Being the IT guy used to bring with it a lot of worthy and rewarding challenges — but not anymore.

Technology management is a challenge both in good times and in bad. In good times, the challenge is how to spend the money wisely; and in bad times, the challenge also is how to spend the money wisely. No, this is not a typo. This is the job of IT management. The money may be there, or there may not be enough of it, but the challenge is the same. If you are not careful during the good times, however, you may not weather the rough patches.

I have seen it many times before: Technology management often has failed to build a sustainable practical environment for the businesses. In doing that (or not doing just that), technology management as a practice is in a bind.

When the money is tight, "rationalization" becomes king. It is as though technology management always is "irrational," with the need to be rationalized every now and then. Why organizations lack long-term vision when it comes to operational infrastructure is something that is worth both examining and lamenting.

The silver lining of the current crisis (if there is one) is that it has exposed a well-known but often ignored fact about the state of IT in the financial industry. The heavy footprint of technology's infrastructure in the financial industry is staggering. However, it is truly appalling and exceptionally frightening when you hear about the status of IT in some organizations.

It is not easy to grasp and agree with the rationale used to justify why some projects were implemented the way they were or why they even got funded in the first place. The situation is so deplorable and complex that untangling the web woven through rationalization would be an act of magic.

Senior executives are suspicious and cautious of their IT people. Inefficiencies are so rampant that if business executives ran their companies in a similar fashion, there no longer would be a business to run. IT management brought that mind-set upon itself, and things are nearly beyond redemption. Everything that could possibly help manage growth in spending has been tried except what is really required: continuous rationalization, whether times are good or bad.