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Friday, 29 September 2006 |
So many thought and ideas....
I have, after many years, finally decided to commit some time to writing a book. I have often wondered what it takes to write a book; I guess I am about to find out. This blog will be both a record of my progress and a repeated appeal for help from the CM community.
Why am I writing this blog?
I am writing this blog for two reasons:
- I've always wondered what it was like to write a book and so in the interests of helping others like me I thought I would write about my experience in the hope that it will encourage other budding authors to try their hand at writing too.
- I know that sitting alone in my office at home I will begin to feel detached. I need people to help me thrash out ideas, clarify my thinking or the way I am expressing myself, and of course a little pressure to get the job done. Although I have colleagues I can call on to help with this I would like a wider community to help too, that's where you all come in.
Why am I writing a book?
Well, obviously I think I have something to say about the subject. I also have a fairly clear idea about how I want to approach the subject.
It has also been a long-time ambition of mine to write a book about CM.
I am finally in a position to take three or four months away from my business to get the book off to a good start. I'm under no illusions of how difficult a task this will be, nor how long it will really take to finish, but as the saying goes "Every journey starts with a single step", and four months should mean a fairly big step along the way. Now is the time to take action.
What is the book about?
The working title for the book is "IT System Lifecycle Management: Configuration, change, build, and release management". Phew. There's certainly plenty to be said on each of these topics.
I have three clear objectives in covering this material:
- Start from first principles. Many excellent books have been written on the subject of configuration management (I own a great many of them), most of them start with a definition of configuration management and proceed to work back from this too describe the various activities of CM. I believe that there is room for a book that assumes no previous experience of CM and works logically though the various problems of managing IT systems to arrive at the conclusion that CM is necessary. Along the way the reader will learn all of the basic principles they need to make CM work in an organisation.
- The book will make a distinction between managing various types of artefact (hardware, software, infrastructure, documentation, etc.) but will do so only after establishing the common features, processes, and procedures for handling them.
- The book will argue that nowadays the CM team must manage IT systems as a whole. Focusing on managing only software, documentation, or hardware is a mistake and leads to costly delays and errors.
How can you help?
I am sure that I will have questions for you. I am equally sure that you will have things you would like to see addressed in the book, especially if you are new to the subject. Please feel free to raise questions and make suggestions. I can't guarantee they will all make it into print (there is a lot to cover and only a finite amount of space in the book) but I will do my best to accommodate your needs. (Sort of requirements driven authorship.) As I implied previously, I am especially keen to hear from people coming new to the subject, these people are my principal audience.
As for those of you with more experience, I hope you will debate, discuss, and dispute with me as I post.
Not only will I be posting here, but I will also be making use of your knowledge and experience through the forums and I will be making various materials available as I create them so that you can see the work in progress and give me feedback as I go.
I know that there are many very knowledgable, experienced, and generous people reading and contributing to CM Crossroads, there are even a few authors among their number, I look forward to your input, and guidance.
Thank you in advance, and I hope this proves stimulating and useful to everyone.
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