BAU – a wonderfully innocuous 3 letters and such a reassuring acronym “Business as Usual”. “How risky is this change?” – “BAU”; “How complex is it to add capacity” – “BAU”.
BAU lies at the heart of our daily working lives, yet how much time do we afford to reviewing those BAU processes? Are we sure that BAU tasks are even following the defined process, or is it simply the resource involved thinks it a simple task and performs it in their own way?
As a change owner I was in some respects more wary of “standard changes” and “BAU” work than High (risk) / High (impact) changes. In fact I would probably argue that any operation performed without an auditable process cannot be BAU – the simple operation of adding a user to Microsoft Active Directory can be done in a number of ways, but what is the way for your company?
If you Google “process” it returns the following definition: a series of actions or steps taken in order to achieve a particular end. Sounds pretty simple right? Yet how reluctant are people to document those steps that they take – they view defined processes as a sign you do not trust them, or that you are looking over their shoulder. We need to help the people implementing processes to see the value; how they not only protect the business but the doer – if you cause a major incident but are following the prescribed process you are on pretty solid ground!
Processes, like standards, need to be living. The world in which they operate is ever changing, not just in terms of the people performing the tasks – but also the rich tapestry of interacting systems in which they are performed (not just IT, there’s legal, environmental, business…). With a properly documented process you can take risk out of not just everyday operations but also make irregular changes routine (such as adding new capacity). Processes can also give you a much needed anchor to cling to in the storm of a disaster situation.
The thing with processes though, is that they need to be lived. Unless you can make them a part of your operating fabric they just become forgotten documents languishing on a share somewhere. Automation can help, not only will it enable your business to respond faster it will implement your processes day in and day out – but there is a caveat – you can’t automate chaos. If your company needs automation (and who doesn’t?) does it have the processes that provide the foundation? Without those you are doomed to cost and time overruns (how can you size an unknown task?) and political squabbles as your project tries to get standards defined upon which it can operate.
Cloud & DevOps are fantastic opportunities to make your company agile and responsive and all the sexy terms, yet without the investment in processes you run the risk of creating a monster – the slow creaking pace you worked at before inadvertently protecting you from yourself. So yes, we can now build and deploy at lightning speeds, but we must make sure we can build and deploy repeatedly. With that sorted how do we know what we have and where. Unfortunately the courts and Murphy’s law are as much of a bind in the world of the unicorns as they are for the horses!
The challenge we face is ensuring that any processes we have add value not remove it. The world is moving at an ever increasing pace, the importance of processes has never been greater – yet they need to evolve into leaner, fewer, simpler beasts if they are to help not hinder.
Please note that this post was orginally posted on LinkedIn
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