two project managers, Oracle and technical consultants, etc. The project was completed before Y2K thanks to a great team ... BUT ... The original solution cost perhaps $2000. The Y2K solution cost over $500,000 and invovled new servers, a WAN component, etc. Granted, there were a couple of nice "bells" in the solution, the problem was that there were so many points of failure, the "solution" became the number one support problem requireing after-hours support for several years. A local solution would have cost considerably less, but management wanted the solution to leverage the WAN and central resources. Yet, I was still involved with 90%+ of the solutions.
...It gets better. Along comes S@P. Yep, it can do this and that. Hmmm - we would rather if the process happened this way. So corporate agains go to the counsultants and state "we want S@P to do this, this and this". Consultants - "No problem" (followed by a YES, a few more $100,000+ !!!) I never did see the cost for this solution - but it is so complicated that we now use a paper system that is even more antiquated than the $2000 solution originally in place!
The next issue is the conflict of interest. The aformentioned story for S@P shows how a consultant may present a solution that is profitable for the consultants. Or result in the consultants getting a comfortable service contract at the end of the project.
Then there is the novell issue of listening to your end-users. Instead of imposing solutions from afar (whether across the continent, or from the glass office to
dark caves in the basedment), it makes sense to ask first and then provide guidence. In the S@P example, and the "we need to upgrade" example, management never listen. I remember in the S@P situation, when these high level discussions werre occurring, several times the question from lower management was posed to the consultants (with the senior management being present - hint, hint guys) "Does S@P do this, and is it hard to implement".
The last issue I want to bring up is "Asking the right question", and trust the experts. Managers need to provide the expected outcomes, and ask the consultants to provide the best way / most effecient way / least expensive way to achieve the end results. Then trust the experts. This "issue" needs to be balanced with the "conflict of interest" issue presented earlier. If they want a second opinion - fine, just as long as the opinion is objective.
I guess life goes on - but there is so much waste when you look at the details.