Doing The Samizdat Software Waltz

For the last couple of days I've been scrappling around my little bit of The Bank for expertise in installing SAS and Business Objects. Think about that for a moment. This is one of the largest financial institutions in the world and there is no-one who can do a simple install of two of the most commonly-used data analysis and reporting packages in the business. Why would this be? Because neither is on the list of officially-supported software - there are installs of both around, and while paid-for, they are samizdat software. Think about that one. One of the largest financial institutions in the world doesn't think its analysts need two of the most commonly-used data analysis and reporting packages in the business. The only analysis it thinks it needs is what you can get with Excel and a basic SQL editor. Now you can get whatever you want with Excel if you're inventive enough, but that level of invention is neither paid for nor bought by The Bank. I'm only doing this scrappling because the Smaller Bank that The Bank bought had those tools and now I can get them in and working.

But. If there's one thing that people with no technical skills love to talk about, it's which tools those of us with technical skills should be using. People are already asking "Do we want to use SAS / Business Objects / whatever", like it's a decision they are informed enough to make. I keep saying "get the tools installed, since you've paid for them already and we have all these licenses spare now that all those people are leaving, get the tools working and start using them. Then you'll know which to use when we come to do the Big Strategic Project of building integrated systems."

Or you might look at it like this. When those managers ask "do we want to use X?" maybe they are not asking about tools. Maybe they are asking about questions. They are asking: "do we want to ask the kinds of questions X is really good at answering?"

Or maybe they are saying "I don't understand this package and I don't know anyone in my department with any skills in it, but I might get stuck with supporting it. So let's make that not happen."

Think about that. One of the largest financial institutions in the world. And it is scared of using two all-industry-standard software products. Now do you understand why they loaned all that money to people with no jobs?