Gartner: Zombies Drive Me To Go Out of the Box

InsightaaS: The Gartner Blog Network collects posts from across Gartner’s research community. In this post, Gartner research director Jeff Brooks delivers the first of what is positioned as a three-part series making an unlikely (if entertaining) connection between infrastructure and operations (I&O) and zombies. The passage below is from “How Infrastructure and Operations Caused the Zombie Apocalypse — A Fable about Immaturity and Poor Metrics (Part 1 — Setting the Stage).”

Part of being an analyst is trying to be a thought leader. Admittedly, there is skill in trying to think ahead of everyone else, and be enough steps forward that you truly are leading the way. In IT Operations though, many organizations continue to struggle with a lot of the basics of good IT. From metrics and good process, to integrated technologies and strong leadership, my clients are always looking for guidance for the many of the basics. One of the biggest topics I discuss is how to bridge the gap between what I&O does, and how that impacts the business.

A thought occurred to me to try and use an anecdote (as I often do) to paint the picture of the linkage between how important I&O is to the business. One thing led to another and instead of just one anecdote, it was decided that an anecdotal story, in the form of a fable might make a compelling way to provide this guidance.

I pitched the idea to the group to see if this was a worthy idea, and next thing I know, I am getting ready to put pen to paper. Things took a turn in a new direction when my colleague Jarod Greene says to me, sitting across the table at our annual Symposium and IT Expo Event, “You know what you should do Jeff, make the story about zombies!” Now as I think back, maybe Jarod was just messing with me, but not being one to shy away from a challenge, I decided that’s exactly what I would do.

I was even fortunate enough to enlist the help of another analyst Robert Naegle to help with this venture. From that point on, my Zombie research note was a reality…

Read the entire post: http://blogs.gartner.com/jeff-brooks/2014/03/21/zombies-drive-me-to-go-out-of-the-box/