When IT Fails: The Novel

Steve Masters is the CEO of a $4B company, who is tired of being held hostage by IT.  He often says, “we’re not Google or Twitter, IT just isn’t our core competency,” and wonders if it it’s time to simply outsource his IT problems away.  However, suddenly he finds that his company’s survival and maybe even his own, depends upon IT’s ability to deliver on their commitments — quickly.

The story’s unlikely and reluctant hero is Bill Palmer, the newly promoted, thoughtful and methodical VP of IT Operations.  He finds himself thrown into the largest company problems: late project, chronic outages, massive audit findings and the imminent threat of outsourcing.

Despite the title, this story is not about failing.  It’s about winning and winning big — it’s a story about Visible Ops and DevOps transformations.  It’s how Bill saves the company, by uniting the tribes of IT Operations, Development, Information Security and the business.  Together, they finally close the gap with the competition and start winning in the marketplace.

This is also a story of how Bill helps Steve see IT Operations not as a “mysterious black hole where costs are generated,” but as the nexus where “value is realized and company goals are carefully protected.”

When IT Fails: The Novel is the culmination of over 11 years of researching both high-performing and low-performing IT organizations, as well as benchmarking over 1500 IT organizations to help inform what behaviors create breakthrough performance.