Wow! That was harsh .. but well said.

My company has undergone the same transformation in the last few years as the pendulum swung towards the centralization position. This has also involved reassignments and relocations. Funny thing, even when the outsiders got here to the central location, there was still the mentality of "them" and "us". The sooner we can get over that, the sooner we get everyone pointed in the same direction.

So, I'll echo the response: either join in and help or leave, we don't need the noise".

I'll even add the other part of the reply. Folks in the remote locations are very good at doing what has to be done to keep the business running. This will sometimes result in undocumented code and other unsavory things. All in the name of expediency for a small location. Things are very different when you do for an entire corporation, when the scale and related costs are large and when a VP can hold up things for months if his people are not included. The environments are different.

You were invited to central for a reason. Make the most of it.

"The first is that in the entire history of our species, nobody has ever once been persuaded of anything by an outsider."

Perhaps evolution took a turn in modern business. In my experience, all "insiders" at the same general level are the same - one opinion is as good as the next - democracy at its worst. There is no right, no wrong, only the best guess as to what the boss wants to hear. I challenge anyone sitting through endless consensus-building meetings to show otherwise. To execute a real change, you have to be an outsider, such as a new manager or consultant ;-)

Come to the dark side. Apprentice with us or perish. All the incentives in the Central IT group are paid to those who document their processes not to those who perform their duties. Each time you attempt to push an issue you are tampering with the paper trail, making the job more difficult to document. Bad documentation means bad raises for us.

And in all seriousness it looks like your gut is only going to stay ulcer-free under one of two conditions. Go native; preferrably the most native of all the natives to nab the promotions. Or find another job whether inside or outside the company. Staying put AND fighting the bureaucracy will only make you unhealthy, surly, bitter, and poorly paid.

We have a centralized IT structure such as "Am I a Sithy?" describes.

What does part of our team do? Make reports on the metrics of how much delay thereis in meeting SLAs for hardware and software acquisition and deployment.

Someone else has meetings over how we can improve these metrics.

At least (as a contractor) it's steady pay.

L

My own experience suggests that moving on to the next opportunity will yield you the best results.

The problem with attempting to become a member of the inner circle--particularly when you started as a person not only out of the circle, but located out of the headquarters office--is that it is such a difficult thing to do from inside the company unless you have a powerful mentor or sponsor. You stand a better chance going into a new environment, maybe in a smaller company in order to be the big fish in a smaller pond.

I'm sure there are lots of companies that would put the lie to my tale, but my own sense of it is that the newly hired employee from outside the company always has the advantage over the remote-office expert looking to move up. It's not right, but it is commonplace.

If you have reasons to stick with the company now employing you, do the smart thing: find someone above you who has lots of clout, and enlist them as your advocate and mentor.

There's no way to know in maybe-Sithy's example if the issue is legitimate or just understandable pains in adapting to a new philosophy.

Assuming best-case scenario: things may sometimes take longer in a centralized, bureaucratic format as compared to a loose decentralized organiazation. At the same time, these processes may actually save time/cost on the back end (audits, support, bugs, etc.). Without us knowing how things ran in the decentralized organization, you may want to give the centralized philosophy a shot and see if your concerns are still valid or if its just the natural resistance to change.

Assuming the worst, the management self-congratulation could be the manifestation of "groupthink" -- where everyone loyally sticks to the company line, even if it doesn't make sense. I worked on one IT shop where they congratulated themselves on the number of projects and helpdesks completed -- not a single mention of benefits. When I asked what that metric actually measured in terms of worth, you could hear a pin drop. In group think, alternative ideas are threats, not constructive suggestions.

If your organization is the worst case example, run far, run fast, and get out of there as soon as you can find a better company to join. The groupthink is the established culture, and if you don't join in line, you'll be marginalized or removed from the culture.

May the force be with you.

Bob,

If Sithy's centralized IT organization is as disfunctional as he describes, I would imagine that the business is encountering a lot of issues with their IT support. An extremely bureaucratic IT organization will naturally be slower to respond to its business customers' demands, and have higher costs.

Depending on where Sithy sits in the organization, s/he could sit down with his/her business partner to see if the partner is experiencing any of the natural outcomes of bureaucracy. Alternatively, Sithy could promote Service Level Management as a means of measuring the efficiency of the company's IT processes.

- Been There, Done That

For a moment I thought "Sithy" was describing an organization I once worked for. I joked that they gave lessons in beaurocracy to the Pentagon. They were awful.

It is possible to get organizations like this to accept some change - I did, somehow - but it's very difficult. No one in the organization will thank you for it. The entire organization becomes one that lacks imagination and drive to succeed. They are almost dysfunctional. Somehow they 'survive'.

These places can also develop a toxic reputation in the industry. It taints those who work there; in some interviews I've had to explain why I worked at this particular company - it's reputation was so bad.

I agree with Mike: run!

Wow, this sounds unbelivably familiar to me, HMMM...

My last job was at a large multi-national Fortune 500 company that was completely committed to establishing centralized IT. The difference is that unlike Sithy, I worked at a remote site. I got to see the groupthink and fantasy world that the coporate leaders lived in, while still being measured at how things were going at the remote site, even though the corprate policies and systems were the things causing the problems.

I took a hard look at things and thought about what I would do if the situation were reversed and I were working at corporate and not a remote site. I realized that yes, I really did believe that decentralized IT was what I preferred and that there was really great value not only in some of the systems in place at remote sites, but really in people working at the remote sites. After this realization it was a forgone conclusion that I needed to find something different. With the help of some advice Bob has given before on networking and other job hunting strategies, I found a job I really like. I've only been there a short time, but the job really feels right, and centralization of IT isn't an issue there either (I kind of changed up the job I'm doing too).

All I can say, Sithy, is that if you are from the company I left, leaving is really your best bet. I would love to tell you what company it is, but that wouldn't be right. If you just feel that your company might fit what I'm describing, though, I think its time for you to get out.

Having just spent two days as an end user in meetings with a similar IT organization, let me just burst Bob's bubble with regards to the good intentions and competence of the centralized IT managers. My experience with centralized IT, particularly centralized IT managers, is that they consider adherence to standards and documentation to be the real work of their organization, not tools to be used to meet business customers' needs. If I hear the words, "educating the customer," one more time, I'm going to strangle the speaker. (I have an MS in Computer Science and have been responsible for development and maintenance of large mission-critical software systems; I don't need them to educate me.)

I once heard a great analogy to a water company. What do customers want? They want to turn on the tap and get water at the expected temperature and pressure. They don't care about the pumping stations, the water mains, the pipes, the treatment plants, or the reservoir. A lot of centralized IT organizations think that their job is laying pipes, etc., not meeting customers' needs for water. So they reward their people for following processes and procedures, not for meeting customer needs, and when customers try to talk to them, all they want to talk about is how you, the customer, can also learn to work within the process. Guess what. I don't give a rat's a** about the pipes, all I care about is the water.

My advice is to Sithy is, "Get out now, while you still have a soul."

I think your best words in this one are "...do everything you can to understand the world from the perspective of central IT, and in particular of the CIO." That is a pearl of wisdom for anyone! Do I remember something about walking in someone else shoes? Haha - It may not solve this persons problem, but it should at least help to understand it.

Repeat after me: "But that's the way we've always done it!"

Change must come from within, and Sithy, you are not within. Get within, or get out.

I did not notice that anyone mentioned the Next Step after centralization: outsourcing. On the one hand centralization makes it more practical - or makes it perceived as such. And on the other hand, it is very likely to increase user dissatisfaction, and outsourcing is the current answer when one must Do Something About IT.

It's not about connecting technology,
it's about technology connecting people...

As one who is trying to make a difference from inside, pick your battles, but do look for what you want and will fulfill your personal and job goals. I'm convinced there's a better place outside the 'evil empire' of IT.

My last job was at a large multi-national Fortune 500 company that was completely committed to establishing centralized IT. The difference is that unlike Sithy, I worked at a remote site. I got to see the groupthink and fantasy world that the coporate leaders lived in, while still being measured at how things were going at the remote site, even though the corprate policies and systems were the things causing the problems.