P100: Shadow IT derails IT portfolio management

I think a multifaceted

I think a multifaceted approach is required when dealing with something as insidious as shadow IT funcitons. The direct or "top-down" approach is a useful tool to abate the activity to some degree. I do agree with Raul as well though in the sense that I think you need to understand why people feel compelled to work so hard to defeat the system.

In my experience, too many IT functions are (un)intentionally passive agressive in addressing the perceived needs of the business funtions they support. The organizational 'foot dragging' and excuse generation many IT organizations are adept at is at the root of many shadow IT efforts.

I think the concepts Clayton Christianson put forth a couple of decades ago in "The Innovator's Dilema" apply here. (Taking lots of liberties here with Clayton's premise in adapting it to an IT landscape). Large IT functions, in order to be good at being a large IT function, tend to get caught up in large scale and complex projects and governace models for those efforts are often at odds with the desire of the business for responsive IT programs delivering incremental value with a nimbleness not often associated with "corporate" IT.

Perhaps the best solution is to create small "disruptive" IT functions under the umbrella of the CIO team, but with markedly different missions from the large scale global applciations teams, etc.

If I think back to the 80's and 90's this is essentially what happened with Mainframe vs. Distributed/Unix teams in many shops. The DCS teams were the distruptive tech that was often started in the business and later annexed into the CIO organization and as the mainframe teams shrunk in size and relevance.

Today's movement from proprietary monolithic ERP systems to the more (relatively) open SOA model seems to me to be another such shift underway.

Taking a sledgehammer

Taking a sledgehammer approach to the elimination of Shadow I/T only deals with those instances that actually surface, the fact that they keep surfacing is the real problem.

The solution to this problem goes much deeper and requires that I/T ask the client community, WHY? Why does the client community feel a need to develop a shadow I/T organization? What benefit do they derive from that organization? What aspects of the formal I/T organization are driving them away?

With answers to these questions, I/T management should then look at their organizations and identify those factors that are driving their clients away, or identify areas where additional education of the client community is required.

When you rip the visible part of a weed out of the ground, but leave the roots, you are certain to seed the weed sprout again.