Sometimes, IT can't win

In this week's InfoWorld column, I write about the simultaneous thrill and agony of "successful" IT projects:

You you need a thick skin to work in IT because some people will complain about anything. This is because IT sometimes operates in a reality distortion field, where the definition of “success” depends on who you talk to.

The IT staff goes into a major integration projects all wide-eyed and excited. We get to replace cranky old legacy systems with more streamlined systems, thrilled at the prospect of finally retiring the old system and delivering something more usable and productive to end-users. For successful projects, metrics are established early on, and when the project is done, IT reports back to the business side that the goals have been met or exceeded. All objective measurements indicate success, but there’s one problem: The end-users hate the system and complain that the old system was better. In a strange twist, the users who hated the old system the most often herald its wonders once it’s gone. [full column]