How to Scope Your Enterprise CMDB Project Successfully: Big Vision, Baby Steps

©2008 Enterprise Management Associates

How to Scope Your Enterprise CMDB Project Successfully:

Big Vision, Baby Steps

Chris Matney

Consulting Director of IT Services

Enterprise Management Associates

[email protected]


About Enterprise Management Associates (EMA)

• Respected Research and Consulting Firm

• 100% Focused on IT Management

• A Wealth of Offerings for Enterprise IT:

• Comprehensive Research Library

• Tailored Guidance from Senior Analysts

• In-Depth Consulting Services

� IT Service Management (ITSM)

� Configuration Management Database (CMDB)

� Service Catalog

• Free Access to Informative Resources

� IT Management Solutions Center

� White Papers


Goals and Agenda

GOAL: Creating a practical primer to scope your enterprise CMDB project correctly

Understanding the CMDB system scope

Defining the CMDB at the ground level

AGENDA

• EMA’s Ten Minute CMDB Overview

• Setting the Scope

• Detailed Requirements Workshop

• The Value of Detailed Requirements – WHY?

• WHAT is a Detailed Requirement

• Writing Your Own Detailed Requirements – HOW?

• Categorizing Your Detailed Requirements

• Questions and Answers


EMA’s Ten Minute CMDB Overview

AGENDA













The CMDB at 100,000 feet



Pre-requisites to CMDB implementation

Interesting but not in scope for CMDB project


Another Look from 10,000 feet – Process View

Management Tools Business, Customers and Users

Service Desk

Incidents Queries Change Releases

IncidentManagement

ProblemManagement

ChangeManagement

ReleaseManagement

ConfigurationManagement

Service Reports

Incident Statistics

Audit Reports

Problem Statistics

Trend Analysis

Problem Reports

Problem Reviews

Diagnostic Aids

Audit Reports

Problems

Change Schedule

CAB Minutes

Change Statistics

Audit Reports

Release Schedule

Release Statistics

Release Reviews

Secure Library

Testing Standards

Audit Reports

CMDB Reports

CMDB Statistics

Policy/Standards

Audit Reports

Configuration Items

Incidents

Known Errors

Changes

Releases

Relationships


Fitting the CMDB within the ITIL framework

CMDB

Management Tools Business, Customers and Users

Service Desk

Incidents Queries Change Releases

IncidentManagement

ProblemManagement

ChangeManagement

ReleaseManagement

ConfigurationManagement

Service Reports

Incident Statistics

Audit Reports

Problem Statistics

Trend Analysis

Problem Reports

Problem Reviews

Diagnostic Aids

Audit Reports

Change Schedule

CAB Minutes

Change Statistics

Audit Reports

Release Schedule

Release Statistics

Release Reviews

Secure Library

Testing Standards

Audit Reports

CMDB Reports

CMDB Statistics

Policy/Standards

Audit Reports

Releases

Incidents

Problems

Known Errors

Changes

Releases

Configuration Items

Relationships


Setting the Scope

AGENDA













Top 10 Reasons Projects Fail

1. Staff Buy-In

2. Staffing and Budget

3. Detailed Requirements

4. Executive Management Support

5. Follow Through

6. Process

7. Managing Expectations

8. Resistance to Change

9. Integration

10. Auto Discovery

22%

16%

14%

12%

10%

7%

7%

6%

3%

3%


CMDB Expectations

Detailed Requirements tell you what the CMDB is going to do for you, and more importantly, what the CMDB is not going to do for you.


Setting the Scope

• Focus on CMDB core technologies

• Include:

• Automated discovery and application dependency mapping, if needed

• Don’t include:

• Pre-requisite monitoring

• High-level analytics

• Why?

• Boiling the ocean will cause loss of focus

� You have less than 6 months

• Number of detailed requirements will explode

• Total cost of ownership too high


Scope Costs


Detailed Requirements Workshop

AGENDA













Quotable Quotes

“We were throwing money willy nilly at our service assurance effort without rhyme or reason. We have reduced outages by 40% through our CMDB system, which has brought us 300% ROI in three

years.”-US Healthcare Services Provider

“Over the past three years, we’ve tied the CMDB into the change process, and then made sure that it would be

supportive of the financial processes and financial systems; and over the course of three years we successfully disputed

$2.5M out of a $9.0M spend.-US Managed Service Provider and Systems Integrator

“Our CMDB was an attempt to achieve world class availability and at the same time control costs. With $1M a minute in downtime for our whole ecosystem – and supporting 6,000 transactions a second – MTTR and downtime reduction is critical. We reduced MTTR by

70% through the CMDB.”-US Financial Services Provider


Detailed Requirements – A Definition

• A Detailed Requirement:

• Is understood by CIO and mainframe COBOL programmers

• Demonstrates value to the business

• Can be tied to Configuration Items (CI) in the CMDB schema

• Focuses on current business issues and information needed

• Focuses on data provided by multiple technology silos

• A Detailed Requirement is NOT:

• A list of CIs or resources to be managed

• A list of reports

• A Great Detailed Requirement:

• Can be assigned one or more measurable success metrics with defendable improvement and an annual savings target


Workbook Exercise

• In the space provided, write down a detailed requirement for your company

• Sniff test

• Is it understandable?

• Does it demonstrate business value?

• Can you think of data fields that would be use to capture the requirement?

• Would the data be found in different databases and tools in the company?

• Can you think of a success measurement to keep track of the requirement?

• Grades


Which of the following are good Detailed Requirements?

1. We need the CMDB to be able to validate firewall data on input against business rules.

NO: This is a feature of the CMDB technology

2. We need a better network database where firewall information is maintained.

NO: What business problem are you solving?

3. We need to decrease risk by 30% by reducing the number of outages due to change to our firewalls.

NO: This is a high-level requirement but need to be more specific


Detailed Requirements for the Acme Company


Return on Investment - Context

“Most IT organizations are willing to go forward with the CMDB

investment on softer grounds with respect to ROI. This fits in

with the CMDB’s role as a transformational enabler for culture,

process and organizational changes which can show strong

values, but for which the metrics are more difficult to define.”

EMA research report, “CMDB Adoption in the Real World: Just How Real Is It?


CMDB ROI


Detailed Requirements for the Acme Company


How Many Detailed Requirements?

• Less than 50

• Probably too high level

• Have you included lines of business?

• Are all technology silos represented?

• What about application development?

• More than 1000

• Probably too detailed

• Combine requirements that share common traits

• Just because you can gather data doesn’t mean you should

• 200 – 750

• Typical for EMA’s enterprise customers

• Living document – these will change

• Remember to focus on business value – not product features


Gathering Detailed Requirements

• Interview Process

• This will take several months

• Tips from the Trenches

• One-on-one interviews work best

• Start with the 10 Minute CMDB Overview

• Technologists can be hostile if they think you are taking their tools away

� Knowledge is power

• Remind the interviewee that this is not a quiz

• Listen well – you are asking for an opinion

• Guide the conversation to get to the detailed information you need – just like our exercise

• Include all requirements

� Prioritization will come later

� We need to define what the CMDB “is” and what it “isn’t”

• Grassroots support is critical – be honest, under promise and over deliver


Questionnaire

• Provide some context for those who are new to CMDB

• Ask each interviewee to bring 2-8 detailed requirements to the meeting

• The interviewee should focus on the business needs – WHY and WHAT?

• Visualization

• Process requirements

• The interviewer should focus on the CMDB – WHEN and HOW?

• Integration

• Systems of Record

• Don’t get bogged down in the details

• Follow-up calls, emails or meetings might be needed to get the details

• Prioritization is done later


Categorizing Your Detailed Requirements


Now What?

• With gathered, categorized and prioritized detailed requirements

• If the CMDB tool has not been selected, you now have your RFP

� Can the product meet the requirement?

� What additional software is needed?

� Is integration required to be successful?

� How is the requirement going to be met?

• If the CMDB software has been purchased, your CMDB implementation team should be ready to go

� Proof-of-concept around critical detailed requirements – GOOD IDEA

� Create the first six month roadmap

� Detailed requirements are the milestones

� Value proposition and metrics are known

� Grouping detailed requirements will determine if you go “narrow and deep” or “shallow and wide”

� Cookbook is ready for implementation


Detailed Requirements in Context

• Detailed Requirements

• Gathered from across the business

• Categorized

• Prioritized

• Made actionable for CMDB implementation

• Form the Foundation for Successful CMDB Projects

• Defines the CMDB at the ground level (0 foot view)

� Sets and manages expectations

• Roadmaps are based on milestones (remember the clock is ticking)

� Hardware and software purchases

� Staffing considerations

• Provide baseline success metrics and ROI estimations

• Creates the “Implementation Cookbook” to make sure the project is successful


Questions and Answers

AGENDA













Thank you for attending today’s presentation.

Questions and Answers

For more information on EMA, please contact:

Bruce Lehman at 303.543.9500 x112 or

[email protected]

How to Scope Your Enterprise CMDB Project Successfully: Big Vision, Baby Steps

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