It has been perhaps 4 months I have been officially switched from the applications team to the infra team and while I was thinking about what sort of transformation will make meaningful use to the organisation, it occurred to me that perhaps a name change will help.
The applications team is called Application Services, and the head is called an Application Service Manager. The infra team is called Technical Services, and the head is called a Technical Service Manager. On paper it seems fine, but let me put up my case.
Firstly, by naming Technical Service for a team implies that the other team is potentially not a Technical Service. I was lucky to be roped in for some interviews in the past few weeks and while I was browsing through resumes (yes, it's my first time browsing resumes), I realised that there are some "Project Managers" who are not technical. What I mean by not technical is that they do coordinating, resource planning, admin work, and the technical work such as writing documentation, designing the system or interfaces are done by "technical or application consultants". Hmph!
Secondly, by naming Technical Service for a team that does infrastructure work, means that the expectation is higher than the capabilities available in the team. When I was in the application team, the only work I assign to my infra team is to buy servers, test connectivitiy, and clear firewalls. I take care of all architectural aspects, interfaces, system design (both hardware and software), security, policy compliance, facing the grumpy users, contracts, vetting documentation, etc. When I joined the infra team, the PM I support pass me stuff like "performance test plan", "security test plan", "functional specs", to vet. When I was a PM myself, I never passed those docs to the infra team because ... well, it's under the scope of the PM, or so I thought. Hmph!
Thirdly, when I asked for expectations of me, I recalled my apps boss told me that my switch to the infra team will help the apps team a lot, and it's because I will be able to do system architecture design and ensure security compliance, which is something he expects the infra team, I mean Technical Service team to be doing. When I asked him whether he feels helpless (because he isn't technical enough) when there are enterprise architecture design issues that are creating down stream system issues, he said no, his job is to find the right resource to do the work. When I spoke to the infra boss, he told me that the apps PM is supposed to be technical, and Technical Service does infra stuff - server and network. Enterprise architecture and application security shouldn't be a Technical Service scope. I tried to ask to do a project to set up a common authorisation interface for systems to adopt in the apps team and I was told that it's the other team's job, and when I went over, and stated my wish, I was told that it's the other's team job. Hmph!
For the longest time, there has been a no man's land between the two teams, and I think I have found the answer. It lies in the name, doesn't it?
If we change the name to Infrastructure Team, then both teams need to be technical.
