Does this describe your IS group?

Bob Lewis of Infoworld writes:

What was the primary practical difference between the world's failed communist economies and its successful capitalist ones? The communist bloc nations managed their economies centrally, whereas capitalist nations decentralized theirs. Most IT organizations look more like communism than capitalism. See for yourself:

• IT has a fixed budget, which its leaders allocate. Sometimes they form a steering committee (politburo) to share the responsibility. It's central planning.
• If the central planners don't understand the value of a request, the request has no value and is rejected. IT's government decides what has value, not consumers.
• IT is the sole supplier. Demand is satisfied through central production or not at all. IT's government owns the means of production.

Even our desire for industry standards has a communist overtone. Our need for compatibility vastly outweighs any desire to choose from a variety of suppliers. In IT, real choice in the marketplace is a bad thing.

That sure looks a lot like communism to me.

Maybe that goes a ways towards explaining the large failure rates in IT projects - see here and here.