Almost half of IT teams are burnt out as a result of war rooms, as ‘blame game’ culture becomes the norm for most organizations

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The blame game is causing talent loss throughout the IT industry

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New research has found that almost half (49%) of IT teams are suffering from burnout as a result of war rooms made necessary by the rampant ‘blame game’ being played between IT teams and third-party service providers.

A significant majority (91%) of organizations are still embroiled in hosting war-room-style meetings to get to the bottom of problems, increasing tensions, duration of incidents, and the risk of losing talent due to burnout.

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Jumping ship to avoid the war room

The research, conducted by Dynatrace, found that less than a third (29%) of organizations use a single unified platform, along with the same data for both monitoring and managing digital services, which results in IT teams and third-parties working from their own version of events when things go wrong.

This lack of observability results in a blame game between IT teams and service providers, as neither are operating from the same data, in turn leading to the war-room-style meetings in order to piece together what went wrong, who was at fault, and what can be done to remediate the issue.

While the data is based on a small survey conducted at a cloud innovation event in Europe, the data points to a significantly larger problem within the IT industry. Rob Van Lubek, Vice President, EMEA at Dynatrace, said, “War rooms are an extremely negative approach to resolving problems, and against the backdrop of continued skills shortages, can significantly deepen resourcing challenges for many organisations.”

“What looked like ‘business as usual’ five years ago is no longer acceptable for many IT professionals, who reassessed their work-life balance during the shift to hybrid working. The high-stress environment of war rooms and the looming threat of emergency conference calls at any hour of the day can lead to a disenfranchised and disengaged workforce that is constantly on the lookout for their next employer.”

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Benedict Collins
Benedict Collins
Senior Writer, Security

Benedict is a Senior Security Writer at TechRadar Pro, where he has specialized in covering the intersection of geopolitics, cyber-warfare, and business security.

Benedict provides detailed analysis on state-sponsored threat actors, APT groups, and the protection of critical national infrastructure, with his reporting bridging the gap between technical threat intelligence and B2B security strategy.

Benedict holds an MA (Distinction) in Security, Intelligence, and Diplomacy from the University of Buckingham Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies (BUCSIS), with his specialization providing him with a robust academic framework for deconstructing complex international conflicts and intelligence operations, and the ability to translate intricate security data into actionable insights.