ITOps Agility Recap

Hands-On IT Defines IT Agility

In this episode, Landon Miles introduces the Hands-on IT podcast and discusses the concept of IT Agility. The conversation explores the definition of IT Agility and its importance in IT operations. The key areas of IT efficiency, including communication, automation, and integration, are also discussed. The episode concludes with a reminder that IT Agility is a mindset shift and an invitation for listeners to reach out with questions or topic suggestions.

Read the Transcript

Welcome to the inaugural episode of the Hands-on IT podcast, where we dive into the dynamic world of IT operations and explore cutting-edge technologies and look into how to best apply them.

My name is Landon Miles and I'm a technical marketing manager here at Automox. A little bit about myself: I love technology. I love working with computers and that's what brought me to Automox. I have a degree in computer information systems from Arizona State, and I've been playing with computers ever since I could walk. On the fun side of things, I'm married. I have two kids and I have a dog named Nacho.

In the last month at Automox, we've been talking a lot about IT Agility So what, what even is IT Agility? We've done several podcasts, a webinar, some blogs, and a State of ITOps Report. All those are linked in the show notes if you want to take a look at them. But while it's all good content, it's also a lot of content. So in this podcast, we're going to do a quick 10-minute rundown of what we've been going through in the last month of what IT Agility is and some of the key takeaways of the last month too. So what is IT Agility?

Instead of trying to define IT Agility by myself, I thought one of the best definitions of the last month came from the heroes of IT podcasts. So James Sennett, who is the director of IT operations at Gong, said this about IT Agility, and instead of coming up with it myself, we're just going to play that clip. So here's that clip.

So let's dive into what even is Agility in IT operations, James.

Yeah. So I see as Agility not from the typical ITIL Agility definitions, but really it's just our ability to move from one priority to another quickly to be able to support the business. That's really where IT is able to provide value, is being able to be agile and adjust to those business priorities. So IT Agility is really just IT efficiency. It's about how quickly we can respond to change. How quickly we can respond to problems and implement solutions.

IT operations is more than just help desk, it's about adding value to the company. So in my opinion, IT efficiency can be broken down into three key areas. So there's communication, automation, and integration. So let's start with communication. And I think there are two really key areas to communication with an IT. So I call them organizational communication and then problem solving communication. So

We'll start with the first one. So IT doesn't just need to stay in the basement. So while it's a very important part of IT ops, IT is more than just answering the phone and saying, have you tried turning it on and off again? So make new friends in each department, figure out what their problems are, figure out how IT can enable them to do their job better. My goal is to always be the person that people feel comfortable coming to with IT problems or questions.

So next is problem solving communication. One thing I have noticed in myself and many other people in IT is that we often try to solve the problem we're facing by ourselves or within our team. It doesn't need to be a new or novel way to solve the solution. We don't need to do that. There are solutions out there and other people that have most likely faced the same problem or a similar problem as you. So network, meet some new people within the industry. And honestly, as IT people, we should really understand the benefits of networking better than anyone else. IT Joke.

But, there are sales engineers or field application engineers out there that are experts in utilizing their solution to solve your problems. So go to trade shows, talk to them, figure out, figure out the other solutions out there. And sometimes the most efficient solution is the one you purchase. Go talk to your software vendors and see how they can help you solve your problems. My buddy, David Van Heerden in the state of IT ops webinar had this to say, he did a really good job of saying it. So we're going to go ahead and play another clip.

The one thing I wanted to call out in the phase two, cause I put SES are friends. What SES are sales engineers. And I encourage everyone here, right? Not just with Automox, but yes, with Automox. Get out, go shopping, go to the marketplaces, see what tools are out there and go down the line to then talk to these sales engineers about your problems. Cause they see it all. They see customer environments from all over the place. They've dealt with your problem maybe multiple times and have plenty of insights to share specific to your problem. And through that, you get to discover that there are tools and solutions and ways to do things that you and your team may never have thought about.

So shop around sometimes like as David said, the best solution is to buy a solution. That's the most efficient solution. Don't go solve problems alone. It doesn't have to be a new and novel solution to the problem. I mean, every industry uses IT. So how can we utilize others' experience to solve our problems is a key to IT Agility. So our next key area is automation. So be asking yourself, what can we automate? How can we make our job easier?

As IT professionals, we love pushing buttons. We got into this because we like pushing buttons. One thing that I always talk about with my kids is like, I want them not to have a fear of pushing buttons. Like so many people have this kind of fears like, Oh, if I push this, I'm going to break it. What's going to happen? It's like, they'll be playing on their switch. Like, "Dad, how do I do this?" :I don't know, push a push buttons until you figure it out."

And as IT professionals, we need to have that same kind of enthusiasm and outlook on things.

Like let's push this button, figure out what happens. Let's automate this, figure out what happens. Let's explore. Now, obviously don't go do this on your production stuff. Have a test environment. That's a safe place to play, but like go play, go figure out, go innovate, go find something that you can automate and bring value to your company.

So oftentimes the best candidates for automation are the ones that you spend a lot of time in repetitive time on software installation, for example, as a key one.

So find ways to automate within your business. One thing that our CISO Jason Kikta said in the State of ITOps webinar:

Again, humans have the intuition, humans have the judgment and the balance and the risk acceptance. So a human should be able to come up with a policy. And I'll use our example because it's one I'm most familiar with, right? But like in our example of our product, like the policies that you set are meant to be a digital expression of whatever your corporate policy is, whatever that business need is, that may change over time. So it's really about learning how we can make our tools help us.

So explore, try to innovate. Next let's look at integration. Integration as IT professionals, we have a lot of software, we have a lot of tools, we have a lot of data coming in and we need to take time to make sure our tools are set up correctly.

Take a step back, take inventory of the tools you have. And like, I think that Jason Kikta said it, said it best in the State of ITOps webinar. We'll just play that clip real quick.

54% state that, you know, lack of tool integration is causing tool overload and complexity, right? That is a stark, stark number to me, because it's just. You know, like, like the tool is there to help us. And if it's not truly there to help us, then what is it doing there? And so make your tools work for you. If a tool isn't doing its job, if a tool isn't making your life easier, what's the point of it?

So take inventory of the solutions, take time to make sure your tools and software is working to its fullest extent, make it work for you, make everything communicate together and.

Really just try to make this solution as efficient as it can. So, IT Agility, IT efficiency is just as much of a mindset shift as it is anything else. I mean, it's a fundamental way of looking at things of how can I make this more efficient? How can we solve problems? How can we add value to our business? It's this fundamental shift of really looking and diving deep into that. All right. Well, that's all for episode one.

Thanks so much for listening. And if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions for topics, please feel free to message me on LinkedIn or DM Automox on Twitter / X, whatever they're calling it these days, if that's your thing. And those questions will also get to me eventually. The link to my LinkedIn profile is in the description of the episode. But thanks so much for listening and we'll see you next episode.