I’d also like to point out that this post does not reflect the opinions of my employer, which interestingly is also the problem …

If you work in an IT department, you might have come across Yet Another Tool Syndrome, or YATS as I like to call it. Basically, this means that every time anything new is required within the organisation, the solution ultimately leads to IT implementing another supposedly perfect system that will solve all the user’s problems. YATS also leads to two other things, continual integration between systems (lets call that CIBS) and data diffusion (or DD for short). Data diffusion is great if you are expecting a nuclear strike and want to keep your data from being taken out all at once

Anyway, the point I’m trying to make here is that YATS goes completely against the one and only thing that an IT department should be focusing on — simplifying their operations. So you might wonder why a group of seemingly smart people get together and end up making decisions that go against keeping things simple? I believe the answer is … experience.

Ok, hear me out. Experience in a group context is essentially bringing together the varying knowledge and opinions of a bunch of people. So, you end up with a room full of people with different ideas about what would constitute the ideal solution. Generally this does not mean taking advantage of an existing system because either:

1. Previous experiences have highlighted issues with that system (as opposed to a flash new system that hasn’t been implemented which people don’t have pre-formed opinions of) or;
2. People want new experiences and opt to look at new solutions. I believe this is called thinking outside of the box. It’s also human nature to want what you don’t already have as well.

Now I totally agree that the solution needs to meet the requirements. However, there’s a more important part to this whole equation that is almost always completely missed out. The solution should meet the requirements and be the simplest solution to the problem.

Guess what? Implementing a new system, and then integrating it with everything else in an organisation is rarely the simplest solution. My argument is that the simplest solution is usually to enhance existing systems to meet the new requirements. Or at the very least, make this the default solution and justify any other option against it. Now, there might be one exception to this rule and that’s if the existing system is absolutely terrible. However, this is less common than you might be led to believe. It may also not be the fault of the system at all …

So next time you wonder why things are so hard with IT keep this in mind. This is generally what’s going on, and also why you need to login to 15 different applications each day, and cut and paste data between them. Don’t worry, they’ll be implementing a fantastic new single sign-on solution to automate logging into all those systems. But, no one ever thinks to ask — why are there so many systems to log into?

Now for the lesson in all this. Are you suffering from YATS? Do you always look for another tool to solve your problem, thinking that when you find your silver bullet everything will be fine? If so, why not simplify? Learn a few applications well, know their limitations and use them as much as you can to actually gets some work done. In other words, default to using what you have, rather than automatically searching for something new.