Everything I know about ITSM I learned from Darwin- Part II

 

Now, let’s flash-forward a wee bit and look upon those earlier days of innocence and laughter from the perspective of many IT data center managers who were relieved of their duties because they thought the above verbal exchange was the “right and proper thing to do.”

No…that can’t be right.

Better yet, let’s look at it from the perspective of the next generation of IT Professionals who were assigned the task of cleaning up the messes left behind by their predecessors who thought the above verbal exchange was the “right and proper thing to do”.  Yes…that seems to be better aligned with the IT professional Evolutionary Theory with which we began…

Those new age technology theologians had an advantage over their predecessors that is very similar to the advantage that opposable thumbs gives us over our distant simian relatives; Experience. The idea being that Good Sound Judgment is based on Experience which is unfortunately based on the lessons garnered from Extremely Bad Judgment.

In order to improve our relations with our users, customers, and sponsors, we had to devise a new paradigm of operations. One based upon customer satisfaction which in turn is dependent upon the implementation of – and adherence to – a set of processes and practices whose application delivered a visible and demonstrable sense of value while mitigating risk and dissatisfaction.  Add to this new age wisdom that the “value” of these supported services needed to be thoroughly articulated in some sort of agreement that bespoke of the expected characteristics of that service…yes the new technology theologians brought to this earth a Service Level Agreement.  Marvelous. You can almost see those thumbs growing as we move through this tale….

Let’s recap – and then add an unexpected element:

So far, we have come out of the water, ascended and descended the tree’s, relocated to a nice dry cave and then relocated yet again to a better cave with raised flooring and air conditioning and wondrous technology that manipulated data whose current inhabitants were some strange sub-species, who eventually and without any reason whatsoever – other than having mastered the art of communication and documentation behind our backs – became the dominant life form that still to this day….seem to have supreme authority over us; the new technology serf class. Odd how things work out sometimes, isn’t it?

Odd – but extremely just. You see, it all comes back to communication. And this is the main theme behind this monologue.  We have evolved because of communication. And in the age of the new Technology Theologians, the importance and extensive use of communication has never been more strongly supported or widely used.

By: Christopher Williams