InformationWeek
Defining The Business Value Of Technology
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August 28, 2000 |
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Process Management
Getting An Edge On The Competition
Process management is designed to create an environment in which a business continuously improves IT processes to lower costs, reduce cycle times, and improve systems quality, helping it get an edge on rivals in its target markets
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othing derails an IT development project faster than sloppy project management. Having well-thought-out processes helps an IT manager keep track of the many pieces of a complex project. Even the most elementary development effort becomes an impenetrable tangle without a systematic way of capturing a project's requirements, deliverables, dependencies, and time lines.Process management is the art and science of creating and continuously improving the process of developing and delivering robust IT systems. Process management provides an environment for continuously improving procedures, reducing costs, shrinking cycle times, and improving the overall quality of applications and systems.
It's important to note that process management is not the same as project management, although the two are closely intertwined. Process management is concerned with how the IT organization approaches development and maintenance, which includes project management.
Process management builds upon a well-defined and broadly implemented methodology. It takes structures that have been previously defined by a methodology and evolves them into a defined, repeatable process. Implementing IT process management requires that each step be acted upon and is measurable, and improvable.
Any development process should include elements such as defining roles and responsibilities, and selecting appropriate metrics for planning, estimating, and continuously improving development processes. It should also cover the establishment of actual development phases and activities, creation of a workflow among participants, and selection and implementation of tools and techniques best suited to the task. Process management encapsulates all of these elements and provides an environment for improved performance.
Components of process management include strategy and objectives, roles and responsibilities, skill sets and core competencies, reward systems, information flow, and supporting technologies. Process management builds a set of structured methods, tools, and techniques on top of a methodology ("Continuous Process Improvement," 8/21/00).
Methodology is the foundation of this pyramid, upon which process management is placed to formalize the use of the methodology. Successfully implementing process management sets the stage for creating a system for knowledge management within the IT organization.
There are two principal sources of best practices that must be built into organizational methodologies. The first is the set of industry best practices that are proven across companies. The second is the set of best practices developed within the company to meet the needs of a specific group. Both sources should be mined whenever possible.
Process-management tools help companies store and use best practices concerning these development elements. The development of process-management procedures within a company includes establishing a library of best practices; capturing and storing best practices; using best practices on projects; and learning from projects and continuously improving the processes.
In many ways, IT process management is similar to manufacturing quality improvement. In the manufacturing world, companies continually find ways to fine-tune manufacturing processes to improve product quality and reduce costs and cycle times. IT departments must also continually find ways to improve the development process and the resulting systems.
Process management shouldn't be confused with project management, although there are some similarities between the two: Both have objectives, are assigned resources, and require several units of a company to work together. The key difference is that projects exist for a specific duration.
A project plan documents the milestones and dates that will track completion toward the objective. Processes, on the other hand, are ongoing. They reflect the repetitive nature of business operations and the iterative role of software development. Processes have objectives and cycle times. Cycle time is the execution of a process from start to finish. Cost and quality studies focus on cycle-time reduction.
IT organizations are facing increasing demand to speed up their development processes while developing better-quality products and services. As technology becomes further ingrained in the business, customers will have more direct access to a company's business systems because those systems will be extended to the Web. This exposure means that system quality becomes even more critical; thus, the IT organization must improve the way it develops those systems for Internet deployment.
Companies are also finding it more difficult to standardize processes across global enterprises as they move toward online IT processes and shared development across divisions and business units. This can be a major problem because process-management tools aren't keeping up with rapidly changing system development and technology needs.
The good news is that the year 2000 rollover gave companies a push in the right direction, and some companies are leveraging what they learned about process management.
The critical nature of the Y2K crisis caused many companies to tightly structure activities to ensure success. These new, highly structured development processes are integral to process management. The problem is that some companies will undoubtedly slip back into their bad habits as the urgency and panic incited by Y2K subsides.
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