Over the years we have seen many new clients come to Alvaka Networks feeling like they are hostages to Information Technology.  Whether these folks are in Orange/Los Angeles County or Tokyo, these people feel this way for many different reasons.  Most often the person feeling this way is the CFO, Controller, CEO, COO, IT manager or an IT technician for the most part in that order in terms of frequency.

Why do they feel that way?

It is usually because their systems were:

1.       Poorly designed

2.       They don’t work right

3.       The system is insecure

4.       No one knows what the last guy did to it

5.       Deadlines are not met

6.       Management does not understand what the IT team is doing

7.       The IT team feels management never approves proper budgets and procurements

8.       and every investment in IT seems to create new problems that just make the situation worse

But these reasons are not really the crux of the problem.  What causes the real sense of frustration is the powerlessness to resolve the issues.  Problems that are momentary in nature are to be expected when running IT systems, but when the problems persist of long periods of time such as year or more, then the hostage syndrome begins to set in.

The reasons management feels victim to the IT Hostage Syndrome is different than why IT staffers feel like IT Hostages.  In my next few blogs I will begin to elaborate on why this is so.  I will also provide a road map on how to be rescued from the IT Hostage situation before Stockholm Syndrome sets in or even worse, people just give up and quit.