- Introduction
- Best practices
Perhaps you’ve already taken steps towards automation and are attempting to use it more frequently. Or perhaps you are just starting to switch from more manual, antiquated methods of labor to more automated ones. Identifying which jobs are suitable candidates for automation and which ones are not is one of the most difficult challenges.
Make sure you are not automating a business or IT process that is no longer necessary before you begin automating, advises Red Hat chief technology officer E. G. Nadhan. IT managers who use automation must be aware of processes that can be eliminated in favor of automation.
“Automation is an effective trigger to revisit existing processes and determine their applicability in today’s market,” the author adds. “While it’s true that repeatable operations should be automated, it’s crucial to make sure they’re carried out properly. Chaos spreads when the improper processes are automated.
After reviewing your processes, pinpoint the low-skill tasks that devour the time of your IT personnel.
According to a recent article by ServiceNow CIO Chris Bedi, IT teams continue to spend an excessive amount of time handling the daily chores necessary to keep the business operating.
It will take some time, work, and a plan for an organization to become ‘no service’,” argues Bedi. “Service automation must be limited to small victories and gradual development. Long-term competitive advantage is what’s important because this is a marathon, not a sprint. You won’t switch from manually managing all services to automatically managing them in one move.
Start by automating end-to-end procedures with lots of organized tasks because this will reduce the IT team’s workload the most. These include installing, patching, and provisioning virtual computers. Automate the provisioning, management, reporting, and scaling up and down operations in their entirety. After learning from them, take on more.
Additionally, you’ll need to assess IT procedures, determine the success indicators for your efforts, and use automation to assist others in the organization in helping themselves.
Best practices
Get your team’s support: Ned Bellavance, director of cloud strategy at Anexinet, says that while this advice is applicable to any substantial change in IT strategy, automation, which occasionally carries a bad connotation, is especially relevant in this case. You must describe how the automation approach would assist IT and the larger company from both an organisational and job-level perspective as an IT leader.
“Although you might already have a few tools in mind, pay close attention to what your team recommends. They will be the ones utilising it most frequently, and they won’t use it if they don’t think it will be effective, according to Bellavance. Other team members could be hesitant about automation and how much effort it will require. By identifying and achieving some fast wins that make life easier for the team, allay their concerns.
Pick flexible tools: “When selecting an ideal automation toolbox, I would focus on three key attributes: flexibility, simplicity, and usability,” recommends Bellavance. “Any automation tool should be adaptable enough to handle 90% of your use cases,” said the author.
Consider the long term and start small: Avoid attempting to complete your software development life cycle (SDLC) or another extensive procedure all at once.
Second, when we outsource more of these technological activities to cloud service providers and have more time to interact with the business, we inevitably perceive more potential for business automation. We can identify the manual and repetitive operations that businesspeople perform and identify new opportunities to help them through process automation tools.
