An entertaining manifesto from by Tony Dratz at "Confessions of an IT Hitman", Technologist Manifesto..., or Things Everyone in IT Should Know:
The best business solution is not always the best technology solution. The burden is on you, the technologist, to make the best system the business will use. There are two basic types of processes in business: physical and logical. Physical requires the proximity of two or more objects which must interact; like someone to load a crate onto a barge. Logical means it can be done anywhere with an acceptable network connection (like invoicing the loaded barge).
The only point of IT is to improve physical operations by providing efficiencies and reducing logical operations by providing automation. This is true in the Ingram Barge Company and for the Xbox 360.
He follows this introduction with about a dozen items that are either "to do" or "not to do" with respect to IT projects. As the comments say, many of his points are obvious, but then if he needed to say them maybe they weren't so obvious.
[found while browsing Nonprofit Online News]