Hi all.  I wanted to let everyone know about two exciting announcements.  At MMS, the MOF team has announced the relesae of Microsoft Operations Framework 4.0 and the new MOF Online Community Forums, a new online home for the discussion of of all things related to MOF, service management, ITIL, IT governance and related frameworks across the IT lifecycle as they tie to the Microsoft platform. We sincerely look forward to getting to know you all better on our new forum and introducing you to the new MOF. Now that we're though the very intensive development schedule of MOF 4.0, the level of online activity across our all of our community outlets will be picking up considerably over the next few months.  Please drop in our our new forum, say hello, and keep an eye out for some of the announcements that will be coming, such as training webcasts, hosted LiveMeetings with the both the MOF development team, key customers and implementers, as well as Microsoft's own IT department.  The release announcement for MOF 4.0 follows.

Microsoft Operations Framework 4.0—Simplifying IT Service Management

I am thrilled to announce the release of Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF) 4.0.

MOF 4.0 applies service management concepts to the tasks and challenges IT professionals face every day. The guidance it provides puts IT pros in the spotlight—it speaks to their needs and provides them with job aids to help them make sound decisions. MOF 4.0 features guidance specifically written to help CIOs, IT directors, IT managers, and IT professionals at all levels plan, deliver, operate, and manage IT services across the lifecycle.

In version 4.0, MOF introduces a new structure that puts emphasis on outcomes, results, and roles in a format that’s easy to reference. Because every group, team, and company is unique, the service management functions (SMFs) in MOF 4.0 are anchored by questions that support the decision-making process within an organization. This new, streamlined approach makes it possible to use either the entire framework or just one component of the framework to solve a particular problem.

The practical guidance in MOF 4.0 features processes; governance, risk, and compliance activities; management reviews; and best practices from Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF). Finally, to ensure industry alignment, MOF 4.0 supports the best practices found in frameworks such as ITIL, CoBIT, and ISO 20000.

The new release of MOF offers concise, practical guidance across the IT lifecycle, but it doesn’t stop there. Another very important element of version 4.0 is our online community: a platform where IT professionals can contribute their own timely, relevant recommendations for achieving reliable, cost-effective IT services…and benefit from the contributions of their peers.

What You Should Do Next

Download MOF 4.0 now at www.microsoft.com/MOF, then join the online MOF community. See what you can contribute—and what you can gain—by participating in forums and blogs, providing feedback, and supporting other IT professionals.

Please let us know what you think of this latest release of MOF.  We look forward to hearing from you,

Sincerely,

I wanted to let everyone know that at this time we are no longer looking to hire another Program Manager for the MOF Team.  Thank you for your interest!

Jason Osborne

Frameworks PM

We currently have an immediate need for a MOF PM to join the team here in Redmond, WA.  I have posted the job description below and if you are interested in applying please forward contact me using the contact form on this site.  The one thing I would add to the job description is that we're looking for someone who can help continue to drive and evolve our strategy around community and customer and partner engagement.  And please note, this job is located 100% in Redmond, WA with no possibility for a remote employee.

Job Description:

MOF Program Manager

Microsoft Program Manager

Who we are:

The Solutions for Management and Infrastructure (SAMI) team has two main areas of focus. We solve customer problems by continuing to develop the Microsoft Operations Framework, MOF, integrate MOF concepts with guidance and tools for compelling solutions, and drive manageability improvements into the Microsoft products. 

Our team, SA-MI, has been responsible for the some of the solution accelerators found on the Microsoft web site such as Microsoft Operations Framework, MOF Continuous Improvement Roadmap, Windows Vista Service Lifecycle Management, Infrastructure Planning and Design, and Business Desktop Deployment.

During FY 09, our primary focus will be developing a vibrant service management community that extends MOF content and supports the improvement of IT services.  Through collaboration with product groups, MSN, MSIT and Services, our goal is to deliver IT professionals the right solutions to improve their effectiveness.  

What we need:

We are looking for people experienced in the areas of operations management, service management, and automation.  Do you want to lead the charge on solving tough IT service challenges such as the integration of people, process and technology to support the automation of IT services such as provisioning, identity management, software update.  If challenges like these are your passion then SAMI is the place for you.

Main Responsibilities:

Acting as an internal Microsoft solutions integrator, the role will include the envisioning, planning and execution management of MOF- related solutions.  A focus for this role will be extending and driving the MOF community to further enhance and extend MOF content.  It is an opportunity to take projects from inception to completion in a short time frame typically 9-12 month cycles. It includes significant cross group collaboration.

Necessary Skills:

·         Passion and vision for solving IT service management challenges and connecting MOF to the Microsoft platform.  

·         Passion for customers, partners, and relationship building. An understanding of online communities.

·         MOF and ITIL knowledge with 7 to 10 years of IT service management and operations management experience

·         Demonstrable and highly effective cross-team collaboration and communication skills

·         Deep program management skills; virtual team management experience

·         Strong presentation, oral and written capabilities

Job location is Redmond, WA

Compensation: Competitive depending on experience

We look forward to hearing from you!

Jason Osborne

Frameworks PM

The Frameworks team continued its journey along the winding road to Hana by releasing a significant beta update this past Friday.  With this release we have now released initial versions of every core Service Management Function (SMF) with the exception of the Team Model, which I can assure is coming!  So, without further delay, below is the latest beta invitation e-mail, along with the Connect ID and Invitation link necessary for you to access the content and share your feedback and opinions with us.

Interested in improving your IT Service Management?  Optimize your IT Processes with Hana (MOF v4)

Hana guidance provides a structured approach for IT process optimization.  Hana integrates MSF and MOF, plus extends the guidance to include planning and governance. Hana enables you align IT with your business goals, deliver IT as a service, and leverage compliance activities to optimize your people’s effectiveness.  

This beta includes the following documents:

·         Hana Beta Reviewers Guide 3

·         Business/IT Alignment SMF

·         Change and Configuration SMF

·         Customer Service SMF

·         Financial Management SMF

·         Problem Management SMF

·         MOF Overview

·         Mapping Spreadsheet (earlier versions of MOF to version 4.0)

·         Design and Deliver Phase Overview

·         Operate and Support Phase Overview

·         Plan and Optimize Phase Overview

·         Manage and Adapt Integration Layer Overview

·         Build SMF

·         Deploy SMF

·         Envision SMF

·         Governance, Risk, and Compliance SMF

·         Operations Management SMF

·         Policy Management SMF

·         Project Plan SMF

·         Reliability Management SMF

·         Service Monitoring and Control SMF

·         Stabilize SMF

Our goal for this beta is to receive feedback from a broad group of IT experts regarding Hana’s content structure and high-level concepts across the entire set of SMFs.  Your feedback will be addressed in our March and April beta releases, but we’ll need your input soon to make Hana the best it can be.

The MOF Update has now moved into the earliest stages of our beta / Request for Comment period and as such has graduated from the generic MOF Update name to an official Microsoft codename.  All of the update work to Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF) and Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF) is now being referred to as Project Hana.  And if you're wondering at the story behind the name, Hana, a beautiful town on Maui, Hawaii lies at the end of 100 turns along a very lengthy, windy, coastal mountainous road.  The path to service management excellence can be just as windy and twisty but equally rewarding at the end.  And I should thank one of our fine partners for that analogy as it makes for a much better story for how we picked the name than the true one.

As I mentioned, Project Hana has now released into our earliest beta and while this particular beta is not widely open to the public, I did want to share with you what we have released to date by posting our invitation e-mail. 

Project Hana (MOFv4) is now available on Connect. We invite you to take a look at the latest additions to this significant restructuring of MOF—then let us know what you think.

This beta includes the following documents:

·         Reviewer’s Guide

·         Governance, Risk, and Compliance SMF

·         Policy Management SMF

·         Envision SMF

·         Project Plan SMF

·         Build SMF

·         Stabilize SMF

·         Deploy SMF

·         Mapping Spreadsheet (earlier versions of MOF to version 4.0)

·         MOF Overview

·         Manage and Adapt Integration Layer Overview

·         Plan and Optimize Phase Overview

·         Design and Deliver Phase Overview

·         Operate and Support Phase Overview

·         Reliability Management SMF

·         Service Monitoring and Control SMF

·         Operations Management SMF

Our goal for this beta is to get feedback about Hana’s content structure and high-level concepts.  Before you dig into the content, please take a look at the Reviewer’s Guide, which lists some of the specific feedback we’re seeking. We’ve intentionally presented content in different ways in certain SMFs, and we’d like to focus your attention to guide our final choices.

And if you're interested in taking a look at this content and leaving your stamp on the next version of the framework, I promise you will have your chance soon as we will be broadening the access to the beta quickly.  And in the meantime, if you feel you need to see the content quickly, feel free to e-mail me and we'll try to accomodate you as soon as we can.

Thank you,

Jason Osborne

Frameworks PM

Development has continued at a frenzied pace over the past couple of months on the MOF update and we do have some work to show for it.  But before I present the MOF IT Service Lifecycle, its phases, and our new graphic, I'd like to review a few of our core design principles with you to make sure we're all on the same track.  Simply put, our design goals are:

• Update MOF to include the full end to end IT Service Lifecycle
• Let IT Governance serve as the foundation of our lifecycle
• Provide useful, easily consumable best practice based guidance
• Simplify and consolidate SMFs as needed, emphasizing workflows, decisions, outcomes, and roles

Now with that understanding, let's take a look at the new MOF Lifecycle graphic.

Looking at the graphic, you'll note there are 4 distinct phases, or parts, of the lifecycle.  Like the previous version of MOF with its four quadrants, each of these has a unique mission of service, yet are comprised of closely interrelated Service Management Functions (SMFs).  In no particular order, the four phases with their mission statements are:

Plan & Optimize

Ensure services offered to the business are valuable, predictable, reliable, and cost-effective while responding to ever changing business needs.

Design & Deliver

Ensure that those services the business and IT have agreed on are developed effectively, deployed successfully, and ready for operations.

Operate & Support

Ensure that deployed services are operated, maintained, and supported in line with the Service Level Agreement targets agreed to between the business and IT.

Manage & Adapt

Ensure that the investment in IT delivers expected business value at an acceptable level of risk using controlled and documented processes.

And if you're wondering where some of your favorite SMFs now live, take a look at this next graphic for our Service Management Function breakdown.

And while we have reduced the total number of SMFs from previous versions of MOF, I hope you'll find that by consolidating and simplifying SMFs where it made sense, and by creating a new structure for the SMFs that focuses on workflows, decisions, outcomes, and roles, we have made MOF more easily consumable and adaptable to your unique environment and needs.  But still, we'd like to hear your opinions on the above graphics and decisions.

In the next few days, I'll start breaking down each of these phases and talking a bit more about the SMFs that comprise them.

Jason Osborne

Frameworks PM

I wanted to apologize for the perhaps disturbing lack of posts over the previous several weeks, but I'm afraid being a new father took more out of me than I would have believed possible.  That said, work has continued apace and I would like to continue sharing some of our output and development decisions with you as well as continue to solicit your input on what we are doing.  So, with that said, let the broadcasts resume.

Jason Osborne

Frameworks PM

Since I had promised a quick follow-up posting to the Operations and Support blog from last week, I wanted to explain my lack of postings.  Earlier this week, my wife gave birth to our first child and as a consequence I am currently occupied with adapting to my new home life.  Please don't think the blog has been abandoned, as I do have several pieces of information to convey to you about the ongoing work around the MOF Update, and I will be getting back to posting in the next week.

Jason Osborne

Frameworks PM

We have now spent some time talking about IT Governance as well as the Business IT Planning phase of the lifecycle and so I wanted to jump ahead a bit from planning straight into the Operations and Support phase of the lifecycle, with emphasis on the Operations piece.  Please understand that I am intentionally leaving out the middle at this point, the design, build, stabilize, and deploy phase that creates a service and moves it into production for the Operations and Support groups.  But I do promise we'll come back to that one shortly and fill in the gap.

Operations and Support is an area that Microsoft has to get right as we have a responsibility to assist our customers with operating and supporting our platform in the most efficient and painless manner possible.  And that requirement does lead very naturally to our goal, or mission statement, for this phase.

"To operate, maintain, and support existing IT services in line with SLA targets."

To support that goal, we're proposing streamlining the existing Operating Quadrant by combining several of the current Service Management Functions (SMFs) and mapping that workflow throughout the lifecycle in addition to providing technology specific work instructions.  In our proposed model, we would be making several changes to the existing Operating quadrant SMFs.  I'll list out the current SMFs and then talk about the changes.  For a better, graphical representation, please download and review the attached PowerPoint presentation.

• Systems Administration SMF
• Network Administration SMF
• Directory Services SMF
• Storage Management SMF
• Job Scheduling SMF
• Security Management SMF
• Service Monitoring and Control SMF

The first four of the above list: Systems, Network, Directory, and Storage would all be merged into a single Operations Management SMF.  Service Monitoring and Control, as well as Job Scheduling would be moved over to the new lifecycle phase as standalone SMFs, though the focus of each will be updated to reflect both our new form factor and modern IT issues, technology, and concerns.  Lastly, Security Administration would be moved to the foundational layer of the lifecycle that includes IT Governance, Compliance, Risk, and related concerns.

Now if we take a deeper look at the objectives of Operations Management SMF, we have five goals we hope to accomplish:

1.  Provide modeling based questions that help the IT pro identify the necessary work instructions
2. Help the Operations Manager organize the execution of planned daily, weekly, and monthly tasks
3. Offer guidance around controlling the work performed
4. Show the integration of the SMF into the overall IT lifecycle
5. Provide specific technology work instructions for the Microsoft platform

Again, a graphic showing this workflow is included with the attached PowerPoint.

So, with all of that said, I once again have a couple of specific questions I’d like to ask you:

1.       What do you think about the proposed consolidation of the Operating Quadrant SMFs?

2.       What specific technology work instructions would you find most useful (a prioritized list)?

Thank you all and look for another post from me in the next few days which will provide an in-depth look at our new SMF structure featuring Availability Management.

Jason Osborne

Frameworks PM

IT business planning is an increasing important topic in the world of today's IT professional.  We continuously see problems arising from not including IT operations early enough in the planning process which leads to services being designed with little thought given to operational concerns and serviceability.  At the extreme end of the spectrum, this can lead to entire ROI and business case plans being developed that look only at the upfront costs of the project without consideration for the longer-term operational and support costs.  Having devoted a couple of posts discussing our thoughts around IT governance and another that started an excellent discussion around the audience, I thought today I would give everyone some insight into what we're thinking of as the first phase of the lifecycle and an early look into our high level thinking around the processes and functions that comprise it.  So, much like with IT governance, I'd like to propose a definition for IT Business planning to you and request your feedback and input:

"Maximizing the value of IT by gathering clear requirements and delivering a service plan that aligns to organizational strategy."

With this definition in hand, once a customer comes to IT with a business need, we can then develop a workflow with four main process-focused stages:

• Gather Requirements
• Analyze Requirements
• Align Plan to Strategy
• Seek Authorization to Proceed

In each of these workflow stages, there will live several Service Management Functions.  Some of these are new to MOF and some have been around for many years.

• Requirements Management
• Portfolio (or Demand) Management
• Availability Management
• Security Management
• Financial Management
• Service Level Management
• Capacity Management
• Continuity Management
• Service Mapping & Cataloging

I have attached a short PowerPoint presentation that goes into a little more detail about this while also presenting a graphical representation of the workflow with the SMFs integrated.

Yet, as always, I have a few questions I'd like to ask you to answer as you consider the above.

1. Does the definition I've presented of IT Business Planning make sense?  Does it either over simply or overcomplicate the concepts?  Does it miss the point completely?
2. In your experience, what are the activities that occur in the IT Business Planning phase?
3. Who is, or should be, involved in the IT Business Planning phase?
4. What tools, artifacts, examples, job aids, and guidance, would be most useful to you in successfully conducting IT Business Planning?

Thank you again for your continued participation and involvement.  I assure you we are reading your comments and requirements and that they are directly impacting our planning.  Please click on Comments below and continue to share your thoughts.  And if there's anythi