Configuration Management
When we are being asked: “What is configuration management!?”
our simplest, most-direct answer is: “advanced administration”.
Most people have negative associations with this “administration” term, such as “paperwork”, “bureaucracy”, “slow & cumbersome” and so forth. Interestingly; these people are actually right. Not in the sense that administration indeed is a bad thing, but rather because administration is often poorly designed and/or performed within organizations.
William Edwards Deming stated that: “If you cannot describe what you’re doing as a process; you don’t know what you’re doing.” The configuration management version of this statement is: “If you cannot administer what you’re doing; sooner or later you don’t know what you’re doing.”
Especially during the current (4th) industrial revolution, administration should be regarded as adding value (instead of waste), an asset (instead of a liability) and an opportunity (instead of a threat). You might not be aware of it (yet), but the answers to many of your challenges are found in configuration management, and CM2 in particular. The most important questions for any organization should be:
- Which items are important to us and how are they configured?
(i.e. which products, processes, facilities & organizations) - Which datasets are we going to use to continually administer them?
(i.e. using which documents, information, records, content, etc.) - How are we (together) going to keep our configuration up to date?
(i.e. using which process, tool, forms, etc.)
You see, identifying & describing your important items & datasets is not a static, one-off exercise after which you are done. It is much more dynamic in that it is performed repetitively to facilitate specific changes. These changes can be required to solve problems and/or to implement actual improvements. How you use your changes is up to you!
Changes can be managed with respect to any item, dataset, control aspect, lifecycle phase and/or stakeholder. From an administrative perspective, all items (incl. people) can be changed in exactly the same manner. From a behavioral perspective however, people are quite different compared to the other item-types when it comes to implementing changes. For example, people can fear, object, advocate or complain about a change. They need to become aware & be motivated before they can learn in theory and in practice the new skills required to successfully implement the change. Therefore, the behavioral side of change is equally important to the administrative side of change in order to be successful.
Methologic can help you with identifying, describing and/or changing the important items and datasets of your business and/or project. Our people are CM2 & ITIL certified and experienced in applying CM2, ISO 10007 and more generally-speaking ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288.
We can support you as a consultant, professional and/or trainer, so feel free to contact us.
