The Tools You See Are Only Half the Stack
Most teams only see the “official stack.” These are the tools with owners, tools tied to SSO, and tools that finance recognizes. The real stack is larger. Much larger. It lives in personal sign-ups, department-specific apps, abandoned trials, Chrome extensions, and workflows that never made it into onboarding.
The invisible half is where most of your risk and operational friction begins.
The visible stack is the easy part.
The visible stack includes:
The tools in onboarding
The tools IT or ops maintains
Anything tied to identity
Tools with clear ownership
Apps finance tracks
If your stack stayed within this layer, you would not feel the pain points you are feeling today. The visible stack stays stable because someone is paying attention to it.
The invisible stack is where problems start.
The invisible stack contains everything else:
Team-specific tools purchased on individual cards
Free-tier apps no one documented
Chrome extensions that behave like full software
One-off tools used by a single role
Productivity apps that someone installed and forgot
Tools never tied to SSO
Tools that were meant to be temporary
People introduce these tools because they are trying to get work done quickly. As the team grows, the invisible stack grows right alongside it.
This is where the drift begins.
Why the invisible stack forms and how it creates drift.
Shadow IT forms when teams are left to solve problems on their own. Official workflows might not support the speed the organization needs, or there is no one guiding tool decisions with clarity. When a dedicated IT partner is missing, people fill the gaps themselves, and those patches evolve into untracked systems.
Common reasons this happens:
Speed becomes the priority over structure
No enforced source of truth for tools or access
Inconsistent onboarding that forces people to fill in missing pieces
No trusted IT partner to help teams select the right tools
Unclear ownership for existing tools
Offboarding gaps that leave tools active long after someone leaves
A desire to avoid slow or confusing approval paths
None of this happens because teams make poor choices. It happens because there is no leadership function guiding the system.
Once the invisible stack forms, drift shows up everywhere:
New hires ask what tools they actually need
Managers copy access from whoever joined last
Finance sees surprise SaaS charges
Permissions expand without oversight
Offboarding turns into detective work
Teams disagree about which tools are official
No one creates this intentionally. It forms naturally when systems grow without the leadership needed to keep everything aligned.
Map the visible and invisible stack in fifteen minutes.
This is the fastest way to understand your real tool footprint.
1. Export your known SaaS spend
This gives you the first half of the stack.
2. Check Chrome extensions
Extensions act like shadow apps and should be included.
3. Review OAuth connections
Google Workspace or Microsoft Entra will show every tool people signed into with their account. This is often the largest source of shadow systems.
4. Ask each team what they actually use
Keep it simple. Ask what tools help them get work done day to day.
5. Categorize every tool using three clear labels
Official or Shadow
Is the tool part of the approved workflow, or was it introduced independently?
Org-wide or Team-specific
Does the tool power the entire organization or only one function?
Duplicate or Unique
Does another tool already solve this problem? If so, determine which one is the better fit.
6. Look for patterns
You will almost always find:
Tools with no clear owner
Tools that were meant to be temporary
Tools with overlapping functionality
Tools missing from onboarding
Tools that survived offboarding
Tools that exist because there was no leadership guiding decisions
If a tool has no owner or no clear purpose, it is already drifting.
What to do when a shadow tool is actually the right tool.
Not every shadow tool is a problem. Sometimes a team adopts something because it solves a real issue better than the official option. The problem is not the tool itself. The problem is that it exists outside the system, with no ownership, structure, or oversight.
Healthy organizations treat shadow tools as signals. They reveal unmet needs and gaps in leadership.
Here is what should happen next:
1. Bring the tool into visibility
Ask why the team adopted it. Their reasoning often highlights real workflow issues.
2. Evaluate it with the right technical partner
A strong IT partner reviews security, access patterns, data handling, workflow fit, overlap, and long-term sustainability.
3. Decide whether to adopt or replace it
If the tool is better than the current option, make it official. If it is redundant, move the team to the existing solution. The key is making the choice intentionally.
4. Integrate it into onboarding, offboarding, and permissions
If the tool stays, it must:
be added to onboarding
have a clear owner
connect to SSO
follow consistent access patterns
be documented for the team
A tool becomes stable once the team is no longer managing it alone.
5. Sunset the tools it replaces
This prevents duplicate workflows and lingering access. Shadow tools become risky when no one leads them. Shadow tools become powerful when leadership brings them into the system.
Want clarity across your stack?
ManagerStack helps growing teams uncover hidden tools, tighten onboarding and access, and build systems that scale cleanly without hiring a full-time IT lead.