8 ms·

Funny to read this because I happen to work in Finance and many requests come through my team. I’m going to add some advice here for what it’s worth. A manage

• NullPrefix 5y ago
  Did you just admit that you fight legal and IT on purpose, just to have a fight?
  • ativzzz 5y ago
    He chooses to not help people who make his job harder, sounds like a normal human being to me.
    • 542458 5y ago
      Lots of people make other people’s jobs “harder” with good reason. Things like code review, legal compliance, IT policy, etc are just “overhead” if you assume that your knowledge is infallible - but people are fallible and we need systems like this that, yes, slow us down in order to keep from getting burned.
      • Vaslo 5y ago
        The overhead needs support. If you put up additional security where only IT staff can do x, then you need to ask for or transfer headcount to ensure it’s just as nimble as before. If you demonstrate that ability to manage change, then you also demonstrate that the limited funds are best in your hands.
  • conductr 5y ago
    I work in finance and think I understand gp’s meaning. Although the end part sounds like They’re playing favorites with budget dollars which is essentially where office politics comes into play and not exactly in a way that’s in the best interest of the company. However, the problem I see is that teams (hr, legal, etc) generally can’t be trusted to make decent technology decisions. They could blow $10M on something that sits on the shelf because they were “sold” or worse it disrupts the entire organization in the process of a failed implementation. Both we see happen regularly throughout the organization. Finance is responsible for vetting every possible point of failure which is why we are risk adverse, or appear so.
    • Vaslo 5y ago
      I think you captured it more elegantly than I did. I know it sounds like playing favorites but consider it’s not just me I look at out for. If our IT Business Analyst Jill helps all the people in our business and everyone raves about how helpful she is, I have a lot more trust than the guy who scolds his employee for taking calls at 4 that my be issues because it’s the end of the day and he didn’t want to stay late fixing issues (I swear on my life another manager and I overheard this badgering occur). If it’s Jill vs him asking for a headcount, Jill is getting it all day long.
      • conductr 5y ago
        That’s exactly what playing favorites is. If his headcount is more impactful to achieve company goals, he gets it. You need to learn to compartmentalize If you feel someone is deserving of punishment, they should know why and it shouldn’t be through your budgetary control. It’s a misuse of power.
  • Vaslo 5y ago
    Nope, I am saying that there are many individuals in those functions that a solution creates more work for them, so they default to “no”. Hard no’s are understood in some cases - i.e. installing random nonsense from the internet. However, A “No, here’s why. But...” is way more helpful and generates a lot of respect from business partners.
• wil421 5y ago
  It sounds like you are mad at the security folk not really IT. No you can’t run arbitrary queries that bring my server to a halt. No I’m not going to give to access to my API only for you to blast my system with some python script during peak hours when you can just extract the data in CSV and use a real data analysis tool. No I won’t support your shadow IT Access DB that you created because you refuse to pay for a sql server with enterprise grade storage and redundancy. These are things that have happened to me and I can’t imagine being in security and having to deal with people installing whatever they want. The reason IT (including security) say no is because we have been burnt before and are left alone when someone fucks things up.
  • Vaslo 5y ago
    Then you need to help me write the queries . Then you need to help me with the API calls. And yes I will shadow IT all day long until you work with me on a better solution then just downloading CSV files. If you aren’t going to help me and do your best to get me a solution, Even if not perfect, I am definitely skeptical of your requests and need to watch out for empire building. I’m not writing SELECT * queries man - I have very specific data requests and have an MS in Comp Sci so while I’m far from a DBA, I’m respectful of things I don’t know. You can’t just say “no we aren’t writing requests today”. I don’t think people should install just any program willy nilly, but why in the fuck can’t I install SSIS from Microsoft to help me deal with shitty “here’s some csv’s” service I sometimes get? Literally no reason ever ever to not be able to download that.
    • wil421 5y ago
      Shadow IT is fine for now. The execs will do their next Technology Transformation to get rid of shadow IT at the advise of highly paid consultants. It will be consultants draining your coffers not IT and I can guarantee you it will be more expensive than doing IT right in the first place.
    • cmwelsh 5y ago
      > Then you need to help me write the queries . As it must be. > Then you need to help me with the API calls. As it should be, with visualizations of the time-series data, if applicable. Banks are more than ever driven by their tech teams. Tell your manager if you're suffering.
• waste_monk 5y ago
  This is a bad attitude to hold. Despite common opinion, most IT departments are just trying to meet their own objectives and requirements and are not deliberately trying to frustrate the users under their care. >Everytime you are going to stop me from writing queries to your server or add more security that makes it harder to do my job without sufficient support to rightfully get through that security, I would sincerely hope someone in finance would understand separation of duties and generally that being able to arbitrarily manipulate a database without any controls is a bad idea. Especially if it holds business-critical financial data. > or deny me the ability to download legit software from the likes of Microsoft and other reputable vendors because you have some ridiculous amount of red tape There is no absolutely zero reason why ordinary users should have administrative control over their workstations in a corporate environment. It's been considered a worst practice for several decades, pretty much every IT framework forbids it, and it genuinely prevents a vast swathe of issues and limits the scope of damage if something does occur. It also doesn't matter who the vendor is, installing updates without testing to see if they're compatible with your environment is a sure-fire way to break things (and believe me, just because they're big like Microsoft doesn't mean their quality control isn't garbage). > because you have some ridiculous amount of red tape, I’m absolutely going to question every dollar and be skeptical of how the funding is going to help me or my partners in HR, Sales, Supply Chain etc. > If your projects help me, and you help me, I’m definitely willing to help you more and fight for you and your budget. Sometimes IT are required to undertake projects that disrupt or inconvenience other parts of the business, but the reverse is often true. That's just how things go sometimes. Instead of becoming antagonistic, why not talk to IT and try and find out why something is happening and work with IT to solve it? It will be more productive in the long run.
• FooHentai 5y ago
  >deny me the ability to download legit software from the likes of Microsoft and other reputable vendors because Because when your computer screws out and you're unable to work, IT is on the hook for your lost time and you get to go floppy because 'the network is down'. If IT is responsible for ensuring your technology environment supports your productivity, which in almost all organisations they are, then they need to be in exclusive control of it or they cannot provide a comfortable level of assurance to the organisation. Responsibility and control go hand in hand. I won't take responsibility for anything outside of my control, and if you're sane neither will you. Teams that are willing to confront their organisation's established norms and assume responsibility for the continued operation of their workstations and the corporate network they are trusted members of may be able to gain permission (from management, not IT) to get install privileges. If you're in an organization that's deployed a zero-trust model this is much easier, and you only have to assume responsibility for the workstations as the network is already resilient againsts it's participants. Everyone else needs to sit down. If you're not giving me an unlimited bank account of the company's money, I'm not giving you admin rights; And the motivation for restricting both are very similar. On the other hand, ensuring people have what they need to be able to do their job to the best of their ability is kinda the point of IT. Unfortunately it's never a simple job to distinguish between 'blustering and wants to run a bitcoin miner' from 'needs a legit piece of software to do their job better' without proper engagement to understand your needs. If you have legitimate needs you don't look any different from the dickhead in the other department that's taking the piss, until we've gone through that 'red tape'.
  • tempodox 5y ago
    > Responsibility and control go hand in hand. That can't be emphasized enough. I've seen my fair share of situations where people get saddled with responsibility and no corresponding control. When that happens, they end up being other people's clean-up crew with no time for much else.
• carlosf 5y ago
  In my first job as a sysadmin I tried my best to support business and two things happened: 1 - My paycheck did not increase when business was successful. 2 - When something broke as a result of assuming risks to deliver stuff, I was blamed, not business. So I realized the most rational thing I could do was to become a bureaucrat and ended up leaving. Now I work in a place where business and IT are in the same team and have the same financial incentives. I tend to make reasonable consesions and business people actually care about security and keeping tech debt sane. Pretty cool.
• sangnoir 5y ago
  > If your projects help me, and you help me, I’m definitely willing to help you more and fight for you and your budget. That's a perfectly normal human response - but having to schmooze the petty tyrants in Finance for something that helps the organization as a whole is why I will never again work at a company where my department is seen as a cost center. Most finance folk are more amenable when the problem can be simplified to "if you give money; we'll make more of it" as a first order effect; anything less than that will be mired in politics and backroom dealing.
  • conductr 5y ago
    Profit center all the way. It's true for any job in any industry. > Most finance folk are more amenable when the problem can be simplified to "if you give money; we'll make more of it" This is or should be leadership in general. It's just business acumen 101. > mired in politics and backroom dealing It's usually just a sorting of all possible decisions. What you don't see is how 10x of available budget dollars is being asked for by various departments that have no clear financial ROI and someone has to decide which investments to fund and what can wait. IT as a cost center can usually wait.
    • sangnoir 5y ago
      > This is or should be leadership in general. It's just business acumen 101. My point is that they can be short-sighted by seeing value in things that directly generate money, which is the opposite of acumen. Things like "We'll halve the wait time on help-desk tickets, making everyone more productive" or "We need an additional storage array, we're almost at capacity and need head-room" are not money-makers, but the finance folk at some organizations treat it like it's your personal pet project that you have to grovel for.
      • conductr 5y ago
        > finance folk at some organizations treat it like it's your personal pet project that you have to grovel for. It is your burden of proof though. You have to convince decision makers why your project deserves funding. Nobody in life just blindly gives out funds. Finance can be your biggest champion if you help us understand the cost/benefits. > Things like "We'll halve the wait time on help-desk tickets, making everyone more productive" This takes shape in many forms and it’s a fallacy of some sort. Is being more productive even the goal? The goal is to maximize productivity with current resources. You validly use lack of investment as a reason productivity has a ceiling (and should). But, likely it’s a substantial investment needed to halve wait times. And that’s money that almost always has a better use. Eg. Spend $500K to save $500k on labor Vs Spend $500K on marketing to make $1M in recurring revenue