Release and Deployment ― An Itsm Narrative

Deploying releases into production is fraught with difficulty

With so many interested constituencies, processes can go wrong in more ways than they can go right. The problems start when requirements are gathered and, if unmanaged, can flow unchecked through the entire process, potentially delivering something that’s bound to fail while, paradoxically, exactly meeting the specification.

In Release and Deployment: An ITSM Narrative Account, we follow the story of the release & deployment process in fictional form.

Product overview

Chris has got a new job as a release manager – but he's struggling. Parachuted into a large company to fix its release & deployment process after the catastrophic failure of its new app, Asgard, he finds himself battling an array of insular department heads who are all determined that whatever has gone wrong must be another team’s fault. They all want the finger of blame pointed elsewhere, and Chris seems to be the perfect target – so they shout down his questions and suggestions as insubordination.

How can he pacify his new colleagues, avoid getting fired and get the job done?

Lessons from real projects in a narrative format

This latest ITSM narrative from Daniel Mclean explains the common pitfalls of release & deployment in fictional form, with each chapter describing a difficult meeting with a different department head and featuring a set of pointers that our hero would have found beneficial.

Based on the real-life experience of the author and other ITSM practitioners, Release and Deployment: An ITSM Narrative Account exposes the potential pitfalls and explores how to handle the issues that come with such projects, all in the face of shifting organisational structures and changing management objectives.

About the author

Daniel McLean is an ITSM consultant with over 20 years' experience in IT. He has spent the last ten years designing, implementing and operating processes supporting ITSM. He was also a peer reviewer during development of the OGC ITIL v3 Service Strategy Best Practice.

Daniel McLean’s other ITSM narrative accounts are also available from IT Governance.

Daniel McLean has worked in IT for more than 20 years, and for more than ten years has been designing, implementing and operating processes to support ITSM. His work focuses on bringing the best practices from the ITSM Standards into practical operational processes that are tailored to the needs of the particular organisation. Daniel has developed and delivered customized ITIL courseware to a number of organisations and was a peer reviewer during the development of the ITIL 2007 v3 Service Strategy element of the ITIL framework. He holds many honors in IT and related areas.