Andrew Wood
Technical Operations & Engineering Leadership
I lead technical delivery for a UK managed service provider, running second and third line support across cloud, data, connectivity, unified communications and workplace platforms.
I have grown into leadership over 13 years, from systems engineer to head of function, and I stay hands-on in third-line escalations and major incidents where it matters most.
Most of my work sits on the seam between project delivery and live service, and on using data and automation to move support from reactive to proactive.
1 Technical Operations On time
Calling at: Cloud, Data, Connectivity, Unified Comms, Workplace
Experience spotlight
Case study, Managed services
Proactive problem management across a managed customer base
Led In production Designed the process, took it to senior leadership and embedded it with my team leads
Insights and thoughts
AI policy
A policy written in 2023 for basic chatbots has very little to say about an agent that can read a ticket and query a monitoring API. So it says no.
Case study, Personal project
Pantheon: an open-source AI governance kit
Led In active development My own open-source project, published under the MIT licence
Case study, Personal project
This site: a CV that checks its own claims
Led Live A personal project built out of curiosity, designed and maintained by me with AI-assisted coding
Insights and thoughts
Ticket data
Ticket data is a good record of the work that fits neatly into a ticket. A lot of what keeps a service running doesn't.
Case study, Retail and distribution
Ransomware recovery for a national distribution business
Co-led Complete Led the technical recovery workstream alongside the major incident manager
Insights and thoughts
The wrong targets
A team can hit every target it's given and still be measuring the wrong things. Goodhart's Law applies to service desks too.
Insights and thoughts
Automation and headcount
Pitch automation as a way to need fewer engineers and you lose the people who know where the real problems are.
Insights and thoughts
Patching when AI finds the bugs first
Bug discovery has been industrialised. A monthly patch cycle behind a slow approval queue was built for a slower world.
Insights and thoughts
Building with what you already have
You probably don't need a new platform to start using AI in service governance. You need the data you already have and someone willing to wire it together.
Insights and thoughts
Breadth
I don't have a wall of vendor certifications. I have a long career following problems from the routing table to the contract to the boardroom.
Insights and thoughts
Recruitment
A hiring freeze that lasts one quarter can leave an operational team short for most of a year. Budget for the recovery, not just the saving.
Insights and thoughts
When the plumbing makes the Ten O'Clock News
After every major outage the instinct is to buy more redundancy. For most mid-market businesses, the commercial case has to be made before the technical one.
Insights and thoughts
What railways got right about change control
A checkbox in a change ticket only proves that someone intended to be careful. An interlock is what stops the outage.
Insights and thoughts
Rewarding the quiet
In managed services, a flat ticket graph can leave a finance director wondering what they're paying for. Service reviews should make prevention visible.
Insights and thoughts
Where managed services is heading
Managed services is splitting in two: low-margin generalists selling reactive tickets, and specialist partners selling operational resilience.