Worse still, this trouble isn't going to last for just a few months. No, from what I read and what really smart people tell me it could take five to 10 years to pull ourselves out of this slough of despond.

If you don't believe me then carry on as you are and good luck to you. On the other hand if you are cautious and conservative you might like to consider what I'm about to outline.

I contend that despite decades of everyone and his analyst brother espousing strategic thinking in information technology as a better approach than reflexive tactical responses, the reality of real organizations is that most of you have been driven to what might be best described as a set of sub-optimal solutions (what in common parlance would describe as seriously sucky).

This started when you saw a fire that IT needed to address and you put it out. Then you saw another fire and another and another and so you went around putting out each one in turn. In no time at all you could point to having successfully dealt with scores of fires but there was a big problem: Each extinguished fire left its unique footprint that wasn't connected to any other footprint.

Yes, indeed! You had created the silo problem: Lots of isolated pockets of technology. You now had (and probably still have) a crazy patchwork of systems and services that runs on the edge of chaos. Now every system change of any consequence has knock-on effects that multiply the cost of management and make stability a nice fantasy.