David Quinn

London

Retired IT manager

This is the sort of tosh Gartner and the other "think tanks" has been pumping out for years. It is of course nonsense. It would be wonderful if everyone in IT were capable of the sort of omniscience and all round ability that but in reality IT ability, like all human endeavours, is bell shaped. There will be some, every very few, people who can see the big picture. These are the architects. As Chris Greenslade says they are the people who align the rest of the team and point them in the right direction, usually in the teeth of the raging appetite for instant satisfaction from the businesses of today. But even the architects are not omnipotent. They may know the principles of IT and business but have no clue about and no time for developing let alone implementing a system. I have done all the jobs over 30 years and have no illusions about what an individual can achieve.

The trouble is management believes this sort of pandering to their wishful thinking, generally gushed out by babes in arms. This is the cause of half the trouble in the IT industry.