The System Administrator must keep abreast of organizational needs and objectives as well as developments in technology and suggest possible enhancements or changes that could improve productivity and performance. The system administrator must ensure that the networked environment is reliable and serves the needs of the organization. Recommended practices include:

• Make technical decisions which support organizational needs; let the users make the final decision regarding software choices whenever possible - the System Administrator should act as a consultant in this decision-making process.
• Know your users and anticipate their needs. Focus on learning technologies which can support those needs.
• Look at long-term objectives when building the system.
• Understand all components of the system.
• Test all components of the system. In particular, test the back-up and recovery plan. Do not assume that any software or recovery plan will work unless it has been periodically tested.
• Know what the most critical components of the system are and monitor these components. Develop a recovery/contingency plan in case problems occur with these components and test this plan frequently.
• Document all components of the system so that another staff member could troubleshoot when the System Administrator is not available.