Ignite Your Configuration Engines - Real world experiences for CMDB success: Part 2
Posted by Gaurav Uniyal, Consultant, Infosys Technologies
In continuation to my previous blog “Ignite Your Configuration Engines - Real world experiences for CMDB success: Part 1”, here are some more “best practices” which are worth considering while designing/ implementing CMDB solutions -
Identify and implement Quick Wins - I recently worked on an assignment with a large financial organization to implement “Quick Wins” for IT process improvements. Implementation of the identified “Quick Wins” not only addressed the immediate issues, but also helped IT organization in getting much needed management attention and funding for the next phases. “Quick Wins” helps in keeping the buzz alive, justification of investments and provides an opportunity to fine-tune the long term strategy. However, careful planning is required while designing the “Quick Wins”. It should address immediate issues within a short period of time, and result in clear demonstrable benefits.
Establish interfaces with other processes/tools - Once, I inquired one of my colleagues - What is the business value of CMDB? He answered - Nothing 
. And I believe this answer was correct to some extent. A CMDB does not carry any value in itself. It is just a database storing information about multiple CIs and its relationship. The value comes when the residing information is effectively consumed by other processes/ tools e.g. CIs relationship information for impact analysis, release planning, root cause analysis etc. If you are planning for the implementation, always remember 3 key words - Integrate, Integrate and Integrate
Develop metrics to measure the success - The real performance of CMDB can only be measured if in some ways, the low level metrics could be associated with high level implementation goals. We designed a metrics framework during one of our implementation engagements which is worth sharing. At the top level, we identified the CSFs - Critical Success Factors. For each of the CSFs (e.g. Usefulness of CIs information), KPIs were designed which were further drilled down into detailed metrics (e.g. Number of unauthorized Licenses reclaimed). This model helped in establishing linkages between the implementation goals and operational tasks efficiency, thus providing useful and accurate information to the Management team on CMDB performance.
Organization change management- Given the fact that CMDB interfaces with all working units/ processes/tools, it is important to vet the solution across multiple groups before rolling it out to production. Gain feedback not only from the key stakeholders but also from the business/ IT users who are going to use/manage CMDB, once implemented. Success of the implementation heavily depends on the organization readiness to adapt to the changes and knowledge of the CMDB tool and associated processes.
CMDB population and data quality management - When the CMDB is fully designed and ready for rollout, the next big question pops up is how to populate CMDB initially with accurate CIs information and then maintain the accuracy of the CIs information going forward? Discovery tools can populate the CMDB with networked CIs, but it is equally important to plan for manual efforts to update CMDB with the non-networked CIs and key-in information which can't be updated automatically e.g. financial data, SLAs, documentation etc.
In my upcoming blogs, I will share my experience on the specifics of these best practices. Watch out for my next blogs and please post comments.
