Does a Good Technical Score Mean Good Information Technology?
Suppose the assessment results of one of the subsidiary companies are on your desk.
The infrastructure is adequate, the network appears stable, various systems have been deployed in the organization, the equipment is up to date, and even the state of information security is at an acceptable level.
At first glance, everything looks fine.
But when you ask the employees of that same company, a different picture emerges:
“The system we work with every day does not meet our needs.”
“For a simple request, we have to wait several days for the IT unit.”
“The system keeps slowing down.”
“For some tasks, we still have to keep the information in Excel.”
“The report we need for our work cannot be extracted from the system.”
This is where an important question arises:
Does an organization in sound technical condition necessarily have effective information technology?
The answer is not always yes.
Two Different Pictures of One Organization
When a ministry or a holding company sets out to examine the information technology of the organizations and companies under its supervision, the first thing it usually sees is the technical condition.
- What is the infrastructure like?
- What is the state of security?
- Which systems are in place?
- How are IT processes managed?
- Which projects are underway?
This information is essential, but it shows only one side of the matter.
The other side is the experience of the people who use this technology every day.
From the IT unit's point of view, a system may have been implemented successfully; but from the point of view of a user who works with it every day, that same system may have made processes more complex.
A service may be technically available, yet fail to meet the needs of the business.
A project may even be regarded as entirely successful in terms of time, budget, and technical specifications, yet in practice it may have created no significant value for users.
We should therefore distinguish between two ideas:
“We have information technology” is not the same as “information technology works for the organization.”
The Voice of Users Is Part of the Reality of Information Technology
An organization's employees may not be able to offer a specialist opinion on network architecture, security policies, or data-center standards; but they have very valuable information about one subject:
The real experience of using information technology.
They know better than anyone how much the systems have simplified their work, how quickly IT services respond, which problems keep recurring, and which work-related needs remain unmet.
Sometimes these simple pieces of feedback can reveal issues that appear in no technical report.
A manager may see in the reports that a system has been launched successfully; but users may say they still do a significant part of their work outside it.
On paper, the project is finished.
But from the business's point of view, the problem is still unsolved.
Where the Issue Becomes More Serious for a Ministry or a Holding Company
Let us now take this issue beyond a single company.
Suppose a ministry has dozens of organizations, institutions, banks, and companies under its supervision; or a holding company must govern the information technology of dozens of subsidiaries.
If only the technical reports of these entities are examined, an important part of reality may go unseen.
A company may have a high technical score, yet user satisfaction may be low.
Another company may have moderate infrastructure, yet its IT team may have been able to provide highly effective services to the business.
In yet another entity, a considerable amount may have been spent on numerous systems, yet users may still rely on manual processes and supplementary tools for their day-to-day work.
These discrepancies are, in fact, more important than the scores themselves.
Sometimes the most important sign of a problem is where the technical assessment and the users' experience do not align.
A Good Assessment Should Set Several Narratives Side by Side
To truly understand the state of information technology, one cannot ask only the IT manager, nor can one rely only on the views of users.
Each sees part of reality.
A specialist assessment can show the state of governance, security, infrastructure, systems, services, digital transformation, and the other dimensions of information technology.
The organization's managers can judge how closely information technology aligns with the goals and needs of the business.
And end users can describe their real experience of the systems and services.
Only when these three pictures are placed side by side can more precise questions be asked:
Why does a company with a sound technical score have dissatisfied users?
Why has a considerable amount been spent on an area, yet recurring problems still remain?
Why is a system technically active, yet users do not use it effectively?
And more importantly:
Where is the real problem, and what action should be prioritized to solve it?
Feedora: When Several Pictures Become One
From this same perspective, Feedora does not limit IT assessment to a technical questionnaire or a final score.
Alongside the specialist assessment of the state of information technology, the management view and the feedback of end users can also be part of the organization's picture.
The aim is for a ministry or holding company not merely to know “what score each entity has received,” but to understand what is happening behind that score.
Management decisions become more informed when technical data, the management view, and users' real experience are seen together.
Successful information technology is not technology that merely looks good on paper; it is technology whose positive effect the organization and its users feel in practice.