Me: “My system connects to this dns host name (file.system.com) to transfer the banking details of customers each morning at 7am. Can you (the server engineer of file.system.com) take a look at it for me please.”
Server Engineer: “……Right, what do you want me to look at?”
Me: “(Banging head on the desk)”
I’ve been in these conversations and situations sooo many times, it’s not funny 🙂
This rule has made me a better IT professional today and prove to snr leaders my ability to exert my knowledge and skills in the workplace. In some cases, I’ve made people more advance than me look like amateurs. I’ve been proud of these moments. I want you to have this skill and moment as well.
Below are my tips on creating your 10% rule
- Learn your application or system thoroughly
- Ask existing developers, L2 and L3 teams, Snr leads, people that used to support the application / system, every connection, hop, relationship of the app / system.
- You need to know where, when and how your app connects to other apps and systems.
- Once you have obtained these connections, hops and relationships of your app document it!
- Refer to an example on how I might document connections, hops and relationships. Refer to the table example below,
- Ask existing developers, L2 and L3 teams, Snr leads, people that used to support the application / system, every connection, hop, relationship of the app / system.
| Ticket number | Problem statement and summary | Resolution | Other |
| Ticket123 | Server ABC was offline between 4am-5am – It was offline because after patching, no one bothered to check if it was running | – Log into Server ABC — IP address: 192.168.0.111 – Run status command to check state of Server ABC | Check Server DEF as it needs Server ABC to be online as well for an external file transfer job |
| Ticket456 | Client app returning ‘Host unavailable message’ | – Run nslookup 192.168.1.111 to confirm if client app is able to reach Host – If unable to reach call Server manager of ‘Host’ | This is the path of the Client app to Host server – Client app Ip (10.192.168.1) > AWS Load Balancer IP (68.01.2.562) > Host app (192.168.1.111) – Note to self. Make sure you have a diagram on this. – Also, who looks after the AWS load balancer? Need to find out. Note to self. Fyi. |
| Ticket789 | Client calling due to login page not being available ☹ | – Check the UI, www.checkthisout.com.au — Is it up or not? – If it’s not up need to get client to speak to web team | – Web team contact — webteam@checkthisout.com.au — Ph: 13 89 56 – Escalation — Manager:1300 78 56 23 (Note to whoever is reading. The numbers are made up. Please don’t try calling the numbers above 😊 ) |
Summary:
- Build your 10% rule
- Learn other systems around what your support
- Document and learn at least 10% of these other systems
- Keep these documented privately and share to those around in your support team
- You want to prove you can expand your knowledge outside your domain
- Snr leads will pick up on this.
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One response to “The 10% rule… what is it!”
[…] Refer to my 10% rule post and the advantages it will provide, https://infotechmentor.com/2024/10/23/the-10-rule/ […]
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