Why does the IT Department always become the “fixers?”

I’ve thought about this a lot over the years. It happens in every company. IT becomes the go-to for any complex task.

And I think it’s this: troubleshooting is a rare skill and being able to dynamically execute a series of steps is as well. I’d guess that in the general population, the rate of those being present at a competent level is maybe 0.5%. Due to its nature those skills exhibit themselves at about a 20% rate in the IT world. This means that even though most IT people also are not good troubleshooters or systems-comprehenders either (still only 20%), the prevalence rate is 40x higher there than it is in the general population.

Thus, IT gets many, many non-IT tasks because they are literally the only group likely to be able to execute them at some acceptable level of competence.