Typical Ivanti Implementation Timeframe

This question came in through my Podcast Question/Topic Form from Andre in Frankfurt, Germany as well as Adrian from Melbourne, Australia.

Typical Ivanti Implementation Timeframe – Independent ITSM Podcast covering Ivanti Service Manager ISM HEAT Latest Solutions & Best Practices

This question came in through my Podcast Question/Topic Form from Andre in Frankfurt, Germany. What is the typical Ivanti Implementation Timeframe? Ivanti Service Manager (HEAT ISM) Implementations really vary based on business requirements.  There is no quick silver bullet or cookie-cutter Scope of Work, and Estimates can vary greatly between Ivanti Business Partners, and independent consultants. Be sure to listen to what I have to say and my unique insights thanks to 25+ years of Ivanti Service Manager (HEAT) experience. podcast.a19consulting.com

What is the typical Ivanti Implementation Timeframe?

Andre, Ivanti ITSM Project Manager, Frankfurt Germany

Ivanti Service Manager (HEAT ISM) Implementations really vary based on business requirements. There is no quick silver bullet or cookie-cutter Scope of Work, although unfortunately Ivanti and Business Partners, use templates across the board for clients with different needs and business requirements. Worse yet, I see quite a bit of overselling with no clear Implementation roadmap or plan, and far too many implementations go off track due to poor execution, delivery, or budget exhaustion on what was sold as a slam dunk and clearly isn’t.

Implementation Considerations

First and foremost you will want to do a self-assessment of which ITIL processes (Incident, Change, Service Requests, Problem) are a must-have or nice-to-have and build a time-lined roadmap. As well you want to review top obstacles and challenges, see my Ivanti Implementation Poll to see what area of focus resonate.

Once you have established a high-level roadmap you will want to work with a seasoned Ivanti Service Manager Consultant to solidify a scope of work and provide you with estimated effort.

Estimated Effort

Estimates can vary greatly between Ivanti Business Partners, and independent consultants. One factor is the overhead that Ivanti Business Partners have and the guaranteed referrals that Ivanti Business Partners get from Ivanti, and their associated price tag. Independent consultants tend to have much better rates, without the overhead, and without bureaucratic structure, you benefit from working directly with a consultant rather than a team with varying opinions and agendas.

Case and point, while working with several Ivanti Business Partners, it was not uncommon to spend 2 hours a week on status calls with the Ivanti Project Manager, Ivanti Account Manager, Ivanti Territory Manager, Ivanti Customer Service Manager, and Ivanti Business Partner Sales Person. That translated into 8 hours per month of consulting time, and worse yet, days of additional effort as managers had their own agendas and the customer instead of getting the consultative experience, ended up confused and unable to make informed decision based on expert advice.

Ivanti Implementation Packages

With my 25+ years of Ivanti HEAT ISM consulting experience, worldwide, the following Ivanti Implementation Packages have been designed to give customers a direction and starting point but come with the caveat that as mentioned above, estimated effort sizing is required based on the roadmap and deliverables. As always a free no-obligation Discovery Session is needed to tailor an Implementation package to your business requirements.

Starter Package | 19 Days

This package is designed for organizations newly implementing Ivanti Service Manager, wanting to fine-tune their system, streamline existing processes, build simple integrations, or requiring basic configurations changes for fundamental ITIL processes.

Critical Path Package | 50 Days

An extension to the starter package, for organizations wanting to take the Ivanti Service Manager Implementation to the next level with advanced configurations and processes, complex integrations, and in-depth configuration of fundamental ITIL processes.

For example one of the following: Procurement, Hardware Asset Management, Software Asset Management, Change Requests, HR Onboarding/Off Boarding.

Ultimate Success Package | 100 Days

For those organizations serious about leveraging Ivanti Service Manager to the max and taking their Ivanti Implementation to the highest level, with advanced configurations, advanced processes, complex, integrations, in-depth automations, workflows, and several complex integrations.
For example one or more of the following: Procurement, Hardware Asset Management, Software Asset Management, Change Requests, HR Onboarding/Off Boarding.

In Summary, my Ivanti Implementation Packages are designed as a guide and starting point for establishing a scope of work and roadmap to excellence.

A Discovery Session is needed to asses which package is best.

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Scope of Work Priorities

When you are gathering Ivanti Service Manager (ISM) and Ivanti Asset Manager (IAM) requirements to build your Solution Design Documentation and Scope of Work (SOW) there is one very important best practice. Set Implementation Priorities!

setting priorities for your ISM project

Scoping is an art of finding the right balance between effort, benefits, and long term gains. Quick Wins should be your 1st Priority (P1) followed by long term gains which are Priority 2 (P2) and have the highest benefits.

For example, on a recent Asset Management implementation the core project team determined that the quickest wins and highest benefits would be asset scanning and a foundation for procurement and assets (hardware and software) that we could built upon on future phases.

ITSM Priorities by Benefit and Effort

That lead us to this high level scope:

• P1 – Asset Scanning / Procurement Foundation
• P2 – Software Asset Management (SAM)
• P3 – Hardware Asset Management Enhancements

What this meant was that we would build asset scanning capabilities not only for assets but also packing slips, replace the existing purchase order tracking excel sheets, and vendor inventory tracking sheets from Softchoice and various software vendors, with an Ivanti Service Manager product catalog for hardware and software, utilized the purchase order workspace for sales orders, enabled contracts and entitlements for software inventory, and built a softchoice integration to automatically update invoice and shipping information and functionality to reconcile against packing slips and purchase orders.

These were just our P1’s and P2’s! With further integration to discovery tools, enhancements to assets, and workflow automation for P3. Of course keep in mind that upon project completion some of the other requirements from the parking lot will become P1’s and P2’s and the cycle begings.

Along the way we identified more quick wins that improved overall product usability and project tracking:

• ISM Administrator Level 2 Role – for limited admin access with dedicated top level tabs to manage assigned validation lists and some configurations without full administration console access
  
• a19 Consulting Tracker – a custom built project tracking tool by a19 Consulting with backlog, artifacts, parking lot, status updates, project dashboard, heat release project and package tracking, to-do list, and many more features
  
• a19 Consulting Change Control with Announcements, Alerts, Notifications, and approval process for User Acceptance Testing (UAT)
  
• a19 Consulting UAT Test Scripts Workspace for ISM Administrators and Consultants to develop test scripts, run test scripts, log defect, pass/fail tests, request enhancements and identify show stoppers, must-haves, and nice-to-haves

If you would like more information for the a19 Consulting Best Practice Tool set or need help defining and executing your scope of work please contact me!