IT Management
Surviving an IT disaster
Just the thought of an IT crisis can give some people sleepless nights. Here, Jamie Wilson, chief technology officer at Novatech outlines some tips to stay in control when disaster strikes.
W
e live in a culture that views successes as being worthy of the spotlight and failures as
things that shouldn’t be spoken about. You only need to spend a few minutes scrolling through LinkedIn to see that most posts are celebratory in nature – an award win, a newly earned certificate, attendance at a prestigious event, a client win, a new job – the list goes on. In many ways there’s nothing wrong
with that – it’s great that we can share our successes. But why don’t we feel as comfortable sharing our mistakes or misfortunes? Te same few minutes spent scrolling through LinkedIn will
show up few, if any, posts where people admit they ‘made a mistake today’ or ‘an IT disaster had me pulling my hair out.’ And yet every one of us makes mistakes – it’s part of what makes us human.
The benefits of a flaws-and-all culture Nurturing a culture of being honest about crises and errors, I believe, would be beneficial to the IT industry. It is a fact of life that at some point things do go wrong. Sometimes very wrong. Hiding problems or convincing ourselves that it’s ‘not that bad really’ only serves to worsen the impact. And isn’t the old adage ‘we learn from our mistakes’ true? According to a study by the University of Chicago Booth School
24 | June 2023
of Business, perhaps not. Researchers found that people learned more from their successes than from their own mistakes. Researcher Ayelet Fischback said: “It’s a matter of self- esteem. It doesn’t feel good to fail, so people tune out.” However, the study also showed that people learned just as much from other people’s failures as from others’ successes. So, when failure doesn’t dent our own ego, we are able to learn from it. If we can swallow our own pride and open
up about our failures, then we can help other people, and the industry as a whole, learn and follow best practice. In my opinion, it’s the responsibility of senior IT professionals to
lead by example and encourage everyone in the team to speak up when things go wrong, removing any blame and focusing on the fix and how to ensure the same issue doesn’t reoccur. Tey might stop short of publicising this on social media, but even internal openness should lead to a quicker and more cost-effective remedy with minimal damage. Te aerobatic team of the British Royal Air Force, Te Red
Arrows, has an approach from which the IT industry could learn a great deal. In fact, their survival is based on the trust they have in their teammates. Aſter every practice they hold a debrief in which errors are examined. Even if the error was made by the most experienced pilot, egos are intentionally put aside, and they look to understand and focus on ensuring the same thing doesn’t happen again.
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