Planning an MIIS Implementation

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Planning an MIIS Implementation

• Dave Nesbitt, Oxford Computer Group

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Planning an MIIS Implementation

• Well, said Pooh, what I like best and then
  he had to stop and think.  Because although
  Eating Honey was a very good thing to do, there
  was a moment just before you began to eat it
  which was better than when you were, but he
  didn't know what it was called.

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Before you eat the honey

• Dont dive in and get in a sticky mess
• MIIS is a POWERFUL THING and can DO STUFF to your
  environment that you might not want it to do
• Stop and think
• What is the point of all this?
• What am I going to do?
• Why am I doing it?
• How will I know when Ive finished?
• What happens if I press this?

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What is the point of all this?

• How do current systems support the organization?
• Can some sacred cows be sacrificed?
• What special circumstances apply only to us?

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What am I going to do?

• Data synchronization?
• Data cleansing?
• Provisioning?
• De-provisioning?
• Auditing?
• White Pages?

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Why am I doing it?

• Be clear about what it is you are trying to
  achieve before you start
• Establish sound business reasons for the project
• Save money
• Increase efficiency
• Enhance security
• Regulatory compliance

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How will I know when Ive finished?

• Refer to the previous slide
• Stop when you have met your goals
• Dont allow scope creep
• Plan for additional phases

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What happens if I press this?

• Think worst case
• Delete means delete
• What will the impact be on other systems when you
  press go
• What will the impact be on the organization when
  you remove everyones email address?
• MIIS doesnt have an undo button

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Owl says

• Secure Executive Sponsorship
• Identify Quick Wins
• Plan each CDs contribution
• Plan requirements for each MA
• Clarify Support Roles in Deployed System

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Secure Executive Sponsorship

• MIIS touches a lot of systems
• Not all of which want to be touched
• Can present significant political challenges
• Would you help someone who was dismantling your
  personal empire?
• An executive sponsor can win hearts and minds
• or at least intimidate those who might seek to
  obstruct you

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Identify Quick Wins

• Go for Connected Data Sources with the greatest
  positive impact and the greatest likelihood of
  success
• Leave out those technically very difficult, or
  politically very awkward, in the first iteration
• Generates goodwill and trust among the owners of
  the Connected Data Sources, and invests the
  project sponsor with confidence
• Success breeds success, other data sources will
  either want to join, or come under pressure to
  join
• HR - AD - White Pages is a classic Quick Win
• Takes away manual provisioning of AD accounts
• Rapid ROI
• White pages seen by the whole organization

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Plan each CDs contribution

• Consult the technical owners to establish
  technical feasibility
• Consult the business owners to establish the
  practical, business and political implications of
  your proposals

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Plan requirements for each MA

• Establish the data structures which need to be
  handled
• Object types and their attributes
• Direction and type of attribute flows
• Anchor and joining attributes

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Clarify Support Roles in Deployed System

• The responsibility for supporting the MIIS system
  can be hard to pin down
• What should a user do, for example, if their data
  in the system is not correct?
• How much of an understanding of the system must
  the user have?
• Do they need to be able to identify the source
  system, and call the administrator of that
  system? Or is there to be a central point of
  support?
• Start this discussion early in the planning
  process, so that support processes can be settled
  well before the system is even piloted.

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Pooh says

• Dont do waterfall projects
• Think iteratively
• Think functionally
• Be data-driven
• Adopt a proper software development mindset

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Dont do waterfall projects

• In any reasonably sized MIIS project - dont plan
  in the traditional waterfall way

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Dont do waterfall projects

• In any reasonably sized MIIS project - dont plan
  in the traditional waterfall way

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Think Iteratively

• Plan for several smaller iterations, rather than
  a big bang

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Think Functionally

• High Level Functional Spec
• Hardware spec
• High Level Use Cases
• But dont get bogged down with technical detail
  at this stage
• Attribute Flows can come later, once youve seen
  the data and built a few prototype MAs

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High-level use cases

• Agree the functionality of the system
• Win hearts and minds across the business
• Prepare for testing and acceptance

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High-level Use Cases
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Be Data Driven

• Dont get bogged down with design until you see
  the data
• The best design in the world can go out the
  window when you see how dirty it really is

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Adopt a proper software development mindset

• 3 Tier Environment
• Dev-Test-Production
• Staged releases
• A point in time
• A group of bugs
• Some additional functionality
• Formalize Change Control
• Change Requests
• Formal test plans
• Bug tracking tools

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• I don't see much sense in that, said Rabbit.
•   No, said Pooh humbly, there isn't. But
  there was going to be when I began it. It's just
  that something happened to it along the way.

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Piglet says

• Hold a requirements workshop prior to kickoff

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Discovery Workshop

• Increase the stakeholder knowledge of what is
  possible using MIIS
• Elicit and share information from project
  stakeholders
• Achieve a common understanding of project aims
  and objectives
• Agree key roles and responsibilities for the
  project life cycle, and support and management of
  the ongoing system
• Develop a high level solution structure
• Produce an outline project plan

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Workshop Attendees

• Executive sponsors
• Business process and directory owners
• Owners of application development teams
• Technical staff expected to be directly involved
  in the project
• Those expected to be involved in ongoing
  operation and management

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Requirements Overview

• Business goals (project vision and objectives)
• Connected Data Sources (CDSs), including
  prioritization
• Identity object types to be included in the
  solution
• Current business rules, and those proposed (as
  far as they are known)
• Preferred timescales
• Number, size and source of identities
• Identity churn rate frequency and volume of
  new/deleted identities and identity attribute
  changes
• Any other pertinent information such as
• Group and policy requirements
• Network issues
• Security constraints
• Compliance rules
• CDS schema constraints
• Impact of or on other projects

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• Questions?
• Dave Nesbitt
• http//www.oxfordcomputergroup.com
• dave.nesbitt_at_oxfordcomputergroup.com