1.6. Know Your Business

Whether you work for a large, multinational corporation or a small community college, you must still understand the nature of the business environment in which you work. This can be boiled down to one question:

What is the purpose of the systems you administer?

The key point here is to understand your systems' purpose in a more global sense:

• Applications that must be run within certain time frames, such as at the end of a month, quarter, or year

• The times during which system maintenance may be done

• New technologies that could be used to resolve long-standing business problems

By taking into account your organization's business, you will find that your day-to-day decisions will be better for your users. And for you.