Having spent 38 years in the IT World, I say be careful about irreplaceable employees, one day they might not be there, and you IT Operations could be severely impacted.
If you have 1 or 2 people who are the only ones that know how to run a particular procedure, that is not good IT Management, especially if it’s not well documented so that everyone is aware of what needs to be done.
He doesn’t say irreplaceable people are needed. He says great people are needed to overcome cruft and bad situations in your company.
All the mediocre and terrible and even “good” employees suck at this, which is why your poor processes and poor company performance is there, in the first place.
But I believe the sentiment of the author regarding irreplaceability was less about specialized knowledge and more about social skills and the impact one or two people can have on a team. Until now I thought little about his point, mainly regarding IT people as mostly introverts little affected by the social activity of the people around them. But having read the article I look back and can see that he may be onto something.
“If you have 1 or 2 people who are the only ones that know how to run a particular procedure, that is not good IT Management”
Neither is having 1 or 2 vendors who can provide a needed service. The Vidgo streaming service has been down since Friday due to some contract dispute with a vendor. Actually, it may be a kind of hostage situation. The vendor seems to have them by the short and curlies and they won’t let go.