Policy-based IT automation: the role of human judgment

Policy-based automation is emerging as a viable approach to IT systems management, codifying high-level business goals into executable specifications for governing IT operations. Little is known, however, about how policies are actually made, used, and maintained in practice. Here, we report studies of policy use in IT service delivery. We found that although policies often make explicit statements, much is deliberately left implicit, with correct interpretation and execution depending critically on human judgment.