Philip Allega

Today, 13 August, is International Left Handers Day.  According to Wikipedia, 7-10% of the population are left handed, linkshander, sinistra, linkerhanden, vanster, bal, izquierda.  I, too, am left-handed.  As many who know, I am in my right mind and those who are right handed are dominated by the left side of their brain (note: other qualities and links to left-handed lore can be found on google, or try this different wikipedia entry that explores all things left-handed).

Throughout my career I have observed that many of my colleagues in IT are left-handed.  My first job was for a mortgage bank.  I was lucky enough to be drafted in to support the automation effort of a fully manual operation and was able to live, and learn, through my first full waterfall lifecycle.  My title was, originally, “computer” until they realized that more appropriate titles were suitable for MIS (management information systems) type people. I was amazed, then, at how many of us were left-handed and, to be honest, sort of revelled in it.

My last job within an IT organization, before becoming an analyst, was as a member of IT leadership team at Taco Bell Corp., then a subsidiary of PepsiCo.  I worked with a great team, the majority of whom were left-handed.  I noticed this during the very long round of interviews prior to my offer (I recall that the number of interviews was around 18), and was pleased to accept and join an august body of left-handers.  For those of you who are wondering: yes, I did play the role of chief architect there, transforming the IT landscape in support of business needs.

In a completely unscientific survey of my colleagues in the EA research community at Gartner I discovered:

1. 24% Left-handers
2. 71% Right-handers
3. 6% Ambidextrous

Noting ambidextrous, I wondered about “How Left-Handed Are You?” and thought I’d share a link to this little quiz to establish your hand dominance.  Overall, however, I was not surprised to see a higher percentage of left-handers than in the population at large (note: not all analysts responded, the pool was totally random, only 17 people replied, I did not apply any test for statistical significance, this was completely unscientific).

During the polling phase of my (very) unscientific study, Michael Blecher echoed my earlier comments by noting this personal observation:

I observed rather early on in my career in the late 60s and early 70s that there seemed to be a disproportionate number of lefthanders in the IT field; I do not know if that still is the case. I think this may have gotten closer to the general average as technology became more mainstream (i.e. coding moved from detailed 3GLs like Assembler Language to 4GLs).

Further anecdotal evidence of left-handed dominance in our field of interest occurred to me at both of our EA Summit conferences in Las Vegas and London this Spring.  I was struck by the number of attendees and vendor representatives who are left-handed. 

Could this be the reason that enterprise architects struggle?  Is it the challenge of living in a right-handed world?  Could that be the source of frustration for so many enterprise architects seeking to demonstrate business value and relevance to their leadership teams?

Alas, I think that is NOT the reason for this struggle.  But, it does add some levity into an otherwise serious topic.

But, that still leaves me wondering: Are you left-handed, right-handed or ambidextrous AND an enterprise architect?

Closing note: If you are left-handed and want to read more about being left-handed, consider this site for references to published materials concerning left-handedness:  http://www.left-handersinternational.com/

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Category: Enterprise Architecture Uncategorized     Tags: Enterprise Architecture, left-handed

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