by Bruce F. Webster, Founder, Bruce F. Webster & Associates LLC
The following document is the actual text–carefully redacted–of a memo I wrote some time back after performing an IT project review. The project in question was a major IT re-engineering effort for a mission-critical system; it would eventually be canceled and the work products abandoned. The memo itself provides an interesting glimpse into just how a major IT project can go so far off the tracks that nothing useful is ever delivered.
While IT budgets are being squeezed, spending on security software and hardware remains strong, Pacific Crest’s Rob Owens asserted in a research note today. He notes that “the vast majority” of companies in the sector met or beat Q1 expectations.
“You are an idiot.” That was how I was greeted on an already gloomy, rainy Monday morning. I had just spent the weekend trying to help my team troubleshoot a production problem, missing a family event and getting little sleep. While I had ultimately resolved the problem, it was pretty apparent I wasn’t going to be showered with accolades.
by Ericka Chickowski, Contributing Writer, Baseline
Over the last several years a number of IT industry executives and analysts have consistently promoted the idea that there exists an ever-present shortage of skilled IT workers in the market to fill the industry’s demand. High-profile executives such as Bill Gates of Microsoft and Craig Barrett of Intel have weighed in with their opinions about this shortage of good help in the server room and at the keyboard. Most recently the theory of a growing shortage was bolstered by a December 2007 Gartner report entitled “The Quest for Talent–You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet.” One of the report’s authors, Andy Kyte, went so far as to say in a statement that “(t)his is a massive and devastating skills shortage, and it is coming when there is a surge in the number of projects that are required from IT.” But there is a growing resistance to this “common knowledge” of IT labor shortages–a number of economists, academics and industry experts refute these claims, stating that there simply isn’t any hard evidence to support the idea that there is or soon will be an IT skills shortage.
Should security people doubt themselves? Or does that make us seem wishy-washy and weak? Is that why we continue to pursue the goal of Perfect Security with such single-mindedness? Or are we just protecting our own investments?
At the risk of shocking the security world, in my keynote address at the 2007 RSA Conference, I said [...]
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