Will techies or managers rule IT in 2020?

There has always been an uneasy alliance between IT and the business, with each party equally suspicious of the other’s motives and actions.  The polarity is even more pronounced when it comes to programmers; the hardcore IT elite who baffle those without a maths degree versus the average worker with no comprehension of the complexity of coding.


Many attempts have been made to break down these barriers.  It started when IT directors were appointed to give boardroom visibility to technology issues.  We see movements such as DevOps and Agile designed to streamline development and create improved dialogue and shared accountability between coders and the business.  Even ITIL, which at first glance seems only concerned with internal technology processes, is about trying to bridge the gap, with a common language and principles designed to demystify technology.

Yet while efforts to bring IT and the business closer together may have led to some improvement, they can largely be judged to have failed.  Why? Because if they had succeeded, businesses wouldn’t be choosing to source their own IT.

The invasion of user-owned tablets and smartphones into businesses is not about staff wanting to have the latest shiny stuff.  They are using their own equipment because it is more user-friendly, offers greater scope for adding functionality (you can download apps which claim to fix endless number of business-related problems) and doesn’t come with the same number of restrictions as their corporate approved equipment.  (The irony that Apple’s famously controlled environment feels less restrictive to the average user speaks volumes for how far IT departments must adjust).

Going back to the question posed by this blog - will techies or managers rule IT in 2020 - it seems illogical that the real technology experts, the people that can create and amend code, will be less valued than a manager which liaises between departments.  Yet the BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) movement proves that business technology consumption has changed forever, and those individuals who can successfully manage the relationship between the front line and the back office will increasingly be seen as major assets.

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