Consider this dilemma… The IT department is backed up for six months. It can’t take on any new projects for that time. Not even a little 4 – 8 hour database installation. With a log jam like that, they can’t get anything new in.
Management comes along with a new product evaluation. Problem is, they need IT to set up a new SQL database so they can test the system. Oops, can’t do it. There’s a six month waiting list, and nobody get to the head of the line.
So, management can’t evaluate the product. Even a product they desperately need. IT has failed the company in a big way. The frustrating thing is that most of those IT projects are probably lower priority, or impossible to complete. Incompetence has allowed such projects to block real work.
The only real solution to an issue like this is “better generaling.” I.e. better planners who know roadkill when they see it, and pitch it off the road so it can’t block the real projects. That takes a smart person with a little experience. Gain a skill like that (and a hundred others), and you suddenly become a valued member of the team.
–ray
First and most important thing: each team should have some buffers for unexpected situations since they will happen. Having a schedule full for next several months can’t be an equivalent with rejecting any task for this period. If it is so, that’s a b huge failure of management.
Another thing is bringing correct priorities to each task including everything which is already scheduled and brand new item added to workload. If setting up a SQL base is a high-priority task, there should be consensus to slip other less important work for a few hours or find additional resources or find a way to do it after hours with some incentive etc. There are a lot of solutions and simple rejection to do the task is usually the worst of them.
Good point, Pawel. Just because IT is backed up, doesn’t mean you reject every new task out of hand. There has to be some allowance for small, high-priority tasks.