Australiahas come a long way since the late 90's, in relation to IT Management. Believeit or not there once was a time where the IT departments evolved out of anecessity, the outside factors that arose when technology was not the corebusiness. Or "the IT after-though", as I like to call it. As theimportance of technology continually encroach on the core business, we trendedtowards the attachment of an IT department to various organisation. The add on,the strange but very necessary attachment that kept popping up across all industries.It was into this world that companies needed to fill the positions of the ITleadership.
In some cases, unless the company engaged an outside hire, the new ITdepartment would be an easy perk to palm-off to a company stalwart, with littleexposure let alone understanding of IT. Resulting in people senior enough to govern,but from a different generation and inferior technical abilities, leading thepropeller heads doing the work. This kind of seniority, not based on anytechnical background formed an inability to cater to the needs of the team andthe greater organisation and hence even the clients. Resulting in disfunctionin tech expectations and tech delivery.
I have no doubt that this led to lag coder content in Australia, in thefollowing decades. Compared to what was a more talked about threat of thecheaper Indian outsource market, this phenomenon is hardly ever recognised.That this quiet exodus, due to poor management and conditions for developer inthose early days doesn’t seem to get a mention.
On a brighter side, theinevitable progression of generations of techies to management is the correctionthe market needed. This ability to relate and therefore push-back on a lack ofprocess and dealing with external departments, help define the role ofdevelopers with organisations. Making for a more robust delivery and what Ibelieve to be greater programmer satisfaction in the workplace.
