People – Process – Technology – The eternal triangle

The eternal triangle of “People, Process and Technology” is tired and overworked, especially in marketing literature. In itself, these facts don’t make it wrong. But is it good enough?

It’s usually invoked to back a claim that there’s more to consider than just [whatever it is that is already being considered – often a technical product]. And this is nearly always a good thing. Obviously each of the three words embraces a number of related concepts – for example, a consideration of people requirements should bring in questions of skills and motivation as well as sheer numbers of people. But can the triumvirate of People, Process and Technology claim to be everything there is to consider?

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Information

One thing I think is missing is the dimension of information or data. (Information and data are not the same thing, but we can understand them living on the same dimension, along with knowledge and wisdom. As does content, the term favoured in web-enabled business-to-consumer areas.)

Some people seem to regard information as a detail of technology, but I believe this view leads to incomplete solutions – in other words, information is very definitely something more to consider.

No one needs a CMDB

… Did I just write that? But it’s true. No one needs a CMDB for itself, or a CMS, or an SKMS. Even an outsourced service provider whose client has written “must have a CMDB” into the contract doesn’t need the CMDB itself. Anything will do as a CMDB, to avoid contractual penalties. The client has no external standard to hold the provider to. So they write, or should write, more specific terms to give the desired control. And so should organisations trying to improve configuration management for business value rather than compliance.

What good, specific objectives or contract terms are there for a CMDB, or more accurately a configuration management improvement project?

Here’s one.