Knowing When You Have a Broken IT Environment
If you're storing documents in shares on file servers *and* in Sharepoint (or whatever portal product you have), you have a broken environment.
If you have some computers patched automatically, and others not, you have a broken environment.
If you rely on Automatic Updates, you have a broken environment.
If any of your regular users have local admin rights, you have a broken environment.
If you have IT staff logging on routinely with elevated rights, you have a broken environment.
If your first reaction to accomplishing a new task is *always* to write a script, you have a broken environment.
If it takes you more than an hour to reload a desktop or laptop with a "standard" setup, you have a broken environment.
If you don't have a "standard setup", you have a broken environment.
If you don't have a documented procedure for rebuilding your entire network from a catastrophic failure, you have a broken environment.
If you don't have regular, scheduled backups of system state data for Active Directory domain controllers, as well as every one of your critical member servers, you have a broken environment.
If you haven't tested a complete system/site recovery from backups for your database servers, web servers, domain controllers, and SMS/SCCM/SCOM servers within the past 12 months, you have a broken environment.
If your IT staff walks around the office wearing vendor logo clothing, you have a broken environment.
If one of your IT staff tries to convince management to allow Apple Xserver products into your Windows-based data center, you have a broken environment.
If your critical servers are not properly setup for fault tolerant disks, you have a broken environment.
If your users are saving business critical files on their desktops and laptops, you have a broken environment.
If you're not using at least "some" form of virtualization for at least some of your servers, you have a broken environment.
If your business relies on sharing spreadsheets among more than five users per file on a daily basis, you have a broken environment.
If you can't lay your hands directly on all of your software license docs in one place, at the same time, you have a broken environment.
If more than 1/4 of all your purchased laptops sit on desks overnight, on average for any given night, you have a broken environment.
If your users "lock" or power off their computers every evening, rather than logging off, you have a broken environment.
If you schedule anti-virus and anti-malware scans during normal working hours, you have a broken environment.
If your users aren't "forced" to change their passwords on a controlled interval, you have a broken environment.
If you don't have a detailed plan of what you would do to recover from your data center burning down (literally), you have a broken environment.
If you have more than 4 members in the "Domain Admins" user group (or "Enterprise Admins"), or if you have any permanent members in the "Schema Admins" group, you have a broken environment.
If you discovered more than two issues as a result of reading this cheesy shopping list, you have a broken environment.