CEO HELD HOSTAGE BY IT

The Scenario
The company’s CEO was growing frustrated with her head of IT because he was not providing what her business needed to serve its customers. To make matters worse, the IT chief had built the core business information systems almost single handedly -- he was therefore the only one who truly knew how everything worked. This meant that IT operations people often had to call on that head of IT directly just to keep the business running.

In summary, the IT chief clearly held the “keys to the technology kingdom,” so business operations would be severely compromised if he were simply fired.

The company did have another IT resource, but this other resource and the IT chief did not collaborate whatsoever: no cross-training, no co-documentation and no sharing of knowledge, tools and information.

Finally, the IT chief gave his notice and refused to help with any transitioning beyond his final two weeks at work. In an effort to regain control of her company, the CEO reached out to Lazorpoint in a pretty serious state of desperation.