Infrastructure Usually Done Wrong

The interesting thing about interviewing is that you get a glimpse into the life and inter-workings of another company. As I interviewed for Infrastructure roles it struck me as to how poor infrastructure was in most businesses.  Now you say, “Well you were interviewing for an open role, there is a reason for that.”  That is true, many of the roles were for folks that had left for another job, some leaving the position open due to promotions.  Yes, some knew they needed a cleanup, some did not.

The bar seemed low in terms of expectations for Infrastructure, and so I began to wonder why.  Infrastructure for most businesses is a cost center.  You cant justify it away or not “approve” spending, you know you need to spend money, and you wont see a financial return on investment in direct dollars.   Like electricity, you need it, you need to pay the bill, you know you cant do without, but how do you calculate your ROI on that?

Many IT leaders are not savvy in Infrastructure.  This lends itself to simply trusting the infrastructure team to make smart choices, be wise about spending dollars.  How is that measured?  If you just measure budget dollars, what is that really telling you?  It doesn’t tell you that you invested in a poor fad technology because you got sold by a pushy salesperson.  You can reduce dollars by making poor decisions.  It’s a black box to most IT leadership.  And that’s the issue.  It’s not hard to do, its just hard to do well.  It’s hard to measure and grade by IT leadership.

When it’s great, you don’t know it.  When it’s below average, you don’t know it.  You only know it when it’s terrible.  You can make great decisions and below average decisions and spend the same money.    I say this for most CIO level execs, not all.  Some understand infrastructure, but some do not have a tight grasp on it.

I believe this is some of the allure of the cloud for CIOs.  Finally, I don’t have a black box for infrastructure, I know I have an expert providing it.  I need to manage my spending, and there are a lot of tools for that.  It seems like a great solution.  Move it from the realm of the unknown, to a manageable transparent place that you can control.

However, it’s more complex than that.  It’s not an apples to apples move.  And then also the move is being executed (frequently) by folks not doing a great job in infrastructure as it is.  And the skill sets in the cloud are not easy to pick up.  You really need to hire cloud experienced engineers to bolster your team.  And then it’s over budget.  And then it’s more expensive. 

This is not how it works everywhere, but how it works in many places.  If you are in a position where the CIO does not really understand the value of your position, or if it’s being done great or poorly, run.  They are in a bad spot.  You are in a bad spot.  It’s not going to go well for you long term.

On several occasions I was told a big part of the role they were looking to fill was helping justify moving to the cloud to the CIO.  A pitch and push had been made, but they needed someone new to come in and say the same things.  I will let you imagine the common details I found after asking a few questions.

I think the industry knows this.  Infrastructure IT fads happen constantly.  Some are good, some not so much, but sales sales sales.  A “not so great” infrastructure director can just rely on sales folks to build them business cases to spend money and then pitch that to the CIO.  I understand the situation, its not good.  I cant say I know how to fix it.  For now, I am going to avoid the whole mess.  There is little point in getting good at something most people don’t appreciate, understand or know how to measure.  I wish I realized this 10 years ago.