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The Top 20 IT Mistakes

// December 16th, 2005 // Business & Politics, Technology

InfoWorld has an article on the “Top 20 IT Mistakes To Avoid”. I’ve seen better than half of these in practice and the cascading effects seemingly simple mistakes can cause.

My favorite (of course), is this quote from Number 9, “Mismanaging Software Development”:

Henri Asseily, CTO of BizRate, tells us via e-mail, “The right individual will always create better and faster core software than a group of people [will]. Everyone in every industry talks the usual talk of, ‘We invest in people,’ or, ‘Our people are our greatest asset,’ but nowhere is it more important than in IT. Simply put, a great programmer is 100 times more valuable than a regular programmer.”

I absolutely concur with that sentiment. I’ve accomplished more personally or with a group of two or three high-quality people than I did with an entire team of 20 when consulting for a major Telco.

As my friend Stan Shinn says in his book Web Project Survival Guide:

“Web [software] projects are like commando raids — get the best people, go in quickly and get the job done. Recruit a few good players, even if they cost more, and quickly help your project get out the door.”

There’s some really excellent stuff there.

Read more at InfoWorld.