12.3 Person Responsible for Operation

The person responsible for operation ensures that products run in production or operation as they're supposed to and that configuration management is performed during operation. Operation will typically be sustained by a special department, but other organizational units may also be responsible, such as the unit that uses the product while carrying out its tasks . Operation may involve products the company has produced itself or has bought externally. Operation may be internal to a company using the products itself or a service to a customer.

The person responsible for operation receives a product for operation at some point in its life cycle. It should be clearly agreed when this person takes over responsibility for a product and what the responsibility covers. This person starts the operation of new products or new versions of products. This also implies a responsibility for being able to roll back to a defined state in case the start of operation reveals that the product doesn't work properly.

This person should have clear instructions for how to treat older versions of a product when a new version is put into operation. Does the new version replace the older one immediately, or should they operate in parallel for a specific time?

Configuration Management Responsibility

The person responsible for operation may share this responsibility in various ways, such as with the development department and/or a maintenance function. One extreme could be that this person takes full responsibility for the product maintenance and therefore the corresponding configuration management. The other could be that this person acts as a user , to make sure the product is accessible to other users.

In some situations, the entire operation environment must be placed under configuration management with the product in operation. In this case, ordinary configuration management principles apply, depending on the types of configuration items. For instance, platform, network, and corresponding software products may form the delivery for operation.

This person's responsibility toward other users must also be clarified, such as whether to undertake all registration of events only on his or her own behalf or on behalf of other users as well. On average up to 50% of events occurring during a product's lifetime are found during operation, so this responsibility must be clearly defined, as well as how these events will be registered and progress through the configuration management system. Events may also include follow-up on product efficiency during operation, such as with metrics.

References

See also Chapter 16Operational Use.