by The Project Management Process Groups as described in PMBOK are : Initiating, Planning, Executing, Monitoring and Controlling and Closing. These Groups are well known by projects managers in different fields. We may apply the same in IT, industry, construction and other fields.
In this article, the examples are inspired from IT field, as this domain offers comprehensive and simple situations.
Inside big organizations (i.e. BNP Paribas, Société Générale ..) the IT departments are divided between R&D and Infrastructures fields and each has its own Project Managers teams. This kind of organization is recommended because the coherence and fluidity of the project is somehow disrupted.Moreover, the PM are specialized on one domain and they usually do not apply a good project management plan. For a project, there should be one Project Manager. If there are more than one, that should mean we are dealing with a Program.
So, in real life, we may have Project Managers more dedicated on R&D field and others turned more towards infrastructures. The second one is more sensible to ITIL recommendations. Usually, the organization require from its Infrastructure PM to be ITIL certified.
Many Infrastructure (also called Production or Technical) Directions have adopted and applied ITIL recommendations. These organizations made deep intern changes to create structures by service levels, from First Level support until the Third or fourth level, by breaking old teams to create new ones. Moreover, there are some important processes adopted such as Incident Management, Problem Management, Change Management and others. Be aware: do not confuse the ITIL’s Change Management process with PM process of change.
Let’s detail a little the ITIL Change Management Process.
Every change on production systems have to traverse the CM Process validation flow.
Many organizations have implemented Change Management Processes either standard ones or adapted to their specific business.
Anyway, from a light point of view, the main steps are :
- Initiate the Change
- Verify the Change (classification, approval by CAB)
- Plan for Change (build)
- Implement the Change (execute)
- Closing the Change (verify, support, request for other changes)
Many companies have implemented integration or testing systems which simulates the production environment. A change is first completely tested in this environment before having the CAB approval.
When the CAB gives the “green light” that means the application is implemented in production environment and the project ends. The application is the project’s deliverable. The PM role ends and the PM team job is finished. For the RUN phase (maintenance) the main role is given to the Service Delivery Manager or Application Manager (depending on organizations).
Please note the important role of CAB (Change Advisory Board). It is mandatory that its role to be really considered in real life. If the CAB says “NO” then the changes have to be postponed or cancelled. Note: this latest sentence is unfortunately not true in some organizations and this one of the reasons of multiple incidents and unknown problems in real life.
Let’s go back on PM.
What is a project ? A project is a temporary endeavor which will brings changes to the production systems. How ? There are many examples in real life.
Here you have 2 situations :
- an application installation on a server
- a project which demands new servers, new databases, storage volumes and so on
Even a simple package installation must obey ITIL Change Management Process.
But where is the link between the two worlds ?
Do you remember what PMBOK says ? How about Enterprise environmental factors? The ITIL processes are one of them !
The project manager has to be aware of the Enterprise processes and rules. He or she will prepare the closing project phase end the go live step.
During the executing group process, when the project almost finished its deliverables, the Project Manager will initiate the change. He or she will describe the change and will schedule the go life date.
The change is submitted to the CAB for approval.
If the Organization has an Integration platform, the project deliverable (application, product …) is fully tested before the CAB meeting.
Some recommendations before submitting a request for change (RFC) :
- all documents have to be filled in (exploitation and support documents, incident resolution, supervision, architecture files and so on)
- service delivery manager must be coached on the new application or product
- PM have to inform or teach support team about the new components and how the application will be administered and supported in its future life
Other considerations:
Let’s consider the project will deliver a complex application with databases, web server components, data flows and so on.
When declaring the change, the PM will declare all “sub-changes” and each impacted team have to approve its change (the DBA will give green light for database, the developers will confirm application testing …). The CAB have the role to insure all components have been tested before change approval.
