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We’re thrilled to see the buzz gathering around our newest announcement - analysts and media alike seem to agree that we’ve added something new and noteworthy to the market. We think this kind of innovation is especially welcome in a market that has little confidence in those larger competitors.

With myCMDB, we’ve really unleashed the power of the CMDB by adding the community features that should logically be part of any project that requires the input from so many different people within an organization. Heck, using email and voicemail for CMDB communication is like using a rotary dial for a smartphone.

Instead, we’ve brought CMDB communications and process into the 21st century, by adding a combination of Facebook interactivity, Wikipedia information quality management, and Google’s searching model. Basically, these features make it easier to get more users involved in its creation and maintenance, which means the CMDB quickly becomes a more accurate representation of the infrastructure, relationships, and services. This allows organizations to use the CMDB to better control the impact of change and move it into a decision support role.

Stay tuned as the buzz continues to build!

The power and pitfalls of knowing every side of the story

As a manager, your company’s ability to execute effectively cannot and does not depend on your ability to scale your own execution across superhuman multiples.

Instead, it depends on two things – first, it requires a refined ability to assimilate data from a number of different sources to formulate an accurate and complete picture of the business as it stands today – and then, leveraging that picture to formulate a clear and concise blueprint and course of action for where the business needs to be in the future.

Secondly, it depends upon your ability to gain buy-in and participation across a number of different constituents – both within your team and across the company.

The challenge of building a blueprint, gaining buy-in, and then orchestrating work across a broad spectrum of resources, is what business management excellence is all about.

Interestingly, there are a number of similarities between effective business management and effective IT management – particularly, as it relates to the CMDB. From data assimilation, to blueprint, to plan of action – the CMDB provides a central focal point -- an accurate and complete view of the IT infrastructure.

And yet, CMDB data inaccuracy is the number one cause for CMDB project failures -- followed closely by a lack of broad adoption of the CMDB across a broad set of constituents within both IT and the business.

Going forward, the CMDB must be an absolutely accurate, trusted source of IT infrastructure information. In addition, the CMDB must be widely accepted and adopted across a broad set of IT and business users within the enterprise. IT organizations will each need to address both of these challenges for CMDB projects to be successful over the long-haul.

Don’t think Managed Objects hasn’t noticed.

-- Siki

Over the past couple of years I have grown to find that there is no other combination of 4 simple letters of the alphabet that can stir as much passionate debate as these do within the world of IT. We all know better than to speak about politics and religion in mixed crowds, I add CMDB right up there with those two topics in the world of IT technologists.

ITIL carried the promise of clear, concise and standard definition….right up until you get to the CMDB. All the topics of ITIL leave room for interpretation, however, the interpretation of just what is a CMDB and just how to implement it can become a powerful debate amongst IT professionals. So much so I consider it a 4 letter word when I speak to IT professionals, until I better understand their “religion” on the topic.

Never do I consider anyone’s view of their CMDB inaccurate, each environment carries with it varying objectives, technologies and processes by which the CMDB can be delivered. I recently had articles published in The Data Center Journal and ITSMWatch.com on CMDB and several key questions often arise when I am out in the real world talking to the folks in the day-to-day trenches:

Who owns and updates the CMDB?
Simply put, everyone does – that is everyone with a vested interest and use of the CMDB. It must be considered a corporate asset and source of “information” and “data”. The more that contribute to it, the more accurate and richer it becomes.

That said, yes, there must be an organizing and policy body that sets the rules for standards to insure consistency. However, it should not restrict the free flow of update, meaning it should not force a single person to perform all updates. Policies, standards and audit notifications should drive the enforcement of standards consistency without crippling the free flow of data.

Why consider implementing?
The 4 letter word often sends shivers down the project owner’s spine, “what did I do to get tasked with this beast?”. Fair sentiment with the crossing of so many organizational barriers this task brings with it. Technology projects are never difficult (work with me on this) until they cross organizational boundaries and then the organization behaviors tend to slow down forward progress of the project.

In this case, data is just that until it is correlated and related to other bits of data turning it into information by which to take action and perform analytics for the growth of the organization. Without a mechanism by which to bring this data together, track it and provide a vehicle by which to apply the intelligence, the sheer volume of data would never expose the actionable information that leads to an agile and growing organization.

So don’t fear the CMDB, embrace the opportunity to contribute to a network of information that begins to connect the whole of the organization over time with true actionable information.

-- Michele

In a recent article in CIO Magazine, “IT departments do not deliver ‘great’ IT, say CIOs”, a survey of CIOs and IT Directors revealed that almost half do not deliver “great” IT. “Great” IT is defined by 3/4ths as being able to to add real value to the organizations strategy and bottom line.

I am always amazed when I speak to leaders of IT organizations for enterprise organizations that may know what sector of the market their organization falls into, but cannot describe to me what the business units do day-to-day and how they determine success for the business unit. I find often times I may know more by reading annual reports and surfing the company websites prior to a meeting than the IT leaders I meet within the organization. So I ask how would an IT organization believe it should have a say in strategic decision making within the organization without basic knowledge of what drives and grows the business?

Alignment to the business has almost become a passé phrase due to the lack of meat behind the initiative and the continued siloed, technology focus of many IT organizations. True alignment will only be achieved when IT organizations immerse themselves into the business and become fully integrated. A recent Information Age article quotes: “There is no such thing as an IT project: all IT’s activity should be about business projects.” The only way an IT organization can better manage change and impact is for it to be immersed and integrated in the business. This is not to suggest that IT organizations become distributed by business units, rather there are emerging roles of service managers that work side by side with the business teams on projects leveraging technology to the success of the business.

I often work with organizations on “IT projects” and the business case for an “IT project”. These are always problematic because most are “soft” in their cases of cost management. Cost saving projects that reduce hardware and software licenses are easy cases with hard savings. It’s the CMDB, SLA, ITIL process improvement, etc. projects that are difficult and I would point the finger at the root of the problem, these are typically internally, IT focused projects without links back to the business they support. I’m often looked at like I turned green and grew horns if I ask questions like, “How does this improve performance of the business? What impact on the business will this project have?”

I find ITSM (IT Service Management) projects that have a focus on managing business impacting events and can be quantified as such for business driving applications are easy cases. BSM (Business Service Management) projects that also bring in business data providing analytics regarding the effectiveness of the business providing information during the quarter versus a financial report after the fact after the quarter also have greater success. My humble advice is to always error on the side of the business and find the high impact services and understand how the technology can be better applied or improved.

IT has a difficult job in managing two sides of a coin: efficiency internally managing costs and effectiveness externally improving the business. Often times IT organizations error on what we know best, IT, but by better understanding the impact to the business and integration to the business provides the greatest benefits all the way around the business speeding up projects and decision making of projects.

– Michele