The first phase of implementing Visible Ops is Stabilize The Patient and Modify First Response. This first order of business intends to reduce our amount of unplanned work significantly, to 25% or less, to allow our organization to focus on more than just firefighting. When the environment is stabilized, efforts can instead be spent on proactive work that stops fires before they start.

The chapter, like all chapters in Visible Ops, begins with an Issues and Indicators section, describing the issues with both a formal statement and a narrative example. The issues are familiar to anyone in IT, from how self-inflicting problems create unplanned work to the inconvenient, but predictable, timing of system failures during times of urgency. The narrative example provided helps to relate the formal statement to the experiences we all share.

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