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The results of this exercise were somewhat surprising. We anticipated that we would be challenged in many areas. Maybe people wouldn't agree with the manner in which we were measuring current network usage and congestion. After all, measuring network performance is tricky. We thought people might question our assumptions regarding future needs. It's risky to predict the future, and we were cognizant that bandwidth-intensive killer applications could emerge that would make our planning assumptions sound silly. And, surely, people would take us to task on our assessment of alternative technologies, especially our assessment that ATM was a poor investment of limited resources and one that was unlikely to deliver on its early hype.

Yes, there were a few dissenters, people who took issue with some of our views. However, the IRFC provided a structure around which those issues could be discussed. Instead of simply hearing them complain about the general ineffectiveness of central IT, we were able to engage our critics on specific issues of concern. Did we get something wrong in our technology assumptions? OK, let's clarify it. Did we fail to anticipate certain application requirements? Tell us about them and we'll adjust accordingly. We were taking the high road.

What surprised us most was that the vast majority of feedback we received was positive. First, we had people thanking us for taking the time to help them understand the issues and concerns, and for educating them on key alternative technologies. Second, we had many people expressing humble acknowledgement that they really didn't understand the technical complexity of high-speed network technologies. We even had people express appreciation that we were on top of the issues, that we not only understood our current situation but had a rational view of future needs and a thorough understanding of alternative solutions, in both their technical and their economic dimensions. I still remember an e-mail message from a departmental IT coordinator, someone with whom relations with my organization had not always been so solid, expressing satisfaction that the network was in good hands.

Lessons for the Future

The reality of today's IT environment is that many decisions need to be made quickly and efficiently. It's often not practical to consider all the alternatives and engage in an extended quest for the best solution. You have a problem, and you search for a while until you find a solution that works. Then you implement it. Sometimes it's the best solution and sometimes it's not, but when you need to move quickly you can't consider all the options. Management theorist Herbert Simon called this process satisficing, defined as setting an aspiration level which, if achieved, will be good enough.

However, some critical IT initiatives deserve analysis and reflection, and demand input from users, particularly the increasing number of tech-savvy users who dot today's modern organization. The days of IT managers "doing their thing" in the data center with a narrow focus on technology are over. Today's successful IT managers are increasingly aligned with the quest for improved business processes. Now, more than ever, we need to make technology a means rather than an end. Implementing an internal proposal-evaluation process like the IRFC is one way of advancing this goal and of elevating the role of IT within your organization.

If standards were developed and enacted by a small group of engineers operating in isolation of a real world of practitioners, we'd likely end up with standards that, though technologically sound, would fail to meet peoples' needs in the real world. Open up the process a bit, and the results would surely be improved.