I was listening to a presentation on IT organizations and how they can change and improve in the future. At one point the speaker said that "every IT organization is a snowflake."

Is this true? Do you think that each place you've worked is completely unique? Certainly the names of servers, IP addresses, and plenty of technical details differ. The internal applications are coded differently, colors, shapes, UX, all could vary.

But do you think that your IT group is a snowflake? That term in some sense means unique, but in a derogatory way. It is used to represent people who are easily offended by something different. While I've not always been pleased with the way an IT department is structured or managed, I'm not sure I've been offended.

I do think that every organization has some assembled its staff, process, technology, and more into a unique set of resources. However, I also think there are many commonalities between how the departments are run. After all, managers change jobs as often as technical people, and they will bring their processes and habits with them.

While every situation is unique, I don't know I think that many IT departments are snowflakes. As I work with customers, both in development and operations, I find many of them fall into a few broad categories in how they run their business. If you disagree, leave me a comment today.