Oh, you thought you were alone in facing some embarrassing moments? I can reassure you; you are not. Most companies face a myriad of issues with their IT. The key is to manage them to support your business efficiently.
Nobody asks that all systems operate at 100% all the time except in some situations. So, what are some common IT Operational problems?
- Downtime and system failures
- Security breaches and cyber threats
- Data loss through hardware failures or data corruption
- Capacity planning and resource allocation issues
- Trouble managing complexity and updates and several more.
This list is too long to tackle in a single post, so let's concentrate on downtime and system failures.
These are typically caused by
- an overly complex IT landscape
- insufficiently documented systems
- monitoring issues
- misalignment with business needs
- and architectures that do not emphasize reliability.
Additionally, there are human factors, such as
- IT processes that do not align with your corporate or departmental culture
- too much emphasis on feature development versus maintainability
- understaffed teams
- a culture of fear (wow, did I really just write that?)
The topic of people management deserves its own conversation.
To return to the hard-skill elements, here's what you can do:
- Reduce your IT landscape complexity, one system at a time
- Implement redundant systems and network components.
- Conduct system performance and security audits regularly.
- Regularly update software and hardware systems.
- Monitor and maintain your network infrastructure.
- Train employees on best practices for data backup and system usage.
- Establish incident response protocols.
- Develop relationships with vendors and service providers.
- Have a documented IT strategy and IT operations plan in place, aligned with the business
And, to just slip in one people item anyway: eliminate any fear in your organization.