Each month the CM Journal provides original content articles and regular columns from industry thought leaders and software providers on a wide variety of configuration management and application lifecycle management topics.
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SCM Standards and Frameworks
Volume 8 - Number 4 - April 2010
 This month's CM Journal puts the focus on Industry Standards and Frameworks. I must admit that years ago I felt that standards were essentially a waste of time. Back then I felt that Standards were just a lot of verbose documentation that was too "ivory tower" to be useful. Then one day I was asked to put together a framework and approach for establishing a complete quality management system. This task - while enormously exciting- was way too complex for me to handle without the benefit of specialized expertise. In my journey to standards I discovered that there were high level standards that helped layout the structure and detailed low level standards that explained more information than you would ever care to know. My own lesson learned is that standards and frameworks are wisdom shared by other industry experts. Used in a pragmatic way, standards and frameworks will help you get the job done faster and better.
To help us get started Ben Weatherall gives us "Standards, Frameworks and the Little Guy" while Joe Farah provides "CM: The Next Generation of SCM Standards." My friend Joe Townsend tells us about "Picking SCM Standards or Frameworks" and Leslie Sachs gives us an interesting description of the "People Capability Maturity Model - A Framework for Managing People." Don't miss my "guaranteed to be controversial" column that picks up on a debate that I have been having with a colleague on "What's Wrong with Standards and Frameworks."
We take a look back at a column written by Jim Moore on "ISO/IEC/IEEE 12207 and 15288 - The Entry Level Standards for Process Definition" along with Susan Land's article on "Lean Six Sigma for Software Process Excellence." We also review Brad Appleton, Robert Cowham and Steve Berczuk's article on how "Transparency improves Governance" and Mario Moreira's "Framework for Evaluating and Implementing Standards."
Standards and Frameworks provide a considerable amount of wisdom to help you implement effective Configuration Management practices. You have come to the right place to get practical advise on how to successfully implement industry standards and frameworks!
Bob Aiello
Editor in Chief
CM Crossroads
raiello@acm.org
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Standards, Frameworks and the Little Guy
by Ben Weatherall
Standards are basically officially sanctioned statements of what must be done and Frameworks are basically officially sanctioned statements of when and how things must be done. Throughout the rest of this article I will be using the term “standards” to encompass both Standards and Frameworks since I will not be focusing on the details of either. That being said, both generally seem to mandate massive amounts of overhead, so much so that unless one is being paid to follow them, it seems to be impossible for the Little Guy (a company or team that actually qualifies as a small business) to follow them. Why then should the Little Guy even try to comply? What's in it for him?
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CM: The Next Generation of SCM Standards
by Joe Farah
One of the biggest problems with SCM standards is that the industry is currently too fragmented. Sure there are lots of ways to do things and plenty of "high level" standards out there. But as a whole the industry uses different terminology for the most basic concepts, and fails to understand that standards must go beyond "ability" and push the industry forward. I do like the "maturity" model as a framework for helping to move forward.
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Picking SCM Standards or Frameworks
by Joe Townsend
Picking a SCM Standard or Framework can be a daunting task, should you go with ITIL, CMMI, CMII, IEEE, and ISO or create a hybrid using pieces of each. Then you have the questions of compliance with edicts such as Sarbanes-Oxley to contend with and will your standard or framework lead you to compliance? There is also the issue of office politics when you have finally picked a framework or standard and the Quality Assurance group begins performing internal audits as you moved toward reaching the goals of the standard or framework you have chosen. Not only will some in the organization resist, the audits can expose managers and supervisors shortcomings to the organization. This can result in distrust of the auditors whether they have ulterior motives or not and make implementations more difficult.
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Personality Matters – A Framework for Managing People
by Leslie Sachs
Usually I write about the impact of Personality in process improvement. This month’s topic of Standards and Frameworks suggested that I discuss the impact of the SEI’s People Capability Maturity Model upon issues related to managing your most important resources – that is, people. Unfortunately, many organizations have failed to realize that managing and developing the right team is far more important than just the product and services that generate revenues. If you forget about your human resources then you probably won’t be in business for very long. That said, many otherwise successful technology professionals find it difficult to successfully manage human resources. This article describes an excellent framework developed by the SEI to help you establish effective people related best practices.
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Behaviorally Speaking – Standards and Frameworks
by Bob Aiello
One of my colleagues recently reacted to an article that I wrote about Getting Started with Configuration Management Databases (CMDB) with a strong rebuke suggesting that creating a industry standard to support ITIL v3 is useless. This gentleman is a published author and industry expert – especially in the field of IT Service Management. He is also not the first person to criticize the ITIL framework. Did the itSMF do a poor job when they wrote this framework? Of course, other technology professionals and industry experts have been highly critical of Cobit, CMMI and, of course, the ISO/IEEE/EIA standards as well.
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ISO/IEC/IEEE 12207 and 15288: The Entry-Level Standards for Process Definition - Part 1
by James W. Moore
“Expectations from IT just keep increasing every single day “– this is a point of view echoed by several CIOs across the organizations all over the globe. Newer developments in IT like Social Networking, Green IT, Virtualization, Shared Services, and Business analytics is are slowly changing the way in which businesses are run. It is no surprise to see the traditional manufacturing and automobile sectors looking at online media such as m-commerce, blogs, podcasts and twitter to be potential channels for business development. There are enough case studies to prove that the twenty- first century organizations would be largely influenced by advancements in information technology (IT).
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Lean Six Sigma for Software Process Excellence
by Susan Land
Can Lean Six Sigma provide adequate software process improvement support?
Lean Six Sigma requirements are showing up more frequently in the form of Department of Defense (DoD) requirements. The Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) and all of the Services have embarked on multiyear continuous process improvement initiatives based on Lean Six Sigma. Six Sigma places primary importance on customers, business results and statistical analysis while Lean principles aim to uncover and reduce waste and improve efficiencies. Lean also aims to make discoveries and targeted improvements. The implementation of both methodologies, Six Sigma and Lean, combining their techniques leverage the best in both models.
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Transparency improves Governance
by Brad Appleton, Robert Cowham and Steve Berczuk
This month we have a co-author Geoff Thorpe, who's background includes configuration management, test and performance work, most recently for the Royal Bank of Scotland. This article includes some of the material that Geoff presented at a recent BCS CMSG event.
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Framework for Evaluating and Implementing Standards
by Mario Moreira
As I was thinking about writing this article, a song came into my head, "War, what is it good for". Instead of the word ‘war', I sang, "Standards, what are they good for?" Is just having a documented standard enough or do we want to know that it is fully implemented? Do we want to understand the value of a standard and see if it is really being used to manage the organization? It is important to understand how to evaluate the standards that you have. Does your organization provide the building blocks for a successful implementation of a standard? With that being said, I hope to provide you with a framework that can help you answer these questions and help you evaluate and/or implement standards effectively.
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