Summary: As businesses rely more on data and technology, the barrier between IT departments and the business must come down. If businesses are to succeed in a data driven world, the business must better align itself with the IT department, and eliminate some common practices that frustrate IT.

Although companies have struggled with IT/Business alignment for years, it’s still an issue. Even today, there’s still a barrier between IT departments and end users in many businesses. Despite their best efforts, the IT department and the business still struggle to see eye-to-eye.

The problem is, this alignment issue is becoming more important. As data and technology plays a larger role in the business, this barrier must come down. If not, companies will struggle to succeed in the increasingly data-driven business world.

What causes this barrier? While the reasons vary, much of the problem boils down to communication. Both IT departments and business users struggle to see things from the other’s point of view. As a result, both sides unknowingly do things that drive the other crazy.

What are these things? While we covered a few ways that IT departments drive end users crazy in a previous article, today let’s focus on the other side of the coin: Common user practices that drive IT departments crazy. We’ve compiled a list of some of the most common practices, and explained each one below. IT departments become frustrated when business users:

1. Send vague support requests

Imagine storming into your doctor’s office and angrily demanding that he or she fix your ailment immediately–without first explaining the symptoms. Would that fix your problem? Of course not! How can your doctor fix the problem if they don’t know any symptoms? Yet, this is exactly what users often expect from the IT department.

“Vagueness has been elevated to an art form by some end users,” says Chris Rixon, Executive Advisor at BMC Software. “It’s not uncommon for self-service help desk tickets to be raised that are utterly devoid of useful information: where every option is either set to ‘other’, left blank or filled with an unhelpful message, such as ‘just fix it…now’. This, of course, means that the agent has to either decode what is meant from the crumbs of information that do exist, or more often than not, get on the phone with the user; who can then be equally vague in conversation. And so it goes on…”

2. Ignore corporate security practices and procedures

Despite the rise in cyber attacks from outside hackers, do you know what security threat IT managers fear the most? Their own employees. End users that bypass corporate security practices place their company’s data at significant risk–a problem that’s on the rise as more consumer devices make their way into the business.

“Corporations invest billions of dollars to protect the confidentiality, availability, and integrity of its data,” says Mary M. Gillam, Col (Ret), USAF, PhD, owner of M2G Dynamic Leadership Solutions, LLC. “The IT Department is responsible for devising a plan to defend against these security breaches/threats both internally and externally. Having procedures and policies coupled with security measures enables the IT Department to protect its infrastructure. However, when end-users fail to adhere to established IT corporate security procedures and policies, they put the entire business at risk to possible external network intrusions and data breaches.”

3. Purchase cloud applications behind IT’s back

As mentioned in this article, when the IT department doesn’t provide users with the necessary self-service options, the users search for other solutions. The problem is, users don’t consult with IT before seeking out their own solutions. In many cases, IT already offers the needed solution, or can procure that solution easily.

“I once met a CIO who found out that a department had procured and deployed a cloud-based marketing automation platform when the first help desk ticket arrived in the queue of a puzzled agent,” says Rixon. “This is not a great way to learn that the business has a new piece of mission-critical infrastructure. This phenomena is definitely on the rise! The savvy CIO will be accepting of this inevitable trend and offer the business education and guidance on the whys and wherefores of buying enterprise IT systems.”

Why is going behind the IT department’s back such a problem? Keeping the organization’s data safe is one of the IT department’s largest responsibilities. How can they keep that data secure if they don’t even know where it is?

4. Do not clearly define new IT requirements, or constantly change project scope

We’ve all seen the IT project failure statistics: Most IT projects fail, go over budget, take too long, etc… From an outsiders view, the statistics paint a pretty bleak picture. But, they don’t tell the whole story. As explained below, these failures often stem from problems outside of the IT department’s control.

“For years, IT projects have been characterized by the Government Accountability Office as being over-budget, exceeded schedule, and under performing,” says Gillam. “There are many reasons for these failures. However, sometimes, end-users or clients continues to change the scope of the project making it difficult to stay on track, on budget, etc. Unfortunately, the IT Department now becomes the target of the failed project.”

5. Send countless “forgotten password” requests

“Still, now, here in 2014 – “I’ve forgotten my password” tops the help desk charts,” says Rixon. “It is perhaps an inevitable consequence of being human coupled with a proliferation of digital business services, but it still drives IT crazy.”

As mentioned in this article, passwords are a source of frustration for users as well. Users claim they can’t possibly remember their passwords because IT forces too many password changes, and creates complex password requirements.

On the other hand, IT must impose strict password requirements to keep the company data secure. After all, as evidenced by multiple security breaches in the past, users choose overly simple passwords (like 123456) when left to their own devices.

So, what’s the answer? As mentioned in this article, 2-factor authentication is one way to help this problem. While most businesses haven’t implemented this security feature yet, 2-factor authentication adds another layer of security to your important applications without requiring constant password changes.

6. Give IT last-minute notifications

If IT and the business will ever get on the same page, they need constant communication. Unfortunately, that’s still a problem in many companies. Oftentimes, the business leaders make the decisions and then pass the instructions on to the IT department at the very last minute. IT gets no say in the matter, and must scramble to meet the business user’s requests.

“Organizations change all the time (i.e. new employee arrivals, relocation of offices, new requirements),” says Gillam. “Yet, the IT Department is left out of the planning phase. At the last minute the end-user will notify the IT Department and ask, “Can you provide or relocate these IT service ASAP, because we cannot do our job.”

So, what do you think? Is there anything you would add to this list? If so, please share your thoughts in the comments.