Mars or Venus, Saturn or Uranus

Pat Helland identifies a division within IT between Controllers and Doers. The controllers are struggling to manage the complexity created by the doers, while the doers are struggling to deliver despite the constraints placed by the controllers.

In my post on SOA and ITIL, I mentioned a presentation entitled "ITIL is from Mars, SOA is from Venus". Everyone references Mars and Venus because they are the nearest planets, and because they provide a quick and easy stereotype for relations between the genders. But if we are going to accept the traditional symbolism of the planets, then we can get better stereotypes by looking elsewhere in the solar system. So here's my suggestion.

• ITIL is from Saturn, which is the planet of governance. This is also where Pat's controllers come from.

• SOA is from Uranus, which is the planet of innovation. This is presumably where Pat's doers come from.

• Meanwhile, the IT budget is from Jupiter, which is the planet of investment. (Yes I know there are lots of other investment companies named after heavenly bodies, but Jupiter is the one with the most auspicious name.) So when Nick Malik asks who owns the IT budget, that's your answer.

• [update] and Enterprise Architects are from Pluto. See my piece on Enterprise Architect - Joke or Joker
  

Wikipedia: Planets in astrology