A Tale of Two ITies

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, lived a company, more than 15 years old, where technology was integrated smoothly with the running of the business, and everything just worked...

Welcome to our living collection of Tech Tales, designed to show in 200 words or less, the gap that exists between organisations' technology teams and their regular operations. As technology increasingly intermediates everything that happens in our working lives, soon, we hope, these stories will be stop being truth and start being history.

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The Technical Talent Shaped hole within the C-suite.

Paul settled into the CEO's chair for the first time, still adjusting to the view from the executive floor. After fifteen years climbing through finance leadership, the board had finally tapped him to solve the company's profitability issues. His predecessor, Elaine, a brilliant operations executive, had transformed their supply chain but repeatedly stumbled when it came to technology investments. Three failed digital transformation attempts later, the board decided a financial mind might bring the discipline they needed.

Paul knew his first meeting with Tom, the CTO, would be critical. The technology department had become a black hole for capital with little measurable return. As Tom entered his office, Paul gestured to the chair across from him.

"I've reviewed the numbers," Paul began, "but I need to understand what's actually happening beneath the spreadsheets."

Tom nodded, carefully studying the curious expression of the new CEO. "You're the first executive who's asked me that question directly."

"I know what I don't know," Paul replied. "Let's get to the bottom of this."

Tom leaned forward. "It's actually quite simple. The non-technical nature of senior leadership is the fundamental issue." He paused, choosing his words carefully. "Could you imagine a CEO who doesn't know how to read a balance sheet?"

"That's what we deal with everyday"

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A Tale of Two Techs

In the Millfield satellite office, Diane adjusted her headphones while scanning through the latest batch of support tickets. Three towns away from corporate headquarters, the small converted house served as the regional hub for what management simply labeled "IT resources."

On the other side of their shared desk, Marcus stared intently at lines of code on his dual monitors, muttering occasionally as he refined the automation script that could potentially save the sales team hundreds of hours annually.

"Did you say something?" Diane asked, removing one ear cup.

"Just talking to myself," Marcus replied, not looking up. "Trying to figure out why this function keeps timing out when processing more than fifty records."

Diane nodded politely though she had only a vague understanding of what he was describing. Her expertise lay in keeping the company's network infrastructure running and helping employees navigate software issues, not building new tools.

The phone rang. "IT Support, this is Diane."

Marcus continued coding while half-listening to Diane patiently explain to someone how to recover a password for the third time that week. His deadline for the sales automation project was approaching, and he still needed to integrate it with the CRM system.

After the call, Diane sighed. "Corporate just approved the annual budget. We're getting new monitors for the support team but they denied the server upgrade... again."

"Meanwhile, they approved my development project but cut the testing resources," Marcus said, finally looking up. "So I can build it, but good luck deploying it properly."

They exchanged knowing glances

"You know what's funny?" Diane said, leaning back in her chair. "I don't think anyone at headquarters understands that we do completely different jobs."

"Tell me about it," Marcus replied. "We're both just 'IT people' to them," Marcus said, making air quotes.

"Exactly! It's like calling an electrician and a carpenter the same thing because they both work on houses."

They both chuckled as the phone rang again.

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