Best Practices
The series presents a wide variety of best
practices for practical use within the IT project itself
or in the online operation. Each book in the series lists over 100 best
practices and these are organized by chapter around each life cycle stage. Successful
implementation and use of just one of these best practices could have
a pay back of thousands of dollars to a project and business. This section
outlines their organization and gives a flavor of what is available:
Defining your Strategy
In the context of an e-business project this stage probes into the business problem the organization is trying to solve. The stage centers around defining and understanding the problem, so it can be articulated and its business rationale quantified through a business case or a cost benefit analysis. The existing environment needs to be understand in terms of the criticality of business services and their value, and how the solution will interact with these. Best practices are listed relative to business service metrics, “User Outage Minutes” (UOMs), measuring availability from the customer's perspective, measuring the loss of services, creating a business case to accurately establish the potential lost revenue, and defining mitigating strategies.
Mapping your Strategy
This stage creates the details of the strategy, the functional requirements, impact on customer segments, and the value proposition. It includes the design itself which explores how the solution is architected through various models, used for analysis. It also includes defining the non-functional requirements critical in supporting the functions and these include security, performance, availability, and system management. Best practices are listed relative to functional models which describe the solution to a component level and the availability requirements, and provide a rapid way to evaluate the risks; high availability strategies that can be “architected” into the environment based on mitigating risk and protecting key applications; the likely investments, the incremental cost of increased up-time, and where to make the investments.
Constructing your Goods
This stage constructs the design into a prototype, a working version of the solution, that can further demonstrate the functionality and the non-functional requirements for the solution. It confirms the proposed functions and features for business executives and managers, and highlights the risks associated with the solution. Best practices are listed relative to integrating technologies using off the shelf products and solutions; reviewing techniques for improving the non-functional requirements of critical components by looking at advantages/disadvantages of different techniques and alternatives.
Planning your Test
This stage examines the integrity, resilience and reliability of the solution and prepares for implementation. It evaluates how closely the business criteria should be met by the solution provided, a basis for user acceptance, and the potential impact to the current business. Best practices are listed relative to sound change management and the methodology of change planning which assesses the risk and determines the change strategy to maximize the efficiency and minimize the duration of the testing, and planning for the level of testing required, and selecting the right kind of tests.
Testing your Plan
This stage tests the solution and completes the user acceptance. It sets up successfully implementing the solution into production, with the least risk, disruption and meeting the service delivery criteria. It sets expectations within operations on the risk of implementation. Best practices are listed relative to the importance of setting up a battery of tests, test plan creation, testing, business reviews and assessments.
Delivering your Goods
This stage implements the solution and ensures that it continuously delivers the business services in accordance with written Service Level Agreements. It also looks at the organizational aspects required to create a support infrastructure and maintain a smooth running operation which include maintaining the stability of the solution successfully, preventing disruptions from faults occurring, or minimizing these through a quick recovery method, based on rapid and accurate problem management. Executives need to know the impact and the risk of the implementation on the business. Best practices are listed relative to organizing support around a rapid and accurate approach to problem management, and including the operational requirements of a solution into the life cycle of development projects; organizing and managing the solution in both a proactive and reactive way to maximize availability through Early Warning Systems and Automation.
Defining your Strategy
In the context of an e-business project this stage probes into the business problem the organization is trying to solve. The stage centers around defining and understanding the problem, so it can be articulated and its business rationale quantified through a business case or a cost benefit analysis. The existing environment needs to be understand in terms of the criticality of business services and their value, and how the solution will interact with these. Best practices are listed relative to business service metrics, “User Outage Minutes” (UOMs), measuring availability from the customer's perspective, measuring the loss of services, creating a business case to accurately establish the potential lost revenue, and defining mitigating strategies.
Mapping your Strategy
This stage creates the details of the strategy, the functional requirements, impact on customer segments, and the value proposition. It includes the design itself which explores how the solution is architected through various models, used for analysis. It also includes defining the non-functional requirements critical in supporting the functions and these include security, performance, availability, and system management. Best practices are listed relative to functional models which describe the solution to a component level and the availability requirements, and provide a rapid way to evaluate the risks; high availability strategies that can be “architected” into the environment based on mitigating risk and protecting key applications; the likely investments, the incremental cost of increased up-time, and where to make the investments.
Constructing your Goods
This stage constructs the design into a prototype, a working version of the solution, that can further demonstrate the functionality and the non-functional requirements for the solution. It confirms the proposed functions and features for business executives and managers, and highlights the risks associated with the solution. Best practices are listed relative to integrating technologies using off the shelf products and solutions; reviewing techniques for improving the non-functional requirements of critical components by looking at advantages/disadvantages of different techniques and alternatives.
Planning your Test
This stage examines the integrity, resilience and reliability of the solution and prepares for implementation. It evaluates how closely the business criteria should be met by the solution provided, a basis for user acceptance, and the potential impact to the current business. Best practices are listed relative to sound change management and the methodology of change planning which assesses the risk and determines the change strategy to maximize the efficiency and minimize the duration of the testing, and planning for the level of testing required, and selecting the right kind of tests.
Testing your Plan
This stage tests the solution and completes the user acceptance. It sets up successfully implementing the solution into production, with the least risk, disruption and meeting the service delivery criteria. It sets expectations within operations on the risk of implementation. Best practices are listed relative to the importance of setting up a battery of tests, test plan creation, testing, business reviews and assessments.
Delivering your Goods
This stage implements the solution and ensures that it continuously delivers the business services in accordance with written Service Level Agreements. It also looks at the organizational aspects required to create a support infrastructure and maintain a smooth running operation which include maintaining the stability of the solution successfully, preventing disruptions from faults occurring, or minimizing these through a quick recovery method, based on rapid and accurate problem management. Executives need to know the impact and the risk of the implementation on the business. Best practices are listed relative to organizing support around a rapid and accurate approach to problem management, and including the operational requirements of a solution into the life cycle of development projects; organizing and managing the solution in both a proactive and reactive way to maximize availability through Early Warning Systems and Automation.