Your guide to a healthy CMDB governance

An effective CMDB governance needs a healthy CMDB. But why is it so important?

CMDB is like a central hub that holds all the key information about an organization’s IT infrastructure— ranging from hardware and software assets to network configurations and service relationships.

However, we often see organizations struggle to keep their CMDB healthy and accurate, which is crucial for smart, data-informed decisions. That’s why CMDB plays such a vital role.

How do we maintain an accurate and healthy CMDB?

A self-healing CMDB starts with getting the foundation in place, after which we leverage the platform capabilities to allow for lower manual effort and continuous improvement of the data quality.

To get the foundation in place, it’s important to define the right governance model within the organization and establish ownership to the right stakeholders and owners. In addition, it’s also crucial to define and enable the Target Model and Lifecycle Management Processes to create, update and retire assets in the CMDB.

The right governance model includes:

• Establishing clear ownership and accountability
• Defining standardized processes for data management and updates.
• Conducting regular audits and reviews to validate CMDB data accuracy.
• Fostering a culture of collaboration and communication among stakeholders.

Organizations should also prioritize continuous improvement and adapt their CMDB governance practices to align with evolving business needs, technological advancements, and regulatory requirements.

What is CMDB Institute?

The key to setting up a self-healing CMDB is creating a central CMDB Institute. The role of the CMDB Institute is to facilitate and steer data quality improvement activities within the organization.

• Executives are overall accountable for driving CMDB quality. They ensure that CMDB priorities align with organizational goals and have the support and resources needed to succeed.
• CMDB Quality Expert(s) assist the organization in defining and documenting the logical target model. These experts provide data quality insights, update executives, and drive initiatives to enhance overall data quality.
• CMDB Auditor is responsible for auditing the ServiceNow platform. This includes reviewing both data and functionality to ensure adherence to policies, the defined target model, and proper lifecycle management of technology asset data.

By taking on these roles, the CMDB Institute ensures accurate data quality insights, enabling executives and leadership to make informed decision

How to set up roles and responsibilities for CMDB?

Establishing the right roles and responsibilities is key to a well-structured governance for CMDB. This includes identifying key stakeholders involved in maintaining the quality of the data and steering further improvement initiatives.

Domain Owner – Responsible for defining the (logical) target model, including data definitions and access policies. Ensure that all Configuration Items (CIs) and their relationships are fully and accurately registered, and that sufficient resources are in place to maintain CI data quality.

Class Owner – Has detailed expert knowledge of the owned class(es). Responsible for defining the logical target model, including data definitions and access policies. Ensures the complete and accurate registration of Configuration Items (CIs) and their relationships, as well as the integration within the owned class(es).

Data Steward – Responsible for the day-to-day data management activities, including creation, validation, maintenance and correction, to ensure the complete and correct registration of CIs or specific attributes.

How to establish a well-structured CMDB governance process?

A well-structured CMDB Governance include processes that support the quality of data. The CMDB institute supports the following processes:

1. Data Demand – The data demand process allows users to submit a request form to ensure the onboarding of a new domain, class or an attribute.
2. Data Quality Incident – If a data quality incident needs to be reported, the users can use a request form to submit a record which will later be approved and taken care of by the CMDB Institute.
3. Change Ownership – The CMDB Institute allows the users to submit a request form if there needs to be a change in ownership of services and service offerings.
4. Lifecycle Management Processes for different data objects – The CMDB Institute also supports catalog items that can be used to manage (create, update, and retire) services and service offerings such as Technical Service, Service Offerings, Dynamic CI Groups, Business Applications, Application Services, etc.

How to boost CMDB governance productivity?

To steer the continuous improvement of data quality, we need a couple of meetings focused on tracking data quality progress. The following meetings are important:

1. Bi-Weekly Connects with different Domain and Class Owners – These meetings help in discussing and collating pain points, quality related issues, improvement initiatives, etc. per domain.
2. Monthly Data Quality Meeting – This monthly meeting gathers business executives, product owners, domain and class owners, CMDB data quality stakeholders, among others, to understand the as-is scenario of data quality, bounce off ideas on insights gathered, prepare action points as part of next steps to make decisions and improve the data quality.

Having these meetings in place with the right stakeholders not only enables alignment on data quality goals but also fosters a way to drive strategies that can build an accurate and healthy CMDB.

Are you following the best practices for a healthy CMDB?

Maintaining a healthy CMDB governance is essential for organizations to realize the full potential of their Configuration Management Database (CMDB) and effectively support their IT Service Management (ITSM) processes. Want to know if you’re following the best practices? Take our assessment to find out!

By implementing robust governance practices, organizations can ensure the accuracy, reliability, and relevance of CMDB data. Thereby, enhancing decision-making, reducing risks, and improving service delivery.