Your IT department should behave like a jellyfish, says Gartner
- Reference: 1603783688
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/10/27/gartner_jellyfish/
- Source link:
The metaphor was offered today in the keynote of the virtual Asia-Pacific Gartner Symposium, which thanks to a certain virus will this year precede the event’s EMEA incarnation.
Speakers outlined their belief that the COVID-19 pandemic, social upheaval and climate change have collectively delivered a chaotic and unpredictable environment in which business must become “composable”.
Jellyfish help us understand the idea of micro-enterprises that can work across the organisation to respond to a crisis or take advantage of an opportunity
Those who have lived through “agility” may well have found the presentation familiar: IT decision-makers were urged to make their infrastructure modular, get good at orchestration so that different components can operate in harmony as and when required, and to do that while also allowing different parts of the organisation to work autonomously.
Jellyfish were then introduced to the conversation as an example of composability. While such creatures lack a brain, analysts suggested that they’re impressive because the beasts’ tentacles can act independently or demand assistance from other tentacles. The lack of a central brain isn’t a problem, the analysts argued, so long as whatever is up top can co-ordinate action and send the right signals.
“Jellyfish help us understand the idea of micro-enterprises that can work across the organisation to respond to a crisis or take advantage of an opportunity,” delegates were told.
Analysts did acknowledge that some jellyfish are highly toxic and/or drift around without control over where they are going but suggested that’s not entirely different to many businesses as they face the turmoil of 2020.
Cloudy hardware spending topped cash splashed on conventional data centre kit for first time in Q2, says IDC [1]READ MORE
Presenters also suggested that such turmoil may not have been entirely bad for IT shops, as the need for remote work has made the benefits of collaboration technology plain to even those who don’t like change. Another nugget of good news: 69 percent of company directors are now awake to the need for accelerating digital business.
On the downside, Gartner found that IT budgets are going to shrink by six percent over the coming year.
Analysts delivering the keynote advised CIOs faced with such cuts to crack on without complaint, because they still have jobs at solvent businesses. ®
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[1] https://www.theregister.com/2020/09/30/cloud_hardware_tops_sales_charts_idc/
[2] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Be like me!
IT departments should be like politicians. Promise a lot, deliver little, keep the money for boondoggle projects. Also no-brained.
so the take away is be more toxic, like a jelly fish. got it.
I am so glad I no longer work for that sh*t corporate mentality anymore.
Don't forget the requirement to ruin someone's holiday. No action required, just sit there hidden in the sand and let them blunder into you. Life's a beach.
I feel that there is scope for treatment of such entities, similar to that meted out by Mr S. Holmes, esq. in the Adventure of the Lion's Mane...
As far as I can tell from the article, this was just a talk about the [1]network organizational structure . I don't know when I first encountered it, I think on some management training course in the early 1990s, so it has been around for at least several decades.
The challenge here is making a pretty tedious subject sound newly relevant and exciting, to the point where it even appears newsworthy. However, it sounds as if the speaker has managed to do this very effectively by evoking a striking analogy.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organizational_structure#Network
Or ruin someone's whole world... After all, the article picture is a depiction of Cthulhu.
Usually, it's some incompetent PHB that ruins people's weekends. Dilbert to the rescue, again.
Just remember
Often, if you are stung by a jellyfish, someone will come along and piss on you and will assure you, it is for your own good.
So... Brainless?
So you should drift along aimlessly, attack anyone stupid enough to come within your reach, and be controlled by the braindead. So par for the course in most IT departments...
You say poisonous tentacle, We say overcharged cattle prod. Tomato, tomatoe...
Have I got this right?
Do your own thing "for the good of the business". Ignore the corporate hierarchy. Encourage your colleagues to do the same.
Sounds like a plan. I'll get started right away.
"coordinated action without central brain"
Impossible. The budget must remain under control at all times, at that means control from the top. You can't have dozens of managers spending money just because it's justified, that would be madness.
Be like me!
You can see why an outfit like Gartner would be both expert on jellyfish and proponents of working like one.
They both make a living by stinging their victims.