Is It Normal for IT to Disrupt My Team During Work Hours for Updates?

It sounds like your IT team might be lacking the right tools for remote patch management. They should have an RMM (Remote Monitoring and Management) solution set up to handle these updates more smoothly, instead of taking control of individual machines during work hours. It's definitely not a good practice to disrupt your team's workflow like that.

I work in a company that's all Mac, and we handle updates pretty differently. We have set deadlines for updates, and users can complete them as needed before they're made mandatory. Maybe your company could look into implementing a similar strategy? Tracking the interruptions will definitely help you make your case.

Are the updates being performed by the offshore teams? Usually, those should be scheduled for off-peak hours to avoid disrupting the business. In my company, we try to set updates in a way that ensures they don’t overlap with work hours, typically scheduled a couple of hours from the start or end of the day.

You're right that this isn't standard practice, and better methods exist. If IT is taking full control over your machines, that points to an inefficient updating process. In more streamlined setups, they’d use remote management tools to push updates without needing to take direct control of workstations.

You might be dealing with budget constraints. If your company hasn’t approved proper patch management software, IT can struggle to keep things efficient. It’s a shame because it's 2023, and many companies are still stuck with outdated processes. Keeping track of these disruptions could help demonstrate the issue to management.