I have been in touch with one of my ex-colleagues of late, said colleague has landed a job at one of the major banking players. The job will involve a data migration and a data centre closure, well eventually it will. This is not an easy task to accomplish, although not as complex as an earlier migration that they participated in – it is still a complex task.
I am well aware of the extremely complex nature of the Banks IT systems, having been unfortunate enough to have worked there for six months on the ADCE project. That went swimmingly didn’t it, probably didn’t cost very much either! Although I can understand that there is an extreme aversion to risk in the Bank, this is obviously a relatively new concept given the situation in 2007/8 and the Bank seems to have embraced it fully. So much so that almost nothing actually happens, because inactivity is better than any risk – something that the Bank should be able to mitigate.
Mr Schwitzer’s comments are close to the mark, all I would add is that although it can be difficult to find staff that are not intellectually challenged. There is absolutely no indication that the management team at the bank have made any attempt to do so, possibly a reflection on the general abilities of the people or the prevailing culture.
This time the bank have struck lucky, my ex-colleague will be a major asset – one I hope they appreciate.