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This article is part one of a three part series on applying the martial arts concept of zanshin to the information technology sector.

In the martial arts world, there is a concept called zanshin. It’s defined as a state of readiness and alertness to meet an opposing attack. How does this apply to the IT world? While physical attacks are rare in the IT environment, other opposing forces such as economics, resource availability, competition, and hackers do come into play and need to be addressed. An IT organization that is fully aware of its environment and processes is better prepared to meet challenges when they arise. The three major facets of IT zanshin are configuration and change management, service monitoring and metrics, and business continuity and disaster recovery. Each of these by itself is a major work effort to be done correctly, but well worth the investment.

Configuration and change management are the foundation for the other aspects of IT zanshin. Configuration management involves taking inventory, documenting configurations, and identifying relationships. Extending beyond a simple inventory of hardware, software, and processes, the configuration management system must tracks relationships between each of the items. All of this takes time and is often ignored. When new hardware arrives on the dock, everyone’s first instinct is to unbox and start building systems. An IT organization that utilizes configuration management can reap the benefits of standardization and streamlined deployments.

Implementing change management processes of creates grumbles and mutterings from system administrators and developers who are forced to work with the newly established procedures. They’ll claim that collecting their approvals will actually slow them down, and they won’t be able to make those already aggressive release dates. Change management is not implemented to stop an organization from moving forward. It’s meant to capture changes in the environment, make sure that they are properly vetted, and ensure that the outcomes are expected. A successful change management process will also help communications to staff and customers. Why are we suddenly getting helpdesk calls about application X? Who authorized the shutdown of that server? It’s all in the change management system. There should be no surprises. After all, key people are involved in the process.

Recommendation: Implementing configuration and change management systems does always high dollar expenses. IT needs vary greatly between organizations. Start by building documentation repositories and implementing an open source tool like iTop or i-doit. With simple open source tools, IT organizations can gain exposure to the concepts without the license costs.

Data from configuration and change management systems are the building blocks of service monitoring and metrics. It’s very difficult to properly monitor and measure services without know what all the component pieces are and how they are related. While not very glamorous, the benefits to an IT organization well outweigh the cost and time to create such critical foundation.

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