How to stop worrying and learn to love IT complexity

From time to time I find myself feeling overwhelmed by the sheer complexity of all the moving parts that make up modern IT environments. Even if your job is not specifically about fixing stuff, it is so very, very easy to lose entire days trying to get X to work with Y. Or trying to find some way to make X work on top of Y. Or trying to figure out why X works on its own but as soon as you add in Y, X magically stops working ... It is amazing we get anything done at all really.

I used to think that all this horrible complexity - and the deep frustrations it fuels - was a passing phase. A crazy time best compared with wild west frontier towns. Wild to start with but inclined to settle down eventually when the exploratory wagons cease moving or move their exploratory chaos elsewhere.

Well, I have given up waiting for that day to come. Insane complexity is here to stay folks! Actually, once I resigned myself to that little tidbit, I began looking passed it and - would you believe - I am now overtly fond of all the complexity! Here is my reasoning...(Your mileage will vary wildly.)

Imagine that everything in IT just worked. No frustrations, no lost days fighting the digital gremlins. Sounds good doesn't it? But look deeper. How would such a circumstance come about? Why does all the complexity exist in the first place? It exists because IT folk are trying to do new stuff all the time. It is this effort - this new stuff - that causes the complexity we have to fight with.

Why is all the new stuff being tried? Well, it could be for the sheer fun of it (one of my favorite human personality traits). It could be because company X is and we are trying to differentiate its products from those of company Y by offering better features. Such features - by design - differentiate system X from system Y. The differences invariably cause complexity where X and Y need to inter-operate in some way.

The complexity is the result of attempted innovation. We could remove vast swathes of complexity by simply sucking all the innovation forces out of the IT ecosystem. We could then stand a fighting chance of making everything work together. Then what? Ask yourself why you got in to IT in the first place. Was it to just turn up every day and monitor a stable-state system that works just fine all by itself?

No. I didn't think so. Here is a weird factoid about IT folk who are good problem solvers: they are bored when there are no problems to solve. To avoid boredom (a heinous mental state!), they innovate. Innovation creates complexity. We tear our hair. We worry. But deep down, we really like it this way.

QED...Or something...

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