V.U.C.A. is an acronym the military (and others) use to describe an environment that is: Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous. While the military uses this term to describe what can happen in war and battle, it also describes what can happen in business IT.

What does V.U.C.A. look like in IT?

Volatile

Webster’s defines volatile as “likely to change in sudden or extreme ways”.

In IT, things occur unexpectedly. Hard drives fail. Fiber cables are cut. 3rd Party vendor API’s change. Prices increase. Hackers hack. The power goes out. Routers are mis-configured. Owners change their mind. Web servers go down. Developers break the build. Owners change their mind some more. Your biggest customer cancels a contract. All of these can occur randomly and without warning. And each can have a great impact on the life of the IT manager or director.

Uncertain

Uncertain means “not exactly know or decided, or not definite or fixed”.

Users think they know the requirements but then they are not sure. They waffle. They change their mind. They decide they don’t need th 5 screens you built for the last sprint. They are not sure what the screen forms need to present to the end user. The client can’t make a decision on the database implementation. The business owner flip-flops on system design issues causing the team to whipsaw. Key vendor software updates are delayed and you don’t know when they will be delivered which impacts your sprint planning. The higher the uncertainty the less likely we can move forward confidently. High uncertainty makes it difficult to act decisively.

Complex

Complex is a “group of things connected in complicated ways”. Surely the editors at Webster’s were thinking of IT when they wrote that definition.

The small business environment is growing more complex all the time. Every department has online tools, software, services, API’s, databases, reports, virtual and real servers, user compute devices and on and on. The inter-connectedness and dependencies require dedicated effort and skill to comprehend, troubleshoot, maintain and improve.

Ambiguous

Ambiguous means that something has “more than one meaning”. To quote Steve Jobs: “Customers don’t know what they want until you show them”. Frankly neither do most project managers, product owners or anyone else designing  a system or process. What you are told to do by the client, customer, owner or other person in charge is usually just a vague notion, leaving the technical team to fill in tons of details. Clarity is an illusion in most every project.

 

Now What?

Does this describe your IT world? I am sure that more than one of the scenarios above struck a chord with you. Maybe a lot of them.

In my experience this describes the state of most small business IT.

So what can the dedicated IT professional do in order to still make progress and serve their customers? How can you bring some order and certainty to your IT world in a VUCA environment?

It turns out there is a lot you can do and we will cover those in the next post.