IT and Our "Shadows"
How many IT organizations are dealing with and/or complaining about "Shadow IT?" I do not have any hard and fast figures, but from my consulting and facilitation engagements I find the phenomena of "Shadow IT" in companies to be more prevalent than not.
What is "Shadow IT?" In it's simplest form, “Shadow IT” is the existence of IT resources and capabilities in the business units of a company. These technical groups are located in the business and deliver IT services and support outside the formal IT organization.
The existence of “Shadow IT” causes several issues for the existing IT organization and possibly the company as a whole. These can include:
· Waste due to duplication of efforts
· Lack of adherence to standards
· Possible regulatory issues such as Sarbenes-Oxly
· Cyber security threats
· Limiting the ability to leverage purchasing power with IT vendors
· Circumventing corporate priority setting
As one CIO put it, “When the businesses do IT, I lose total control!”
The challenge for IT organizations is NOT to eliminate “Shadow IT” by corporate mandate or company politics. The real goal should be to understand the needs of the business causing these organizations to exist.
So why do business units create these “Shadow IT” teams? The overriding reason is they do not feel they are getting satisfactory service or support from their corporate IT team. Digging deeper into the interests of the business units, “Shadow IT “gives them:
· Control of the technical projects, products, and services they need for their business
· Choice of the technical people they have work on their needs
· No competition for shared, corporate IT resources
· Reduced communications channels with no need to give IT requirements
· Ability to quickly shift priorities and change the technical direction
These needs combined with the increasing technical skills of staff currently being hired into the business units will only further the likelihood of the existence of “Shadow IT’ unless we, as IT Professionals, evolve and change.
We need to adopt a new mindset with the realization that every service we provide to our firms, the business can get elsewhere or in many cases do themselves. We need to address the needs listed above. We must ask how can we give our business units more control, more choice, less barriers, more say in the projects we work on and greater ability to be agile and pivot? We succeed and help our firms and business units grow not by being afraid of our “shadow” but by shining a light on their needs and making the “shadow” less scary.
Executive Leader | Leadership Advisor | Investor | Board Member | Digital Transformation Evangelist
6yWell said Bill DeLeo! Seeing this as a growing challenge for IT organizations. As line of business owners continue to drive increasing demand for new applications, as customers want a more robust experience, and with the proliferation of mobile devices, IoT devices, end points on the WAN exploding, it's something that IT organizations at a minimum need to have a mindset on how to enable LOB owners to push out some solutions, but also need to insure it's not going to open up organizations to greater security risks, compliance risks & increased costs due to lack of integration with other applications.
Financial Services professional, with 30 years of experience building, operating and re-engineering a diverse array of businesses.
6yReally well-written, Bill. I don’t agree the goal is to make the shadow disappear, for the reasons you cited the shadow teams exist in the first place. Also, the talent in the shadow teams is often as good as corporate IT and they have the advantage of easy access to the customer. I believe a better, more realistic goal is what I would call ‘constructive co-existence’. Formalize the relationship between centralized IT and the shadow teams. Let the shadow team prototype new applications with a set of light but credible standards they can realistically meet. Have IT people work closely on these prototypes with the business developer with the goal of migrating the prototype app to a hardened, well-controlled production system. Usually the shadow IT team struggles under the weight of supporting multiple imperfect EUCs most of which - not all - should be promoted to IT-supported production systems. Their value is in the prototyping of new applications, not supporting what they built last year. A joint multi-year plan to collaborate on the business’ needs to ‘prototype then productionalize’ would yield good results and build trust between corporate IT and their customer. That’s really at the root of the issue - trust.
Enterprise Account Executive @ Slack (a Salesforce company)
6ySpot on post Bill. A common misperception I hear is that business views IT as 'the land of no' - so "shadow IT" is developed as a means to get the job done. If IT is seen as a business enabler - "how can I help you" or better yet, proactively bring value to the table based on a real relationship, then creative ideas and transformation can happen.