Some of the famous last words in IT are, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” They define the two sides of a coin toss: one side keeps idle hands from causing problems messing with things that should be left alone, while the other side can often perpetuate ______ (software, hardware, processes…) that end up costing the company more to avoid dealing with them than a solution.

Examples include that server standing off in the corner of the data center hardwired with a mess of cables running some old application on an aging OS. You know the one. Maybe it’s that laser printer that has faded to that olive-tan color unique to vintage computing equipment. The one that with the toner you can only find on eBay. Sure the toner doesn’t last as long as it used to, but it’s fairly cheap. Right?

Writing in Information Week, Peter Waterhouse of CA says that running an outdated IT strategy and managing to the status quo is a recipe for IT disaster. To avoid the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it mentality,” Waterhouse suggests four things to keep in mind:

IT needs to watch over the business
IT touches all aspects of a company. IT strategists should use this vantage point to go beyond technical improvements to looking for wider processes and attitudes that might be broken.

Invest in continuous change
Successful businesses can remodel themselves when necessary. IT needs to enable the enterprise to be agile by being agile themselves.