IT - trouble again.

There's a theory prevalent in the Civil Service - and maybe other places too - that in order to manage, you don't need to know anything about the particular process you are managing. Management is an art unto itself, goes the thinking. As far as I am concerned, this is utter twaddle. It certainly does not follow that just because you have come up from the shop-floor you will be a good manager, but certainly if you haven't come up from the shop-floor then it's very unlikely that you will be a good manager. I was reminded of this in reading a story about Government's IT projects being way over schedule and way over budget. I've commented on this before, and I'm sure that a big part of the problem is that these projects are being managed by people who have no experience of computers and computer programming. If you don't know how it works at nuts and bolts level, then how the hell are you supposed to make sensible decisions? You are thrown back on relying on the advice of "experts" who almost certainly have a different agenda from you. You'd think we would have learned by now!