Director's Cut: IT outside the IT department - your biggest nightmare?

More IT work takes place outside of the IT department than within it. That is the reality, dilemma and challenge facing every IT leader and team.

It is reality because we provide our 'users' (sic) with ever more powerful and cheap PCs and encourage them to be used. It starts with a so-called 'power user' (double sic!) having an idea for a spreadsheet or database. He or she writes it up in no time and finds it very useful. Next, they pass it on to a colleague, who may develop it further and then pass it on further. Before long we have a company, mission-critical development.

It is a dilemma because IT departments simply do not have the time - or often the expertise - to develop such applications. They often require huge specialist/financial knowledge. Also, such PC tools are often an integral part of people’s jobs now. However, in the list of company priorities, they would not even feature in the top 100, so our business customers do it themselves. However, if we stop it, they will quite rightly look to the IT teams to develop them.

And finally it is a challenge because these applications are being developed with no guidelines, heed to security, common standards, documentation, methodologies or named support. Otherwise they are OK!

I often refer to these developments as boomerangs - they are out there somewhere and they will come IT’s way… when they start to go wrong. The fact that you were never involved in them, never consulted on anything and do not have the first clue about how to support them, are poor excuses indeed. It is even worse if an external consultancy has developed them and has now disappeared. Or if the person who wrote it has now left the company.

You don’t believe me on the scale of this? (One IT director said to me two years ago: “This doesn’t happen in our company, fortunately.” I suggested we analyse this and discovered (in an organisation employing 1,000 people) over 200 such applications.

So how do we turn these 'rogue' developments into 'controlled' answers?

First, find out where your organisation stands – carry out a complete review, department by department, team by team - of all mission-critical PC developments. Check out documentation, training procedures, methodologies, support available and, most importantly, who developed them in the first place. (This is not for blame, simply to know!)

Second, put in place an agreed method of development. In my experience, offering simply run-time versions of PC software is simply too restrictive and does not recognise the real need so many teams have for PCs and their potential.

The agreement will cover how such software will be developed and will ensure that the IT team is kept fully informed of developments. It will also be clear who will support the applications and who will pay for that support. Have one owner within IT who will ensure all of this happens.

This is so simple to resolve when people are prepared to accept that such PC activities are needed, and when IT and other areas of the company communicate, work together and understand each other’s point of view.