IBM Rational Asset Manager made practical

Transcription

1 1 of 11 10/27/2007 4:53 PM IBM Rational Asset Manager made practical Part 2: Establish the governance Level: Introductory Grant Larsen, STSM, Chief-Architect -- Asset Management, IBM 15 Oct 2007 from The Rational Edge: Read how to use IBM Rational Asset Manager in establishing the governance required by your organization. From The Rational Edge. This is the second in a series of three articles targeted to technical leaders who are considering launching an asset management effort in their enterprise. The focus of this series of articles is to outline some key considerations and tasks for preparing your enterprise to work with software assets and to configure IBM Rational Asset Manager to enforce your governance. There are three initial steps to consider when getting started with governed asset management using Rational Asset Manager: Determine your audience Establish the governance Integrate with your environment Future articles in this series will explore other areas, such as Rational Asset Manager configuration tips or addressing cultural issues for reuse. This article, Part 2 in the series, will focus on establishing the governance for the intended audience. Many of the tasks and work-products described in this article are found in the Asset Governance and Asset-based Development processes. These processes are included in the Rational Asset Manager installation. You can also find updated plug-ins for these processes on the developerworks site at: When you get there, look for the section shown in Figure 1. Figure 1: Accessing the plug-in Establish the governance In Part 1 of this series, I focused on identifying the audience for the reuse scope, and I introduced some organization templates for the enterprise. The organization template infers the level of formality and governance that should be configured into the repository. To establish the governance means to determine the level of governance that aligns with the goals of the enterprise, aligning with, or refining the organization templates. There are plenty of repositories which have unorganized, unmanaged content in them. Our goal is not only to avoid

2 2 of 11 10/27/2007 4:53 PM that, but to have the repository provide value and be itself an asset to the business. Care should be taken to govern what comes into the repository, what remains in the repository, and what is removed from the repository. I will use the term "policy" to represent a decision that is made for the asset management progrational Asset Manager, which may be captured in a work-product, and which ultimately can affect the configuration of Rational Asset Manager. The policies for managing assets and setting the context for creating, managing, and reusing assets are described in the asset governance process. But, before going further, what is governance? The essential ingredients of governance are shown in Figure 2. Figure 2: Rational Asset Manager provides capabilities to implement asset governance A key aspect for asset governance is to control the level of non-warranted variance of assets in the repository. Assets require the proper context to be reusable. In general, as the context varies, the asset is impacted and may require several forms and versions. However, you also want to avoid having variations of assets for which there is no need. Enterprises typically have volumes of existing content, which require some level of recurring problem/solution analysis to be done before permitting all assets and their variations to come into the repository. Figure 3 shows the asset governance activities and their work-products. The Reuse Assessment work-product is used to capture the reuse opportunities and reuse aptitude of the enterprise. This is the initial recurring problem analysis, which is conducted by the asset governance board or their constituents. To do this, the repository may be implemented with a specific community to capture candidate assets. The governance board communicates the asset types and classifications to be used to specify candidate assets. The respective communities can submit the candidate assets using the asset types and classifications, which are used to conduct recurring problem/solution analysis and determine which candidate assets should be pursued as well as what changes should be made to the asset types and the classification schemas. This early analysis technique helps to control and minimize the level of redundancy that is initially put into the repository. To configure Rational Asset Manager to enforce governance the asset governance process should be conducted to create the work-products which embody the asset management policies of the enterprise, as shown in Figure 3. Not all the work-products are shown, nor are all of the work-products required. On the left-hand side of Figure 3 is a summary of the high-level phases and tasks for asset governance. In the center are the work-products which come from the respective asset governance phases and tasks. On the right-hand side is a description of the impact of the work-products on the enterprise and on Rational Asset Manager.

3 3 of 11 10/27/2007 4:53 PM Figure 3: The asset governance activities and their work-products Rational Asset Manager has been and continues to be designed to implement capabilities which implement asset governance. We can map the asset governance work-products to the Rational Asset Manager capabilities, as shown in Figure 4. For example, to describe the reviews and approvals for each community in Rational Asset Manager, create an Asset Workflow Spec. The development of the governance work-products outside Rational Asset Manager provides a mechanism for sharing and communicating policies to various stakeholders before Rational Asset Manager is configured. Figure 4: Mapping the asset governance work-products to the Rational Asset Manager capabilities But who creates these work-products? Who performs these tasks and makes the decisions and produces the work-products shown in the image above? The answer depends on the level of formality of the asset management progrational Asset Manager and the scope of reuse. The organization templates introduced in Part 1 of this article outlined varying levels of formality and organizational structure to support asset management. In summary however, there are three major roles involved with defining asset governance including managers, administrators, and the governance board members. Where and when these roles participate depends partly on the enterprise's process and the organization template pursued. Below is a description of the asset governance work-products which captures the policies. The work-products shown here are those relevant to configuring Rational Asset Manager. There are other asset governance work-products such as the reuse strategy and the reuse assessment, which are crucial, but have little impact on the configuration of the repository directly for our purposes here. Asset Migration Plan Share this...

4 4 of 11 10/27/2007 4:53 PM This work-product describes the approach to referencing or moving existing assets to the repository. Digg this story Asset Rules & Policies This work-product describes the rules for assets such as naming conventions, asset Post to del.icio.us support, and the rules for classifying assets. Slashdot it! Asset Type Spec This work-product includes a description, or perhaps a model, of the asset types, their structure, and their relationships. Asset Versioning Policy This work-product describes how assets will be versioned in the repository. In particular, it describes what kinds of changes will constitute a new asset version. Asset Workflow Spec This work-product describes the asset reviews for each community. Classification Schema This work-product is a classification or category schema which is used to classify assets. Community Map This work-product describes the organization of a community, its roles, permissions, users, review processes, connections, and so forth. Metrics Collection Plan A description of the repository metrics and reporting needed by the enterprise. Topology Spec A description of the servers, clients, and network to support a Rational Asset Manager deployment. Governance for Rational Asset Manager This section provides an overview of some of the Rational Asset Manager capabilities enabling asset governance; it does not cover all Rational Asset Manager features. Rational Asset Manager's organization can be simplified into three major areas, as shown in Figure 5. Rational Asset Manager implements an extensible metamodel to permit the enterprise to determine what assets will be governed, how, and by whom. The Information Model section of Rational Asset Manager enables the enterprise to specify the asset types, relationship types, asset attributes, and category schemas. The Asset section allows the enterprise to version assets. The Community section provides asset review and approvals, access control, and notifications. Figure 5: Rational Asset Manager's organization can be simplified into three major areas: Information Model,

5 5 of 11 10/27/2007 4:53 PM Asset, and Community Figure 6 illustrates one more level of detail, where a logical model of Rational Asset Manager emerges. In the Information Model section is the repository configuration. Note that the asset type, relationship type, asset attribute, and category schema are defined at the repository level. For each asset type you can specify the asset attributes (custom asset metadata), relationships, category schemas, and artifacts. In the Asset section is the asset; each asset is of only one asset type. An asset is contained in only one community. The asset owner (a user) is the person who submitted the asset to the repository, in a community. The community owns the definition of the review process to which the asset is subject. Other users can access the assets based on the permissions of the role(s) they are assigned. Figure 6: Going down one more level of detail, a logical model of Rational Asset Manager emerges Now you can map the asset governance work-products to the portion of Rational Asset Manager for which they describe the policies. There are two work-products for which there is not a direct mapping to the sections of Rational Asset Manager, but which are critical to the initialization of the repository. These work-products are the Asset Migration Plan and the Topology Spec, as shown in Figure 7.

6 6 of 11 10/27/2007 4:53 PM Figure 7: Asset governance work-products mapped to their respective portions of Rational Asset Manager, with policies described For the various organization templates introduced earlier, the set of asset governance work-products shown above are created to configure Rational Asset Manager. For each entity, team, or community, a list of asset governance work-products is identified. For each work-product a cardinality is specified, such as (0..1), indicating if the work-product is optional or mandatory for that particular entity. Some of the work-products may be specified by one team and extended or refined by another team, such as the Asset Type Spec, which may be created by the governance board and then extended by the respective communities. Below is an overview of each organization template and the potential asset governance work-products. Governance for ad-hoc In this organization template, shown in Figure 8, there is no governance for the community. Figure 8: This template may be used by communities which are seeking some benefits of asset management, but are operating with no oversight or top-down management support. Governance for self-governed community In this organization template, shown in Figure 9, the community, Division A, creates several governance work-products in preparation for configuring Rational Asset Manager.

7 7 of 11 10/27/2007 4:53 PM Figure 9: Template for a community that creates several governance work-products in preparation for configuring Rational Asset Manager The governance board owns most of the responsibilities for creating the governance work-products in this template. The reuse scope is for this single community, but the community wants to introduce some level of governance. In this case the asset rules for the community are created, setting the naming conventions and other policies for the mostly non-funded asset production activities. One or more asset types are specified by the governance board, and configured by the asset management team. With mostly opportunistic reuse in this template, there is value in having a common asset versioning policy, but some communities may not see the value of defining this given the level of informality in this organization template. To aid the opportunistic reuse one or more classification schemas are created and the metrics to be collected are specified, to help justify the level of governance in this community. Governance for governed communities This template, shown in Figure 10, represents multiple communities coming together on asset management policies and strategies while operating separate repositories. In this template there are governance work-products owned by the governance board, and there are some governance work-products owned by the respective communities. The communities need to agree to abide by the policies specified by the governance board. In this template the governance board owns the governance work-products and policies which apply to all of the communities. This includes asset types, asset rules, and classification schemas -- although each of these may be extended or new ones added by the respective community. The metrics collection plan for reporting to stakeholders is owned by the governance board. The enterprise may use this template as a part of a larger strategy to move to the enterprise partial or enterprise full templates.

8 8 of 11 10/27/2007 4:53 PM Figure 10: In governed communities, multiple communities come together on asset management policies and strategies while operating separate repositories. The respective communities may define more asset types beyond what the governance board has defined. Given that the communities own asset production and management, the communities define the asset versioning policies and how the assets will be reviewed using the Asset Workflow Spec. The communities are also very close to their target users and so they define Classification Schemas. The governance board may define the community map, but in general the respective communities own the responsibility to determine their roles, permissions, user groups, and so forth. Governance for enterprise partial In this template, shown in Figure 11, more of the policy decisions are made by the governance board and the centrally controlled asset management team. The communities are producing and consuming assets, which is where the domain knowledge for this resides. But the administration and management of the repository sits with a central team, achieving some economies of scale and reducing overhead. However, this means the respective communities should have representation to influence the governance board and the asset management team on the policies. The governance board establishes the overall metrics, asset rules, asset types, and schemas. A key function for the governance board is to outline the nature and characteristic of communities which should be in the repository. For example, there may be one community in the repository for all publicly available, non-vetted (as-is) assets. There may be another community in the repository for all publicly available, vetted assets. And there may be many private communities, where access to the assets is determined by community membership. The asset management team describes the general asset versioning policies, refining asset types and classification schemas if necessary. The asset management team also creates the Topology Spec.

9 9 of 11 10/27/2007 4:53 PM Figure 11: In partial enterprise governance, more of the policy decisions are made by the governance board and the centrally controlled asset management team. In addition to producing and consuming assets, the respective communities have deep knowledge of how their respective assets should be reviewed, approved, and classified. This means the communities will specify asset versioning, asset workflow, asset types, and classification. Each community will likely have existing assets which need to ultimately be migrated, requiring an Asset Migration Plan. Each of the respective communities must define their membership, roles, permissions, and so forth. Governance for enterprise full Similar to the Enterprise Partial template, more of the policy decisions are made by the governance board and the centrally controlled asset management team, as shown in Figure 12. However, there is a centrally managed manufacturing team producing the assets, with the assets being consumed within each community. A danger of this organization template is that the respective community needs may be lost or misunderstood if asset producers lose or do not understand the asset usage context. The administration and management of the repository sits with a central team, achieving some economies of scale and reducing overhead. However, this means the respective communities should have representation to influence the governance board and the asset management and manufacturing team on the policies. The governance board establishes the overall metrics, asset rules, asset types, and schemas. The asset management team can extend these as they work closely with the respective communities; specifying the community map, the asset workflows, and the asset versioning policies. The asset management team also creates the Topology Spec.

10 10 of 11 10/27/2007 4:53 PM Figure 12: In full enterprise governance, more of the policy decisions are made by the governance board and the centrally controlled asset management team. Each community will likely have existing assets which need to ultimately be migrated. These communities will work with the asset management team to specify the asset migration plan. The communities also drive requirements for asset production to the asset production team. Summary Asset management requires that you first understand the target audience who will produce, manage, and consume the assets. To help you do that you can use organization templates to determine how the enterprise will be structured to conduct asset governance and asset-based development, and who will participate in what major roles. In this article I have identified the asset governance work-products and discussed the major sections of Rational Asset Manager enabling asset governance. I mapped those asset governance work-products to the major Rational Asset Manager sections they affect, and then introduced which part of the enterprise should build which asset governance work-product based on the organization templates. In the next article, I will illustrate how these asset governance work-products map into configuring Rational Asset Manager. Resources Participate in the discussion forum. A new forum has been created specifically for Rational Edge articles, so now you can share your thoughts about this or other articles in the current issue or our archives. Read what your colleagues the world over have to say, generate your own discussion, or join discussions in progress. Begin by clicking HERE. Global Rational User Group Community About the author Grant Larsen is STSM/Chief-Architect -- Asset Management at IBM Rational software. Grant joined Rational Software in 1993, where he had multiple roles including field services, product development for Rational Rose, and

11 11 of 11 10/27/2007 4:53 PM business development. Grant was a member of the UML committee for Rational, and published portions of that specification. Grant and his team also developed an advanced reuse mechanism for managing reusable designs. Grant has published multiple articles, been a guest editor, and contributed to other books on framework technology and related technologies. He has also played an important role in establishing industry standards on specifying reusable assets. In his current role, Grant continues to drive the asset-based development strategy, including asset governance and asset-based development process definition, pattern content development, and tooling features. He also works closely with customers to guide the vision for the Rational Asset Manager product.