EMA Study concludes that the CMDB is here to Stay
Configuration Management Database (CMDB) adoption is at an increase of 24% in the past two years according to a recent Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) survey conducted in May 2008. EMA goes on to note that the adoption of a CMDB has become a crucial aspect of enterprise IT operations in much the same way that firewalls and network clusters are a part of the operations center. The survey was taken from 91 IT Professionals from large organizations earning over $1 billion dollars a year in sales. They also note that 84% of the surveyed expect to break-even on the ROI within six months to three years. The survey also noted that the key driver in initiating a CMDB project is to support change management and that the number 1 key success factor in delivering a successful CMDB project was securing upper management support.
From my perspective, the survey data shows that again the key factor is to obtain that key CIO or VP of IT to deliver a keynote project kick-off speech. I was at a client recently in which we were brought in to implement HP ServiceCenter to align with their Incident Management process. As a general rule of thumb we let our client do the initial kick-off note to their user base and project stakeholders. The project manager asked the VP of IT Service Management to give a small keynote on their vision going forward with Incident Management. The speech did not contain any of the ITIL jargon, nor did it contain any details about how the project was completed. The key ingredient was “Who” gave the speech and by showing their endorsement of the project the project team was able to get the stakeholder support it needed to become a successful project.
As this survey notes, the implementation of a CMDB has become a crucial part of IT operations. Your enterprise’s success in change management relies on a CMDB built with best practices and scalability in mind. Providing a keynote speech by an upper management executive won’t solve all of your project needs but it certainly will get your project off on the right foot. Waging corporate politics half way through the project to get sign off on a test case is not a project risk any project manager wants.