In IT the customer is not always right but they had a reason for whatever “crazy” new request they made. As IT professionals it is our job to understand why the customer (end user, other team, remote facility, or whoever your customer is) made the request and how we can help them meet their goal without wrecking our plans and goals.
If you simply ignore or dismiss the request of your users you are inviting shadow IT. Shadow IT will not be managed or secured but will eventually become critical to some part of the business at which point it will become the responsibility of IT whether there are resources available to manage it or not.
By partnering with your customers to find solutions to their problems you will assure that when new needs or wants come to the table you will have an opportunity to help direct the conversation and pick a solution at the beginning before you get stuck with an unmanaged and unmanageable product at the end.
It’s not unreasonable for those of us in IT be expected to understand the needs of the business and to help grow the business. It’s time that more IT departments come out of the Data Center to sit with the business. If that’s not your desire there are plenty of jobs in IT that don’t require personal skills or judgement. If you are going to be in a business facing, decision making area of IT it’s time to work with the business. That is not an unreasonable request.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/customer-always-right-daniel-owen/?