April 21, 2008 at 10:50 am
I think this is a great idea for technical staff but probably not for non-technical staff. The trick here is convincing your VPs that they are non-technical 🙂
April 21, 2008 at 10:53 am
I second that!! 🙂
April 21, 2008 at 3:42 pm
In a tech shop I can see an argument for delegating the maintenance of PCs down to a responsible team lead. Someone who can be trusted to ensure that their team is up-to-date and crack the whip when needed.
Taking the car analogy further I know people who wouldn't dream of missing a service, or keeping up-to-date with their tax/insurance. These people are not the problem, it is the hard-core who don't even take their car through a car wash. If you accepted a lift of such people you would best advised to burn your trousers rather than to try and wash them:w00t:
I work in an environment where there are explicit network support guys. I've got enough on my DBA plate to be extremely grateful that such guys exist even if sometimes the paperwork necessary to get something done is onerous. They are responsible for the performance of the network. Period. My team are responsible for the performance of the database servers. Period. Most importantly our respective teams have a good working relationship that enables us to capitalise on our respective team strengths.
If you can get two teams working together well then you have achieved something very special.
April 21, 2008 at 4:56 pm
My company has a modified version of this. Some of us are allowed to spec our PCs/laptops, operating systems and software (mostly engineers and programmers) and some of us don't get a choice (admin staff). Updates etc are managed by IT and they provide desktop support. Support is usually only needed for those with either network issues or Windows. The people who choose a different operating system to Windows tend to be able to support themselves.
In general it works but I have some reservations about all users being able to choose what they like as I have come across people who can't even follow instructions to install a font or unzip a file to a particular folder. Also I have found that most users do not want to be bothered making all these decisions even tech savvy ones. They just want to get on with their job and not spend time on things that reduce their productivity. Oh, love the car analogy too!
Cheers,
Nicole
Nicole Bowman
Nothing is forever.
April 21, 2008 at 9:20 pm
Very interesting responses and thanks for the debate.
I'd like to point out a ocuple things. First, there's a huge gap between completely managed PCs and no restrictions whatsoever. Even Google, a company that is mostly full of IT-savvy folks, doesn't allow anything on their machines. They have a list of accepted applications and people pick and choose, downloading and installing as needed. You could give people some amount of choice and let them feel ownership without letting anything go.
You could also require a certain level of protection (virus, spyware, etc), from people before they could connect. Vista/W2K8 do this, not sure about how this works with prior versions.
Second, the car analogy is interesting. While most people don't know how to do the work themselves, they do know how to take it to someone to get that one. Allowing people to manage their PCs doesn't mean that IT doesn't work on them.
I'm not trying to convince you this is a great idea. I'm not sold on it myself, but I think it's worth thinking laterally to see what might make sense and what doesn't.
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April 22, 2008 at 5:54 am
Another thought or two....
Who're the people least likely to patch their PCs if it's their responsibility to do so? I'd say it's either the busiest ones or the ones who believe patching is something they have an IT department for. That pretty well describes most senior managers or directors where I work. Who're the people you'd least like to be compromised by malware? I'd say it's those with access to the most important company information. That pretty well encompasses most senior managers where I work. Who're the people most likely to be targetted by today's generation of criminally-minded malware authors? I think you can see where I'm going with this.
Security is a constantly-changing field. It's a minefield, and the only way to truly protect is via many layers. That means it's not the user's responsibility. Nor is it IT's responsibility. It's everyone's responsibility.
Semper in excretia, sumus solum profundum variat
April 22, 2008 at 9:43 am
Steve - We run a mixture. Developers and other IT professionals have admin rights on their boxes. However they are told that they are ultimatly responsible for the box.
The normal user is limited as to the rights on the box, and a few power users can do a little more. But as a rule, most can not and policy states that they will not perform admini work on the box.
We have an active Desktop Support staff, but it works.
Thanks for the topic.
Not all gray hairs are Dinosaurs!
April 22, 2008 at 9:54 am
You're welcome and good to hear it works in places.
The idea that executives shouldn't be in charge of their machines is probably a good one. If nothing else, they probably shouldn't be spending time on that, even if they want to. I might argue that they should even have a "warm standby" for all their machines to be sure they're not down ever.
A blend is probably the best solution. Some people don't want to be bothered, and that's a choice as well. Some people want to changes things regularly and giving them that choice might lead to better moral.
Or we could "theme" their desktops every few weeks and on holidays like the Google logo 🙂
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April 22, 2008 at 11:48 am
I think the question comes to down to their job function. The first obvious thing is that you cannot give users too much control in a situation where many people use the machine, for instance in a call center environment. Changes one user makes can cause problems for others.
I also would not generally recommend allowing too much control to users that could not reasonably be expected to fix their own system. But it makes complete sense for users in a position where they could reasonably be expected to fix it themselves if they broke it.
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Timothy A Wiseman
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