Using Your Users As a Tool

Quote

"The consumer technology universe has evolved to a point where it is, in essence, a fully functioning, alternative IT department. Today, in effect, users can choose their technology provider. Your company’s employees may turn to you first, but an employee who’s given a tool by the corporate IT department that doesn’t meets his needs will find one that does on the Internet or at his neighborhood Best Buy."

“Never use security and compliance as an excuse for not doing the right thing. Never use these as sticks or excuses for controlling things. When you find that people have broken rules, the best thing to do is try to figure out why and to learn from it.”

"Successful companies will learn how to strike a productive balance between consumer IT—and the innovative processes for which employees are using these tools—and the need to protect the enterprise. This will require CIOs to reexamine the way they relate to users, and to come to terms with the fact that their IT department will no longer be the exclusive provider of technology within an organization. This, says Smith, is the only way to stay relevant and responsive. CIOs who ignore the benefits of consumer IT, who wage war against the shadow IT department, will be viewed as obstructionist, not to mention out of touch. And once that happens, they will be ignored and any semblance of control will fly out the window."

"IT needs to learn how to strike a similar balance. Corporate IT isn’t going to go away, and neither are the systems that IT has put in place over the years. But a CIO who doesn’t develop a strategy to accommodate the shadow IT department will be employing an outdated and (more important) an inefficient business model. And, like the HR department that ignores the informal relationships in a company, the CIO might lose sight of how his users actually work. Corporate IT thereby loses its authority and, eventually, the CIO loses his job. It won’t happen quickly, but it will happen. As Anderson puts it, “It will be like getting nibbled to death by ducks.”