Can high efficiency in IT be perceived as a lack of innovation by the business?
I think its best that we start by defining the key words in our title.
Efficiency – accomplishment of or ability to accomplish a job with a minimum expenditure of time and effort:
Perceived – to become aware of, know, or identify by means of the senses:
Innovation – the act of innovating; introduction of new things or methods.
Let’s go back to our question…
Can high efficiency in IT be perceived as a lack of innovation by the business?
With a background in manufacturing and TPS (Toyota Production System), the pursuit of efficiency is what drives a majority of my thoughts and actions. It doesn’t matter if you’re a pro hockey player or the Chief Operating Officer in a fortune 500 company. It is my opinion that efficiency is the root to long term success in anything.
With that being said, efficiency is not always pretty. Sometimes being efficient is the polar opposite of being pretty.
Businesses today dedicate large percentages of their budgets to making applications and, even in some cases, their data-centers look pretty. Let’s use Mr. Watson as an example. The below picture of Watson boasts a beautiful light display but in reality Watson runs on the same Power7 processer you can find in the full IBM Power7 lineup.
I would like to note, I am not picking on Mr. Watson. He has been very good to me over the years. This image is IBM
trying to appeal to the masses of millennials who, in my opinion, are greatly influenced by flashing lights and outward appearance. I can say this because I am a millennial by definition, but have chosen not to embrace their typical logic. 
So, to sum things up, if you take a stack of Power7 machines, put them in a contoured box, shine a blue yard light on them, and Mr. 4U Power7 becomes the center of attention.
Let’s take a look at this from a lean perspective and find the muda (eliminate waste). You would have to pay someone to design the glass, cut the glass, deliver the glass, install the glass, design the lighting, deliver the lighting, and install the lighting. In addition to the upfront costs, you will use more electricity and produce more heat.
I understand the marketing, side of business but are we as a society turning into a group of people who care more about the lights then the business results driven by the machine sitting behind the lights? It seems like the perceived value of an IT project is based on the number of people working on it, not the actual business value that is delivered.
Take the IBM i operating system as an example. It is the most efficient operating system at processing data. IBM i’s architecture is built for efficiency.
- Single level store to optimize storage management
- Object based architecture enables superior security and virus resistance
- Integrated DB2 DataBase
- Built in application virtualization
- Technology independent machine interface insuring application compatibility across many technology generations.
The efficiency of the IBM i architecture is what makes IBM i so great. From a business perspective, what makes IBM i great is that you can manage it with a fraction of the staff it takes to maintain a Traditional Unix or x86 based O/S. It has never been hit with a virus and it’s never been plagued with weekly updates.
Unfortunately for IBM i, and ultimately for the shareholders of company’s running business critical applications on another O/S platform, users demand flashing lights and bubbly interfaces. IBM i can try to be pretty like Apple or cool like Google, but at the end of the day it probably never will be. It’s built for efficiency and would rather spend it’s days actually changing the world, not just changing the people’s perception of it.
To wrap this up, let’s change some words up a bit…
Can innovation in IT be perceived as efficiency by the business?
I will leave you with that question. Post a comment, I would love to hear your thoughts.
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