Operations fail by focusing on tool rather than technique!
In context of information technology, with all primary operations like Systems administration, Patching and updating, Backup and replication, Malware protection…and all related sub-tasks, focus on Tools is an enemy of the process!
Defining, developing or choosing a technique in advance is crucial to an IT operation. Then finding a tool to do whatever the technique is dictating, not vice versa. Techniques are also backed up and rationalize by objectives and policies but that is out of scope of this article.
Techniques → Tools
That is the right flow chart: reaching device, gadget, program, software, application, script…or anything like that only after knowing the method or routine. In other words, we need to define the way we want to do something (process) and what is required (features) and then go after shopping or writing a code to handle that.
Many IT operations fail due to doing this simply in reverse direction: finding a tool just by searching the Subject and then refine the “forced” process based on what tool is dictating, not what we were expecting. Well, sometimes there is no expectation at the first place which is sign of a immature IT practice but that is also behind this short article.