Really good article on partnering with the business on technology, rather than dictating it's use:
As irrelevant or irresponsible as some shadow IT projects seem on the surface, it’s important to accept the fact that users do things for reasons. If they are e-mailing critical files among themselves, it’s because they need to work on something from a different location and that’s the most direct solution that they can come up with. IT’s job shouldn’t be figuring out how to prevent the user from accessing and moving files, but rather to find a solution that lets him take that file home in a way that doesn’t make the company vulnerable and isn’t any more complex than the method that the user discovered on his own.
That last part is important. “No one,” says Flynn, “will jump through hoops.” They’ll go around them...
IT has a natural tendency to think about technology in a system-centric way. Systems automate workflow and control access to information. And for a long time these systems made work and workers more efficient. “But there has always been a bright line between IT systems and what people really wanted to do,” says Babson’s Anderson.
“I used to have users come to me as if I was the almighty IT god,” says Israel, who recalls those as “the good old days.” But in that sense, god is dead, and IT’s authority and sense of purpose can no longer derive from controlling how people use technology.
“IT can’t insist on doling out IT,” says Gartner’s Smith. “The demographics of the workforce are changing. Younger people who are more familiar with technology are coming in, and they will not sit still while [CIOs] dole out corporate apps. If you want to retain the best and the brightest, you can’t lock down your environment.”
Smith advises CIOs to try to stop thinking about technology as something that must always be enterprise class. There are plenty of Web-based tools that can meet their users’ needs and not cost the company a dime. “Be open-minded and bring them in where appropriate,” he says.
Does that mean that the enterprise is going to become a messier place? Absolutely. That’s an inevitable consequence of user-centric IT. But messiness isn’t as bad as stagnation.
“Controlled chaos is always OK,” says Gold. “If you want to be an innovator and leverage IT to get a competitive advantage, there has to be some controlled chaos.”
http://www.cio.com/archive/021507/fea_user_mgmt.html?action=print
