Business process management/Internal dependencies - simultaneous upgrades

Summary

With a shared BPM infrastructure, conflicts tend to arise when shared assets require changes. The shared assets even include software versions for the platform infrastructure. The questions that arise include ownership and cost allocation of regression testing, hardware upgrades, and more.

One organization established a regular maintenance cycle under which the software platform and shared modules would be refreshed. Every project team built into their project timelines regression testing and upgrade activities. If a specific business objective was going to be sufficiently delayed such that a schedule adjustment was warranted the project team could request a postponement.

The important thing to note here is that the conflict situation was discovered early. Experienced system architects and business sponsors knew that the platform would periodically require maintenance. Renewal and improvements in the infrastructure were expected and recognized as important to the success of the effort. They then established a plan by which those upgrades could occur with minimal friction from active project teams.

Applies to

Charter for Conflict Resolution