Hunting for the Treasure at the End of the Rainbow: Standardizing corporate IT Infrastructure

Abstract

This paper tells the story of the definition and implementation of a corporate information infrastructure standard within Norsk Hydro. Standards are widely considered as the most basic features of information infrastructures – public as well as corporate. This view is expressed by a high level IT manager in Hydro: ``The infrastructure shall be 100% standardized.'' Such standards are considered universal in the sense that there is just one standard for each area or function, and that separate standards should fit together – no redundancy and no inconsistency. Each standard is shared by every actor within its use domain, and it is equal to everybody. Our story illustrates that reality is different. The idea of the universal standard is an illusion just like the treasure at the end of the rainbow. Each time one has defined a standard which is believed to be complete and coherent, during implementation one discovers that there are elements lacking or incompletely specified while others have to be changed to make the standard work, which makes various implementations different and incompatible – just like arbitrary non-standard solutions. This fact is due to essential aspects of standardization and infrastructure building. The universal aspects disappear during implementation, just as the rainbow moves away from us as we try to catch it.