If not released appropriately, today’s whiz-bang network management tools end up making more work for network admins instead of conserving them time and lowering their overload.Wait, labor conserving devices do not save labor? Not truly, at least when it comes to maximizing time for more vital or gratifying activities.It’s not unlike the “labor conserving appliance “revolution
in the American home, specifically in the post-WW2 era.I’m referring, obviously, to Ruth Schwartz Cowan
‘s classic history of technology book, More Work for Mom, which explored in depth how different apparently labor-saving advances in household innovation did not decrease the amount of time those females who kept house invested in house cleaning. On the contrary, because they primarily mechanized or automated work previously done by servants, kids, or( occasionally)males, these tech advances shifted women’s efforts from arranging such work to doing it. At the very same time, with some type of work around cooking and clothing washing, they likewise restored “in-house” work that had actually been efficiently outsourced to industrial laundries, pastry shops, etc.And, many perversely, the constant infusion of technology ratcheted up expectations. For instance, standards of cleanliness increased with the advent of vacuum cleaners, dishwashing machines, and washing makers. It may have been easier to achieve the status quo ante levels of tidiness, however whenever saved on that was consumed in achieving the brand-new levels of cleanliness expected.We can see similar dynamics play out when a company presents brand-new management tools and brand-new ITSM platforms. A brand-new ticketing system might make it much easier and much faster to carry out existing ticket tracking and work scheduling procedures and treatments, and it may save network admins time in dealing with project work and trouble tickets. Automatic workflows, for example, and auto-filling of contact info can conserve a
great deal of time and, as significantly, lower the interruption to mental flow, permitting network teams to get more done and likewise invest more time focused on the environment and less on”administrivia.”But once such a system is in location, there is a temptation and, unfortunately, a typical tendency for IT managers and leadership to elaborate on the processes and treatments. For example, with the new platform in location, management may need network personnel to get in more information associated to a ticket’s context and resolution into an understanding bank, or to layer on additional customer-centric tasks comparable to”Would you like fries with that?” and not directly related to the tickets per se, or perhaps the type of work initially targeted for automation and labor-savings. This ratcheting up of requirements and expectations can rapidly (but stealthily )munch away actual time cost savings arising from release of the tool. This isn’t instantly a bad thing. There are several factors to add management and procedure automation tools beyond conserving network admins time and freeing them up to do other things on their stockpile of tasks(for example, improving consistency in deployment; improving security; shortening execution times; deskilling an activity). However, releasing some of their time
up for other work is often mentioned as a factor for deploying automation, however, often, with a credentials: maximize time for other strategic and important work.So, the propensity of brand-new work to emerge and to eat up the time conserved with a labor-saving management tool is only a bad thing to the level that it is … Source
