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Implementing Automation: Page 3 of 3

  • The People Tips
    I think it is likely that the biggest challenge is changing the business practice and getting staff to automate their work. Some may realize it’s an opportunity to move up to more strategic work that has better outcomes, but most will resist the change. Good luck with that--it’s a classic management issue.

    Skills Management
    You’ll need to develop new skills and daily tasks for your staff. This will need significant investment in lab and test systems where orchestration can be validated. But these test systems are also useful for skill and talent building. This requires a change in approach, but, most importantly, engineers will need to self-manage their lab time.

    Lab time requires well-organized individuals who can manage soft deliverables. Compare this with service delivery, which can be managed by measuring outputs to the business. It’s an old challenge for engineers, team leaders and management in IT that harks back to '90s technology, when measurement was not possible so we turned to overly simple management tools.

    Dependency
    Your organization will become dependent on orchestration tools once deployed. Like any dependency, acceptance is the first step. Infrastructure engineers and managers need to change their approach to move from reactive service delivery to proactive planning and project management. Accept this change and find ways to break the dependency on "quick-hit delivery" and move to "planned process."

    Cottage Industry or Factory
    The push for orchestration has historic parallels in the transition from craftsmen in cottage industries in the 1800s to factories and mass production in the 1900s. Today, individuals build hand-crafted systems that are often unique in their own way. As IT scales up, a production line that is supported by significant capital investment in machines and tooling can produce a higher quality product at a lower price.

    That’s the promise of orchestration. It requires investment and vision to achieve, but the outcomes are lower production costs and improved productive output.