Demand Management Scope: Where does it fit?

[enhendrickson]

I'm sure there will be plenty of time for practical discussions about SN implementation, but I would like to take a quick theoretical poll to understand how the group members view the different parts of this SIG fitting together - demand, project, program, etc.?   For discussion purposes, is Demand Management a generic, yet early life, mechanism to receive, define, and authorize new ideas on their way to work items (projects, tasks, etc.) and after the work is authorized to start demand management is effectively done? or is is a end-to-end process that covers the full life cycle of an idea from conception-to-completion and even into continuous improvement?   something else?   how are you applying and measuring your take on the scope of demand management?

[solutioningnow]

ITIL itself is an interesting framework Eric, which can be moulded as per the organization needs and structure.

1. See if you can answers to all your queries through following explanations J

The Demand Manager enhances the demand by identifying stakeholders and requirements, risks, and other important information and is responsible for understanding, anticipating and influencing customer demand for services.

Releases may embed one or more changes which are deployed and finally implemented through those releases.

The scenario where project management leverages service management processes and organizational units to develop demands into changes, group them into releases and have them implemented, tested and deployed is the preferable one for organizations where service management is mature; this optimizes the use of resources and the overall scheduling of activities, while minimizing the risks of adverse impact. But it is not the only possibility.

There are two scenarios which may define the relationship:

First one is the day-to-day operations scenario:

Release to project - A release (for example a major release) needs additional coordination and care in order to assure proper implementation by means of a dedicated project. The decision to initiate a project mainly revolves around the effort needed, the total cost involved and the risk.

And the second scenario is where projects will develop, and will implement business or IT requisites with impacts such as new or modified services.

Project to releases - Projects cluster changes into releases, using Release Management techniques and principles to deploy and make IT deliverables operational.

Let me know if this long information is useful for you. J

Regards,

Solutioner

Enhance Knowledge NOW@ www.solutioningnow.com

http://www.solutioningnow.com/

[enhendrickson]

Thanks.   This is helpful.   In your organization are you leveraging this Demand Manager role?   If so, is it a set of duties assigned to an existing role, a role specifically designed for this purpose, something else?

Based on these definitions, for us, this is (a) a business analyst who is writing the charter - which is a primary artifact of the demand process (especially if it's bound for project-work) or (b) program managers who are writing project charters as a means to authorize projects coming from their programs.