The Central VA LIG, which serves the Greater Richmond and Tidal Basin area, held its bi-monthly meeting November 6, 2008.  This event focused on the area of Release, Control and Validation.  Acting as Program Chairs for this event, Anita and David Hasbury-Snogles secured an expert panel of practitioner and vendor organizations to answer questions and provide applicable guidance to audience members.  Panelists included Dave Irby, SWIFT; Martin Erb, Pink Elephant; and Andrew Brummer, Whitlock Infrastructure Solutions.   
The event combined very interesting perspectives, materials and engaged the audience in many discussions to address a number of questions presented, including:

• There are many types of testing.  Can you talk about the types you use and how you plan to integrate them into your Release Process?
  
• How do you determine your acceptance criteria and what do you do if that is not met, but you are told to deploy anyway?
  
• What are the roles you have in place for Release?
  
• How do you leverage Configuration Management for Changes and Releases?
  
• How are your Change and Release Processes integrated?  What are the touch points?
  
• What challenges have you faced integrating Release, Change and Configuration?

Dave Irby candidly answered these questions and provided an in-depth look at how his organization has addressed these items as a practitioner organization.  Given the applicability to so many organizations, Irby’s real-world examples provided the practice beyond theoretical answers that practitioners are seeking.

Martin Erb and Andrew Brummer provided insight into how processes and flows should be implemented from a consultant’s perspective.  They also presented interesting cases illustrating the point that one should adapt and adopt processes relevant to one’s organization, rather than simply use the processes right out of the book.  The panel also discussed how the “service” is to be performed and transitioned.

Interested in attending our next event?  More information on the Central VA LIG is available at: http://cva.itsmfusa.org.

About the author

Scott Jaeger is a Senior Consultant and Certified ITIL® Expert with Plexent, based in Reston, VA.  Scott is the Central VA LIG President and Vice Chair to Member Services Sub-Committee for itSMF USA.  He can be reached at 703-871-5012 or sjaeger@plexent.com.

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