Big shakeup in Utah Government
As you may, or may not, know I used to live in Utah. Not only did I live there for the majority of my life (save the brief period of freedom experienced in Tucson, AZ), but for the last year and a half of my residency, I worked for the ITS department of the state government.
While my experiences at the state are, as they say, a "whole 'nother Oprah", I did enjoy working in the ITS department due to its talented people. Now it looks like the new Governor wants to institute some changes in the structure of the IT department. According to an article in today's edition of the Salt Lake Tribune the Governor wants to centralize the scattered and separate IT depts (almost every state agency has its own IT dept) into one uber department.
Now, while this move would be a good one for most large enterprises in the private sector, I fear that the good Governor will find that it will take a lot more then just his will to affect this kind of sweeping change. While working at ITS the CIO was Phil Windley, who has also written about this story, and he tried to collapse the structure of IT as well, and it was one of the reasons he is no longer the CIO. It seems that the people working in these IT departments like their kingdoms just as they are, and any talk of consolidation is met with angst and fear.
I will venture a prediction; In one year, there will still be ITS and the agency IT departments. Nothing will have changed and the Governor will have to admit that the "status quo" force is strong at the state. It is a lesson that anyone who is not a life long politician must learn about government. Anyhow, he is a one term Governor, and the people at ITS can "wait him out"....
5:10:34 PM 
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