In this short video we are discussing the virtues of a top-down approach to building a CMDB which:
• delivers business outcomes in 2-4 months. Subsequent use cases can take less time
• improves data quality as you go along from muse case to use case
• matures your IT asset management function with each iteration

When looking to build a CMDB, most organisations start off by buying a discovery tool to hoover up all the data across their estate into the CMDB. But this approach has been shown to deliver limited value.

To explore this further we take 3 different teams with different needs from the CMDB:
• We have a software patching team trying to get their server estate up to date with the latest patches.
• Our infrastructure teams looking to migrate applications to the cloud.
• And a group of Software Asset Managers looking to optimise use of software licenses.

They may all be looking at the same assets but from different perspectives.

Our patching team is looking at details of the latest installed patches and executable versions and configuration settings. The cloud migration team is interested in ensuring that the entire application service spanning across servers is being migrated in one piece. For them relationships and dependencies play a big part. And the Software Asset Managers don’t care if the data is a week or a month old and don’t worry about dependency between the assets.

By taking the boil-the-ocean approach, organizations are ignoring what these consumers need. And the nature of the beast is that it can take months to hoover up the entire IT, so value is limited, delivery is long. That's why CMDB projects offer limited value, suffer from perceived poor data quality and typically have poor adoption.
We offer a different approach.

When building a CMDB take a top down approach and identify high priority use cases such as improved information security visibility or software license optimisation.
Next work out what is required to deliver these outcomes. The scoping will flesh out
• Outcomes metrics
• Data attributes
• which are the best data sources
• Acceptable data quality SLAs
• Identify asset management gaps

Now work out a plan to deliver these outcomes based on the scoping information you have.
As each use case is taken in turn, iterate through them, delivering value every 2-4 months. The big bonus is that scope of data quality work for each iteration is limited so you can make some serious headway with data quality improvements. In the next video I will go through this in more detail.

Chapters:
00:45 – Problems with boiling the ocean. How to make things difficult for users!
02:38 – Go Top-Down
02:52 – Identifying business outcomes metrics
03:12 – Iterative approach
03:30 – Improving data quality

Learn more and read the whitepaper "Fast Tracking COBIT 5 for Information Security and Auditing": [ Ссылка ]
Contact Keyvan: [ Ссылка ]

#DigitalAcceleration #ITAssetManagement #CMDB #ConfigurationManagement #OutcomesBased

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