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It's more likely it'll work out like how a situation recently worked out at my employer. We had an employee that was too impatient to set up an internal AWS res

It's more likely it'll work out like how a situation recently worked out at my employer. We had an employee that was too impatient to set up an internal AWS resource using the more time-consuming channels, so he set it up in our hack-stuff AWS account under his own user account. Our teams found it useful, and began to rely on it. He got laid off. Ops deleted all his user-related stuff, including accidentally deleting the tech he wrote that we found useful. They were unable to restore it, and it broke our CI/CD and caused a bunch of problems. So yeah, if you want to delete something that you voluntarily wrote, all you have to do is wait.

blencdr 3y ago
This is a CISO's nightmare fuel. Shadow IT is a real pain, consisting of systems with no ownership, no control, and possibly a tight link with the inner IT system. And the majority of this is only exacerbated by the complexity of the decision-making process.
- Leo_Germond 3y ago
  And yet, most IT will see it as an opportunity for locking down systems and policies, instead of the call for help shadow IT is: people want systems that are reliable, efficient, and adaptable to rapidly changing business needs. Providing them is part of the core mission of IT, and they're failing at it in some companies. One anecdotal example: I'm responsible for doing trainings at my company. If I see someone providing trainings on their own, creating their own class material, using their own platform... basically wasting company resources; I don't consider it shadow training but I take it as an indication that A. they have a need B. are very willing to work to achieve it and C. I'm not filling up that need properly, maybe not even communicating correctly about it. I take ownership and I don't play vigilante. When IT are providers, helpers to the employees, instead of self-appointed inquisition on a mission to purify the systems and its users, it works for the best.
  - rcxdude 3y ago
    This. Shadow IT is a symptom, not the disease.
- wil421 3y ago
  At my company IT wants funding before you even talk to them. After you play the shell game it’s months and months before a half baked solution is cobbled together. So we have Shadow IT, our own Linux servers, JIRA, git, and now a couple off the shelf SaaS products we can configure ourselves and skip IT all together.
- ckdarby 3y ago
  Yet the CISO's are the very folks driving Shadow IT. I've been at a company where getting a Slack plugin approved took 8 months alone. Vendor review took a year. These departments aren't equipped for the modern day and most want to live 10 years ago without change. Just keep with the old and vest.
siva7 3y ago
> too impatient to set up an internal AWS resource using the more time-consuming channels Those are by far the worst software devs, not understanding the implications of their actions. But also that his manager didn't catch up this mishap
- treflop 3y ago
  It’s quite possible they understood but didn’t have loyalty to the company.
  - carlmr 3y ago
    It's also possible the company has processes that make doing the right thing take so long it's infeasible. If that is the case, these broken processes will cause far more damage than that one employee.
    - jjav 3y ago
      > It's also possible the company has processes that make doing the right thing take so long it's infeasible. If it caused outages and disruption, it wasn't the right thing. I understand the temptation to just do my own thing and bypass everything to get a deliverable done and be the hero. But in the long term that's never the responsible thing to do. Follow the process to avoid disruptions like this one. If the process seems inefficient, work to improve the process to bring consistency benefits to everyone.
  - gravescale 3y ago
    If he had had loyalty, it clearly would have been misplaced since they laid him off.
- winrid 3y ago
  I had a solution for a production data sanity check solution that worked better than the one in production, however the architects were making it difficult to deploy it, even temporarily. It was just a script. My manager offered to give me a 2nd laptop so others could run the system as needed. (and yes, we had kubernetes, all the fancy cloud stuff, etc)
Seattle3503 3y ago
That's what I was thinking. If he leaves, they probably won't replace him in the same capacity and what he wrote will bitrot.

blencdr 3y ago

This is a CISO's nightmare fuel. Shadow IT is a real pain, consisting of systems with no ownership, no control, and possibly a tight link with the inner IT system. And the majority of this is only exacerbated by the complexity of the decision-making process.

Leo_Germond 3y ago
And yet, most IT will see it as an opportunity for locking down systems and policies, instead of the call for help shadow IT is: people want systems that are reliable, efficient, and adaptable to rapidly changing business needs. Providing them is part of the core mission of IT, and they're failing at it in some companies. One anecdotal example: I'm responsible for doing trainings at my company. If I see someone providing trainings on their own, creating their own class material, using their own platform... basically wasting company resources; I don't consider it shadow training but I take it as an indication that A. they have a need B. are very willing to work to achieve it and C. I'm not filling up that need properly, maybe not even communicating correctly about it. I take ownership and I don't play vigilante. When IT are providers, helpers to the employees, instead of self-appointed inquisition on a mission to purify the systems and its users, it works for the best.
- rcxdude 3y ago
  This. Shadow IT is a symptom, not the disease.
wil421 3y ago
At my company IT wants funding before you even talk to them. After you play the shell game it’s months and months before a half baked solution is cobbled together. So we have Shadow IT, our own Linux servers, JIRA, git, and now a couple off the shelf SaaS products we can configure ourselves and skip IT all together.
ckdarby 3y ago
Yet the CISO's are the very folks driving Shadow IT. I've been at a company where getting a Slack plugin approved took 8 months alone. Vendor review took a year. These departments aren't equipped for the modern day and most want to live 10 years ago without change. Just keep with the old and vest.

siva7 3y ago

> too impatient to set up an internal AWS resource using the more time-consuming channels Those are by far the worst software devs, not understanding the implications of their actions. But also that his manager didn't catch up this mishap

treflop 3y ago
It’s quite possible they understood but didn’t have loyalty to the company.
- carlmr 3y ago
  It's also possible the company has processes that make doing the right thing take so long it's infeasible. If that is the case, these broken processes will cause far more damage than that one employee.
  - jjav 3y ago
    > It's also possible the company has processes that make doing the right thing take so long it's infeasible. If it caused outages and disruption, it wasn't the right thing. I understand the temptation to just do my own thing and bypass everything to get a deliverable done and be the hero. But in the long term that's never the responsible thing to do. Follow the process to avoid disruptions like this one. If the process seems inefficient, work to improve the process to bring consistency benefits to everyone.
- gravescale 3y ago
  If he had had loyalty, it clearly would have been misplaced since they laid him off.
winrid 3y ago
I had a solution for a production data sanity check solution that worked better than the one in production, however the architects were making it difficult to deploy it, even temporarily. It was just a script. My manager offered to give me a 2nd laptop so others could run the system as needed. (and yes, we had kubernetes, all the fancy cloud stuff, etc)

Seattle3503 3y ago

That's what I was thinking. If he leaves, they probably won't replace him in the same capacity and what he wrote will bitrot.