Difference between revisions of "Maintenance and Control"

Revision as of 05:05, 23 August 2016

1 Introduction

Maintenance and Control are two sides of the same process. Maintenance activities ensure that a system remains operational and does not degrade over time. Maintenance activities preserve existing function. Control of a system manages the approval process for requested changes to a system, including defect fixes, evolution of third-party components, and in-house enhancements. Control activities evaluate and determine approval and schedules for changes to existing function, which are then implemented through Transition (See Transition chapter).

Considerable research over the past several decades has shown that the majority of expenses (75-80%) reported as “maintenance” costs are actually due to changes to systems in response to enhancement requests. Changes that add functionality almost always add value, and therefore, should not properly be called “maintenance.” They are instead properly seen as stages in the system’s evolution.

1.1 Maintenance

An EIT system (asset) is maintained by activities performed to ensure that the system continues to be operational over time [1]. The maintenance team is responsible for two main functions:

• The maintenance team plans for, designs, and directs the maintenance necessary to prevent the deterioration and failure of a system, which can be due to defects, obsolescence, or environmental conditions [2].
• The maintenance team recommends changes to assure continuing environmental compatibility of a system due to evolution of its hardware and software as provided by vendors.

Maintenance is different from Operations. However, the understanding of a system’s maintenance needs is closely connected to its operational function. [2]

• Operations and & Support activities ensure that production systems operate consistently in a steady state of defined functionality. Operational support focuses on preserving execution of systems providing service to users. (outward)
• Maintenance evaluates the system’s operations over time in comparison to changing environment component standards (upgrades from vendors) and increasing age of components (failures due to normal use). Maintenance focuses on proactively preserving a system’s ability to provide defined functionality services to users over time. (inward)

Maintenance is different from evolution or enhancement (see Table 1). Evolution and Enhancement changes the functionality of a system, or creates additional functionality in a system. Maintenance does not.

2 Context Diagram

The Context Diagram for Maintenance and Control

3 Key Competence Frameworks

While many large companies have defined their own sets of skills for purposes of talent management (to recruit, retain, and further develop the highest quality staff members that they can find, afford and hire), the advancement of EIT professionalism will require common definitions of EIT skills that can be used not just across enterprises, but also across countries. We have selected 3 major sources of skill definitions. While none of them is used universally, they provide a good cross-section of options.

Creating mappings between these frameworks and our chapters is challenging, because they come from different perspectives and have different goals. There is rarely a 100% correspondence between the frameworks and our chapters, and, despite careful consideration some subjectivity was used to create the mappings. Please take that in consideration as you review them.

3.1 Skills Framework for the Information Age

The Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA) has defined nearly 100 skills. SFIA describes 7 levels of competency which can be applied to each skill. Not all skills, however, cover all seven levels. Some reach only partially up the seven step ladder. Others are based on mastering foundational skills, and start at the fourth or fifth level of competency. It is used in nearly 200 countries, from Britain to South Africa, South America, to the Pacific Rim, to the United States. (http://www.sfia-online.org)

SFIA skills have not yet been defined for the this chapter.

3.2 European Competency Framework

The European Union’s European e-Competence Framework (e-CF) has 40 competences and is used by a large number of companies, qualification providers and others in public and private sectors across the EU. It uses five levels of competence proficiency (e-1 to e-5). No competence is subject to all five levels.

The e-CF is published and legally owned by CEN, the European Committee for Standardization, and its National Member Bodies (www.cen.eu). Its creation and maintenance has been co-financed and politically supported by the European Commission, in particular, DG (Directorate General) Enterprise and Industry, with contributions from the EU ICT multi-stakeholder community, to support competitiveness, innovation, and job creation in European industry. The Commission works on a number of initiatives to boost ICT skills in the workforce. Version 1.0 to 3.0 were published as CEN Workshop Agreements (CWA). The e-CF 3.0 CWA 16234-1 was published as an official European Norm (EN), EN 16234-1. For complete information, please see http://www.ecompetences.eu.

3.3 i Competency Dictionary

The Information Technology Promotion Agency (IPA) of Japan has developed the i Competency Dictionary (iCD), translated it into English, and describes it at https://www.ipa.go.jp/english/humandev/icd.html. It is an extensive skills and tasks database, used in Japan and southeast Asian countries. It establishes a taxonomy of tasks and the skills required to perform the tasks. The IPA is also responsible for the Information Technology Engineers Examination (ITEE), which has grown into one of the largest scale national examinations in Japan, with approximately 600,000 applicants each year.

The iCD consists of a Task Dictionary and a Skill Dictionary. Skills for a specific task are identified via a “Task x Skill” table. (Please see Appendix A for the task layer and skill layer structures.) EITBOK activities in each chapter require several tasks in the Task Dictionary.

The table below shows a sample task from iCD Task Dictionary Layer 2 (with Layer 1 in parentheses) that correspond to activities in this chapter. It also shows the Layer 2 (Skill Classification), Layer 3 (Skill Item), and Layer 4 (knowledge item from the IPA Body of Knowledge) prerequisite skills associated with the sample task, as identified by the Task x Skill Table of the iCD Skill Dictionary. The complete iCD Task Dictionary (Layer 1-4) and Skill Dictionary (Layer 1-4) can be obtained by returning the request form provided at http://www.ipa.go.jp/english/humandev/icd.html.

The information is not available yet.

4 Key Roles

Both SFIA and the e-CF have described profiles (similar to roles) for providing examples of skill sets (skill combinations) for various roles. The iCD has described tasks performed in EIT and associated those with skills in the IPA database.

The following roles are common to ITSM.

• 1st, 2nd, 3rd Level Support
• Access Manager
• Facilities Manager
• Incident Manager
• IT Operations Manager
• IT Operator
• Major Incident Team
• Problem Manager
• Service Request Fulfillment

5 Standards

• ISO/IEC 24765:2016 Systems and software engineering—Vocabulary (also available online as SEVOCAB at https://pascal.computer.org/ and it is free)
• ISO 20000 series
• IEEE Std 14764-2006, ISO/IEC 14764-2006 - International Standard for Software Engineering - Software Life Cycle Processes - Maintenance
• IEEE Std 982.1-2005 - Standard Dictionary of Measures of the Software Aspects of Dependability

6 References

[1] (2010). SEVOCAB at https://pascal.computer.org/

[2] Retrieved from Guide to the Systems Engineering Body of Knowledge (SEBoK), version 1.3.: http://www.sebokwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Logistics&oldid=48199

[3] Ibid., Section 2.3 Maintenance Cost Estimation

[4] International Institute of Business Analysis. (2009). A Guide to the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge® Version 2.0. IIBA. [IIBA-BABOK 7.5.2, p.134]

[5] [Ibid., 7.6.2, p. 137]

[7] Introduction to the ITIL Service Lifecycle, Second Edition, Office of Government Commerce, 2010. p. 52; p. 215