selfmanaged

Self-managed describes systems, services, or organizations where management duties are assumed by the users, teams, or local administrators rather than external providers or centralized control. In information technology, a self-managed deployment implies that customers configure, operate, monitor, and maintain software or infrastructure themselves, rather than relying on a vendor to perform ongoing administration. Self-managed options contrast with fully managed services, where the provider handles tasks like patching, backups, and incident response.

In practice, self-managed IT can include self-hosted applications, on-premises servers, or customer-managed cloud resources. Examples include self-managed containers and orchestration, self-hosted content management systems, and self-managed storage or networking. In organizational contexts, self-management refers to autonomous teams with decision-making authority over goals, workflows, and performance metrics, a concept linked to agile and sociotechnical systems and frameworks such as Holacracy or teal organizations.

Advantages of self-management include greater control over configuration and data, potential cost savings, and faster decision cycles when governance structures are clear. Disadvantages include higher required skill levels, risk of misconfigurations or security gaps, and potential accountability challenges in the event of failures.

See also: managed services, self-service, autonomous teams, Holacracy, teal organizations, governance, security.