All computer companies follow a process.

MOF , ITIL are the most common for IT infrastructure Management.

MSF and some methodologies like Agile, Scrum, Waterfall,, Spiral, extreme Programming ..etc and lots of others for the software development lifecycle.

It is not about which process you follow. All have pros and cons.

Just remmeber that, that process was made to make people’s life easier. No waste of time and effort.

Make sure you really understand why the process tells you do so.

Sometimes sticking to the process requirements is a waste of time, effort and money and is really away from what it was really intended for.

I need to mention those examples for clarification:-

Documentation:-

Documentation is a core principle in software / IT. Vision documents and business proposals are intended to make a clear understanding of what the client really needs. Show what is to be included in the project and what is beyond the scope. Risk management …etc

Suppose you didn’t make that document and the project is near end. It will be very foolish to make it near the end of the project. It will be useless. It was intended to be the first step of your work.

Technical Design:-

On working on network designs. The MOF and ITIL for example need you to have a monitoring methodology, something for communication, something for deployment.

Imagine you have a 500+ users network. and around 20+ network admins in  dsitributed locations.

You can follow the process recommendations:-

. Have exchange servers

. Have IP phones ( like cisco phones or whatever)

. Have MOM servers to assign tasks for the admins

. SMS Servers and RIS for deployments

. Have backup servers

…….etc

But imagine you have a 10+ network with two admins. If you follow the real process recommendations then you are really wasting a huge sum of money.

. You can use free email accounts

. Just use something like Skype instead of Cisco devices

. No need to use the MOM servers. You only have a limited number of admins. Monitoring and assigning tickets isn’t a big deal then

. Just use ghost or sysprep or whatever imaging to deploy your machines and edit the license keys. Why you really need to purchase something big like SMS ????

. why use backup servers. Just simple daily backups for one server people assign their work to will be enough.

that’s just an example.

THINK PRACTICAL

Remember that the process is a RECOMMENDATION and not a TODO mandatory list.

Design and Management is an art. Better understanding of your actual needs, funds and capabilities will decide what you really have to do not what the process states.

I ‘ve been busy for the last few months.

Back to blogging now with a series on Product Management.

I want to make software management look simple. Some people always avoid high level designs and management tasks. If you have the right passion / vision then you are the right candidate. Otherwise, let somebody else do the stuff ….