Technology Doesn’t Solve Problems. People Do.
This article explores why the tools a team adopts matter less than the problem they actually understand.
4 minute read
After more than 20 years in IT Operations, one lesson has remained constant: when a major outage happens, technology is usually only part of the problem.
The organizations that recover fastest almost always have three things in common: strong people, disciplined processes, and technology that supports both.
Right now, AI dominates almost every technology conversation. It’s a powerful tool, but in my experience, the first question shouldn’t be “Which AI should we use?”
What problem are we actually trying to solve?
The framework below summarizes the order of impact I’ve seen time and again during major incidents.
What would you add, or change, based on your own experience?
Technology doesn’t solve problems.
People do.
In any major incident, the order of impact is consistent.
People first.
Process second.
Technology third.
- Leadership
- Communication
- Decision-making
- Governance
- Playbooks
- Automation
- AI
- Monitoring
- Tools
Impact on how fast an organization actually recovers.
Before You Decide
A few questions worth sitting with honestly, not to answer perfectly, just truthfully:
- When the last major issue hit your team, did the first instinct look at people and process, or did it jump straight to blaming the technology?
- Is there a recurring problem your team keeps trying to fix with a new tool, without asking whether the real issue is how people work or how work is structured?
- Looking honestly at your last few incident recoveries, did people, process, and technology contribute in that order, or does technology get more credit and more blame than it actually deserves?
Continue Your Thinking
Get each new article as it publishes.
One email a week. Practical, specific, and short enough to actually read.