Rampidbyter Rampid byter: A byte of my .Net developing life.

Business hierarchies are amusing. I think, from my experience, there are five main groups. There are the upper-upper management that ultimately gives the face to the company, typically your VP group, or the other individuals whose heads are distinctly hidden from view by the rear-end of the VP group.

From this group falls the upper-management that is directly responsible for overseeing day-to-day operations, maybe weekly reviews, and are the ‘boss’ for all intensive purposes. This group breeds the underling superfluous supervisor group that tends to spread around carrying out the wishes of their direct bosses by instructing the standard work force group.

Adjacent to these groups is the IT departments. Somehow IT, much like a tumor, wedges itself into the crevasses between each of these aforementioned groups, and on occasion has it’s very own head VP group. If it’s easier you can consider the IT department the conjoined twin to the standard business hierarchy. However, IT, unlike the conjoined twin, isn’t considered very important, and is often made to follow in the path of the business group regardless of IT objections.

It’s in this regard that IT is so often and consistently ignored by all major decision makers. The hypocrisy of this situation is that often IT is able to dictate all processes that business channels must flow through providing applications for business to run off, and the majority of the time all business operations would come to a complete halt based on IT process control. I’ve seen it happen like a train derailing, it’s an event that you can’t not look at, but at the same time you want to run from very quickly. Often time the casualties are merely the number of hours IT has to work in addition to normal load to get the train back on the tracks.

The craziest thing about this entire hierarchy is that while all management, VP group, or otherwise are still at the mercy of the work force. Without the padding of the worker group at the bottom of that triangle then your triangle starts to get a little pointier at the bottom. If your company looks like an upside down triangle with more upper management than work force then I’m assuming your company is going to go in that direction as well. But I digress; it’s with that work force at the bottom that carries the sway. I’ve seen IT projects go bottom up, not the triangle again, simply because the work force did not adopt the programs they were supposed to use. It costs millions, and it’s continuing to cost millions. It’s just really funny how what comes down from the top the top sometimes has to eat. If you’re lucky they may eat cake, but often times it’s a lot worse.