Most of us are pretty passionate about technology. We have no problem in losing a night of sleep on a tool to build stuff for our customers. But in the end we are only creating tools which helps them to run their affairs. In the end your customer does not care what methodology or coding language was used for their "system", as long as it works well. He will care the moment maintenance pops up. But the ICT stays a tool and will never be the user's core business.
But sometimes you see things getting really out of hand. The user gets completely carried away with the tools themselves and lose sight on what the tools are intended to do. Take a domain expert who, instead of sharing his knowledge with his co-workers or an agile team, spends all his (over-) hours figuring out how to wrestle his knowledge into an Excel spreadsheet.
But things can be even worse. Recently I bumped into something likewise which has hit me and my family pretty hard. It's even the major reason for my blog dip, so let me get this of my chest.
The former primary school of my kids recently started a big ICT related project. They had been doing things like courses Word and Powerpoint. Not quite high level but at least the kids get some feeling for working with a PC. They have a website. The content manager is a far better teacher than FrontPage user but the site is well read and serves as great communication tool. Carried away in their enthusiasm they started a big project to further integrate the use of PC's in the classroom. And that's where it went wrong. As a part of the introduction they adopted and stretched the idea of flexible work-places. Having a network you are not limited to using a specific PC, just log in anywhere. The efficiency idea is to limit the number of seats and share them with all pupils. I have never met any adult who worked in such an office and didn't hate it. It's a continuing fight for a small private piece of territory. Even if it's just a small desk or cubicle. Can you imagine what such an environment is for a class full of kids (aged 8 to 9)? No need to say social chaos broke out. My little man couldn't keep up and dropped out in despair. It took us months to get him on track again. On another school.
So my point is that people who were once good teachers got carried away with ICT tools and surrounding ideas. So far that they had lost all feeling with their primary concern: The kids themselves.
We are getting on track again as well. But I'm taking my profession with some more grains of salt than before. It's the (little) man, not the technology.