IT inferno: The nine circles of IT hell

http://ow.ly/6LAEc

An article by Dan Tynan published by Info World on infoworld.com

This article is a comic description of the nine layers of I.T. hell, and describes each area, along with the types of people residing there, and the possible path out.

The article provides the following descriptions, along with some detailed narrative around each item:



1st circle of IT hell: Limbo
Description: A pitiful morass where nothing ever gets done and change is impossible.
People you meet there:Users stranded by vendors, departments shackled by software lock-in, organizations held hostage by wayward developers.

How to escape: "When you're digging a hole in hell, the first thing to do is stop digging and climb your way out," says Roth. That means making sure you have the tech expertise in house to solve your own problems, going with open source to avoid vendor lock-in, and taking the time to refactor your code so you can be more efficient the next time around.


2nd circle of IT hell: Tech lust
Description: A deep cavern filled with mountains of discarded gadgets, with Golem-like creatures scrambling to reach the shiny new ones at the top.
People you meet there: Just about everybody at some point.

How to escape: It is difficult to break free from the circle of tech lust, admits Lowe. "We all love shiny new things," he says. "But you have to know what's good enough to get the job done, and learn how to be happy with what you have."

3rd circle of IT hell: Stakeholder gluttony
Description: A fetid quagmire filled with insatiable business users who demand more and more features, no matter the cost.
People you meet there: Demons from sales and marketing, finance, and administration.

How to escape: There is only one way out, and it entails confronting the demons with some hard realities, says Williams. "Escape from this circle is best effected by wielding the magic mirror of painful truth," he says. "This powerful weapon makes the demons look into their own dark hearts and realize that ultimately it is they who have most to lose from feature creep."

4th circle of IT hell: Corporate greed
Description: An acrid forge where piteous creatures drown in a river of molten gold
People you meet there: Corporate executives and shareholders. Also: Donald Trump.

How to escape: Political savvy, dedication to the customer, and supportive management are the only ways out, says Howard. "Ultimately it's always about the money," he says. "You have to figure out how to deliver the results they want in some other way. But a lot of people just give into the pressure."

5th circle of IT hell: App dev anger
Description: A fiery pit of smoke and brimstone, where geeks and suits alike grow hot under the collar
People you meet there: Programmers, developers, C-level executives.

How to escape: Eventually many hotheads will find themselves forced out of a job. Still, you can avoid most blow-ups by doing a better job of keeping everyone informed at every step of the way, says Roshfeld. "In our example, if the development team had licensing information at the early stages of development, they could have made more informed decisions and averted a crisis," he says. "Learning of critical flaws late in the development process inevitably leads you down the path to the fifth circle."

6th circle of IT hell: Tech-cult heresy
Description: An inscrutable labyrinth where all paths lead to the same destination, lit by the fires of nonbelievers burned at the stake
People you meet there: Apple/Microsoft/Google fanboys, Wikipedians, open sourcers, and any other member of an IT cult.

How to escape: Heresy depends on zealotry and belief in the power of "evangelism," says O'Berry. You can avoid it by keeping your mind open and your eyes on the big picture. "The minute you begin to treat something like a zealot, you reinforce the notion that it's a religion," he says. "It's not religion; it's business. The world survives on compromise. Go too far in one direction or the other and you'll never solve any problems."

7th circle of IT hell: Vendor-on-vendor violence
Description: A dismal miasma full of ogres with $200 haircuts, wielding Louis Vuitton briefcases
People you meet there: Lawyers.

How to escape: Exiting the circle of company-on-company violence may only be possible via collective action, says O'Berry. "When you squeeze the ecosystem only to your advantage, not caring about the companies you've killed along the way, eventually people will say enough is enough," says O'Berry. "We need to balance our capitalistic nature with some form of societal responsibility."

8th circle of IT hell: Fraudulent practices and malevolent hackers
Description: A slippery pit of deception where daemons lurk in the shadows and nothing is as it seems
People you meet there: Scammers, spammers, black-hat hackers, and rogue system administrators.

How to escape: You can avoid falling into the circle of fraud by doing a better job of monitoring access privileges, says Bosnian. "The people with the most power -- systems and network admins -- are often not controlled in any way," he says. "You need to be able to see what they're doing and control it at a granular level. When people know they are being monitored, they tend to keep their noses clean."

9th circle of IT hell: Tech-pro treachery
Description: An icy wasteland, filled with lost souls desperately clawing at the knives in their backs
People you meet there: Disgruntled employees, work rivals, any geek with a grudge.

Jealousy, backbiting, subterfuge, and sabotage -- they're all just unfortunate, if rare, parts of the IT life, says Anthony R. Howard.

How to escape: It helps to have a good manager on your side, says Howard. But you still need to cover your assets, keeping all your emails and your boss in the loop. If it looks like treachery is afoot, pick up the phone or go to your nemesis's office to professionally confront them -- don't do it on email.