It’s your software asset, not ours. Whenever possible, we set up systems with you as the owner and LOFT as administrator. You’re not locked-in, and you can’t get locked-out, so you have maximum flexibility and control.

There’s a lot of talk about “makers” – the people who create software. There’s not as much about the ones who monitor (“minders”) and the ones who fix things when they break (“menders”). You need all three – but not necessarily at the same time.

Minders and menders have different mindsets, skillsets, and processes. It’s an accidental setup to ask makers to do minder and mender work. They usually hate it (that might be putting it mildly…) and having specialized systems nearly always leads to better outcomes.

We’re not big sports fans. But, we notice something about teams that win. They’ve got documented processes and they follow them regularly. They’ve also got strong “on-the-ground” leaders who can make informed calls when they need to. Software maintenance and support is better with playbooks.

Nobody likes endless escalations. They’re solving the wrong problem. Real, actual help should never be more than two people away. An escalation is a two person process – just two. The person working with you, and the person with the extra skills to solve the problem.

You should see the status of your requests. All the time. Track your requests from start to finish with no secret coding caves.

It’s impossible to trust people you don’t know. You should know the people who are maintaining and supporting your company’s most important software. Your company’s success depends on it.

No software system or maintenance process is ever going to be perfect. It’s better to focus on dealing with the unexpected and using that experience to make better software and systems.