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How to Deal with the Man-in-the-Middle?

3 points by pc128 ↗ HN
Got hired into a senior leadership role at a fairly large corporation. The role is within the central IT/digital function, however the individual business units have their own technology sub-units that work as a man-in-the-middle. Think of e.g. logistics having their own logistics IT that is there to facilitate dialogue between the logistics operators and the central IT who is in charge of the actual delivery of IT development, deployment, and operations.

During my interviews it was coming through that there is a challenging relationship between the centralised IT and the business area IT units. That sounds understandable since facilitating a great collaboration between the end user and central IT could make them (business function IT) superfluous.

Has anyone been in a similar and has some words of wisdom they would be willing to share?

9 comments

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dev_0
Use TLS....jokes aside

Think of exit plans

aintmeit
Exit to where? You haven't truly mitigated risk, you're just hiding from the problem.
dev_0
There are complex systems in a large enterprise. If you want to change, you need to waste years to uncover why things are what they are. Fixing politics will not bring any good to your health and resume
aintmeit
Agreed. At the same time avoiding problems will also be deleterious to your health and resume. Seems like OP is stuck between a rock and a hard place.
dev_0
Quiting is an option. I left a toxic software consultancy env after a few months because of the politics and scapegoat
aintmeit
Like re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
pc128
That I knew. My hope was that someone smarter than me on HN has some good strategies that could help mitigate the biggest risks :)
aintmeit
Too little, too late. Better just laugh it off.
relaunched
I want to upvote this...but, I just can't.