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Respect for the Rebels
Perhaps the best way to build bridges and keep users out of trouble is regular communication. At Betts USA, Roell now regularly walks around the 60,000-square-foot facility talking to as many people as he can, from the chief executive on down. He uses hallway encounters to find out what people are up to and what they think he should know about.
Since he's outgoing, Roell says people feel comfortable going to him for their technology needs. Roell prioritizes requests based on how critical they are to "getting tubes out the door," taking on critical projects immediately and telling others to wait two weeks for less-pressing requests. "Then they can't go rogue on me. If I've already looked at the problem and it's in my notes and we put you on the schedule," Roell says, it's harder to justify moving ahead without IT.
Juliano has his own method for letting line managers know where they stand. He publishes a list of IT projects in order of priority on the company intranet, where all executive-level employees can see it. "I want to communicate in a clear, visual way so all business owners and stakeholders are aware of what the key projects are," he says.
Of course, rogue IT happens even in the best-run companies. Successful companies often encourage employees to think outside the box to achieve business goals. Some of the smartest moves in corporate history have involved business units making end-runs around their own bureaucracies.
It was a stealth engineering project, designed by the chairman behind the chief executive's back, that allowed a few midlevel engineers at Compaq Computer Corp. to secretly develop a new line of low-end PCs in just three days in 1991. The group was under orders not to alert anyone -- not even their bosses -- let alone IT. That rogue initiative ushered in half a decade of seemingly unstoppable growth.
To some degree, Juliano respects business units that start rogue IT projects. "If someone's gone through the effort [to work outside IT], they are so passionate that it's the right thing to do that they've decided that they're willing to roll the company's future on the dice," he says. Passion can be a good thing, especially when a CIO prevents it from doing any harm.
Joan Indiana Rigdon was a contributing writer for CIO Decisions. To comment on this story, email editor@ciodecisions.com.
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