Harness Configuration Management Superpowers

Build a CMDB around the IT services that are most important to the organization.

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Contributors

Brett Johnson, Senior Consultant, VMware
Yev Khovrenkov, Senior Consultant, Solvera Solutions
Larry Marks, Reviewer, ISACA New Jersey
Darin Ohde, Director of Service Delivery, GreatAmerica Financial Services
Jim Slick, President / CEO, Slick Cyber Systems

Your Challenge

Unplanned downtime is your nemesis. It is largely due to poor change management.
Large investment: Building a configuration management database (CMDB) takes a large amount of effort, process, and expertise.
Tough business case: Configuration management doesn’t directly provide value to the business, but it requires a lot of investment from IT.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

Configuration management (CM) will fail without people and process. It’s too easy to focus only on data and tools.
Start small. Scope creep is a serial killer of configuration management projects.
Train people on how to analyze the data. The value of CM comes from the knowledge it creates. Make it as easy as possible to generate that knowledge.

Impact and Result

Supercharge mission-critical IT services. Reinforcing a revenue-generating or high-priority IT system makes it easier to get buy-in from the business.
Empower core IT processes such as quality management, asset management, and service performance measurement. Configuration management is about more than just doing change management more effectively.
Harness the power of robots. Create a plan to automate CMDB data population – manually populating data is expensive, threatens accuracy, and forbids currency.

Start here – read the Executive Brief

Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should build a CMDB, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

1. Plan your configuration model

Follow Info-Tech’s approach to determining the scope of your configuration management project and to building a configuration management team.

2. Design your CMS and CMDB

Design the data model for your CMDB and build a plan to populate the data.

3. Define your configuration management roadmap

Build a roadmap for supporting your in-scope services in your CMDB, for supporting additional services, and for realizing the expected benefits.

Guided Implementations

This guided implementation is a nine call advisory process.

Guided Implementation #1 - Plan your configuration model

Call #1 - Identify current state and drivers.

Call #2 - Discuss required CM roles and processes.

Call #3 - Plan a working group.

Guided Implementation #2 - Design your CMS and CMDB

Call #1 - Design a data model.

Call #2 - Discuss discovery tools.

Call #3 - Design processes to maintain your CMS.

Guided Implementation #3 - Define your CM roadmap

Call #1 - Identify a realistic timeline.

Call #2 - Build an audit plan.

Call #3 - Build an organizational change and training plan.

Book Your Workshop

Onsite workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost onsite delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

Module 1: Assemble Your Team of Superheroes

The Purpose

Assemble a team of people under the helm of the super configuration manager.

Key Benefits Achieved

Agreed direction and scope for configuration management.

Activities

Outputs

1.1

Define key terms.

1.2

Agree on the scope of configuration management.

In-scope business-facing services
In-scope IT processes
Unified understanding of configuration management

1.3

Assess configuration management maturity.

Configuration Management Maturity Assessment results
Configuration management process goals
Critical success factors and key metrics

1.4

Define the role of configuration manager.

Configuration Management Policy
Configuration Manager Job Description

1.5

Identify the roles and responsibilities involved in supporting configuration management.

Configuration management responsibility matrix
Description of roles involved in configuration management

Module 2: Design the CMS and CMDB

The Purpose

Identify a structure for the CMDB, and develop an achievable, realistic plan for populating it.

Key Benefits Achieved

Designed configuration management data model and a plan to populate and maintain the CMDB.

Activities

Outputs

2.1

Map out the systems involved in core business-facing services.

Topology diagrams of in-scope business-facing services

2.2

Design a data model for these services.

Data model template
Mapping of in-scope services, applications, infrastructure, and systems into the data model
Identification of configuration items

2.3

Identify requirements for discovery tools.

List of requirements for a discovery tool

2.4

Create a data population strategy.

Data population strategy

2.5

Identify IT management processes that interface with configuration management.

List of interfacing IT processes

2.6

Define processes to maintain the configuration management systems.

Process workflows for a selection of interfacing IT processes
Configuration Management Standard Operating Procedures

2.7

Design dashboards and reports to aid with CMDB maintenance.

List of dashboards for managing the configuration management process

Module 3: Ensure That the CMDB Is Usable and Trusted

The Purpose

Design a campaign to get IT’s support and to squash bugs from your configuration management system.

Key Benefits Achieved

Define your auditing approach, develop a training plan, and identify a timeline for additional services.

Activities

Outputs

3.1

Identify next steps.

Tasks related to configuration management

3.2

Develop an audit plan.

Requirements for configuration management auditing
Timeline for auditing the CMS and CMDB

3.3

Identify required skills for configuration management.

3.4

Develop a skills acquisition plan.

Configuration management skills plan

3.5

Develop a communication plan.

Communication Plan
Configuration Management Project Charter

After each Info-Tech experience, we ask our members to quantify the real time savings, monetary impact, and project improvements our research helped them achieve. See our top member experiences for this Blueprint, and what our clients have to say.

Client

Experience

Impact

$ Saved

Days Saved

Testimonial

Lease Crutcher Lewis

Guided Implementation

8/10

N/A

Your Analyst was very helpful and also able to pivot through a difficult topic as we asked questions. Very knowledgeable. We are just exploring how to integrate CMDB / asset management onto our ITIL project.

Tufts Health Plan

Guided Implementation

8/10

$35,017

Tufts Health Plan

Guided Implementation

8/10

$31,833

HONDA NORTH AMERICA INC.

Guided Implementation

9/10

N/A

Best parts: Ken's knowledge and preparedness for every meeting. Helpful recommendations. Getting an unbiased opinion. Information Ken provided helped us ask better questions to the internal project team. Worst parts: That we can't internally incorporate some of Ken's recommendations.

University of Exeter

Workshop

8/10

$174K

The workshop was well run, with good facilitation, and gained participation from even the most difficult parts of the audience. The best part of the experience, was that if I were to find myself in the same position in the future, I would repeat the workshop.

Griffith University

Guided Implementation

10/10

$29,391

No worst part - all info was very valuable and was presented in a manner that was easy to understand - thank you!

Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP

Guided Implementation

8/10

N/A