Consultants love debating libraries. Floors need a name on a whiteboard.
The ownership question
Before we discuss where a job will run, we ask: who gets the alert at 05:40, and what do they do if the job did not finish? If the answer is “IT somehow,” the automation is not ready for production — even if the script is elegant.
A workable pattern
- Ops names a process owner (often a supervisor or senior coordinator).
- IT provides a safe place to run the job and a way to rotate credentials.
- The consultant documents both roles in the run sheet.
This pattern shows up again and again in our Python Ops Automation Reviews. The technical choices matter; they are rarely the first missing piece.