Good tools can survive great "culture"
Culture rots. It’s perfectly normal and to some degree not preventable.
It rots because it’s an honor system, and honor systems are only as strong as the participants.
Above the clouds of responsibility
There is an invisible caste system in many orgs, and ops is at the bottom of it. The euphemism “Ops problem” has survived every re-org I’ve experienced.
Watching the players at higher levels in the system feign ignorance about who will end up holding the bag can be maddening, because the answer is always the same. Ops.
They’re not lying. They’re just too far up to see it.
What makes great ops tools
Good tools make no apologies or concessions to culture as a thin veil over lack of power.
Identity is on the resource itself, not waiting around for a manager to bless it.
The vendor’s actual customer is the one signing the check.
What can we do?
We can build.
Tools that give us maximum leverage over identity and ownership are a good start. Leverage that doesn’t need anyone above the clouds to notice, let alone approve.