Jon Pral has great list here of 85 Operaions rules to live by. Here are my top 5 from the list.
1. Know your bottlenecks and know how to spot them – every layer – know if you are blocking on disk, RAM, or CPU. It is usually that simple.
2. The value of a project manager, tech writer, and financial analyst in the ops organization should not be underestimated. They will more than pay for themselves.
3. Monitor EVERYTHING – alert on actionable only, record other for trend information.
4. Assign people to be point people for every bit of technology.
5. Do it right the first time. Rarely do you get the chance to go back and redo things. If you do, it comes at a very big cost to the company. Take the hit on work, the first go round.