The challenge of "shadow IT," or technology being brought into the enterprise by users hasn't abated, but a recent article on the topic got me thinking about whether it’s really as good a thing as its proponents claim.
The challenge of "shadow IT," or technology being brought into the enterprise by users (the trend formerly known as "consumerization of IT") hasn't abated, but a recent article on the topic got me thinking about whether it's really as good a thing as its proponents claim.
The Wall Street Journal recently urged enterprises to, "Let Staff Go Rogue on Tech." This article, among other things, cited Frost & Sullivan data indicating that, "80% of people working for organizations with more than 1,000 employees go around the IT department and use (or even buy) software that lives primarily in the cloud."
I don't for a second doubt Frost's figures, and I also don't believe it's possible to put the Shadow IT genie back in the bottle. But for as many wishes as genies may grant, their arrival on the scene also tends to be quite disruptive, if I remember my fables, fairy tales, and Saturday morning cartoons correctly.
And I don't mean "disruptive" in a good way, the way that smart people make money nowadays by "disrupting" every industry from video conferencing to divorce proceedings. I mean "disruptive" as in: You're making lots of extra work for me, for no good reason.
I'm going to pick on the WSJ writer here a little bit. His opening sentence reads: "If you're like me, the first thing you do when you join an organization is figure out how to avoid the Kafka-esque nightmare that is the company's own IT system."
Two things: If you read the WSJ, yeah, you're probably like him. If you write about technology for a living, you're definitely like him. In which case, you probably do like to play around with all kinds of different apps. But guess what? Not everyone's like that. If you're just trying to get your job done, maybe you just go out and grab the occasional Dropbox or Google Docs because they really do fit a need for you, even if they aren't corporate-sponsored. That'd put you within Frost's 80%, but you'd be far from the kind of wild-and-crazy guy who can't stop/won't stop living off the corporate grid.
And second: Kafkaesque? Really?
I don't understand why IT gets painted as some kind of petty tyrants because they want to enforce standards designed to protect the most critical assets of the enterprise. Most companies won't let you decorate your cubicle just any old way you want--there's usually guidelines about what types of things you can hang up, and where exactly--and that's just a matter of aesthetics, along with a general idea of maintaining the office as a professional work space.
So why isn't the enterprise network treated with the same respect? Why is it assumed that the people who want to maintain some standards, based on reasonable assessment of risks and benefits, are just protecting their turf because they're afraid of being put out of a job?
It seems to me that there's a distinction to be drawn: It's one thing for users to discover significant features that they need, and to satisfy them with external applications because the internal ones are inadequate or non-existent. Innovation is happening a lot faster in the consumer world these days--we all know that, and it's not the enterprise IT people's fault. They don't make the products, they just try to find the best ones to buy. So this is the area where IT can show a little humility, learn from the situation, and go out and find a solution that meets the enterprise's needs for security, compliance, and standardization, while still delivering the functionality that users have shown they need.
It's another thing for users who fancy themselves tech-savvy to scoff at IT as a bunch of faceless, bureaucratic busybodies who won't let them do their thing. As if they'd be coming up with the next big breakthrough in their department if only IT would let them download Snapchat or whatever the hell they think they need. That attitude isn't helpful either.
Follow Eric Krapf and No Jitter on Twitter and Google+!
@nojitter
@EricHKrapf
Eric Krapf on Google+
