Author: Dieter Steiger

HP offers a number of BTO Centers. These software packages support in the context of a BTO strategy specific phases of the application lifecycle. The following overview is meant to shed light on the HP BTO jungle.

IT STRATEGY

• Project and Portfolio Management Center (CIO Office)
  The IT management solution enables control and documentation of the enterprise processes, particularly with regard to an optimization of priorities, staff members and processes in IT organizations. For this purpose, modules for the management of portfolio, demand, time, changes, projects, resources, finances and programs are available. Upon coordination with business processes and enterprise requirements, the distribution and use of resources are optimized and processes are standardized (IT Governance).
• SOA Center (CTO Office)
  The HP BTO solutions for governance, quality and management of service-oriented architectures (SOA) are designed to help customers to minimize economical risks in SOA project phases and to create a comprehensively controlled, business-oriented SOA basis. HP SOA Center enables registry/repository, policy management, consumer management, policy enforcement, performance monitoring und problem solving.

APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT

• Quality Center
  With HP Quality Center, a cross-enterprise exchange of information about test requirements, test planning, test execution and error reporting is possible, as well as checking for web security issues covering the entire testing and development team. Through functional test runs, GUI interfaces are automatically tested in applications and various release cycles.
• Performance Center
  HP Performance Center features a real-time simulation of the maximum access demanded by customer requests using active virtual user input of the applications. This enables system optimization before „going live“ and ensures the desired steady availability. A required optimization can be controlled and accomplished under system load by help of an analysis program. Thus, new web or SAP applications are made secure before going into production.
• Application Security Center
  By using the technologies of HP Applications Security Center, security gaps in web applications can be identified and judged all across the lifecycle: from development and quality control up to operation. Also applications that are already running in a productive system, can be checked for security gaps. In addition, audit and compliance requirements such as Sarbanes-Oxley, HIP AA or PCI can be met.

(IT) OPERATIONS

• HP Universal CMDB
  HP Universal CMDB is a configuration management database for IT organizations planning to implement business service management and ITIL-based initiatives. This software allows you to take up, document and store – in addition to physical configuration elements – logical elements. It also provides extended functionality such as an effects analysis and access control for building up and maintaining CMDB.

Business Service Management

• Business Availability Center
  This solution allows you to monitor the availability and performance of applications in operation for 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. Business processes, service levels, applications an the underlying infrastructure are coordinated to one another. The infrastructure is visualized by a graphical view with the traffic light set of colors red, orange and green showing the state of operation. A drill down is available for detailed view and error analysis. BAC is used to ensure the active operation of all business-relevant applications and to verify internal or external SLA agreements.
• Operations Center
  This solution features a comprehensive, service-oriented access to IT management. Information is integrated and synchronized across management silos, IT and business are connected to one another. This distributed, scalable management solution which also includes security features allows you to monitor, control and record the status and performance of different IT environments, covering network, system, databases, applications, services and Internet.
• Network Management Center
  This network management solution is considered a strategic and particularly important investment. In the last few years it has been established as an indispensible component of error and event management as well as visualization of network topologies. Network configuration, network events, application performance, and network analysis are the main areas involved.

Service Automation

• Data Center Automation Center
  Process automation in IT centers can be effectively supported by HP Data Center Automation Center allowing IT organizations to easily increase cost efficiency and to better meet quality and compliance requirements.
• Client Automation Center
  More and more security risks, increasing availability requirements, and the rapidly growing number of mobile and remote staff members make it more difficult to effectively and efficiently manage client computers – a requirement, however, which every modern success-oriented enterprise should focus upon. HP Client Automation Center allows you to automate relevant IT processes across the lifecycle of the client computers, no matter where their physical locations are.

IT Service Management

• Service Management Center
  HP Service Manager is a comprehensive, fully integrated IT service desk solution targeted to reduce the time spent on problem solving. Thanks to ITIL-based best practice processes and a scalable, service-oriented architecture, consistent, integrated processes can be rolled out all across IT organizations. Event, problem, change, and release management processes can be automated. Service level management and catalog-based service requests are supported. All processes are coordinated by means of configuration management.

The New Role of IT
For many years, all IT departments seem to have taken up the cause of cost reducing. This has changed. Business managers more and more consider IT a lever for boosting growth. Particularly, this means for IT departments to implement new business models and concepts as fast as possible.

In most cases, IT departments are not prepared to cope with rapid changes. They utilize a major part of their capacity, sometimes 90 %, for routine work such as the operation of the data center. Very often, this means that no capacity is left for implementing the ideas and business processes the CEOs have in mind (source: Handelsblatt April 14, 2007).

BTO Solutions
Business Technology Optimization (BTO) solutions support enterprises in optimizing the business value created by IT. The goal is to consistently extend – by using suitable methods and tools – IT´s contribution in areas such as securing competitive advantages, increasing customer satisfaction and minimizing risks and costs.

The combination of Business and IT perspectives may raise new questions as to the benefit, quality and reliability of an IT service.

The focus should be on taking into account and improving the effects of IT on business results. The most important issues are: How flexible, fast and effectively do we want IT to react on enterprise decisions, corporate mergers and changed market situations? In which way do we want it to support the control of the product portfolio or the implementation of marketing strategies, and what should IT´s role of a communication platform for enterprise an customers be like?

These requirements reach far beyond the conventional IT goals: Accounting for a number of bugfixes in development, reaching defined project milestones, or efficiently utilizing the helpdesk may be evidence of successful IT, but not necessarily of a successful business.

BTO solutions are meant to support the enterprise with methods and tools to plan IT´s contribution to the business more accurately, to increase it efficiently, and to make it visible.

By no means, BTO is just a project to be applied to one area of IT. Using BTO successfully means to consistently take into consideration the effects of business on IT operation, IT strategy, IT controlling, IT revision, IT process optimization and IT risk management, and, likewise, observe the influence of IT activities in these areas on business. To reach this goal, new methods and technologies must be introduced and efficiently applied.

About the author:
Klaus Otto is Sales Manager HP Software Commercial Accounts at HP Germany (Hewlett-Packard GmbH). This article only contains personal comments on the subject.

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My blog Scoping – A Guarantee for Success through Harmonized Expectations describes how to identify factors that are most relevant to the success of the project:

• Expectations of all key roles are defined and synchronized from the start
• The technical system architecture is designed
• The functional requirements are defined
• An implementation roadmap comprising project contents, required organizations and project procedure is set up

Harmonized Expectations and Step-by-Step Implementation Targeted at Partial Success
Experience has shown that defining and synchronizing expectations is of great importance. With regard to expectations, the project scope plays a major role. Unfortunately, project team members as well as clients often fail to define the project precisely enough, including a variety of options and features into the project. Limited time and budget available for a maximum content are part of everyday business. Teams are getting unfocussed and bogged down in details loosing sight oft the project target. The project clients get impatient, failures mute motivation, and the original business cases are questioned.

It is well known that projects promise to be successful only if sub-goals are defined ensuring step-by-step success and continuously producing a visible benefit. This is particularly true for long-lasting projects. The main issue here is to focus on the most important and prioritized requirements and functions and adhere to their consistent implementation.

Implementation Roadmap and Iterations
One oft he main issues of the scoping phase is to generate a practice-oriented implementation roadmap. This includes clearly defined targeted project objects, a time schedule, and the organization implied. Experience has shown that dividing the project into several iterations with clearly defined targeted objects leads to business quick wins and to a successful completion of the project. To follow this strategy, the most relevant requirements and core functions are identified and implemented in iterations.

The main goal is to provide constant benefit for the project client and the users as soon as possible. Quick wins are achieved by first implementing those functions which are most suitable to ensure the highest possible benefit. In further iterations, more functions are added to those successfully implied to finally integrate the solution step by step into further processes, methods, systems and organizations. At the same time, a consistent project management und project marketing support the roadmap implementation. Management, client, and users know at any time which functions are available to them, and when.

Iterations Optimized by Quick Wins
Dividing projects into several iterations provides decisive advantages. They vary depending on context and task, but in most cases, the following advantages are ensured:

• System with core functionality which rather soon works efficiently
• Systematic knowledge transfer to users and business by targeted training at the right time.
• Quick benefit as a basis and guideline for further procedure
• Early integration of business organization and building up support services
• Optimistic attitude towards the project by successfully completing iterations and meeting the expectations
• Flexibility in structuring the functional requirements and a manageable basis for Scope Change Management
• Organziational changes are implemented step by step and associated with achieving success
• Short feedback loops, „lessons learned“, can be implemented in the next iteration

The Challenge of Implementing Iterations
Very frequently, a rigid project procedure is set forth by large enterprises. In addition to document templates, this includes specified and standardized rules of phase acceptance. The project passes through several phases, comprising preliminary studies, rough and detailed concept, realization, implementation, and operation. A new phase can only be started, after the preceding phase has been completed. This approach is often contrary to the basic idea and the immense benefit achieved by an iterative procedure.

It is true that dividing the project into several iterations results in quick wins. But if all iterations, i.e. new functions, are repeatedly forced to pass through all project phases from the preliminary studies to operation,  this necessarily implies disprofit by loss of time and additional effort. The great benefit is given away!

It is quite important to find common solutions in collaboration with the responsible persons, for example, from the project management office (PMO) or from quality control. Experience has shown that it is recommendable to have the most prominent mile stones approved „officially“, whereas the individual iterations can be approved by project members and application of quality assurance measures. A step-by-step extension of this approach to include scoping and phase acceptance which is attuned to an iterative concept would be useful.

Summary
The benefit of an iterative approach is enormously high. In the context of standardized and rigid project implementation, this can be quite a challenge. However, addressing it at an early stage, iterations can easily be integrated into the existing environment. In a further step, this concept can be extended to include scoping and phase acceptance particularly attuned to iterations.

After harmonizing the expectations of all key roles and prioritizing the requirements, all functions should be divided into individual iterations according to their importance. This allows you to focus on the core features and the highest possible benefit. Systems are available to users at an early stage, providing efficiently working core functionality. There is a fast and well-structured knowledge transfer leaving more time for the organization to implement changes. Quickly and successfully completed iterations result in a sense of achievement and promote an affirmative attitude  towards the project.

In addition, the iterative approach allows you to carry out faster feedback loops and more flexibility in planning further iterations. This ensures quick wins and step-by-step success of the project.

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As a reminder of what a strategy is and what it should provide:

• It organizes and coordinates a variety of acts and decisions of one or more persons to a common goal,
• it makes this in a deliberate contrast to other perhaps possible approaches, takes a conscious decision and risk.
• Effectiveness is achieved not only with orientation, concentration and determination, but also by the “surprising” innovative difference in the competition.

If a strategy works, it must be told as a thrilling story. The people involved with the company need to understand the strategy, reproduce it in theirs experiences and realize it in theirs actions.

1. What decisions have to be made in the overall context and to implement in action? What is the difference before and after? How do I know when I’m the right track?
2. What are the obstacles, risks, resistors, which must be overcome? What “adventure” must be dealt with? With what result?
3. What is the key difference to the competitors? What is the pivotal point for success of the strategy? When exactly does the strategy come into reality?
4. How does the strategy fit to our company, the characters and the temperaments of people, to our values and cultural patterns, which are available for the necessary decisions and actions?
5. Is the designed suspense conducive and full with power? Is it overstraining or subchallenging for the development of company? Must there something be added?
6. Is the story, which tells the strategy, in total  coherent and credible? The people involved can they identify? Which adapters still need to be supplemented?

The narrative review of your strategy improves the effectiveness and power. Weaknesses can be found and the risk of miscarriage is reduced. And the strategy is processed for the systematic communication within the company.

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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Projects often fail to be successful due to diverging, badly aligned expectations
Dozens of statistics seem to suggest that there are dozens of reasons why projects fail to be successful. However, a great deal of them are attributable to vaguely defined objectives, problems related to technical architecture and a lack of management support. These causes, in turn, are in most cases due to either too optimistic or diverging expectations of the parties involved. Very often, projects are initiated without having identified and documented expectations as well as requirements on the part of all expert and management key roles.

Scoping: Efficient approach to defining project content
This is where scoping comes into play. This approach is extremely helpful when it comes to describing the functional requirements, defining project content and an adequate proceeding, and designing the technical architecture. The scoping phase targets at mapping the relevant context, ideas, requirements and prerequisites of all parties involved in the project in a well-structured way, reaching an agreement upon the project scope and establishing the project guidelines. Fixing an order of priority and laying down a clear structure makes the demanded objects transparent, well-defined, and synchronises the expectations of all persons involved. Experience has shown that syntonized expectations are one of the most important factors to ensure the success of a project.

Scoping phase in practice
Several steps are necessary to reach these goals. Most of them must be executed in close collaboration with the client. This includes:

• Defining a common objective and selecting relevant persons for workshops and interviews
• Informing or training the project team members in order to create a common basis
• Recording of business-related and functional requirements, needs and ideas during workshops and interviews
• Understanding the technical requirements and challenges, the system landscape, and the necessary integrations
• Prioritization with regard to quick wins and a high payback
• Attending to a common understanding and identifying the points where the project gains momentum
• Elaborating a detailed implementation roadmap, including time management and organizational planning, split up in iterations optimized by quick wins
• Presentation of the results to the management

Implementation Roadmap
One of the most significant results from the scoping phase is the roadmap for implementation. The roadmap includes not only project content and proceeding, but also a time schedule and organizational planning, and provides a basis for the project. It is recommended to split up the project scope into several implementation iterations in favor of a clearly structured step-by-step planning and in order to immediately provide maximum benefit to the project client.

Core factor of success
Principally, scoping should be a closely integrated part of the project methodology. If, for example, there are no interviews, this will cause lead to a sign of alarm at the quality gate. If necessary, this item must be re-worked – or there is a clear decision not to do so.
Experience has shown that the choice of persons involved in the scoping phase is of great importance. The key roles might vary depending on the task and the context, but it is indispensable to involve the client, the top management, the users, and the experts as regards content and technical issues. As soon as the participants are selected, the core factor of success are their availability as well as competent scheduling. We also recommend to have two persons hold the interviews in order not to loose sight of important aspects and to ensure complete documentation.

Summary
Scoping is a good way of fine-tuning project ideas and analyze the approaches to solution finding. Preferably, the scoping phase is an integral part of the typical procedure of all projects. As all information is collected by relevant key roles, the required data can be accessed, translated into requirements, and given a defined level of priority. From this, the concrete implementation roadmap is derived. Thus, the project idea is clearly defined, and the project scope is fixed with consideration of processes, organization, systems, including required system integrations, and other dependent processes. All persons involved in the project have a common interest in and are focused on the same issues. Their expectations are synchronized. The momentum gained by this common basis is the most significant stimulus for all to make the project a success story.

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