How do IT teams typically spend the majority of their time?

Question

Options

• Adoing ongoing maintenance tasks
• Bcreating new apps
• Clearning about next-gen technologies
• Dworking on innovation initiatives

• A
  89% (17)
• B
  5% (1)
• C
  5% (1)

Explanation

IT teams are overwhelmingly consumed by ongoing maintenance - patching systems, resolving incidents, managing infrastructure, handling tickets, and keeping existing applications running. This "keeping the lights on" work routinely accounts for 60–80% of IT budgets and staff time in most organizations, leaving little room for anything else.

Why the distractors are wrong:

• B (creating new apps): Building new software is a relatively small portion of IT work; most effort goes toward maintaining what already exists.
• C (learning next-gen technologies): While important, formal learning time is typically limited and often deprioritized under operational demands.
• D (innovation initiatives): Innovation is aspirational for most IT teams but is crowded out by the maintenance burden - this tension is actually a core reason why DevOps and automation practices exist.

Memory tip: Think of the IT team as a car mechanic shop - most of the day is oil changes and repairs (maintenance), not designing new vehicles (innovation). The "run the business" work always beats the "change the business" work for time share.

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