Guerrilla IT, Embracing the Superuser?

snydeq writes "First it's letting users manage their own PCs and now it's sanctioning the shadow IT projects they do on the down low: 'You probably know them. They're the ones who installed their own Wi-Fi network in the break room and distribute homemade number-crunching apps to their coworkers on e-mail. They're hacking their iPhones right now to work with your company's mail servers. In short, they're walking, talking IT governance nightmares. But they could be your biggest assets, if you use them wisely. The reason superusers go rogue is usually frustration, says Marquis. "It's a symptom of the IT organization being unable to meet or even understand the needs of its customers," he says. "Otherwise, it wouldn't be happening." The solution? Put them to work.'"

Comments

That is exactly what you said you'd ignore.

[khasim]

How is that a contradiction? It's not unusual support to grab a handful of files off the local machine. It's just as likely that those files were lost due to hardware failure...Are you suggesting that we'd just ignore that?

Because you had previously said that you would not do so.

The original question being:

Well your caveat only works to a point. How long would your department let him spin his wheels while work is not getting done? Who then gets blamed for the downtime? The power user or IT?

And your reply was:

Well, they broke the machine didn't they? With privilege comes responsibility. The same would apply to me, if I hosed my development equipment...I've done it before, and it's just a cost of doing business.

And now you're changing that.

I didn't really believe that any company would let you operate in that fashion. You're paid to support the company's IT infrastructure which is supposed to be making the PROFIT earning employees more productive/faster/safer.