Sometimes I wonder if we don't do ourselves a massive dis-services in IT; for example, take cloud. We keep hearing comments like IT departments aren't ready for it, they don't have the processes, they aren't flexible enough etc, etc..but I wonder how true that is?
Many IT departments have been through numerous re-organisations; re-assessing their processes on a regular basis and at least in theory streamlining their processes. We've been push-button provisioning servers for years pushing standard installs to machines with automated customisation tools. It would not have taken a huge amount to take these automated build scripts and put a web-interface in front of them; in fact, I know plenty of places who have. Just not told their users about it.
The on demand world has been a reality for quite some-time with much of the latency artificially introduced by ourselves. You see, I think that we are ready to do this and instead of waiting for vendors to come in to tell us that we aren't, we should be telling people that we are and just bring it on.
But I suspect it's both a political thing and a belief thing. There's some explaining to be done; how do you explain that you've been able to do something for years but just haven't? And how do you get your users to believe you now? In order to avoid embarrassment, we've just been offering incremental changes in OLAs and SLAs but how do we deliver the step-change which we are capable of delivering today.
Wrap it up in a big fluffy bundle and call it Cloud! Pretend it's something new! That way no-one has to be embarassed but I suggest that most cloud initiatives ought be coloured with a slight pink tinge!
