We’ve reached the final piece of our five-part series, and while I’m sad to end it, I hope you or your DBA teams have learned enough to move forward with the Information Management Maturity Model (IMMM). Although there are five steps to this model, several DBAs stop at the
fourth. It’s common for large organizations to give this step to management and higher-ups, rather than DBA teams.
Level 5: Value
In Level 5, DBA teams or management are now looking at business metrics for success and how those relate and correlate to
database performance and success. This means DBAs can advise the business on potential innovations while aligning teams with the organization and the way it needs to operate. DBA teams don’t usually like to
consider an agile approach but taking on a DevOps approach could allow them to act as a more fluid part of the team.
Level 5 of the IMMM is characterized by the following habits:
- IT as Strategic Business Partner: DBA teams are now working as a cohesive part of the team, increasing business agility
- IT and Business Metric Linkage: Business metrics and database success now work as one
- IT/Business Collaboration Improves Business Process: Having the DBA team as a fluid part of the overall business increases business agility
- Real-Time Infrastructure: DBAs are now an active part of the team and are involved in infrastructure changes ahead of time
- Business Planning: DBAs can now help their organization plan as a necessary part of the team
We now start to see predictive and self-service analytics in this step; this step removes shadow IT from the process and allows for further alignment of teams. Working with various teams can help DBAs mitigate risk and avoid errors by building business relationships and taking part in cross-silo change management. Their interaction and importance to other teams now gives DBAs a guaranteed seat at the table.
You may have guessed Level 5’s acquired skill of business agility. As the last step of this process, it’s important to remember how the maturity model is not only meant to improve the DBA’s process and overall contribution to the organization, but to also improve the flow of the business as a whole.
To wrap up this series, I’d like to review a couple general points for the purpose of this series and review the five levels of the IMMM and how they lead DBAs to be trusted and essential partners to their organization.
- High-performance DBA teams exhibit behaviors and follow similar practices and processes
- The CMMI is your roadmap for enterprise data management maturity and best practices
- Learn more about CMMI at http://cmmiinstitute.com
Level 1: Chaos – Success depends on heroic effort
Level 2: Reactive – Monitoring and awareness comes first
Level 3: Proactive – Proactive alerts and benchmarks
Level 4: Service – Excellent care of the customers
Level 5: Business value – Innovate/Improve the business
Along with completing the five levels of maturity, organizations need to acknowledge institutional knowledge as an important CMMI term and process. With each step of the IMMM, documentation and creation of checklists are vital to maintaining a successful maturity process and to repeating it in the future if needed. Establishing a maturity process and a body of knowledge will help incoming team members learn procedures and ensure knowledge is not lost with former employees.
