Comments on: Shadow IT: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly http://vaughanmerlyn.com/2008/07/22/shadow-it-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/ Vaughan Merlyn on the Changing Role of the IT Organization Wed, 07 Dec 2011 19:30:54 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: zoki http://vaughanmerlyn.com/2008/07/22/shadow-it-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/#comment-1874 Fri, 21 Jan 2011 14:33:27 +0000 http://itorganization2017.wordpress.com/?p=311#comment-1874 I was more than happy to find this net-site.I needed to thanks in your time for this excellent learn!! I undoubtedly having fun with every little little bit of it and I have you bookmarked to take a look at new stuff you blog post.

]]> By: Micro ETL in the PowerPivot age « Gobán Saor http://vaughanmerlyn.com/2008/07/22/shadow-it-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/#comment-1604 Fri, 20 Aug 2010 18:23:37 +0000 http://itorganization2017.wordpress.com/?p=311#comment-1604 [...] you with cleansed and understandable data , you’ll be faced with integrating external or shadow-IT data (probably one of the main reasons why PowerPivot appeals); again you’ll either need IT [...]

]]> By: these 5 great articles will help you deal with “shadow IT” | Wazoo Enterprises http://vaughanmerlyn.com/2008/07/22/shadow-it-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/#comment-1451 Tue, 25 May 2010 12:06:50 +0000 http://itorganization2017.wordpress.com/?p=311#comment-1451 [...] Vaughan Merlyn has a few great writeups about this force in the IT world, but this piece provides some clear [...]

]]> By: praveen nair http://vaughanmerlyn.com/2008/07/22/shadow-it-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/#comment-488 Tue, 09 Dec 2008 13:06:16 +0000 http://itorganization2017.wordpress.com/?p=311#comment-488 pic is superb

]]> By: Alex http://vaughanmerlyn.com/2008/07/22/shadow-it-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/#comment-363 Tue, 12 Aug 2008 14:23:58 +0000 http://itorganization2017.wordpress.com/?p=311#comment-363 I found your site on technorati and read a few of your other posts. Keep up the good work. I just added your RSS feed to my Google News Reader. Looking forward to reading more from you down the road!

]]> By: IT Maturity Sanity Check - How Do You Stack Up? « IT Organization Circa 2017 http://vaughanmerlyn.com/2008/07/22/shadow-it-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/#comment-362 Mon, 11 Aug 2008 12:54:11 +0000 http://itorganization2017.wordpress.com/?p=311#comment-362 [...] is a significant “non-formal” – i.e., shadow IT spend that is outside the IT budget.  Shadow IT typically occurs as a natural response to a void [...]

]]> By: IT Organization Design and the Value Disciplines « IT Organization Circa 2017 http://vaughanmerlyn.com/2008/07/22/shadow-it-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/#comment-341 Thu, 24 Jul 2008 10:06:53 +0000 http://itorganization2017.wordpress.com/?p=311#comment-341 [...] and the Value Disciplines Posted on July 24, 2008 by itorganization2017 My recent post on Shadow IT: The Good , The Bad and The Ugly solicited an interesting comment about organization design and the placement of application [...]

]]> By: itorganization2017 http://vaughanmerlyn.com/2008/07/22/shadow-it-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/#comment-340 Wed, 23 Jul 2008 17:54:50 +0000 http://itorganization2017.wordpress.com/?p=311#comment-340 Great question, thanks! I think there are several issues wrapped up in this – let me take them one by one:
1. Should application development and application support be together?

There’s always an “it depends” aspect to this, and no organization model is perfect for all time. In fact, it has been said that every organization design contains the seeds of its own destruction, which is why we tend to see the cycles of centralize-decentralize. With those caveats, when development is constantly interrupted by support needs, productivity and quality suffer, so there is an argument to keep them separate. Having said that, cycling people between development and support groups (i.e., developers take a turn supporting what they’ve developed) is a good practice.

2. Should either application development or application support be located in the business rather than in an IT organization? There are arguments for locating support in the business, though this is not the most common practice. Having said that, we have to be careful in defining what is meant by, and what is the scope of support. I think of support as being strictly about helping users to use a system effectively, and dealing with bugs and fixes. Anything beyond that is development. This is an important distinction as “support” has a way of becoming a back door into development – a quick way to get stuff done without going through the disciplines common to a development organization. This is a slippery slope and usually ends up in “tears before bedtime” as my wife likes to say.

The other issue is tiers of support – Tier 1 typically means basic handholding, Tier 2 means some level of real problem solving and analysis, and Tier 3 means deep problem solving. It makes a lot of sense to put Tier 1 in the business – if possible, even turn it into a self-service model. Tier 2 is typically in IT but separate from development, and Tier 3 is often in development.

I think there are rarely good reasons to put development in the business, except for high maturity organizaitons, or if the development needs of a given business unit are TRULY unique (i.e., not just becasue the business likes to think they are different!)

Having said all of that, if you really are lower maturity, I’d be inclined to centralize as much as possible under IT so as to deploy good practices, common methods and disciplines, and look to migrate those things that can be migrated later on, once those disciplines have been internalized.

]]> By: Dave http://vaughanmerlyn.com/2008/07/22/shadow-it-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/#comment-339 Wed, 23 Jul 2008 17:34:47 +0000 http://itorganization2017.wordpress.com/?p=311#comment-339 In this case of IT, where does Application Support lie in the organization? We have application support (how do I do XYZ in an appplicaiton? I need a new company set up in application XYZ.) reporting up to “Accounting”, while the Application Development (make these code changes, write these interfaces) rolling up to IT.

I would not consider us a very mature IT company, btu this divide in application support vs. application development seems to work “OK”. Some times we march to the same beat, and other times we do not.

Your thoughts?

Dave

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