The Directors' Cut: David Taylor on IT's 10 deadly sins

Based on conversations, on emails and on no firm statistical base whatsoever, here is the top 10 list of challenges, hurdles, obstacles, annoyances, stress-inducers - and things to burn now. It's in no particular order, but please do email me and let me know any additional items I have missed.

10. All those useless manuals from the training courses you never did anything with. I know they stand as a testament to your policy of lifetime learning, but be honest, have they also led to lifetime action? Your shelves were beginning to buckle under their sheer weight anyway, and will be hugely grateful. Take them home for your children to draw on, use them as doorstops, or put a prominent yellow post-it on them, saying "Private - do not open."

9. Any posters hanging around the office telling us all to be motivated, and to take pride in our work. True motivation comes from within, not from a cartoon character. You find these posters patronizing and pointless. If you can't burn them, hang them upside down, or employ a Feng Shui consultant who will tell you to remove them, or start putting up your own posters, preferably ones with a message on that people will believe is deep and meaningful.

8. Timing machines - a testament to a past that has thankfully passed. There is not one single reason for keeping them, beautiful to look at, though they may be. It is extraordinary the number of IT departments that still track staff time! Paint them over, put them in a museum or better still, position them on the executive floor.

7. Drinks machines that pretend to be so sophisticated they can store 500 different varieties&when we know that whatever we press we always get the same muck! Dispense with them now. That said, these are the places where most gossip, or knowledge management, is exchanged. So leave the machines, just change them to three choices, done in three extremely different ways - coffee with milk, coffee with sugar, or coffee surprise. (That's coffee without milk or sugar.)

6. Invitations to tender. It is sadistic to force suppliers to fill out the damned things - nobody even reads them, let alone bases any decisions on them! What to do with them? See number 10. Although this time put a yellow sticky on them saying, "revisit in six months to see what a waste of time this was."

5. All TLA's (three letter acronyms), in particular BPR and anything beginning with ISO - it's all good, combustible stuff. To achieve this, you tell me we must stop inventing new ones for all of the old ones we stop using! Anytime anyone uses such an acronym, it's three and out. First time, ask what it means, second occasion, make up three new words for the acronym, third time, put a large piece of sellotape over their mouths (two pieces if they are a consultant).

4. Competency assessment forms. Replace them with a dartboard. Actually, on second thoughts, file them - in a year you will cry with laughter at the way we used to measure talent, skill and human potential by a multiple choice, emotional quiz. And while you are at it, replace all of your job descriptions with people descriptions!

3. Your office. Be visible. It is not only the way of future leaders, it is also the fastest route to that magic thing called charisma. The invisible man lacked a certain, shall we say, presence. So strip it down and do it today - we need the wood to keep the flames alive. Get a screwdriver and do it now. It will save you going on that famous course: "Charisma in a day."

2. Service Level Agreements (SLAs). No one really cares how you perform. It is how they think you are performing that counts. The days of boring, percentage based IT performance are dead, forever. If this is too radical, keep issuing them, but add a proviso similar to the one used by the train companies (i.e. these figures are completely meaningless because we don't really include any times when we didn't deliver as they are all outside of our control).

1. Annual budgets. Anyone still doing them is living in the last century. We simply cannot plan more than three months ahead if we are to be fast, flexible and fit enough to survive in this new business age. So cut your annual budget in four.

That should clear out a lot of paper, unnecessary workload, and frustration. And by the way, before you write in, while I say burn, I do of course mean recycle. After all, over the last few years, isn't that what our companies have perfected - to the art of genius?