Have your say at computerweekly.com
On ageism in the UK's ITjobs market
In response to the report on computerweekly.com about the need
to broaden IT recruitment to avoid a potential skills
shortage
I am an IT professional with more than 20 years' experience in
technical disciplines, service and quality management. I am also
over 40.
I was unemployed for nearly six months. Ageism is a real problem in
the UK market. Because so many places have to be seen to pay lip
service to the notion of diversity, I also felt sure that there was
discrimination against me as a male and from a non-ethnic
background.
The recruitment consultants need to open their minds. I have
first-hand experience of recruiters who spend no more than 15
seconds reviewing a CV. If they do not see the right keywords
within the first five or six lines of a CV, it will be
binned.
The result is that I now live and work in France because UK
employers and recruitment agencies are too narrow-minded to look at
the full range of skills and competencies that someone aged over 40
has to offer.
I believe this attitude is a symptom of the quick-fix,
short-termist culture that exists in the UK IT industry. Why? You
only have to look at a typical IT department that spends more money
fixing badly designed systems or all those notorious failed
projects.
Graeme Blundell
On open source and the cost of ownership
issue
In response to the articles and letters debating the total cost
of ownership of open source software (Computer Weekly, 28
September)
Nine times out of 10, it seems that writers assume open source is
merely another phrase for Linux. This is far from the truth.
I was delighted to see that many of your letter writers commented
on the amazing variety of open source products available. This can
be very important in reducing total costs while improving
performance.
The purpose and point of computers is to run applications not
operating systems. Applications, not operating systems, are the
real point of open source software and can save you money whatever
operating system you run.
Don't be fooled into thinking it is merely a question of Windows or
Linux. It isn't. It is a question of what gets the job done as
efficiently and as cheaply as possible. That means an open source
product.
Look at what your organisation needs and visit an open source
archive to see what is available. I think you would be pleasantly
surprised and much better off.
Mark Preston
On private sector's lack of long-term
vision
In response to Rene Cheront's letter on the private sector's
ability to limit project failure (Computer Weekly, 21
September)
With little measure of success much beyond the annual profit
statement, private-sector markets often give huge rewards to
directors who produce short-term profit without questioning
longer-term efficiency and productivity movements.
How many quoted companies from 50 years ago are still around or are
more competitive now than they were then?
The current M&S board is being publicly judged by the City and
the media on their performance over the past 10 weeks and so are
unlikely to be thinking much beyond next week's headlines. Those
companies that are run for the long-term benefit of all their
interest groups face a tough time in today's soundbite
culture.
One of the many fundamental differences between the private and
public sectors is that pricing mechanisms help measure
productivity, efficiency and quality for the private sector but are
of limited value in assessing the far more complex outputs required
of the public sector.
Good management and governance produces good results in both
sectors; short-termist and self-seeking people produce problems in
both.
Adrian Rutter, chartered management
accountant
The high price of ITsystems for GPs
As an ex-nurse - now a network manager - and husband to a practice
nurse, I have been following the articles regarding IT in the NHS
and GP practices with some interest (Computer Weekly, 14
September).
Although Emis is the most used IT system within the practices, it
is not the only one. Torex Medical is the most common one that I
have come across. The reality is that if users do not want to
change, it is not necessarily because they like the system they
have but because they see little benefit in changing.
Furthermore, the purchase of computer systems comes down to the
individual practice managers and senior GPs within that practice.
This means that the support contract must be with each practice
whose staff frequently lack detailed IT knowledge and purchasing
skills.
It will only be when regional primary care trusts provide the
computer systems to the local practices as a service and centralise
facilities and support that better terms can be negotiated.
Software companies are entitled to charge an economic fee for the
service they provide. When that fee is charged to each practice
separately, the multiplication factor inflates the figures
enormously. IT is only one cost each practice has to pay from its
budget.
Practice managers are expected to be buyers, accountants, HR
managers and now IT managers. There are few who can cover all roles
well.
Alan Stewart
Calculating usage costs could be a waste of
time
On the matter of charging for network usage (Computer Weekly, 28
September). Although knowing how much resources are being consumed
by different departments can obviously be useful for efficiency,
the amount of extra infrastructure necessary is probably
prohibitive and, frankly, not worth the effort.
When 120Gbyte hard drives can be bought for £60, is it really worth
quibbling that a user is taking up 200Mbytes of storage, worth a
mere 10p?
Similarly, unless a user is downloading gigabytes of data, are they
really costing the company sums of money worth worrying
about?
Downloading MP3 files should be stopped by preventing end-users
installing software on their machines for illegal purposes, and by
managers paying attention to whether their staff are actually
working.
That should cut out 99% of the bandwidth excess. Worrying about the
rest almost certainly isn't worth it.
Andrew Ducker, analyst/developer, Standard Life
Recruitment initiatives work for both sexes
The letter decrying the initiative to recruit more female staff
into IT (Computer Weekly, 28 September) asked why there was no
initiative for more men to work as primary school teachers.
In fact, a male applicant would have a better chance than a female
applicant of similar academic background owing to the shortage of
male teachers at this level. Post-graduate trainees in education
are also paid while they learn, with further financial incentives
for shortage subjects such as IT and maths.
The comments about the refuse collection and street cleaning were
unnecessary - these are not highly skilled jobs and so cannot be
compared to IT.
Sally Nicholson
Qualifications are no silver bullet for
success
I was disappointed that the article on the BCS' project management
guide made no reference to the established project management
professional bodies and their initiatives to improve
professionalism and to introduce qualifications to the industry
(Computer Weekly, 7 September).
For example, as a member of the Project Management Institute, I -
along with thousands of others - have attained project management
professional status through a combination of accredited experience
and study and examination.
But the education and qualification of professionals is not a
silver bullet. Most projects have to contend with so many external
factors that impact on the project that it is impossible to meet
original deadlines or budgets.
A good project manager will continually adjust the expected budget,
quality and timescale and maintain a healthy dialogue with their
stakeholders to enable them to make the big decisions, for example
to cancel the project, accept new budget, timescale or scope, or
restructure the project.
Project managers must also be allowed to actively manage all
aspects of a project, which many customers will see as bureaucratic
procedure and rail against. Although employing educated and
qualified project managers will improve the project's probability
of success, it will not guarantee it.
Bernie Doeser, senior project manager, Shell
Listen to end-users at the procurement stage
The Libra criminal justice project article (Computer Weekly, 21
September) raises an important issue that is not considered enough
when it comes to successfully delivering new IT projects: the
direct impact these projects have on the lives of staff.
Although the modernisation of government seems to revolve around
large IT deals, a vital factor in making projects work is to listen
and act on the concerns of existing employees to ensure that new IT
systems will fit in, particularly where there has been a history of
past failed implementations stimulating inevitable resistance to
change.
Your report highlighted the concerns of employees of magistrates
courts who feel that technology is simply papering over the cracks
between more than 380 facets of the justice system at present. The
organisation must be fully prepared first to prevent the risk of
employees rejecting the new technology.
The best way to avoid running before you can walk is to install new
systems as part of a larger change management process. This should
be worked out at procurement stage with your supplier, that
listens, communicates and acts on the service needs of employees
that use the desktop support, or the call centre workers that use
the CRM solution.
Peter White,senior business consultant,
Steria