The ability to effectively transition deployments into production is the greatest determinant of up-time within an IT organization. Transitioning deployments is not just Change Management. It is the ability to plan, test, deploy, and transition the service to Service Operations. A shortcoming in one of these areas will impact the way your business stakeholders view IT.
Service Transition encompasses Change Management, Configuration Management (CMDB), Release and Deployment Management, and several other processes and practices. This is one area of every IT organization where there is real risk. Most outages and downtime are created from improperly planned or executed changes and releases or the CMDB has incorrect information. In a time where most IT infrastructure has ample redundancy, there is minimal risk of failure outside of new deployments.
We have a practice that specifically addresses Change Management, but the ability to view it in the larger context adds value. It is more than just implementing changes into production. Change Management will ensure the change is tested (with approvals), deployed at the best time for the business stakeholders, meets regulatory controls, and does not collide with any other changes. Our practice includes process design, methodology, Change Advisory Boards, strategic change freezes, regulatory navigation, and – most importantly – up-time of services supporting business applications.
Configuration Management (CMDB) is another practice we have extensive experience. The CMDB identifies and documents the relationships that support the services, both business and infrastructure. Configuration Management and Change Management must be similarly mature. The CMDB helps Change Management understand the impacts of every change.
Release and Deployment Management is the ability to plan, schedule, and deploy changes in a methodical and uneventful manner. Service Management Leadership can help with everything from documenting the process to initiating the full process. It is more than planning releases. It goes all the way through deployment to early production support to transitioning to Service Operations. This is a strategic practice for all IT organizations.
Service Management Leadership has a strong and mature Asset Management practice, including both Hardware Asset Management and Software Asset Management. It is discussed in-depth on the IT Asset Management practice page. Hardware Asset Management includes full lifecycle management of the asset. But it is Software Asset Management that can save every organization real money, and lots of it. This area is so vast that it rewards every level of investment.
The one area that ties all these practice areas together is the ability to measure effectively. Metrics are the key to understanding the success of changes, quality of documented relationships in the CMDB, planning, scheduling or deploying releases, and how they all fit together. One of the key tenets of ITIL is that the outputs of one process are the inputs of another. This is true in ITIL4 and ITILv3. The success of one process or practice is dependent on another. This success must be measured.
We bring decades of experience in helping organizations increase the controls in the IT environment while still adding speed-to-delivery for the business customers. It starts with impeccable release planning and scheduling – scaled for your organization – and ends with a well-deployed change at a time best for the business customer. Ensuring the CMDB has correct Configuration Item (CI) data is the beginning and it ends with strong processes to keep everything up-to-date. Our expertise covers both BMC Remedy and Helix and ServiceNow toolsets.
If your organization is struggling with deployments and changes, Service Management Leadership can help, whether the issue is process or training. Contact us today for an initial consultation.