Procedures Are Like Following a Recipe
I love to cook, but I love to cook well. To do this, you usually must follow a recipe, especially if you are baking. There is very little give and take in baking, and it’s for that reason that I am mostly a savory cook. I like to take a recipe, follow it to the ‘T ’the first time, and then enhance it the next time with some of my own flair.
Perhaps I like to cook so much because it aligns with my professional life. I have spent my career in IT Operations creating, enhancing, and deconstructing IT business processes. And, yes, I love it!
Procedures are like recipes
I am a firm believer that procedures are like recipes. They are put in place as a framework for how to do something that can be repeated, enhanced, and automated depending on the frequency of the procedures. The frequency of the procedure guides whether it is a “savory” or a “sweet” (baking) procedure.
Savory: necessary evolution
The savory procedures are necessary and usually require tabletop run-throughs and reviews. Some of these procedures include incident response (reactive), planned infrastructure maintenance (preventive), and software maintenance (adaptive). They are necessary for running the business optimally. But as technology evolves, the IT business procedures need to evolve as well.
Sweet: a bit more automation
The “sweet” procedures are those that require very little human intervention as they can be automated through an API or a script using a common programming language like Perl, Python, or Java. These procedures need to be documented and reviewed on a periodic basis. However, ensuring the automated procedures run without error is necessary. Error handling and monitoring of automated procedures is essential. Types of automation IT procedures include log rotation, file uploads/downloads, storage management, and even auto-correction if a known and repetitive system behavior can be automated without human intervention.
Procedures Aren’t meant to be stale
The main thing to consider about IT business procedures is that they are meant to evolve with technology and the company’s growth. Reviewing procedures frequently is a critical part of IT Operations and should be considered at least annually (if not more regularly). Procedures are not meant to be stale. Just like a recipe, they are intended to be enhanced. So, next time you cook (if you cook), think about how you might be able to improve the recipe or what ingredients you might want to switch up to make it tastier and (yes, even) healthier.
If you want something to binge over the holiday break that has near-perfect cooking and is a great example of adjusting and adapting recipes quickly, check out Erin French’s The Lost Kitchen. Happy Holidays!
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