The Cost of Processes That Depend on Heroes

# ITIL

# Service Management

# Teamwork

Why sustainable processes should never depend on one indispensable person.

August 27, 2026

Yurguen Penaranda Thomas

The Cost of Processes That Depend on Heroes

The Indispensable Person

A mature process should produce consistent results regardless of who executes it. When the success of a process depends on a specific person, the organization has not built a capability; it has developed a dependency.

This concentration of knowledge can come to be seen as something normal and harmless within organizations. In situations such as, for example: everyone knows who can solve a certain type of problem, who approves certain requests, or who has the knowledge to answer specific questions.

This situation can even be perceived as a strength, since it demonstrates that the institution has personnel with a high level of knowledge and experience. However, becoming dependent on specific individuals to perform certain tasks creates a risk for the organization.

When Knowledge Lives in People

The most valuable knowledge in an organization should not exist solely in the memory of its employees. There are certain situations that can create a culture where the organizational environment sees it as normal and positive to depend on specific individuals.

Informal Learning

This happens when employees acquire knowledge or skills spontaneously, without following a formal study plan or having an instructor guide their learning. This type of learning is self-directed and usually occurs when a person proactively wants to learn more about a particular topic and begins researching it on their own, or reactively when they must seek information from sources outside the organization to help address a given situation.

Because it is an informal and self-directed learning process, the knowledge acquired is neither documented nor shared with the rest of the organization’s team.

Lack of Documentation

This occurs when the institution does not give adequate importance to maintaining up-to-date documentation on how to handle different situations. Documentation may exist, but it may be outdated because what the document describes differs from what is actually done today, or documentation may not exist at all.

This applies to documents such as: guides on how to resolve certain types of incidents, how to configure or operate specific systems, how to handle certain user requests, or what detailed steps must be performed within a process, to name a few examples.

There are several reasons why this situation may occur. One of them is informal learning, because as mentioned earlier, when learning is self-directed, no documentation is created regarding the capabilities acquired. Another reason is the absence of documentation policies, meaning there is no formally defined repository to store knowledge (Knowledge Base), nor a process that defines how this knowledge should be properly stored. Another scenario is when lessons learned are identified after a particular situation has been handled, but those lessons learned are not documented and remain only in the knowledge of the people involved. Their future use then depends entirely on whether those individuals choose to apply them or not.

Lack of Knowledge Transfer

This occurs when the individual with the greatest experience and knowledge in a particular area does not document that experience or share it with colleagues who have less experience.

This situation may occur because the experienced individual consciously “takes ownership” of the knowledge. This serves as a way of protecting their position within the organization, since being the only person with a particular type of specialized knowledge may create a sense of immunity that reduces the likelihood of being removed from the position. It may also occur because the institution does not encourage knowledge sharing.

The False Benefit of Having Heroes

An organization may become so accustomed to having indispensable people for certain tasks that they eventually come to be seen as “heroes.” This is because they resolve issues quickly, possess knowledge of both the IT and administrative and business sides of the organization, and can make sound decisions based on their experience.

Because of these characteristics, such individuals are considered highly reliable within the organization. However, this dependency creates risks that, if they materialize, can have a significant impact on the organization’s operations.

The Hidden Risk of Dependency

The following are some of the risks that can arise when this type of dependency on individuals exists.

Continuity Risk

What happens if the person resigns? If the person resigns, the organization will focus its efforts before the departure on having that person document all of their knowledge or transfer it to another individual. However, it is unlikely that the entire body of knowledge can be transferred within that period. In the worst-case scenario, if the person announces an immediate departure, it may not be possible to document any of their knowledge.

What happens if the person retires? When the specialist decides to retire, something similar to resignation occurs. The organization must “rush” to capture as much knowledge as possible.

What happens if the person becomes unavailable due to illness or incapacity? These situations usually occur unexpectedly, leaving the organization with no time to document or transfer knowledge. If critical activities depend exclusively on that person, operational delays may occur, incident resolution times may increase, and agreed service levels may be affected. This situation demonstrates that the risk lies not in the person’s absence, but in the excessive dependency the organization has developed on that individual.

What happens if the person goes on vacation? In this scenario, the organization will attempt to document or transfer the most critical knowledge before the vacation period begins. However, if a critical situation arises during that period, such as an incident that only that employee can address, the organization may feel compelled to contact them for support, effectively disrupting their vacation.

Bottlenecks and Reduced Organizational Speed

This situation creates bottlenecks in activities that only one person can perform. If multiple tasks of this nature exist, they must be prioritized and executed by that individual, causing some of them to be delayed until the employee finishes the most critical work and becomes available.

Overload

Although this dependency may initially make the individual feel as though they have a certain level of immunity within the organization, over time it can create significant strain. The person becomes responsible for a large number of high-priority activities. In addition, they often end up being available virtually 24/7, even while on vacation, in order to handle urgent situations such as incidents that only they can resolve.

Over the long term, the mental strain caused by this workload can lead to discouragement, reduced job performance, or even resignation as the individual seeks a position where they are not so heavily burdened.

Difficulty Changing Positions

In some cases, this dependency may even prevent the organization from allowing the person to move into another role. By changing positions, the individual would no longer be responsible for carrying out tasks that only they know how to perform, which can hinder their professional growth.

How Can This Dependency Be Measured?

Dependency on key individuals is generally identified subjectively. Hearing phrases such as “only he knows how to do it” or “we need to wait until she comes back from vacation” is a sign that the organization has this type of dependency. However, a mature organizational environment should not rely solely on perceptions to identify these risks.

It is possible to objectively evaluate the level of dependency on specific individuals through indicators and metrics. The following are some indicators that can help identify this situation:

Knowledge concentration factor: Measures how many people are capable of independently performing a critical activity. The fewer people capable of carrying out a critical activity, the greater the associated operational risk.

Coverage of critical functions: Identifies whether processes have backup personnel capable of assuming key responsibilities when the primary individual is unavailable. Many organizations believe they have backups in place, but upon evaluation discover that the knowledge remains concentrated in a single person.

Level of process documentation: Measures what percentage of critical procedures are documented and kept up to date. Outdated or nonexistent documentation significantly increases dependency on individual knowledge.

Time spent by experts answering questions: Identifies how much time key individuals spend addressing questions that could otherwise be resolved through documentation, training, or knowledge transfer. When a significant portion of certain employees’ time is spent answering questions or continuously guiding other teams, it often indicates excessive dependence on their knowledge.

Incidents associated with the absence of key personnel: If the unavailability of a specific employee repeatedly creates operational impacts, there is likely a dependency issue that should be addressed.

Time required to onboard new employees: A mature process should allow new employees to progressively acquire the competencies required to perform their activities.

Percentage of activities with a single operational owner: This indicator identifies what proportion of critical activities can only be performed by one person. The greater the number of tasks with a single possible executor, the higher the level of risk exposure.

Vacation risk: Which processes are affected when someone goes on vacation for two weeks? If the answer includes multiple critical processes, approvals, regulatory activities, or important services, the organization is probably depending more on people than on its processes.

What ITIL Is Really Trying to Promote

ITIL seeks to build sustainable organizational capabilities rather than individual dependencies. This is achieved through its management practices. The following ITIL practices promote knowledge sharing and proper documentation.

Knowledge Management: Its purpose is to maintain and improve the effective, efficient, and practical use of information and knowledge throughout the organization. A mature Knowledge Management practice enables the institution to establish the proper flow for creating, approving, publishing, and updating documents, while also defining the official repository and the roles that participate throughout the document lifecycle.

Workforce and Talent Management: Its purpose is to ensure that the organization has the right people, with the appropriate skills and knowledge, in the right roles to support business objectives. Proper adoption of this practice helps identify potential functional dependencies so that specialized knowledge can be documented and transferred to other colleagues, reducing this dependency.

Risk Management: Its purpose is to ensure that the organization understands and manages risks effectively. This practice can identify risks associated with dependency on key individuals by quantifying the impact that events such as resignation, retirement, incapacity, or vacations could have on the institution, allowing actions to be proposed to mitigate those risks.

Process Management: A process is a set of interrelated activities that interact to transform inputs into outputs. Each ITIL management practice includes one or more processes that are necessary to fulfill the purpose of that practice. Having a process management culture, where processes are documented, communicated, and updated to reflect what is actually done, promotes shared understanding so that all process participants clearly understand the functions they must perform and the sequence in which they must perform them. This helps eliminate dependency on key individuals caused by a lack of understanding of how process activities should be executed.

Continual Improvement: Its purpose is to align the organization’s practices and services with changing business needs through improvements to products, services, practices, and any other elements involved in product and service management. Applied in situations like these, this practice makes it possible to formalize improvement initiatives through the ITIL Continual Improvement Model, based on findings from Risk Management and Workforce and Talent Management, enabling structured actions that reduce this dependency.

The Real Goal Is Not to Eliminate Heroes

What organizations should seek is not to have fewer experts, but to ensure that the knowledge of those specialists does not remain exclusively with them.

The most experienced employees are fundamental to the evolution of an organization. They solve complex problems more quickly than less experienced colleagues, contribute accumulated experience, and help develop other employees.

It is true that a person cannot transfer all of their knowledge overnight, since it is something that has been built through years of experience and learning. However, the goal should be for these experienced professionals to gradually generate documentation and mentor other employees using their capabilities. This can be done through procedures, technical manuals for handling requests, resolving incidents, and performing operational tasks, as well as records of lessons learned about what worked well and what did not in the past.

Sharing this knowledge and experience is key to eliminating dependency on key individuals and preventing the risks associated with this situation from materializing.

Conclusion

The most valuable knowledge in an organization should not be exclusive to certain individuals. It should become a shared asset capable of surviving personnel changes, reorganizations, and organizational growth.

Mature organizations do not eliminate their heroes. They leverage their experience to build stronger processes, develop new capabilities, and share knowledge. Because true strength does not lie in depending on an exceptional individual, but in building an organizational environment capable of consistently delivering results, even when its heroes are not present.

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