Project Management

Release Management, Configuration Management, Change Management

Configuration Management, Release Management, PMO Manager

On arriving at HMRC, I carried out a thorough analysis of the existing configuration management system. It was discovered there was no standard C.M process and that most areas had used their own C.M policy to carry out their configuration management responsibilities. I also discovered that the existing version of the main C.M toolset being used was out of support and that no status accounting was taking place on the C.I’s held within the system. The R.M process, while being standardised was not integrated with the C.M system.I therefore put forward a plan of creating a new ITIL based C.M model on a current version of the software, migrating the existing Configuration Items from the old model to the new and integrating it with an improved R.M system. This was presented to the senior management and was subsequently approved. It consisted of a standardised end-to-end process, which was to be rolled out in four phases beginning with the migration of all existing configuration items on the various C.M toolsets to the new toolset and the introduction of proper version management and item lifecycles using roles to facilitate the approval of items and enable sufficient status accounting. Baselines would then be created from the use of Approved baselines, where only items at Approved status would be included. Subsequent phases included the role out of Change management (RFC’s) and linking of such into the CMDB. To enable this task, I acted as consultant to a team of 6 in house people who dealt with various aspects of the roll out of the new processes and toolset plus migration of the existing configurable items across. My role as project manager was to create the new process, model it within the C.M toolset, and then roll it out; training and managing the permanent C.M team in its use such that they could then look after each new process in turn.

When first employed at EDS for an MOD project, I was involved in evaluating the existing C.M system and processes. As a result of this evaluation, I created an improved ITIL based process model, which first made use of item lifecycles to facilitate approval of items by holders of the correct roles, which were then included in a baseline. This was then further improved using change management (RFC’s) linked to items to enable us to revise baselines with RFC’s such that we could relate the new baselines to the creation of technical changes. The C.M system created looked after what was at the time the largest implementation of the Oracle Business suite, the JPA project for the MOD which was built using primarily the HR, Payroll and CRM modules.I subsequently created problem records and linked Test Director into Dimensions such that we could create an end-to-end process where I could link reason for change (whether Test Defect or Live Problem) to an RFC against which items were altered or created and then to a baseline containing approved items. The release of these baselines was then controlled through the use of a Release Control Board where interested parties approved the release of the code when the process controls were satisfied. The code itself was then released directly from the CMDB within Dimensions to the appropriate environment.Throughout the role out of the process, I was involved in numerous training and presentation sessions as each phase of the new process was rolled out. I acted as consultant to a team of 6 staff who were responsible for looking after various stages of the new processes after I had trained them on such.

My main role at the beginning of the London LSP project has been to create and build a PVCS Dimensions system to enable the full software lifecycle processes to be defined using an ITIL based process. This involved process definition, user registration, product definition, change and item definition including use of attributes, life cycles, etc. I was also involved in the integration of Mercury Test Director into PVCS Dimensions and the roll out of Rational Rose and Caliber. I was involved in the process definition phase of being in countless meetings with all areas involved in the software development lifecycle plus service management to construct the processes, which were subsequently built onto Dimensions. Furthermore, these processes were matured and developed further to take into account changes within the organisation and improvement of existing processes. I designed and created the process model which BT used on the London LSP project and successfully linked version, change, baseline and release management together using PVCS Dimensions.In the latter parts of the contract I was involved in the installation and configuration of Dimensions triggers to facilitate automated functionality.