So one of our consultants took it upon himself to install and configure a MoinMoin wiki we could use to collaborate on technical documents and projects. He had it up and running before he even mentioned it to management. The wiki quickly became one of the company's most valuable IT assets and completely mission critical.
And I'm sure that the system administrators were totally and perfectly happy with having a new piece of (possibly improperly configured) software, running on a development box or taking up server space. I'm not saying that its bad to take initiative and bring in the tools that you need to get the job done. Its just that before you do so, you should think a little about what sort of maintenance your solution will require. Will it require updates? Does it need to be configured in a particular fashion to avoid security risks? Is the data stored in the tool easy to export or backup?
A more programming related example is that of the Excel spreadsheet + VB macro "application" created by somebody in accounting that turns into a mission critical app. Typically, by the time management recognizes that their entire company relies on something that's been extended far beyond its initial intent, the code is typically in an unmaintainable state, and significant effort has to go into cleaning it up.
The flip side of this is that "management hell" of large companies beats it into you that it's better to ask for forgiveness than permission. Official channels are the path of most resistance.
Programmer: "Hey, we could really use a wiki/hudson server/maven repository/whatever to ease the pain on some of this stuff, can we get a box stood up?"
Manager: "The sysadmins are already overextended, I'll look into it, but don't hold your breath"
12 months later: Still no tool.
You only play that game once or twice before you just stop asking and just start doing, or you brush up your resume and move on.
The MoinMoin wiki eventually was successfully adopted by IT including backups, high availability, etc. Yes, there is pain and pushback when you do these things, but in this case hindsight has shown it to absolutely a huge win for the company. After the wiki was established, where do you think IT's internal docs were maintained? Yup. The wiki that professional services set up.
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So one of our consultants took it upon himself to install and configure a MoinMoin wiki we could use to collaborate on technical documents and projects. He had it up and running before he even mentioned it to management. The wiki quickly became one of the company's most valuable IT assets and completely mission critical.
And I'm sure that the system administrators were totally and perfectly happy with having a new piece of (possibly improperly configured) software, running on a development box or taking up server space. I'm not saying that its bad to take initiative and bring in the tools that you need to get the job done. Its just that before you do so, you should think a little about what sort of maintenance your solution will require. Will it require updates? Does it need to be configured in a particular fashion to avoid security risks? Is the data stored in the tool easy to export or backup?
A more programming related example is that of the Excel spreadsheet + VB macro "application" created by somebody in accounting that turns into a mission critical app. Typically, by the time management recognizes that their entire company relies on something that's been extended far beyond its initial intent, the code is typically in an unmaintainable state, and significant effort has to go into cleaning it up.
The flip side of this is that "management hell" of large companies beats it into you that it's better to ask for forgiveness than permission. Official channels are the path of most resistance.
Programmer: "Hey, we could really use a wiki/hudson server/maven repository/whatever to ease the pain on some of this stuff, can we get a box stood up?"
Manager: "The sysadmins are already overextended, I'll look into it, but don't hold your breath"
12 months later: Still no tool.
You only play that game once or twice before you just stop asking and just start doing, or you brush up your resume and move on.
And I'm sure that the system administrators were totally and perfectly happy with having a new piece of (possibly improperly configured) software,
We moved it to a box in a server room and made sure it was being backed up, but we were happy to have it. It solved a business need.
The MoinMoin wiki eventually was successfully adopted by IT including backups, high availability, etc. Yes, there is pain and pushback when you do these things, but in this case hindsight has shown it to absolutely a huge win for the company. After the wiki was established, where do you think IT's internal docs were maintained? Yup. The wiki that professional services set up.
What's fun is when you realise that the company has been running off that access/excel "application" for 2 years and it has never been backed up!