User:Trieweaver/sandbox

IT (Information Technology) Tool sprawl is a condition experienced by growing companies with inventories of IT products, where the number of tools becomes unmanageable for the company. This results in wasted spending due to overlaps in product capabilities. Application rationalization is a process to work against this situation.
 * Summarize: excessive spending, unused capabilities, unmet needs

Definition
The main symptom of tool sprawl is a large, sprawling portfolio of IT products (cit needed).

Generally, IT tool sprawl is considered to be a problem for any company that purchases software for its employees to use for their jobs. It is recommended that metrics are kept on IT products held by a company due to how difficult large portfolios can be to manage. The observed trend has been an increase in total products held by a company in [someyear], across non-agricultural industries (cit needed).

Symptoms
overview statement

Duplicative Functionality
The best examples of tool sprawl involve a company purchasing IT products to handle business tasks while simultaneously owning products which meet those same requirements. SwishData's Jean-Paul Bergeaux describes this as happening when products are purchased for specific issues. These products continue to grow in their capability over time, and products will eventually begin offering some of the same functions, leading to inefficient overlaps.

Unused Software
According to a Hubspot study in 2017, a majority of employees are spending hours per week managing these large portfolios. If this time is not spent in auditing, portfolios can often begin to contain products which are unnecessary, either due to changing business needs, or to overlapping capabilities.

Incompatible Workflows
Due to different software being used for the same task, but by different departments...

Difficulties in New Employee Onboarding
Very costly When data and day-to-day processes in the company are spread over numerous products, collaboration (especially among departments) can become very difficult, vulnerable to issues both with employees using the wrong software, and with migration of data from one application to another. Side effect - missing capabilities --Data collaboration, contacting people, problem happens, no one can figure out where the problem occurred, security concerns


 * Work in "excessive employee tools"

Employee Technology Decision Fatigue
Increases in decision fatigue Linked to Decreases in Productivity.

Security Risks
One of the major risks of sprawl comes from sprawling cloud services. As the number of cloud products used by employees grows, the job of protecting against leaks and maintaining compliance with regulations becomes more and more difficult.

Dangers: ___


 * Maybe grab some things from https://www.spiceworks.com/it-articles/end-of-life-software-dangers/
 * Maybe grab some examples with Apache, Apache Struts
 * "Old version security risks"

Cyber attackers (aka "black hat hackers") have exploited unpatched software. For instance, the ransomware "RobbinHood" took advantage of older software on computers in order to prevent users from accessing their computers without paying a ransom.

Causes (WorkingTitle)
Why

Purchases Over Time (WT)

 * Chasing windmills/dreams. Buying without rationalizing what we have
 * Too buys, difficult to remove old software

Detection
The term "tool sprawl" can be very difficult to identify, as it requires a detailed understanding of what products the company has purchased and what. .

Application rationalization If you say yes to any of the two below:
 * already-created process for detecting based on the visibility of the symptoms
 * Do you have mult products that you don't use?
 * Do you have mult products for one thing?
 * Consider using something that was already there or retire something?
 * When did you last retire something?