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Mon, Mar 12, 2007 23:07 EDT
More On The Shadow IT Department
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Posted by: Ben Worthen in Best Practices Topic: Enterprise ManagementBlog: Net Effect
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I’ve had a lot of responses to my article on the Shadow IT Department. For those who missed it, the story talked about how users are bringing consumer oriented technology like instant messaging, Google apps, and social networking into the workplace, and using these tools to make themselves more productive. This is happening without IT’s knowledge and support, and it’s the sort of phenomenon that is hard to stop – saying no without providing an alternative will just drive work underground.
The article generated a lot of response, some favorable, some not so favorable. I thought I would take the time to highlight a couple of the issues raised.
“I was most impressed by the author's (hopefully tongue in cheek) usage of gmail to get his work done. Does SOX mean anything to your parent company? Be happy you still have a job, in some places that will get you fired. Compliance is about having records to validate a situation should one arise. Granted in your publication this may not sound so important, but if you worked at a financial house there would be serious fines and possible prison if it could be shown you did this to avoid something your bank had in place.
The article was well written and IT dept. should balance reality needs with "superficial" ones. The author’s side bar just proves how little he knows and should prevent him from writing anything technical related in the future. You could just as easily do everything and more from your Lotus client and server, for free and in house, if you only asked.”
About a year ago I wrote that I was forwarding all of my email to my gmail account instead of using the IT-provided tool, Lotus Notes. I did this in order to call attention to the presence of shadow IT in the work place and explained all my reasons for doing it. (And yes, I did it with the complicity of my corporate IT department.) The point of the experiment – and indeed of shadow IT in general – is that there may have been a time when users asked their IT department how to improve the search functions or mailbox limits in Lotus Notes, but that ship has sailed. Now users take matters into their own hands with a free, web-based alternative. In many cases these
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Wed, Mar 14, 2007 14:23 EDT
Posted by: Anonymous
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Actually - we have thought about it for a very long time. This type of discussion is not new at all. I agree with most other responses - if you had done that here - you would have been fired on the spot.
We have annual training for all employees that emphasizes the risks and dangers of unwanted external e-mail & other such systems - and the personal consequences of ignoring such restrictions.
So to our bretheren in IT we'd say - make sure this is in your company ploicies & inserted into routine training. You don't do annual security refresher training? Start.
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Thu, Mar 15, 2007 4:01 EDT
Posted by: Anonymous
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It is amazing to notice the lack of technical appreciation in this article. Incidentally is there a screening process to select who writes some of these blogs?
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Thu, Mar 15, 2007 12:43 EDT
Posted by: Deron Streitenberger
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The real gap may not be beween IT and the end user. The gap is perhaps between the end user and senior non-IT management. It is easy to hear the senior business management of any organization declining to fund and value internal tools such as wikis, blogs, forums, content management solutions and collaborative tools. Believe me, there are few IT shops that are not responding becuase they are unaware of the problem.
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Sat, Mar 17, 2007 11:33 EDT
Posted by: Anonymous
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You are absolutely correct. All these blah blah comments miss the point that it is not about IT wanting to take control, but it is about IT being sabotaged from both ends: users that do not understand the complexities and consequences of their behavior, and upper non-IT management that has a bit of an idea of what they are, but do not want to fully back up the solutions for political and economic reasons.
The rest is just demagoguery, or celestial music depends on your preferred interpretation.
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Thu, Mar 15, 2007 13:08 EDT
Posted by: Anonymous
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This is a great topic, and the follow up comments show just how far the classic IT organization has fallen behind. IT’ers now quote policy and penalties to stop business innovation; or at the least stand in its way. It is time to face reality; Shadow IT is happening, as the author points out, ignoring it or trying to squash it through rules and bureaucracy (the current staples of IT’s business interaction) will just make the problem worse.
I also love the personal attacks to discredit an opinion you don’t share, very classy.
Start thinking of ways to help move your business forward. Stop trying to be important, you’re only doing it for job security anyway, and we are all starting to see through that farce; generally we’re overpaying for IT and guess what? Those days are slowly coming to an end.
You gotta love the free market system baby.
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