Three Suggestions for Implementing IT Automation

Here at Solutions Review, we constantly keep track of news related to the leading enterprise technologies. We want to provide the best insight on the web to help your business in an ever-changing technological landscape. With DevOps becoming such a common interest amongst IT leaders, finding the right practices to enact major changes can be difficult.

A recent article by The Enterprise Project, Getting Started with Automation: 6 Tips, has effectively explored concepts that can help any IT team integrate automation. Automation is a great tool to spark innovation through DevOps culture. The article was written by Kevin Casey, and it details useful information, by citing CIO experiences, to help teams transition from manual IT processes to automation. We read through the article and pulled the essential tips you should follow when implementing automation.

Start by eliminating repetitive tasks

IT teams spend way too much time on repetitive administrative work. Gartner reported that IT organizations spend well over half of their resources on daily operations. This is an obscene use of time for any modern business. It is so easy to fall behind the competition when your team is forced to “keep the lights on” instead of dedicating their time improving and innovating.

Eliminating these tasks is the most crucial part of automation, therefore, it should be the first part that you focus on. This will allow your team to gain experience with automation while developing new habits that improve collaboration. You can use this time to test exactly what works and doesn’t work for your specific team. It will also be first-hand evidence of how useful automating processes can be.

Understanding your pipeline

It can be useful to audit your workflow and see exactly what processes need to be automated. You may have a detailed knowledge of your workflow, but being thorough will only make the jump to automation more valuable and efficient. If you know every detail of your team’s workflow, you’ll be able to find the right solutions for your specific company. Our buyer’s guides provide insights that will be valuable in your company’s search for the right solutions.

Understanding your pipeline also allows you to plan for integration. You will be able to identify what processes to prioritize when automating, and you can progress from there. Each team may have a different map to automation, creating a detailed game plan will make the change far less intimidating.

Be patient

With the buzz surrounding automation, it’s easy to become deluded with unreasonable expectations. Being patient and taking the process at your team’s pace will make them more intelligent and efficient when automation is fully integrated. DevOps culture is a huge change from the status-quo that has hindered IT teams for years. Automation is one component in allowing your team to be collaborative and innovative. This is a major investment in both time and resources, and if rushed, the results may not meet expectations. Detailed planning and patience will allow your transition to be successful.

Conclusion

Automation is a key component to improving any IT team. DevOps culture encourages collaboration between different teams, and automating tasks makes this achievable. It also allows you to get the most out of your talent. If your team is spending their time doing manual and repetitive tasks, they won’t be producing to their maximum potential. The core principle of DevOps is to break down IT silos and create a more efficient team dynamic, there is no better way to do that than freeing up time for innovation through automation.

We encourage you to read the article in full.