beteo ALM Experts Blog

Author: Dieter Steiger

  • Integrating HP PPM with HP Quality Center – As Simple as It Looks?

    Very often, the processes of change & transport and quality management in the IT organzation are technically not very tightly integrated. Although organizationally, they are well coordinated, with both processes being clearly defined, digitized, automated and constantly improved, I doubt if their integration is tight enough.

    Integration von Change Management und Quality Management

    HP Software, a significant vendor not only of the process engine for change and transport management HP PPM, but also of HP Quality Center as the leading test management solution, provides a basis for an integrated solution. I was asked to carry this over into practice – an exciting as well as seemingly simple task.

    The first step was to technically join both environments together and logically merge them into one platform.

    The Search

    Well, searching for information in the Internet was not very fruitful or, to be exact: there is none. So I was forced to utilize my good connections to HP to get holf of the documents I needed. Thanks to the competent people I addressed, it was a success.

    Compatibility with versions

    An overview of the compatibility of versions was particularly important and helpful. Our PPM versions required that we used the PPM extension Application Change Lifecycle (ACL 2.0) for the intergration with QC. The newer tool Managing Application Change Tool (MAC) does not yet work with our customer´s version.

    Integration guide

    The procedure of integrating PPM and QC is documented in the Integration Guide of HP and described step by step. So it was my job to work out the 200 pages of this guide one page after another.

    Mappings

    Applying the technical procedure to our actual environment and system landscape was a challenge, particularly with regard to the mappings. The intergrated standard workflows and interface definitions may be a good basis for implementation. But to meet all requirements, the mappings of data, stati, and processes must be elaborated. Careful attention must be paid to the change of stati in the workflow in order to avoid uncontrolled process steps.

    What next?

    So far, I have made a huge step towards the integration aimed for. But I am sure there will be more problems to be sorted out. In due time, I will report on my experience with the ongoing implementation. Comments and further hints from fellow sufferers or sympathizers are welcome.

  • A Question of Culture

    Perhaps you know the history of the PT Cruiser. Sure, you have seen this car on the street, the look is retro, fuel consumption is too high, technology and security are average. When Daimler joined in the responsibility for Daimler Chrysler, the PT Cruiser was just launched and taken for a flop. The production was driven down and banned into a small factory in Mexico. But it came different. The demand could no longer be served and customers were dissatisfied. – Today the PT Cruiser is a sales success.

    A cultural fault! In the cultural patterns for car in the U.S. are freedom feeling and originality in the first place. The PT Cruiser meets these to a great extent. German and europeen values as technology and security are the subordinate.

    Success of failure within enterprises are often depending on culture:

    • Marketing. A product does not fit into a given market. – In Germany, the PT Cruiser was obviously never a winner .- Or the other way around: With new products presented cultural values no longer fit for the culture of the company. In the wake sales are stagnating.
    • Strategic Alignment. Cultural values in a company  as “security” and “stability” do not fit to the new strategy, which “entrepreneurship” and “risk”.
    • Corporate culture. From above announced corporate values such as “appreciation” and “enthusiasm” are not lived. –  In the past things ran very well with a certain “arrogance” and “skeptical”. – Cultural patterns cannot develop their potential, if stubborn management decisions take a different direction.
    • Change Management. Change and development of the company fails to the tenacity of the existing cultural patterns.

    Questions of culture are (1) cultural fit and (2) cultural change: How much fit is needed and how much change is possible? And if change cultural patterns is needed, how can this best succeed? How can the cultural potential of the company to be used?

    About the author:
    Dr. Michael Loebbert is Coach and Management Consultant and author of the montly publication “Change Management Short Cut“.

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  • Fresh from SAP TechEd Las Vegas: Panaya 3.2

    At SAP’s TechEd conference, the new releases of Panaya Support Automation 3.2 and Panaya Upgrade Automation 3.2 have been announced.

    Panaya 3.2 Overview

    Upgrade Automation is the fast and accurate way to control the impact of SAP projects and SAP changes in general. It automatically analyzes SAP systems and changes and provides online services to answer key questions such as:

    •    What errors will occur without intervention?
    •    How can they be prevented?
    •    What exactly needs be tested?
    •    What are the most important risks?

    Support Automation analyzes functional changes to SAP system before they are released. Using analysis technology based on a unique algoritm, Panaya evaluates changes in the context of the complex interdependencies of SAP systems. For every change, it automatically creates test plans, classifies changes based on risk, and alerts managers and other stakeholders and informs about risks.

    Upgraded and new Functions in Release 3.2

    Root Cause Analysis (New Feature for Support Automation)
    If all of a sudden something is not working well in your production system, your team could spend hours finding the culprit. Or, you could simply launch Panaya’s new Root Cause Analysis for SAP, enter the transaction that is misbehaving, and you’ll immediately see the primary suspects: all the recent changes that have actually impacted this transaction.

    Real time impact analysis of code changes (New Feature for Support Automation)
    Change any ABAP program, during an upgrade project or during maintenance, and Panaya immediately tells you what is the impact and what must be tested.

    Comprehensive Project Plan for SAP Upgrades (New Feature for Upgrade Automation)
    This is one of the most powerful features: Now Panaya generates a comprehensive project plan for your upgrade, including sensible defaults for effort and people allocation to tasks. The plan can be exported into Microsoft Project

    Completely Redesigned User Interface (Enhanced Feature for Both Products)
    Since we added so many new features, they needed a new home.
    The application is now logically divided into SAP Upgrade, Impact Analysis, Root Cause Analysis, and Transport History

    Code Highlighting (New Feature for Upgrade Automation)
    When opening a program source from reports, Panaya will automatically highlight the upgrade problems in your code. For example: In the “Obsolete Functions” report – Click a program name to view its code and Panaya will highlight all the places in the code that use this function.

    Transport History (New Feature for Support Automation)
    If you need to track changes to your SAP system for compliance, analysis, or other reasons, Panaya keeps the complete transport information.

    Usage of User Exits (New Feature for Both Products)
    Now it is easy to see all the transactions that are using a user exit using a new “Drill Down” report

    Impact Overview Page (Enhanced Feature for Support Automation)
    Now the impact overview page displays the custom transactions and all the Batch or Interface transactions. This replaces the previous functionality

    Cloned Program Analysis (Enhanced Feature for Upgrade Automation)
    An improved algorithm now finds even more cloned programs that were especially difficult to track.

    Availability (Both Products)
    Since Panaya is software as a service, there’s no need to upgrade any software. The capabilities are available immediately to all customers.

    Conclusion

    Changes to SAP systems often entail substantial additional expense and undesirable effects for SAP organizations. Reference upgrade projects show that consistent, pragmatic impact analysis in a SAP Change and Transport Management process can reduce efforts by more than 30%. Risk gets massively reduced and surprises after change implementation eliminated. And beteo partner Panaya’s SaaS solutions can be implemented with little effort and with no or limited adjustments to the system.

  • Test Management – Much Quality for Little Money

    From my point of view, there are three key components for reaching the goal „high quality at low costs“ in test management: adequate methods, adequate staffing, and adequate tools – each at the  right time. If one of these factors are neglected, the  project threatens to fail.

    Luckily, the tool comes with the adequate method, without nailing you down too much, enabling the planning of resources and test phases. I have had some experience with projects where all team members started off highly motivated, applying well thought-out methods, but soon failed to come to grips with the tools – the  worst-case in general being a spread-sheet driven project, in which things like: „Haven´t you run a test? I made an entry in the Excel sheet that you should …. oh, sorry, it is still on my computer, forgot to upload it. …” typically happen.

    Another frequent scenario: the best of all tools has been installed, but nobody ever told the people to make use of it.

    So what should a tool be able to perform that is expected to map a consistent quality management process and make it transparent to all people involved? From my point of view, this tool should

    • provide a simple and intuitive interface,
    • enable global using, i.e. be web-based, without requiring much installation effort,
    • allow requirements to be recorded, categorized, and evaluated,
    • enable risk estimation,
    • allow rights and roles to be managed,
    • allow tasks to be assigned,
    • be able to have test cases recorded, managed, and executed,
    • enable simple release management,
    • allow errors to be recorded and traced in a workflow,
    • facilitate evaluation of the different phases as well as the total project,
    • be able to link all entities and allow detected errors to be assigned to a test case or a requirement,
    • enable test automation – by service tests in an early phase, later also by GUI automation,
    • have open interfaces to other tools.

    A high degree of acceptance by all persons involved should be achieved and the users should be able to apply the solution without too much training.

    Having read my article up to this point, you might think: Okay, I realize that Excel can´t do all this. But I wonder if any other tool can? In my opinion, there is one tool that meets these requirements, Quality Center by HP, originally launched by Mercury Interactive.

    And the best of all: Not only can I observe that it makes my quality and test management projects a success, I also take great pleasure in working with it.

    About the author:
    Gerd Fladrich ist test management expert at Fladrich Consulting, Pliening near München, a beteo partner in the  section of quality management and testing.

  • ITIL, PRINCE2, PMI – Just Paper Tigers?

    Historically developed IT structure
    Within their IT organizations, enterprises historically distinguish between project business, IT operations and IT development. In addition to these separate areas, there are several processes and systems for project requests, notification of incidents and problem management.

    ITIL, PRINCE2 and PMI are Used Separately within their Silos?
    For these processes, there are standards such as the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL), PRINCE2 and the PMBOK of Project Management Institute (PMI). But the project management office (PMO) and the change advisory board (CAB) execute their requests and analyses separately. This way of thinking in separate categories creates redundancies and ignores the synergistic potential. Interdependencies and influencing factors are neglected.  IT Service Management Forum (ITSMF) states:

    „Change management is responsible for the control of changes within the productive environment. It is not responsible for changes within running projects. However, a close coordination between development project managers and the change manager is expected.“

    From a project perspective, PRINCE2 and PMI require that operation must be included into planning. But the prioritization process in classical project portfolio management only covers project requests. Also change requests are only managed for projects. Neither of the two seems to be responsible. However, regarding them in isolation from one annother is a barrier to a holistic handling which enables a provisioning of IT services conforming with strategy.

    An Isolating View has Negative Effects
    There is no basis on which decision makers could define an order of priority for the activities between project business and IT operations. Although IT service management (ITSM) as well as project portfolio management (PPM) are already implemented and operated with a good process maturity level, the list of problems is long. Typical examples are:

    • Repeated processing of the same objects
    • Intransparent dependencies create higher risks
    • Troubleshooting and project implementation are delayed
    • Inaccurate planning due to lack of information
    • Critical resources can not be optimally used
    • Service level agreements (SLA) are defined only selectively
    • Changes cannot be tested comprehensively

    Comprehensive Service Portfolio Management is Desirable

    • Would it be helpful to view and evaluate all requests and requirements?
    • Could harmonizing the individual release processes (CAB und PMO) facilitate IT control?
    • Would pooling of problems and projects increase efficiency?
    • Could a holistic resource and schedule planning help to reach overall enterprise goals more efficiently?
    • Would a comprehensive view on risks help to avoid failures of IT operations?

    The Solution: Problem Portfolio as Part of Service Portfolio
    For these requirements, there are no established standards. The following method of procedure helps to clearly improve the efficiency of IT organziations:

    1. Establishing a problem portfolio

    • Situation analysis of incident, problem and change management
    • Definition of requirements for an overall problem management handling
    • Definition of an integrative problem management process
    • Harmonizing with incident  and change management
    • Establishing a problem portfolio as a control instrument

    2. Expanding and integrating service portfolio management

    Summary
    ITIL, PRINCE2 and PMI are highly useful frameworks capable of laying the foundation of an IT organization. But in order to challenge the „silo mentality“ and to take adequate advantage of them, they must be integrated with one another forming a holistic service portfolio & project management. Otherwise, they will be nothing but paper tigers.

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  • Hungry for Change

    How hungry are you for change? – Clearly, ‘change’ is in itself not a serious management approach. Without content and its implementation change remains an empty talk. Successful executives connect therefore contentful imagination with execution. In the recent study “Enterprise of the Future” by IBM (www.ibm.com/enterpriseofthefuture) executive officers, selected all over the world, tell about theirs imaginations of the company in the future.

    • Markets will be actively designed. Innovations are beyond the wishes and needs of customers.
    • The company is globally integrated, inserted into the global economic exchange relations.
    • The inner engine is the transformation of business models, with new partners, customers, with modified performance processes realize new value-added potentials.
    • And companies assume more responsibility for their contributions to the visual world society “Corporate Social Responsibility” as environmental, financial and social sustainability.

    This brings people in the focus, their will and theirs skills to change themselves and others, who take part in the change:

    • “Hungry for change” has therefore the first place in the study. Who led and managed changes in the past successfully, dares to do quite so in future. “The key for successful transformation is the change of mind.” Or as my colleague Hans Rudolf Jost apt to say “Corporate Mind Change”. The desire for change is part of the change itself, courage for improvement potentials and new to exercise. It is about a culture of change: Tomorrow successful companies have already incorporated change, being even an actor of change in the world.

    That makes at least appetite, right?

    About the author:
    Dr. Michael Loebbert is Coach and Management Consultant and author of the montly publication “Change Management Short Cut“.

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  • Is Tool-Supported Test Management Profitable?

    Every software project targets at providing high-quality software within the frame of a cost and time schedule. tool-based IT test management usually accompanies the whole software development process and partly adds to reaching this goal. This includes tasks like requirements management, test planning, test design, test execution, test evaluation as well as a superordinate defects management.

    Practical experience
    However, erratic and unsystemantic testing is general practice in many enterprises. A variety of manual steps, redundancies and inconsistent documentations are the order of the day, resulting in additional costs. On the other hand, high benefit could be achieved by use of a tool-based test management. Introducing the necessary test management tools, along with the suitable methods and processes, improves both the testing process and the software quality. The  benefit  provided for both the test organization and the IT projects can be summarized as follows:

    Testing gets

    • standardized (tool instead of free-text in Word/Excel), more systematic, more reliable,
    • less time-consuming, easier to execute,
    • verifiable (content and coverage), more effective and comprehensive,
    • traceable,
    • reusable, trainable,
    • it can be automated
    • and planned.

    Using test management methods and tools facilitates error recovery and consistently reduces error occurrence. Time and costs for testing and support are enormously reduced as well. This results in a reduction of total costs, higher quality, transpareny, improved system requirements and completion on schedule, if not ahead of schedule. Operation will be less error-prone with reduced breakdown frequency, leading to highest-possible customer satisfaction.

    The benefit is evident. The earlier an error is detected, the easier its recovery. But often, there is no time for testing, the project is behind schedule and people are under time pressure. Testing is considered a necessary evil. But tool-based test management is more than just a cost factor. If used in the right way, test management is a value-adding process.

    Potential return of tool-based test management
    Potential improvements are not easy to quantify. However, experience from successful implementations of the test management tool HP Quality Center has shown that real improvement is possible:

    • Improved product quality leading to
      • Less delay caused by bad product quality
      • Avoiding frequent emergency implementations during production
      • Higher customer satisfaction by meeting expected delivery requirements
      • Cost savings by less re-working and reduced support costs
    • Improved testing process leading to
      • Lower costs per test cycle by standardization and reuse
      • Standardization of planning, documentation and execution of tests
      • Less time and cost effort for preparation thanks to reuse of requirements, testing data and test cases
      • Fast test execution by automated regression testing
    • Improved use of test resources leading to
      • Savings by centralized use of HP Quality Center (hardware, software, support, services)
      • Automated test coverage management avoids the need for retesting or performing unneeded testing
    • Improved project delivery leading to
      • More predictable and optimizated delivery schedule
      • Test automation, less time needed for execution, reduced use of resources
      • Optimized use of project resources, e.g. by higher performance, better prioritization
      • Test resources are earlier made available to new projects (by on schedule delivery)
      • Comparable results allowing to continously improve test processes

    The aspects of potential benefit listed above can be used as a basis for profit calculation. By applying a scoping approach to the project, the relevant data and facts can be derived from above general potential advantages and applied to the particular environment, and the actual return can be calculated.

    Summary
    Test management is necessary and clearly improves the quality of software projects. The advantages of tool-based test management are evident. However, it is not always easy to quantify and clearly define the benefit. Often, a budget for testing projects is approved only after some unpleasant incident has happened. This can be avoided, though.

    Successful implementations of the test management tool HP Quality Center have shown that practical improvements can definitely be realized and the de facto profit can be calculated in advance. The general aspects of potential value can easily be transferred to the particular environment by applying project scoping. Data and facts gained then form the basis of a specific profit calculation. Tool-supported test management does not only pay off, but the benefit can also be quantified.

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  • Poker – Change Management’s Fruit Fly

    As many others amongst my friends, I am addicted to poker. When I say poker, I am referring to the omnipresent Texas Hold´em Poker, and not to one of the Draw Poker versions that to my opinion rank among the games of pure chance.

    In my 2 years poker career, I have gone through the following phases:

    Phase

    		 Description Remarks
    Beginner So much busy with the framework of rules that nothing seems predictable Players are the others rather than myself
    Knowing the rules Having read a couple of How-to’s I understand the basic principle I am an active player. Amazingly often, I end up being the winner, otherwise my defeat is often dramatic
    Experienced player Discovered formerly hidden mechanisms and „soft factors”, trying to apply them Occasional success in „reading” my opponent, avoiding dramatic losses
    Undefeatable Well equipped with all „tools” Some extraordinary successes, but still avoidable errors
    Wise Am I really using all available tools? In order to be successful in the long run, new findings must permanently be brought to the game

    Each new finding made me feel better prepared to cope with my opponents. But I also understood that any new finding could turn my basic idea of the game inside out. It must be tried out and prove applicable before it gets part of my knowledge repertoire.

    Change Management 1)
    The short life cycle of a poker game is a perfect experimental ground for understanding the mechanisms of change management. But whereas it takes an IT change manager a few weeks or months to more or less successfully complete a project, including observing the effects of the changes to the entire environment – and thus learning from it, the cycle in a poker game takes no longer than a couple of minutes.
    As the fruit fly 2) with its short generation cycle for the geneticists, poker with its short game cycles can be the ideal research subject for change manager.

    Realizations

    • Patience; success can not be enforced. Acquiring change management competence is a process in several phases.
    • You might fail even if all conditions are optimal (AA).
    • As a beginner, playing seems to be easy-going. Your playing style is unusual (to others), courageous, imponderable and aggressive. Unfortunately, only in poker games this is a promising player attribute.
    • Planning to win in poker can be compared to a tree. Your starting point are the roots, from there you follow the branches, one after another. Only few players are aware of this. In most cases, as soon as they see a problem coming up, they first cut off the branches instead of going back to the roots. 3)
    • What is most decisive for a player to play a successful game is neither a good knowledge of mathematics, the ability to analyze the opponent, a good starting selection of cards in his hands nor a profound playing strategy. It is self-control. 3)
    • If you want to become a successful, lucky player, first work on your self-control. And I mean – every day! Nothing is comparably important. 3)

    However, there is a relevant difference between poker and change management. In a poker game, you can do everything right and still lose the game.

    In poker, you know your own cards and you know your opponents from the start. The latter are quite obviously determined to win, just like you. In change management, cards and opponents have to be agreed upon first.

    Sources
    1) beteo Blog: Change Management Posts
    2) Wikipedia: Dropsophila melanogaster
    3) Steve Badger: Poker Discipline

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  • How not to Disclose a Secret – HP´s ERP4IT

    Whereas ERP is a synonym for software-supported Enterprise Planning and Controlling, ERP4IT stands for software-supported IT Planning and Controlling (ITPC).

    Those who are looking for solutions will without much doubt check out the ERP4IT offerings of the leading ERP system manufacturer SAP. SAP seems to be the only ERP software vendor for managing one´s own customer IT organization and IT products through SAP Solution Manager. Theoretically In view of the special requirements of IT planning and controlling frameworks and standards, SAP scores quite well. But judging the Patchwork of SAP Solution Manager from real ERP4IT requirements´perspective, which includes comprehensive application lifecycle management, the SAP Solution Manager will at most suit to support the management of SAP customizing.

    While in general the market seems to focus on trying to define the IT processes mainly by means of frameworks and standards. Because of the missing tool support or incomplete offering several large SAP users have already started their own projects to tackle diverse ERP4IT challenges building their own solutions. Like that already more than ten years ago, the first management platforms targeting SAP change und configuration management using ABAP and workflows have been built.

    Meanwhile, in the context of digitization and automation of IT processes including testing, Mercury products had provided the logical supplement of the above mentioned basic ”ERP4IT“ platforms. HP acquired and integrated these products into their portfolio.

    HP today is capable of offering a comprehensive solution „HP Best Technology for Optimization“ (HP BTO). HP BTO is a very useful compilation of software components. In suitable combinations it can fully meet the requirements for a real solution management solution, i.e. a comprehensive Application Lifecycle Management system, as well as those of an SAP ERP4IT system, even more so if combined with some basic functionalities of SAP Solution Manager.

    However, HP seems to primarily promote its software in the form of individual products, missing the opportunity of offering the integrated solution as HP BTO ERP4IT to customers more emphatically. Should the market success of the separate software components be an obstacle to a broad positioning of the comprehensive HP BTO solution? Too bad for IT organizations which are (still) left beyond the reach of this enormous potential value.

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  • Can a Classic CMDB Cope With Business Service Management?

    Today´s IT in its role as service provider for the enterprise requires an immediate rethinking with regard to resources and configurations data management.

    If the datastore is not flexible enough, requirements resulting from service lifecycle management (SLM) might not be met to a satifactory degree and the provisioning of the CMDB services might not be as expected or as efficient as wanted.

    Configuration management databases (CMDB) used nowadays serve as rudimentary data pools and threaten to exist mainly for marketing reasons.

    A Sound Data Collection – Highly Exceeding Today´s Standard – is Necessary!
    A useful, efficient and active service lifecycle management (SLM) calls for a comprehensive enterprise service orientation and cross-company service management.

    To reach this goal, a homogenous and sound service database with an emphasis on „service“ is fundamental. Building up this database, the first step is to define a service catalog that allows all services including their relations to be identified. It is most important that all IT services are assigned to business services. This enables business service management (BSM) to execute impact analyses to an extent that would have been unthinkable ever before.

    From this perspective, a business service is an IT Service that creates direct value which becomes right away visible outside IT– due its obvious benefit to the business.

    At least one service access point per business service provides the point of entry to the targeted service and to the connection between business service and technical service.

    When collecting data for the service catalog, preferably by interviewing a number of steakholders, it is recommended to divide the service structure of the data collection into at least business, applications and infruastructure services from the beginning. The interviewer should always take the perspective of the interviewed person, as the service comsumer is the only one to tell if the provided service meets his/her requirements.

    There is more to a Service CMDB (S-CMDB)
    The data collected for the service catalog must be stored together with the usual data from other IT areas such as project portfolio management (PPM), IT development, and IT service management (ITSM).

    In order to do justice to a comprehensive service portfolio management approach, the data collection must contain all information, including their relations, needed for business as well as projects.

    Enabler of Comprehensive Service Portfolio Management
    The common data collection created for project portfolio management, IT development, and IT service management enables an efficient  holistic view of all IT and other projects and, in turn, serves as a basis for the targeted service portfolio management.

    Service Lifecycle

    The above figure illustrates that within the life cycle of a service, depending on the nature of the change, the currently prevailing requirement is considered either a project request or an operational issue. Through a holistic view, all service changes can be re-prioritized and grouped according to business requirements and users. This reduces risk within the implementation or problem solving cycle and ensures a seamless transition into business.

    Conventional CMDBs need to be extended if they want to meet the requirements of S-CMDBs and to achieve the high expected benefit to IT.

    About the author:
    Andreas Schegg, ITIL and Configuration Management Expert, is Senior Consultant at Ontrex AG, Winterthur, Switzerland.

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