Fat or Anorexic: Is your IT a waste?

MUMBAI, INDIA: A man walked up to a priest and asked, “Can I smoke while I am praying?” The priest raised his eyebrows at the sacrilegious question and screamed “No!”

The next day this man made another attempt. “Can I pray while I smoke?”

The priest replied. “Of course, my son. That’s a good idea. God loves you.”

Reminds one of the financial propositions of IT. Interpretations of IT's success or failure still matter in a vague range even in this binary world, which is increasingly getting immersed in Cloud (pun intended).

And as seemingly anti-polar as they may be regarded, advertising and IT have at least one thing in common. Most clients say the same line when asked about the relevance of their advertising spends. “I know that half of what I spend is utter waste. The problem is I do not know which half.”

IT too is facing a struggle of similar connotations. And CIOs are caught on a tightrope between solipsism and abstinence. Cutting the flab, getting in shape, working out those six-to-eight packs and worshipping the tread mill are no more the prerogatives of tinsel town aisles. They are echoing as loudly in the alleys around servers, data centers, fiber networks and code-wars.

So what should we make of industrialization of IT, DIY, Outsourcing, obsolescence, maintenance, and everything else that orbits around the big accusation — A lot of IT around us today, is sheer waste? Andy Rowsell-Jones is a vice president and research director in Gartner's CIO & Executive Leadership Research Team. Here, he helps us decipher some obese questions as he translates Toyota factory formulas in a white-collar context.

We will talk about the vapour-term ‘Lean IT’. So before we start, can you help us define the very word ‘waste’ in the world of IT? What is ‘waste’ here?

This concept can exist at one or two levels- the big problems and the small ones. The ideal ways is to ask that if we spent X crores on a particular application last year, what would happen if I eliminate this application? Most CIOs do it to their processes. Or you can explore a concept of ‘value stream mapping’. It means collection of all those activities that add value to customers. Basically you have to break your IT budget into many questions. Protecting value creating steps, reducing necessary evils of non-value, eliminating other steps is part of this exercise. Waste can be of two types — the non-value adding kind which is still necessary. And the other one which is true waste. The trick, however is to know that lean IT tools are just one of the tools in a big tool box and not a panacea. It’s an overriding deep-rooted philosophy. Some use it as TQM, some as the famous Theory of Constraints and some as other tools.

Red Hat’s Jim Whitehurst remark at a conference was fascinating. Out of $1.4 trillion of Global IT Budgets, at least $500 billion is a waste. Does that hit a chord?

Well, yes, we know we waste money in IT. How much is wasted is hard to tell. When you invest in a technology, you are conducting a social experiment. Even with a tool with probably a proven track record, a change in operating environment can affect a lot of things. Some investments pay off with time, some will be a catastrophe. That way we are young and still conducting experiments.

When we talk of lean IT, is this acceptance of an era of industrialization of IT where assembly lines or software factories would be the defining factors?

Lean methods are techniques wherein systematic way of eliminating waste by essentially applying industrial discipline from the chapters of Toyota are used. Now it’s a big part of management lexicon. What it means in a white-collar sense is to apply some of those disciplines to areas like flow of paper, processes, data centres or break fix, i.e. wherever the flow closely resembles a factory. When it comes to high-level work which is often complex in nature, it doesn’t fit in there. We have found out that- Companies can either be philosophically committed, with a high-level of disciplined analysis and relentless reviews or go about it the other way. They can have a focused lean approach, using it as a tool like Six Sigma or QCs. This has significant merits as it provides intellectual rigor.

Does that leave the IT fraternity with any best technology formula for Lean IT?

Finance department has got layers in approval process. Unless you have some philosophical bias to oppose then they are reasonable. The very essence of IT is to look for waste. You can apply lean discipline once with no enduring commitment, You can do it with a strong mindset because you believe it as a CIO. Organisations may have unnecessary business rules or engagements as waste, so a platform to question some levels would be good. Performance checks, standard reviews etc forces a management team to confront its own performance in a rigorous way.

What about the vendors’ side? Lean-washing is a concern?

They do not operate same tools as client needs change. Your methodology would be different. That makes the interface inefficient. Toyota dwarfs its suppliers so the approach succeeds there. In a normal relationship, the vendor is usually bigger than a typical client.

How effective is a lean IT approach in reality?

I opine that unless you have a near-death experience of sorts or a catastrophe, it’s unlikely that a philosophy or approach would be transformational.  It is a not so frivolous undertaking so take time to familiarize yourself with it but use it as a tool, depending on what job you are actually trying to do. Is it elimination of waste or familiarization with a new technology or competitive strengths or security focus? The tool and the tool box are still two different things altogether.