”It can’t be done!”, is the default statement from most corporate IT-staff. Why?

When it comes to designing and implementing new IT-solutions, most believe that the key challenge is bridging the gap between business and IT. It is not. The key challenge is bridging the gap between developers and staff within infrastructure maintenance and support. My experience is that whenever developers need to reach into new infrastructure resources or just need to get some server software reconfigured, the default statement from IT-staff is:
No, it can’t be done!
It rolls of their tongues, even before the question has been asked. I’ve heard it hundreds of times in my years as consultant, and they have been wrong in nine times out of ten. It can be done, it’s just a matter of how.
I have found the following major reasons behind this destructive behavior:
  1. Lack of experience. “If it hasn’t been done in the house before, it probably can’t be done.”
  2. Attitude towards learning new stuff. “It was a pain to learn SQL Server 2005 (two years ago), so I don’t have any energy left!”
  3. Misunderstanding of policies. “Our corporate policy prohibits this change!”
  4. Politics. “IT manager X wants us to prioritize other stuff, so we won’t touch this new idea.”
Unfortunately, there is only one way to deal with the “No, it can’t be done”-statement. Call it. Dive into the system software documentation, learn about the configuration details of the specific site, set up your own sandbox environment, and get it done.  Then you show it to the IT-staff. Don’t expect any cheering or high fives. They will most likely not like what you just did, and respond to you:
Well, we knew it could be done it that way, but you didn’t say that was an option.
No need to argue the point. That will just give them a final reason to not move: the argument. Just nod and ask when their job can be done.
In terms of policies, learn all about the policy and escalate the question to the manager of the owner of the policy. In terms of politics, don’t wait: go to the head honcho and put it simple terms. Three sentences max. These recipes work. I know.
So, don’t believe for a second that it can’t be done. It can. Maybe not out of the box, maybe not without your own server side trick, maybe not without your own client magic. But it can be done.