Our Business Data Centers – Transformed
IT professionals have transformed the way business is done. We have automated business tasks and linked those tasks together into complex and dynamic workflows. Accounting, HR, Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Sales, Customer Support, Customer Loyalty and other business operations have been automated and integrated. The systems can automatically respond to changes. The productivity gains and opportunities for process improvement from these systems powered economic growth for the last two decades. We’ve done quite well for the business. So what?
Firefighters by day; Arsonists by night
What about the data center itself though? It is the last bastion of task silos. Specific tasks are automated, but they’re not connected into complete processes. People connect the silos. When business conditions change or the system performs poorly, people scramble to determine the cause and put things back in order. In most IT shops the workers are “firefighters by day arsonists by night”. Days are spent reacting to changes and incidents. “Black belts” respond to problems with “their” systems. About 80% of the problems they respond to during the day were caused by changes they implemented overnight—changes with unexpected consequences.
The reality is that the work that takes most of our time in IT is routine and repetitive. The business wants us to focus on using IT to drive business innovation and growth but we’re narrow experts, stuck spending 60-80% of our time on routine actions. Why?
Because that’s how we incent our people. We reward IT staff for being good firefighters. We give praise to the person who logged on in the middle of the night and ran a ‘magic script’ to fix a problem. We encourage our people to become deep but narrow in their expertise. And then we wonder why IT’s contributions to business success aren’t recognized and all too often IT jobs are outsourced.
Making the Change
IT is in a resource squeeze. Our complex world is being made rapidly more complex by virtualization and cloud computing. At the same time, many IT shops are forced to reduce staff due to economic conditions. Automation is the only way forward. “But I can’t automate yet—I haven’t bullet-proofed all of my processes yet” I hear you say. That’s where the change comes in.
Your people know your processes. Incent them to be process builders, not firefighters. This is an “on the bus, off the bus, or under the bus” situation. The status quo is untenable. Here’s your roadmap for change:
- Have a frank discussion with your staff about the need for change
- Provide an incentive plan for building processes
- Automate the processes they build
- Put your best process builders on the next project the business is asking for
- Ask your best process builders for proposals on how the business should be using technology
By following this path, you’ll “do more with less”. More importantly, the business will recognize the value you deliver.
Tags: IT Process Automation, ITSM, RBA
September 24, 2009 at 7:29 pm |
[...] (I was a bit flattered that he riffed on the firefighters by day; arsonists by night theme I discussed here). Here’s Glenn’s advice on being a [...]