Stop carping and look at firms that fail to
deliver
The leading academics who want an independent audit of the NHS
national programme for IT (Computer Weekly, 18 April) ought to know
that during the development of any large-scale IT project it is
perfectly normal to find dissidents who will readily complain about
lack of consultation and technical problems.
They should also know that the management of a project of this
nature is a difficult enough task without having to deal with
carping from the sidelines. Instead, they should be directing their
attention to the firms that are failing to deliver.
A more pertinent independent audit would be one that looked into
the effectiveness of our universities in producing graduates who
can manage, design and program effective IT systems within budget
and on time.
Ken May, Poole, Dorset
Operational efficiency is the vital
benchmark
In most sectors, the purpose of IT is to improve the efficiency
of operational staff by allowing them to do the same job faster, or
to do a better job in the same time. Even in aggressively
competitive sectors, such as supermarkets, till systems and stock
control systems take precedence over management information
systems.
This simple imperative – use IT, first and foremost, to improve
operational efficiency – has been lost in the NHS national
programme for IT. To take a simple example, Choose and Book takes
up more time of the most critical resource (doctors). This problem
is deeply embedded in NHS culture to the point that the phrase “IT”
stinks in the nostrils of many of the medical staff.
John Hardy
Technical doubts are counter-productive
I have strong views that the architecture and approach to NHS
Connecting for Health is not the best choice that could have been
made. I am not a centralist, but a believer in distributed
processing supported by mandatory data and connectivity standards –
and competition.
But I also know that it is possible to implement an appalling
system so that the users love and revere it; and equally possible
to have the perfect solution rejected. It is the people/business
change aspects that mark a project’s success or failure, not the
technology.
And I know that is it so very easy to derail a programme by
providing those not quite on board with irrelevant side issues.
Providing those caught up in the people/business change issues with
doubts about technical capability almost inevitably undermines
potential success.
Such a technical audit, even if it finds perfection, will have
irretrievably killed the whole exercise. It is far too late to do
this, and very costly, throwing away millions, rather than making
it work by spending a few extra millions at a later stage.
Let’s just get on with getting the best out of a poor
decision.
Mike Burrows, NHS
NHS is trying to eat an elephant all in one
go
Having been involved in health sector IT for many years, in my
opinion there are problems in many areas of what is proposed by the
NHS national programme for IT.
The NHS seems to be flying in the face of good software design –
if you are going to eat an elephant, do it one bite at a time. The
national programme “consultants” seem to be trying to swallow the
elephant in one go. I also believe that some of the technologies
proposed have not been tested to see if they are appropriate for
the proposed tasks.
I fear that a disaster looms on the near horizon – both for the
NHS and for us as taxpayers. There has been a need for a review of
what the NHS is doing in IT for a long time.
Philip Goatly
Boards are too savvy to fall for SOA
promises
Although Chris Hayes’ letter (Computer Weekly, 18 April)
extolling the benefits of service oriented architecture is written
with passion and eloquence, it highlights an age-old problem of the
software industry by suggesting that “promised benefits” can equate
to “a business case”.
Is it not the case that boards are much more savvy these days,
especially when looking at new paradigms, and wary of the word
“promise”?
If I were an IT leader trying to get the point about SOA across,
I would focus on communicating the business key performance
indicators that will be used to measure and demonstrate the value
of the new technology, plus a slew of case study examples
demonstrating both successful implementation of a complex
technology and resulting benefits.
Colin Bartram, Vector Networks
Remote working must not mean greater risk
I read your article about mobile collaboration as a priority for
CIOs with interest (Computer Weekly, 11 April). The rising demand
for remote working is an issue that affects not only CIOs, but has
become a topic widely discussed from the boardroom right through to
all employees.
The benefits of untethered real-time collaboration for
companies, employees and the community are obvious. What is more,
reduced commuting time benefits the environment, allows staff to
enjoy an improved work/life balance, and can improve
efficiency.
At the same time, remote and mobile working can also pose real
challenges to companies. The introduction of consumer-oriented
collaborative applications and innovation is by no means new to the
mobility world, however, neither are the challenges introduced by
these applications.
Although IT organisations have the means and technology
available to simplify, secure and control these remote
environments, the advent of the “virtual cubicle” only further
reinforces the necessity for corporates to align their application,
security and mobility strategies and support.
Organisations embracing progressive, collaborative applications
develop effective but flexible policies which involve the
end-users, and do not attempt to anticipate their adoption and use
of the software.
Much in the same way, IT organisations are facing the challenges
of an increasingly wireless environment within and outside of their
corporate facilities, issues like these have to be addressed by the
boardroom as well to ensure that remote and mobile workers can
collaborate effectively without introducing increased expense and
risk to the organisation.
Marc Patterson, BT Global Services