BCS CMSG event “Show me the money”
I participated on the BCS Configuration Management Specialist Group’s “Show me the money… identifying the value of Configuration Management” workshop on Thursday 27th April. I think there were around 35 people there, most seemed to be from a service management rather than a software management background.
David Cuthbertson of Square Mile Systems ran the event and began by describing Configuration Management and then listing some of the common excuses for failure to implement CM - lack of time or resources, claims that it isn’t worth it, no point unless everyone does it, lack of conviction that it’s achievable, lack of belief in cost benefits. Pretty much the same set of excuses for not making any process change AFAICS.
The bulk of the session consisted of group work, with each group coming up with examples of situations where lack of Configuration Management led to a type of problem. These problem types were:
- Paying unnecessary bills e.g. paying maintenance licenses for hardware you no longer have.
- Losing money through bad change implementation e.g. failing to test software changes (and then being unable to roll back your live systems!)
- Making inadequate use of resources e.g. letting people sit idle because they don’t have enough work
- Loss due to contractual or regulatory reasons e.g. improper data protection controls, fines for failing to deliver contractual service levels, shipping third-party software as your own and being sued
It became apparent that all of the attendees had examples of large amounts of money being lost through lack of configuration management, with many of the problems being seen in multiple organisations. ITIL (and related standards) was proposed as a framework for best practice to avoid these types of problems and is becoming a standard requirement for service provision.
It was a useful and enjoyable event to have attended, despite the service management focus, and I hope something similar can be run for BCS SPA Cambridge in the future, albeit with a greater focus on Software Configuration Management.
