IT is killing itself

I just spent 90 minutes on a technical customer support call with the ShareBuilder Corporation.  I could not log into my account to place a stock trade.  After level one exhausted his decision tree it on to level two and then three.

  

1.    What browser are you using?

2.    Which version of the browser?

3.    Do you have browsers other than IE 11 and Chrome 34.0?

4.    Please delete all your browsing history

5.    Can you restart your computer?

6.    Would you be able to use your smart phone?

7.    Do you have another computer?

8.    Please enter this "special" URL into your browser and tell me what is says.

After an hour of this crazy the level three guy tells me he added three free trades as a token of their appreciation.  "The next time you log in..." WAIT!  I CANNOT LOG IN!  The guy tells me they rolled a new software release out over the weekend and they were being bombarded with complaint calls from customers who were unable to access their accounts.  I ultimately hung up and am now working to port my funds over to TD Ameritrade.  During this whacked out call, it occurred to me what the problem is -- Corporate IT has grown to be so large that it is killing itself under its own weight. I asked the level three guy who made the "improvements" to their system and he said different parts were managed by different groups and he had no way of knowing who changed the log on codes.  I asked him if my money was safe and he assured me it was. Clearly they didn't have testing around their log on code so how could a customer be certain they had any testing procedures around their money management code?

If software systems were bridges, many of us would be dead.  Corporate IT executives have no freaking idea what the thousands of techies do in these massive programming departments.  Moreover, there are so many people with their hands in the code base that it's a wonder anything works at all.  If you work in one of these Goliath software shops do you think for a minute that you understand what is going on inside that mountain of code?  Do you even realize how the tiny little change you are making today will impact the next production release?

I have lived in the belly of the corporate IT beast and I know firsthand how out of control it has become.  I recently resigned because I couldn't stomach what I was witnessing and many times required to participate in.  So who is to blame?  I would love to see a new breed of technical liaison emerge who knows IT well and yet advocates for the business.  The bullshit has got to stop while the big pig still has a pulse.