The Agile Executive

The July 2009 post Between Agile and ITIL introduced the application of Agile principles to system management with the following words:

You do not need to be an expert in Value Stream Mapping to appreciate the power of speeding up deployment to match the pace of Agile development. By aligning development with deployment, you streamline “production” with “consumption.” The rationale for so doing is aptly captured in the first bullet of the Declaration of Interdependence: “We increase return on investment by making continuous flow of value our focus.”

Yesterday’s press release about the acquisition of Phurnace by BMC validates the projection given in the afore-listed post. Colleague and friend Michael Cote puts his finger on the heart of the acquisition in his post in People Over Process:

The interesting part is also that this is automation – I’m assuming – at the application layer, where as most automation talk in past and present is at the infrastructure layer. Of course, the thought leaders in this area – folks like Reductive Labs (Puppet),OpsCode (Chef), and in a more general sense cloud management outfits – are doing a helpful job of blurring the distinction between traditional IT layers like application and infrastructure with their dev/ops angled automation. Check out this white paper done by Reductive Labs and dto solutions on the topic for a nice toe-dip. And, I’d expect to see more application layer automation from VMWare/SpringSource. Older automation portfolios like BMC’s Blade Logic line need to keep a close eye on these developments, hopefully, taking in the proven parts of that work.

One can, of course, automate IT tasks without embracing Agile. The fundamental question to be answered is whether one considers ITIL as an “empirical” process control model or as a “defined” process control model (or possibly a hybrid).