We work in IT – and while we WORK with computers, we do not always FUNCTION like computers where inputs consistently make the same outputs. Our jobs are mostly theory and design and strategy, with some good old fashioned implementation thrown in – and as skilled knowledge workers, we function best when we respect that our mental and emotional resources matter.

The hardest parts of technology are people and what they do - so, _culture_ and _process_. In the center of that is how to determine the right amount of oversight when implementing technology or the processes around that technology. That "right amount of oversight" is typically referred to as "governance."

What exactly does it mean to be "not a cultural fit" for an organization? Is it a slightly more polite euphemism for "that person was terrible at their job"? Or maybe, "they had no social skills to speak of"? What happens when it means that it's the _organization_ that's...kind of terrible at their job? What if _no one_ is actually terrible at their job and "not a cultural fit" is a simple statement of fact?

If companies truly want to go FAST, occasionally that requires changing something about the culture of the company. Processes get stale or overly complex, people don’t know why things are the way they are, and everyone wonders at the wisdom of asking too many questions.

There is pain inherent in development - monoliths, confusing deployment processes, conflict between dev/ops/business.

All companies are IT companies. Except...not. All companies SHOULD be IT companies, if they're trying to keep up with the weight of their customers' ever-increasing demands for speed and agility. Unfortunately...most companies don't know how to get there - or even what "there" looks like, or how they'd describe it.

A long time ago, in a land far far away, there were monoliths. These fabled artifacts brought consistency and stability to the land - but there was a cost in speed, agility, time, and development pain. Whether Java EE, .NET, or something else, the big ol' integrated plexi-purpose binaries or yore (and also now...) have grown into problems that hurt developers, architects, and the execution of business goals.