Health is defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as: “A state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” (Preamble to the Constitution of the World Health Organization as adopted by the International Health Conference, 19-22 June, 1946). It is a fact of life that when we get older, our health declines. When we talk about health and aging, most people immediately think about the physical aspects of aging, but there is more to it.
Gerontology (from Greek: γέρων, geron, “old man” and -λογία, -logy, “study of”) is the study of the social, psychological and biological aspects of (human) aging. (Wikipeda)
By studying the various areas of the human aging process, researchers hope to find solutions for problems that arise from an increasing elderly population. There are many parallels between human aging and IWMS. However, the most important include:
1. IWMS health decreases when it ages
That extremely cool, high-tech, and very useful feature of 5 years ago, has lost its’ brilliance, and will be a burden soon. Without upgrades, updates, and patches your IWMS quickly becomes legacy software, and legacy software will die.
2. IWMS health consists of multiple determinants
In human health social, psychological and biological aspects together form the health triangle. In this triangle each determinant has a big influence on the other two determinants and on the overall health. Like human health, IWMS Health is also based on three major IWMS determinants; IT-infrastructure, Functionality and Organization. Each of the three determinants has a big influence on the other two, and the IWMS health as a whole.
For example; virtualization of the IT-infrastructure might have a very big influence on the IWMS health when the IWMS can’t handle virtualization.
Another example; your Chief Information Officer (CIO) decides to reduce the number of IWMS system administrators as he wants to outsource IT-staff. This might have a very big impact on your IWMS health when it concerns your IWMS system administrators. New people need to be trained in the IWMS specifications.
3. Achieving and maintaining IWMS health is an ongoing process
As with human health, lifestyle behavior highly impacts the IWMS health. For a healthy lifestyle it is important to exercise frequently, eat healthy, don’t smoke, and sleep enough. A healthy IWMS lifestyle consists of frequently updating your IWMS with patches, updates and upgrades.
It also includes reducing IWMS waste; or to declutter. An Integrated Workplace Management System is a strategic management tool and should be considered and treated as such. The more clutter you have in your IWMS, the lower the quality of your IWMS.
4. IWMS genetics are very important for the overall health
Like with human health, IWMS genetics are very important. Although you can live a very healthy lifestyle it doesn’t automatically implicate you’ll reach 100 years. An IWMS should be setup correctly from the start. Your IWMS needs to be ready for changes as these will come. Therefore your IWMS needs to be scalable and flexible.
Maximizing IWMS Health
So how can I maximize IWMS health?
Health care is very important for humans and IWMS. When conditions occur they must be addressed adequately. But more important, as with human health, focus should be on preventing conditions to occur. If you want to start improving your IWMS health, a regular preventative IWMS health check is the way to go. During the health check make sure you check the following:
IWMS Blood Pressure:
Is the IT-infrastructure still matching IWMS requirements in terms of database, network capacity, server memory size, latency, etc. If not, update these as soon as possible. A high IWMS blood pressure shouldn’t be too high too long as it increases the chance of a stroke (IWMS Crash) substantially.
Tip: My advice is to frequently evaluate your IT-infrastructure. You can best to these by comparing your infrastructure to the technical documentation of the IWMS vendor. Most vendors are more than happy to provide this.
IWMS Weight:
Being overweight or obese isn’t a cosmetic problem. It greatly raises the risk in humans for many diseases and conditions, some of which are life threatening. Your IWMS weight is exactly the same. During your IWMS health check analyze the actual usage of functionality. Do you actually use the functionality your have procured? Or, why not?
Tip: My advice is to frequently evaluate your actual IWMS usage. If you’re not using what you’ve procured find out why. Find out why the IWMS isn’t used as it was intended. Some processes will not be applicable anymore, make sure you start optimizing processes.
IWMS Family health history:
As with human health, family health history can be an indication for potential IWMS conditions.
Tip: If you become a member of a users´ group you can connect with people who can be of great assistance. These companies might have experienced problems, conditions using your IWMS solution.
Other Diagnostic Tests:
There are many diagnostic tests to support your regular IWMS checkup; however the best one is to actually go out there and talk to the people working with your IWMS. Both from a technical and a functional perspective, these people can indicate where your IWMS health is at danger and you should act.
Final Thoughts
Although preventative IWMS health checks can be very useful, they have no guarantee in overall survival rates of your IWMS. The more value your IWMS delivers, the more likely your IWMS will survive.
Resources
Preamble to the Constitution of the World Health Organization as adopted by the International Health Conference. (19-22 June, 1946). Official Records of the World Health Organization. 2, p. 100. New York: World Health Organization.
Wikipeda. (n.d.). Gerontology. Retrieved February 10, 2011, from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerontology
Health Check, IWMS