Why System Users Create Shadow Systems: The Notebook in the Drawer

Three months after the new system went live, I caught a buyer keeping his real numbers in a notebook in his desk drawer.

Not because the system was broken. Because nobody asked him what he actually needed before they built it.

I’ve watched this same movie in plants from $50M to multi-billion. A big expensive rollout, data that looked clean going in. Ninety days later the spreadsheets are back, planning is padding buffers nobody trusts, and leadership is sure the whole thing failed.

Most of the time the software is fine. What broke is that the people who touch it every day never got a seat at the table. Hand someone a change they had no part in and they’ll have a workaround built by Friday. We all love change right up until it happens to us.

So when it goes sideways, I don’t start with the system. I walk the floor. The operators already know exactly where it doesn’t match reality, and they’ve built the workaround to prove it. The answer is usually already in the building.

Wrote the full breakdown for Supply Chain Brain this month:

https://lnkd.in/g-CPefun

Staudt Advisory