There are lessons galore to be gleaned from BP’s tragic Gulf oil spill, including some that IT leaders should heed. That’s the message from Patrick Gray, founder and president of Prevoyance Group and author of Breakthrough IT: Supercharging Organizational Value through Technology.
“The most dramatic parallel is that the Gulf oil spill is at its core a technical problem, requiring a technical solution,” Gray writes in a recent post for TechRepublic.com. “So, what lessons can IT learn from this incident?”
The key ones, he says, are accepting culpability, providing regular information updates, maintaining leadership appearances, and having sufficient back-up plan in case Plan B doesn’t work.
“For the IT leader, the spill provides the perfect example of what an outsider sees as you attempt to fix a technical problem,” Gray writes. “Just as you likely do not understand the nuances of directional drilling or blowout prevention, your constituents care little about firewalls and failed SANs. How you as a leader work with your technicians and CEO and inform the rest of the organization about your progress will determine whether you have the IT equivalent of the BP spill or a well-managed and effective remediation.”
If you’re interested in Gray’s complete column, “What BP Can Teach Us About IT,” click here.