Re: Sunny when it is working
"and which the business places no value on until things go wrong"
The only way to find out whether everyone still employed knows how to rebuild the system, is to provide them with an opportunity to do it. (It needn't be the actual system. You can let them assemble a clone.) Of course, that's expensive, but that is the cost of finding out whether the proposed efficiency drive is safe. My guess is that if that cost was included in the business case for the efficiency drive, the case would disappear.
Taking the argument a step further, it is easily seen that it isn't safe to let any of your staff go until you have reached the point where the system can be rebuilt by script. That's going to be an unpopular conclusion within management circles, but its unpopularity doesn't mean it is wrong.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
