Time-critical, unplanned work
caused by IT disruptions continues to plague enterprises around the world,
leading to lost revenue, significant employee morale problems and missed
opportunities to innovate. In fact, more than 81% of respondents agreed that
urgent, unplanned work keeps their company from focusing on key objectives.
These are just some of the key findings from a
study of more than 500 IT professionals released
today by
PagerDuty,
Inc., a global leader in digital operations management.
The global study, conducted by
Dimensional Research, also found that almost half of participants said their
organizations experience major technology issues at least once a month. In
addition, 40% of North American respondents said their issue resolution process
is entirely manual, and customers worldwide are discovering major issues before
tech teams become aware.
"Today, every company is a software
company with customer experience determining your success. Delays, outages or
any form of downtime are unacceptable and redirect teams away from innovation
projects. The downside of this is lost productivity, revenue and brand equity,"
said Jonathan Rende, SVP of Product at PagerDuty. "Compounding the situation is
the fact that ensuring a perfect customer experience is very difficult.
Complicated ecosystems, lack of time and resources and changing consumer
behaviors create huge complexity for developer and IT teams. It's very
difficult to plan for every possible situation that could arise which means
many companies are on the back foot when something needs urgent attention."
One of the most striking findings
in the report shows that 62% of IT professionals in North America spend more
than 100 hours each year on disruptive, unplanned work. "Based on the average
IT team size of six to eight people for a mid-market company, you're looking at
nearly two days a week spent on firefighting and dealing with time-critical
unplanned work. This leaves little time for innovation or working on the
projects that matter, consistently."
Unplanned work also surfaced as a
major factor in employee unhappiness, particularly in North America. While
nearly one in every five employees worldwide said they would leave their
positions as a result, nearly three-quarters (72%) of North American
respondents said unplanned work impacts their work-life balance, compared to
55% in APJ and 49% in EMEA.
"Unplanned, time-critical work is
unavoidable. How you prepare for it makes a huge difference. You need to take
an automated approach so that when unplanned work arises you can bring together
the right people with the right information in real-time. This is what allows
identifying and resolving issues in minutes and seconds, not hours. It also
means your teams are freed up to focus on innovation and fueling your company's
competitive edge," concludes Rende.
For more information about the
State of Unplanned Work Report download the summary and reports here: