Leader: Talk up your IT success stories

Getting more than 100,000 companies to undertake IT projects of varying scale and complexity is no mean feat. And getting the vast majority of them to hit a single deadline is pretty impressive too.

The project to upgrade the infrastructure which makes sure we all get paid - the move to the Bacstel-IP system - looks to have gone smoothly and the team behind it should be proud of their work.

Of course, the companies involved knew that if they didn't do the work they risked being unable to pay their staff this month - something likely to concentrate the minds of the management.

Sadly, there was no big red button to press and no fireworks when the switchover came - perhaps that would have been tempting fate a little too much.

But it is heartening to follow such a big project and see it hit the deadlines it set. It can be done - despite the fact that for the wider public the phrase 'IT project' is usually associated with 'disaster' or 'cost over-run'.

IT organisations need to be proud of the work they do and they need to talk it up to the rest of the organisation. Few organisations could survive without the hard work and innovation of their IT experts - but how many staff outside of the tech department realise this?

If the industry wants to shake off the image of an expensive disaster zone, we need to celebrate successes as well as learn from our failures.

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