Manage Releases – Evaluation

What is Evaluation?

Services must be evaluated before they go through any changes. Evaluation is a basic process that considers whether the performance of something is acceptable, that it is value for money and whether it can be continued with, allowed into use, paid for, etc. Its purpose is to provide a consistent and standardized means of determining the performance of a service change. The actual performance of a process is assessed against its predicted performance and any deviations between the two are identified and managed. Evaluation Management is like Quality Assurance Management which deals with the assessment of products in detail. If the products are not acceptable they are either amended or returned to the previous version / state or make.

The responsibility of Evaluation Management in connection to changes / releases is to maintain the quality of the products and services as well as assess whether the changes being approved are hazardous or beneficial for the organization. If an organization takes up release/deployment of any new software or upgrade the existing solution, the effect and the impact of those effects on the organization will be assessed by evaluation process.

Need for Evaluation

In order to have a consistent and standardized means for determining the performance of a new release, evaluation is needed. Organizations need to have a well defined process to evaluate the performance / impact of the change implemented by IT change management process on the organization as well on other processes associated with it. For example if an organization has deployed a new solution to manage its IT Operations, it must make sure that the solution is aligned to the business requirements and there is a consistency / stability in its performance. This can only be done if there is a well defined evaluation process in the organization. Evaluation process will also assist in assessing the financial implications of the new solution to the organization. Organizations not having an evaluation process in place might be exposed to risk as unwanted changes may be implemented with loss of time and money.

• It will be difficult to assess whether the new service deployed is as per the business requirement.
• It will also be difficult to identify the financial benefits the newly deployed solution is providing.
• It will not be possible to identify and reduce the variance in service performance as required by customers.

Evaluation Process

Evaluation process by Manage IT assures that the services offered by an organization match the goals and requirements so that those services bring about the desired results. Some key activities of the evaluation process are

Evaluation Plan: Evaluation of a service should be carried out considering various perspectives.  Both, the intended and unintended effects on the business must be taken in to consideration before devising an evaluation plan. Evaluation plan contains the list of activities to be carried out including the detailed schedule of the activities.

Evaluation of actual performance: Actual performance of the deployed solution is measured against the desired results and the variances are identified.

Deviation report: Once the actual performance of the deployed solution is measured and the deviation from the desired results is calculated, deviation report is prepared. It contains the variances between the actual and the expected results. A qualification statement is prepared based on the deviation report providing insights whether a project meets requirements. It also contains recommendations which could improve the performance of the solution.

The actual performance of a deployed IT service is assessed against its predicted performance and its actual performance. Any deviations between the two need to be understood and managed by the Evaluation process. Evaluation helps in continuously improving the IT service.

About Author:

Nikhil Vaishnav is a consultant in Systems Plus Pvt. Ltd. Within Systems Plus, he actively contributes to the areas of Technology and Information Security. He can be contacted at nikhil.v@spluspl.com