That rogue app

We need IT support and expertise to scale up the application; there are a few enhancements and some bugs that need to be fixed. For us it has worked well for the last year and we believe that it can deliver similar benefits to other parts of the company. You know the efficiency it has given us has helped meet our targets and we now measure favorably on most KPIs. Can you organize for the resources at the earliest ? Thus started a discovery of an application that had gone business critical !

The company had engaged a big name consulting firm to help in a business transformation. The project had been announced with big fanfare and branding that had everyone excited with the potential outcomes. The initiative took off quickly with key process identification and definition of measurement criteria. Review meetings began with the realization to promise while dashboards sprung up all over the place. These charged up everyone and the movement spread quickly.

Everyone applauded the effort which was cascaded to a few sites with the same level of success thereby ensuring that the model was robust and scalable. The consultants had created a working spreadsheet model that automated the critical process chain and helped improve the decision making. It worked well for the select set of users who proudly displayed the results to anyone and everyone who wanted to know more about their success. People moved on to other things and soon this was forgotten.

The CIO had no inkling of the spreadsheet becoming mission critical to the unit and the slow virulent spread of the solution. It did not cross the business teams’ mind to move on to an integrated and scalable formal application that would integrate with the data sources rather than continue taking data dump and manipulating to get to where they wanted. No one challenged the process as it slowly crept on until the data size became unwieldy and a few locations wanted to tweak the model.

That is when the CIO was approached to rescue the situation. They wanted a technical resource to help fix and deploy the solution. It was a precarious situation for the CIO whether to push back or fall in line and support the business critical application. There was pressure from the stakeholders and some CXOs to support the solution. The easy way out was to let go; after all, the project did have visibility and everyone knew about it, so why make an issue. But that would have set a precedent !

My friend was not known to be politically correct and ready to take a stand on principles; for him that was the only way to do things. And that’s what he did; he asked the team to submit the documentation of the system based on which the team would determine whether the program could be supported or redevelopment was the way out. He went on to deplore the situation with the CXO responsible and instructed his team to follow his diktat. Reconciliatory moves to find a compromise were brushed aside brusquely.

This was not a typical case of rogue or shadow IT that ignored the IT function or the CIO intentionally. It was never expected to become a business critical solution to be deployed across locations. Every function uses spreadsheet to address simple data capture, analysis or sometimes address tasks that conventional solutions are unable to fulfill. Quick and dirty spreadsheet or other out-of-the-box solutions are typical to any company today. They crystallize the need which IT is able to qualify and address.

I do not believe that there is a singular way to address this situation. All approaches are correct in the context of the situation and the reality of the involved stakeholders. It is important to address this tactfully without burning bridges. My friend knew the boundaries in which he could push back and where he needed to take a step back. Post acknowledgement of the issue, he asked the team to support the scale-up of the application in an integrated framework that had everyone move ahead.

What would you do in such a situation ?