Practical Analysis: The Great Laboratory Of Departments

As we usually do for our magazine cover stories, we fielded a survey on end user computing. You'll see some of the data in "End User 2.0: When Employees Have All The Answers", and all of the data can be found in the report available to InformationWeek Analytics subscribers. As is often the case, the comments from survey respondents help add perspective and color to the statistics. In our survey, one of the most common sentiments had to do with unease responding to our questions. We were asking for monolithic policy statements, but in many organizations, answers pertaining to end user devices vary widely from department to department.

That makes sense. It's not too hard to imagine that R&D types might want devices with a certain set of capabilities, while marketing and sales types want a different kind. And even though these are just tools to do a job, personal preferences (Mac vs. PC, iPhone vs. BlackBerry or Android) need to be considered.

To make matters worse, there's not much precedent for what to do here. It's never been the case before that personal technology was cheaper and yet in ways more functional than enterprise-class IT gear. And then there are issues that have nothing to do with cost or functionality. For instance, if you're considering extending CRM functionality to a BlackBerry (which you've probably standardized on) or to an iPhone (which your salespeople are likely to always have with them during and after work hours), how do you choose between the two? Maybe the BlackBerry is more secure, but the iPhone is easier to use.

In the current political climate, one makes government comparisons at one's peril, but this IT situation reminds me of how the laboratory of the states can provide clarity for federal policy. Large enterprise IT, like the federal government, tends to be too procedurally bulky to make good decisions in instances like this. Put an iPhone app that serves 50 people through your ITIL process and you'll lose the value and screw up the decision for sure--and it will take you two years. Let it happen as an experiment, and it'll yield important lessons.

In a post-Windows XP world, standards for end user systems are anything but decided. At just 29% of survey respondents, the BlackBerry ranks highest among "already decided upon" supported devices, followed by Windows 7, at 15%, and Mac OS, at 7%. Most IT organizations know that they have to establish guidelines that allow for a greater array of end user devices, but they don't know how to do that.

We faced similar issues when PCs came in the door running spreadsheets, changing departmental financial forecasting, and when laser printers showed up churning out beautiful documents that IT had never been able to produce. The fundamental security risks were different, but the same sorts of IT support issues presented themselves.

Then as now, the best way to learn how to support the new devices and demands is to let departments do some experimentation. Do it with IT support, and without too much in the way of prescriptive outcome measurements. The investment in these experiments will pay off handsomely down the road.

Art Wittmann is director of InformationWeek Analytics, a portfolio of decision-support tools and analyst reports. You can write to him at [email protected].

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