The document summarizes a presentation given to IT departments about common problems they face and ways to address them. It identifies that IT departments often develop a "blame culture" that causes stress. It then describes eight common personality types found in IT, such as the "empty suit" and "scary sys admin". Finally, it recommends actions like implementing a no-blame culture, providing career development through training, and prioritizing employee satisfaction over short-term skills needs.

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The ‘Tech guys’
Joanna Drake
CIO Event
7th March 2017

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AGAIN!!!!
Did your IT department come bottom of the employee
engagement survey?

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Agenda
1. What’s the problem?
2. Why does it exist?
3. What can we do?
4. Q&A

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What’s the problem?
 Is it process, tools, technology?…………

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What’s the problem?
 What career?
 Hero culture
 ‘The business’
 ‘Knowledge is power’

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What’s the problem?
When a ‘blame culture’ sets in, it can dominate the department and cause huge amounts
of stress. When people are stressed, they get defensive, cover their own back and start
finger-pointing…..
‘Blame culture’

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Why is this problem so common in IT?
 Reluctance to embrace change
 Need for clear roles and expectations
 Stuck in their ways
 Wasted brain power in IT
 Cynics drag down the rest of the team
 IT has attracted a certain type of
personality – we all know it!

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Personality types

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Things they HATE!!!
• Making a mistake
• Repeating same thing time and again
• Working without clear goals
• Illogical presumptions
• Teamwork and group activities
• People being late
• Incompetent authority
• Unnecessary rules
• Bad grammar
• Unoptimised systems
• Sudden noises disturbing silence
• Using impractical methods to
complete a task, just for the sake of
organisation standards
• Meaningless conversations
• Inconsistency
• Irrationality
• Surprises

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The 8 real IT personality types
Forget Myers Briggs, here are
the real personality types in
Tech……..

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IT personality type No. 1: The Empty Suit
Hired to be a liaison between top-level management and
the techies - with whom top-level management, or
anyone on ‘the business’ side, would rather not deal
directly.
Acts as a go-between during client visits to keep the
geeks at a safe distance. Has memorised most of the
important acronyms and mastered the art of nodding
knowingly in meetings and then surfing Wikipedia
afterward to find out what everyone was talking about.
May possess an MBA from a dubious online university.

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IT personality type No. 2: The Scary Sys Admin
Your company can't run without the Scary Sys
Admin - and he or she knows it.
Fortunately, this person likes dealing with
machines far more than people, so you can
rest easy, confident that the Scary Sys Admin
spends way more time keeping your systems
up and running than may even be necessary.
Friends? Who needs friends? That's why
computers were invented.

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IT personality type No. 3: The Human Roadblock
No matter what task or project is
presented, the Human Roadblock
responds in exactly the same manner: It
cannot be done. This is then followed by a
painfully detailed list of all the reasons why
this task or project will cost too much,
deliver too little, and can't be implemented
in anything resembling the proposed time
frame.
And, oh yeah: It was a stupid idea to begin
with.

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IT personality type No. 4: The Angry Support Drone
Hired to lurch from desk to desk fixing the
computers of people deemed unworthy of
assistance.
Will do what you ask, and not one iota more.
Knows more than you do about computers - a
point worked into virtually every conversation -
but not particularly interested in sharing useful
information.
Might otherwise be flipping burgers if he or she
could be trusted to handle sharp instruments
around other humans.

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IT personality type No. 5: The Übergeek
Fiercely intelligent
Stubbornly logical
Disturbingly anti-social
MBTI would be INTJ -- an introverted, intuitive-
thinking and judging person.
If the Übergeek absolutely must communicate
with beings of inferior intelligence (i.e., you), he
or she would rather do it by email.

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IT personality type No. 6: The OS Fan
There is only one true path -- and, more
important, only one true operating system. All
nonbelievers are heretics whose tech needs
will be quietly ignored.
Though most commonly associated with
Apple products, often aligned with Windows
or, more likely, Linux.
Every conversation ends with a discussion of
why one operating system is superior, despite
the fact that your company doesn't use it.

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IT personality type No. 7: The Promiser
There is nothing this person won't say to close a
deal or impress.
You want features the original product was never
designed to deliver? Done.
You need it within six months? The Promiser will
get it to you in three.
Of course, he or she doesn't have to deliver
anything - that's a job for the developers.
Delays, cost overruns and impossible feature-set
requirements are all someone else's headache.

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IT personality type No. 8: The Shadow
It's not my problem, it's not my job, it's
not my fault -- that's the mantra of the
Shadow.
Somehow manages to take up space
in the IT department (and on the
payroll) without actually filling it.
No one's sure what the Shadow does,
mostly because he or she has become
expert at doing as little as possible.
Over time, the Shadow may be
handed management responsibilities,
at which point this individual morphs
into the Human Roadblock.

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What can we do?
 Hire on personality over skills - ‘cultural interviews.’
 If someone is not the right fit, don’t hire them. If you do, deal with it quickly.
 Provide clarity on roles and skills – SFIA could help.
 Build development plans.
 Formulate plans around the gaps – shadowing, mentoring, secondments and training.
 Implement a ‘No blame’, ‘Safety’ or ‘Just’ culture
The above actions send a message to all:
‘Things are changing’

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No Blame Culture
Mistakes are inevitable - we accept errors
happen. When we find them, we correct them.
Mistakes become a team, not an individual,
responsibility.
To succeed, we need management support.

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SFIA

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Invest in our people
 Staff need clarity on their roles and responsibilities
 “What if we train them and they leave? What if we don’t train them and they stay?!?!”
 Happy people are more productive!
 Focus on the people and the delivery will improve….

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What do you think?