Posted by: Larry Warnock on Nov 10, 2008
Mark Twain is reported to have once said, “Even if you are on the right track, you will get run over if you just sit there.” How true today when talking about this troublesome economy and I.T. operating plans. The times require action, not just thoughtful direction. I.T. executives across the country have their email boxes full of directives, notes, and “just a thought” memos about cost cutting and doing more with less. Hiring is frozen or worse, cutbacks are being planned. But, the customer-facing applications must continue to be updated at a record pace. System uptime must be maintained or increased to 99.999999%. Is that six sigma or eight? I have never really been clear about that.
Cost containment has always been top of mind for I.T. executives, but right now (post election day, pre-end of the world prediction date by Sequoia Ventures) it is the topic of almost every meeting. So what is a CIO to do? Post internet bubble, costs have already been pulled out, staffs have been reduced and they have never really grown since 2002. Where is the fat? Where is the waste? Where are the savings?
Simple. The answer is Automation. Find manual processes and automate them. Find teams of I.T. people doing the same task month in and month out and that is a target for automation. I, of course, think that automating application deployment is a key. The point however, is to look at all of your repetitive tasks and consider automating them. There are savings there for sure.
Damn, this blog entry is sounding a lot like my last few. But I continue to be amazed at how many manual processes and hacked together scripts are holding corporation’s I.T. together. It seems so Rube Goldberg to me. (Look it up, the old cartoons where the cat chases the mouse which knocks over the glass and spills the water so the waiter slips and throws his tray that hits the light switch …). The answer isn’t a new-fangled SOA-based cloud computing grid that has virtualized instances of web 2.0 socially networked avatars. It is getting back to basics. Define the top priorities. Stop everything below item 5 and then automate where you can and take the time to set realistic expectations with the line of business owners on what is possible and what isn’t.
Cost containment has always been top of mind for I.T. executives, but right now (post election day, pre-end of the world prediction date by Sequoia Ventures) it is the topic of almost every meeting. So what is a CIO to do? Post internet bubble, costs have already been pulled out, staffs have been reduced and they have never really grown since 2002. Where is the fat? Where is the waste? Where are the savings?
Simple. The answer is Automation. Find manual processes and automate them. Find teams of I.T. people doing the same task month in and month out and that is a target for automation. I, of course, think that automating application deployment is a key. The point however, is to look at all of your repetitive tasks and consider automating them. There are savings there for sure.
Damn, this blog entry is sounding a lot like my last few. But I continue to be amazed at how many manual processes and hacked together scripts are holding corporation’s I.T. together. It seems so Rube Goldberg to me. (Look it up, the old cartoons where the cat chases the mouse which knocks over the glass and spills the water so the waiter slips and throws his tray that hits the light switch …). The answer isn’t a new-fangled SOA-based cloud computing grid that has virtualized instances of web 2.0 socially networked avatars. It is getting back to basics. Define the top priorities. Stop everything below item 5 and then automate where you can and take the time to set realistic expectations with the line of business owners on what is possible and what isn’t.
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