Metagyre, Inc.

There are two goals in an effective technical operations organization, “keep the lights on” and continually improve operational efficiency. Focus on these two goals means attaining maturity rather than perfection. It also means the operational team is effectively:

• Taking advantage of Moore’s Law and increasing capacity through appropriate hardware life cycle management
• Receiving increased value on purchases through solid vendor management practices
• Evaluating future business demand and scheduling appropriate capacity
• Internally developing a service catalog along with a service centered organization
• Outsourcing non-value-add or business differentiating components
• Are considered an internal business partner rather than a cost center

As operational organizations improve and build an enabling enterprise infrastructure, they begin to account for both mandatory and discretionary components.  Most companies recognize that components evolve from discretionary into mandatory infrastructure components.    Mature operational organizations use this evolutionary time period to their advantage.

An example of this evolution is  Internet Messenger (IM).  IM is at a stage where many  companies treat it with a try and see attitude.   There may be an HR usage policy, a firewall rule or two or even a corporate IM server.  However, there are few enterprises that have established an OLA (operations level agreement) equivalent to IM’s older bother, email.  During this period while the service is under the service umbrella of best efforts, mature organizations develop component specific practices for Tier 1, 2 and 3.  They capture metrics and build a technical capability in preparation for a components evolution.

Just as email worked its way into the business fabric, IM is becoming a standard tool in the business arsenal and as such is moving from the discretionary spending bucket to the mandatory operational service delivery catalog.

Effective operational organizations keep the lights on for mandatory components, improve overall operational efficiency and effectively evolve discretionary components.