Shadow Infrastructure

Teams navigate complex issues through informal mechanisms—creating tickets to bypass difficult problems, using homegrown tools for administrative functions. These workarounds indicate gaps between assigned responsibility and actual decision authority.

## Trigger Signals

• Homegrown tools replace official systems
• Tickets created to bypass difficult processes
• Informal channels carry critical work
• New hires taught workarounds before formal process

## Why It Persists

The workarounds work. Fixing the formal process is expensive and disruptive. The shadow infrastructure absorbs the cost of the broken system invisibly.

## Common Misdiagnosis

• "People aren't following the process"
• "We need better compliance"
• "This is a discipline issue"
• "The tools aren't being used correctly"

## Cost of Ignoring

Knowledge concentrates in the people who built the workarounds. When they leave, the shadow infrastructure collapses. The gap between official and actual widens.

• Homegrown tools replace official systems
• Tickets created to bypass difficult processes
• Informal channels carry critical work
• New hires taught workarounds before formal process

## Why It Persists

The workarounds work. Fixing the formal process is expensive and disruptive. The shadow infrastructure absorbs the cost of the broken system invisibly.

## Common Misdiagnosis

• "People aren't following the process"
• "We need better compliance"
• "This is a discipline issue"
• "The tools aren't being used correctly"

## Cost of Ignoring

Knowledge concentrates in the people who built the workarounds. When they leave, the shadow infrastructure collapses. The gap between official and actual widens.

The workarounds work. Fixing the formal process is expensive and disruptive. The shadow infrastructure absorbs the cost of the broken system invisibly.

## Common Misdiagnosis

• "People aren't following the process"
• "We need better compliance"
• "This is a discipline issue"
• "The tools aren't being used correctly"

## Cost of Ignoring

Knowledge concentrates in the people who built the workarounds. When they leave, the shadow infrastructure collapses. The gap between official and actual widens.

Formal processes don't work, so teams build their own. Homegrown tools, side channels, and workaround tickets become the actual operating system. The official process exists on paper only.

## What It Looks Like In the Wild

Teams navigate complex issues through informal mechanisms—creating tickets to bypass difficult problems, using homegrown tools for administrative functions. These workarounds indicate gaps between assigned responsibility and actual decision authority.

## Trigger Signals

• Homegrown tools replace official systems
• Tickets created to bypass difficult processes
• Informal channels carry critical work
• New hires taught workarounds before formal process

## Why It Persists

The workarounds work. Fixing the formal process is expensive and disruptive. The shadow infrastructure absorbs the cost of the broken system invisibly.

## Common Misdiagnosis

• "People aren't following the process"
• "We need better compliance"
• "This is a discipline issue"
• "The tools aren't being used correctly"

## Cost of Ignoring

Knowledge concentrates in the people who built the workarounds. When they leave, the shadow infrastructure collapses. The gap between official and actual widens.

• "People aren't following the process"
• "We need better compliance"
• "This is a discipline issue"
• "The tools aren't being used correctly"

## Cost of Ignoring

Knowledge concentrates in the people who built the workarounds. When they leave, the shadow infrastructure collapses. The gap between official and actual widens.

Knowledge concentrates in the people who built the workarounds. When they leave, the shadow infrastructure collapses. The gap between official and actual widens.