It is 9.05am on a Wednesday morning. IT manager, Alan, just step into office and his phone rings.
“I can’t send an email for the last 10 minutes and customer is waiting this quote. You need to fix it in 5 mins!” demanded the voice on the other side.
Alan had plans to test a new web application but had to drop everything to address this downtime issue.
Every ten minutes, Alan phone rang and asking him if the problem has been fixed. First the call came from front desk, then it came from the account manager, followed by Alan’s boss and the cycled continued every ten minutes.
“Is it fixed yet?” was the common question when Alan picked up his phone. This was followed by “How long more till it is fixed?”.
Besides having to answer phones to reply the people frustrated by the IT downtime, Alan, the IT manager, has more reasons to hate IT downtime.
Damage To Personal And Corporate Reputation.
When IT end user is the alert system of IT downtime, the blame is often on the IT manager or the IT team on why IT isn’t working as it should when it is needed.
IT downtime is just not felt internally but can be indirectly be experienced by external parties. This is because IT is now essential communication tools between internal and external parties.
Everybody expects IT to work when they need it to work but will blame the IT team or individual when it doesn’t.
Time Lost To Fight Fires
When