Blend Approach of IT Service Management and PMBOK for Application Support Project

Transcription

1 Blend Approach of IT Service and PMBOK for Application Support Project Introduction: This paper addresses the process area, phases and documentation to be done for Support Project using Project and ITSM approach. The approach can be applied for the application support. The application may include the ERP package, Interface and other legacy application for Job schedule monitoring, Idocs & Interface monitoring and resolution of tickets (incident & Service request). The approach can be applied for Onsite-Offshore model type of project. Project Phase & Lifecycle: This section describes the phase of application support project and the trend of project metrics parameter. Initiation - Initiation phase starts with the introduction of team members in the project. The Initiation starts with project kick-off. In this phase, the project manager scopes the volume of work (Scope ), and defines & assigns the roles and responsibility of team (HR and Communication ). Initiation starts with the definition of business objective and assessment of current infrastructure to know the scope of application support (ITSM). Service Delivery Plan and Service Plan defined to achieve the business objective. Planning Planning is a major part of the project. Because it involves the doing something that has not done before. Amount of planning is dependent on the project scope of the project. This is a part of ongoing effort throughout the life cycle. This involves planning for Project scope, Project Time, Transition, Cost, Risk, HR, Quality, Communication and Procurement /contract (if project involves the procurement from 3 rd party), Communication from PMBOK. This involves Service Delivery Planning, Service Planning and Security from ITSM standards. This phase also includes the SLA development and agreement from IT service perspective. Transition - Transition phase consists of three phase namely 1 st phase is Knowledge transfer from the current team to the new support team 2nd phase is parallel support/analysis of the application 3rd phase is independent support by the new team. In 3rd phase, the old team should ensure the independence of team. This phase is a very the critical phase for the project and project success depends on this phase. This phase resembles the administrative closure of Communication in PMBOK when phase is being terminated after achieving the objectives. This phase signifies the start of the operations and end of project. Here, project transits from one application support team to the other team. The understanding level and deliverables from the first team should be ensured and 1

2 documented in transition plan. Lessons learned should be documented during this phase as historical information for other application support projects. Operation - Support go-live Support go-live phase precedes the application maturity phase. Here, application support is started by the support group. This phase signifies the operation phase and day to day jobs. IT Service will be applicable in this phase. Service Delivery Plan and Service Plan should be made for day to day support based on the scope and service level agreement (SLA) with the customer. Phase Characteristics: o Immature application o New team o Low productivity o High critical incidents related to downtime Maturity During maturity phase, application has less number of incidents. Team has gained knowledge of the system landscape. Known error will be around 60% - 80%. Critical incidents will also go down. Less down time will be faced in the maturity phase. Predictability of the application goes up and team productivity also goes up. Phase Characteristics: o Mature application o Relatively old team o High productivity o Less critical incidents Controlling Application support project performance must be monitored and measured regularly to identify the variances from the plan. Variances are fed into the control processes in the various knowledge areas as per the IT Service and PMBOK for review of the plan, if significant variance is found. The review should be periodic (Monthly, Quarterly, Annual etc.) based on the business demand with the internal stakeholders (Project Team and Senior in the company) and external holders (Client and 3 rd party). Controlling also included taking preventive action to avoid future problems and alignment of the plan with the goals of an organization. Closing Application is not closed as it is converted into the operation late on and project continues indefinitely unless it is to be handed over to the other support team. But, phase closure is done for transition and other deliverables during the operation. Knowledge documents and project documents should be updated continuously. Learning should be recognized and documented during the project for future projects or phases. Following Line Graph shows the relative Resource requirement, Productivity, Downtime and Application predictability trend, not to the scale, during different application support phase. Controlling and closing phase is not taken as it is done simultaneously during the Transition and Operation phase (Support Go-live & Maturity). 2

3 Trend Chart Relative Value Resource Productivity % Downtime Application Predictabillit y Initiation Transition Support Go-live Maturity Category Following Table shows the phase and Activity of the application support projects. This also shows the applicability, of PMBOK and ITSM standards, during the different support project phase and activity: Phase Activity What PMBOk Says Initiation Project Initiation Project Initiation authorizes the project or phase. What ITSM Says ITSM starts with the assessment of the current state of infrastructure and the definition of business goals. Then, Service plan is designed to fill the gaps. Remarks Planning Resource planning for Project Team and Infrastructure Schedule Development for Project phase, Transition phase and Go-live support and maturity phase Resource Time Capacity planning Cost planning, Quality planning & Risk planning Cost, Quality & Service Delivery Planning - Financial Planning and 3

4 for service delivery, SLA and service continuity Risk Budgeting for IT services, Service Level, Business Continuity, Security and IT Availability Operation Configuration, Change, Release, Incidents, Problems Transition Transition Planning - Knowledge Transfer Planning and Scheduling, - Infrastructure Building Plan Transition Execution - Knowledge transfer - Parallel Support - Independent Support Transition Control - Assurance of proper knowledge transfer, Hard copy/soft copy of Transition is very critical for the application support project. Completion of this phase should be assured by the senior of the client organization/service provider for successful delivery in future. 4

5 project document and for the full project scope - Checklist audit Operation - Support Golive Service delivery plan and service support plan execution Service delivery plan and service support plan comes under the purview of ITSM standards. Project Plan execution PMBOK Project Plan Execution Risk Plan Execution for business continuity, availability and security PMBOK addresses through the Risk IT continuity and availability plan address for any application risk Information Distribution of the SLA achievement, Application Availability, Incident volume etc. Team members Development/Roll outs/induction PMBOK addresses through the Information distribution (Communication ) HR IT Service addresses through the Metrics reporting and Business Relationship Contract execution Procurement - Maturity Same as Go live Phase Same as Go live Phase Same as Go live phase Activity is similar in maturity phase as of Go live support except the focus of Problem 5

6 . Controlling PMO Review - Call volume by severity and priority - Application Availability PMO review addresses the review of the project. The metrics should be different than the project (PMBOK). IT Service metrics fits more for application support. - Problem Initiative - Change metrics - Release Metrics - Application Downtime - Risk Monitoring and control - SLA Metrics SLA Review for scope, resource requirements and cost SLA review not defined in the PMBOK. IT Service addresses the SLA component. Quality Metrics capture and review Closing Project transition phase closure Administrative closure (Communication ) addresses through phase closure. Application support project is converted into the operation after transition. Therefore, project closing is not required. However, Administrative closure is to be done for the project phase. 6

7 Process Areas: This section describes the process areas of ITSM standards and PMBOK standards that is applicable for application support project. ITSM Process Area: ITIL Service Processes can be broken down into 2 core groups with Security as an independent process. ITSM process area is applicable for support projects during Support go-live and application maturity phase. ITIL Service Processes first group is called Service Support. Configuration Configuration covers the identification of all significant components within the IT Infrastructure and recording details of these components in the Configuration Database (CMDB). This area is addressed by PMI process area also. Change Change covers the process of IT Change for all types of Change, from the Request for Change, to assessment, to scheduling, to implementing, and finally to the review. PMBOK covers this through Integrated Change Control Release Release is very closely linked with Configuration and Change, and undertakes the planning, design, build, and testing of hardware and software to create a set of release components for a live environment. Incident The primary goal of the Incident process is to restore normal service as quickly as possible following loss of service, and to minimize the adverse impact on business operations, thus ensuring that the best possible levels of service quality and availability are maintained. Problem The goal of Problem is to minimize the adverse impact of Incidents and Problems on the business that is caused by errors within the IT Infrastructure, and to prevent recurrence of Incidents related to these errors. Service Desk The Service Desk differs from the other main areas of Service in that it is not a process but is the central point of contact for Customers to report difficulties, complaints or questions. ITIL Service Processes second group is called Service Delivery. Service Level Service Level is the processes of planning, coordinating, drafting, agreeing, monitoring and reporting on Service Level Agreements (SLAs), and the ongoing reviewing of service achievements to ensure that the required and cost-justifiable service quality is maintained or where necessary improved. 7

8 Financial for IT Services Financial is concerned with three main processes of Budgeting, IT accounting and Charging. The financial planning and budgeting is also addressed by PMI standards. Capacity Capacity is the focal point for all IT performance and capacity issues. It is essential that Capacity has a close, two-way relationship with the business strategy and planning processes within an organization. IT Service Continuity IT Service Continuity is responsible for taking risk reduction measures to reduce the chances of major disasters occurring and for the production of an IT recovery plan which interfaces into the overall business continuity plans. Availability Availability is concerned with the design, implementation, measurement and of IT infrastructure availability to ensure the stated business requirements for availability are consistently met. ITIL Service Processes umbrella process is called Security. Security Security falls under the umbrella of Information security and focuses on the three main concepts of Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability. It is also far more than just technical security although this is one of the four key areas which form a layered approach. The other three are Organizational, Procedural and Physical Security. PMI Process Area: Project Initiation The project initiation phase consists of Kick off meeting, role and responsibilities clarification and introduction of the team members. This phase is followed by the Knowledge transition phase in case of support projects. HR HR consist of organization planning, team acquisition and team development. This process area is not addressed by IT Service. Therefore, application support projects following ITSM standards should take reference from PMBOK for HR. The resource requirement in case of unstable application is more than the stable application. Risk Risk deals with risk identification, Qualitative analysis, quantitative analysis, risk response planning and risk monitoring & control in detail. However, ITSM does not address the risk in detail except application infrastructure related risks, which is covered under Continuity. Therefore, HR, Scope, Quality and Schedule related risks should be covered by PMBOK for application support projects. Quality Quality deals with the quality planning, quality assurance and quality control for the project. Quality is not addressed exclusively by the ITSM 8

9 standards. Therefore, quality should be dealt with PMI standard for the application support projects. Communication Communication deals with the communication planning, Information distribution, performance reporting and administrative closure in PMBOK. ITSM standards also address the communication area. But, it does not address the communication planning in detail. Therefore, application support projects can use the communication planning from PMBOK. Time - Time deals with the project schedule development, execution and control. This may not be applicable in details for the application support projects as the application support projects require the deployment of personnel throughout the period and is a type of operation as defined by PMBOK. The work comes in the form of service request/incidents/application monitoring to the service provider from the client. Scope Scope deals with the Project Initiation, Scope planning, scope definition, scope verification and scope change control. ITSM also address the project scope and this process area is required for application support project during the initial phase of the project. Transition Project transition is not addressed by the ITSM and PMBOK. However, Transition is required for the application support project during the initial phase for knowledge transfer and application hand over from one support team to the other. This can be subdivided into the transition planning, execution and control. The complexity of transition planning is dependent on the size of application to be covered by the support project. This is the critical phase of the application support project. Benefits: Matured application Predictive Infrastructure Cost effective and high productivity SLA achievement Conclusion & Recommendation: Projects dealing with application support should adopt the blended approach of PMBOK and ITSM (as suggested in this paper) for better delivery. This will generate the extra mileage in terms of application maturity and cost effectiveness. It will also improve the SLA achievement and customer satisfaction. 9