In July, Artisan CEO, Tim Mitrovich, published an article on Forbes.com, illuminating how sound agile practices can significantly reduce an organization's shadow IT. Research shows that between 30and 40 percent of IT spend in large enterprises is consumed supporting unsupported technology tools dispersed across the organization. Rather than attempting to police shadow IT, Mitrovich recommends outcompeting it.

The reality is that a proliferation of shadow IT usually exposes an ineffective or sluggish IT strategy. When end-users feel like they are being ignored, they tend to take matters into their own hands, turning to SaaS tools and cloud services that can solve their problems quickly.

By leveraging agile practices, engineering and technology teams can speed up their release cycles and build trust with the organization by demonstrating they are listening. A traditional agile approach includes a built-in cadence of soliciting feedback from end-users. Quickly addressing pain points or inserting a particular feature requested by users can help technology teams build loyalty and prevent the organization's end-users from looking elsewhere for a solution.

At the same time, it is critical to consider the overall impact of a specific product or technology solution on the bottom line. Agile disciplines enable teams to prioritize the business's strategic goals while remaining nimble enough to respond to real-time user needs. Meticulously tracking success metrics and frequently communicating about the progress of a particular project will also help product leaders maintain trust and critical support for their initiatives.

At Artisan, we believe that building and maintaining trust with all stakeholders is essential. We leverage an Agile approach because it empowers technology teams to move quickly and provides frequent opportunities to gather feedback and show results. Rapidly responding to both the business stakeholders and end-users helps organizations compete to win against shadow IT. It also helps them build better solutions more efficiently.

To learn more about Artisan’s approach to product development, click here or contact us directly. We are always open to discussing how an agile approach can help you overcome complex challenges and achieve impactful results.