January 8th, 2009 3 Comments 1531, Microsoft Solution Framework (MSF), Project Management with TFS, Team Foundation Server, TFS Process Customization When trying to decide which of the two MSF Process Templates – Agile vs. CMMI Process Improvement – for TFS is the right starting point for your company, it helps to compare the work. Aug 14, 2007 These document templates were Microsoft Word.doc's with the formating (headers, page numbers, section titles, etc) in BLACK and the instructions and examples in Blue. Ntroduction to the Template Description: The Development Plan describes the solution development process used for the project. This plan compliments the functional specifications t. In the task pane, under Templates, click Templates on Office Online. In the Templates dialog box, click the tabs to see the templates available. Click the template that you want to use, and then click OK. On the File menu, click Save As. Type a name for the new project in the File name box, and then click Save.
-->Applying the Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF) process model to the planning and implementation of a highly available Microsoft BizTalk Server solution can help you make sure that you have appropriate processes at the different stages of the release life cycle. By looking ahead at all the life cycle stages where high availability surfaces, you can make the installation, maintenance, and troubleshooting of availability issues in your environment easier.
This section contains information about the MOF processes where you have to consider high-availability tasks.
Microsoft Operations Framework Process Model
The Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF) provides guidance that enables organizations to achieve mission-critical system reliability, availability, supportability, and manageability of Microsoft products and technologies. MOF provides operational guidance in the form of white papers, operations guides, assessment tools, best practices, case studies, templates, support tools, and services. This guidance addresses the people, process, technology, and management issues pertaining to complex, distributed, and heterogeneous IT environments.
The MOF process model enables companies to:
- Facilitate consistent IT service management across service solutions.
- Establish a structure for IT functions, processes, and procedures.
- Represent a life-cycle approach.Central to the MOF process model is its division into four quadrants of operational processes and procedures, named service management functions (SMFs). The SMFs are the foundation-level best practices and prescriptive guidance for operating and maintaining an IT environment.The following figure shows the MOF processes where you have to consider high availability.
Changing Quadrant
The changing quadrant includes the service management functions (SMFs) required to identify, review, approve, and incorporate change into a managed IT environment. This includes changes in software, hardware, documentation, roles and responsibilities, and also specific process and procedural changes.
Change Management
Change management is responsible for changes in technology, systems, applications, hardware, tools, documentation, and processes, and also changes in roles and responsibilities.
During the change management process, as part of designing your BizTalk Server implementation, you can do the following:
- Determine whether the service level agreement with your partners or customers requires a certain level of availability, uptime, and load-processing capabilities.
- Determine the best cluster configuration for the BizTalk Server databases for your business needs. The run-time processes write to the BizTalk Management database, MessageBox databases, Tracking Analysis Services database, BAM Analysis database, BAM Star Schema database, BAM Primary Import database, and BAM Archive database. Therefore, these databases are especially important if a disaster occurs, and must have greater priority when determining what databases to cluster. Only users or tools write to the other databases. For the MessageBox databases, you can consider an active/active/active/passive four-server cluster to minimize the hardware needed.
- Determine whether to cluster the master secret server, or if manually restoring the master secret on another Enterprise Single Sign-On server is satisfactory for your scenario. This solution is available, but not highly available.
- Determine the number of hosts and host instances that you will need to process your expected message load and to provide high availability.
- Create a list of the people that will be involved in the change-management process. This list will include, but is not limited to, the domain administrator, database administrator, infrastructure administrator, BizTalk Server administrator, and IT operations staff.
Configuration Management
Configuration management is responsible for identifying, controlling, and tracking all versions of software, hardware, documentation, processes, procedures, and all other components of the IT environment under the control of change management.
During the configuration management process, you must create a detailed plan for how you are going to implement your highly available solution for BizTalk Server. You must also document the steps that you took to create your solution. At a high level, the steps are:
- The domain controller creates the domain groups and accounts that you will use in your BizTalk Server environment.
- The infrastructure administrator creates the Windows cluster for the BizTalk Server databases and the Windows cluster for the master secret server.
- The database administrator installs and configures Microsoft SQL Server on the Windows cluster for the BizTalk Server databases.
- The BizTalk Server administrator configures the master secret server cluster.
- The BizTalk Server administrator installs and configures BizTalk Server on the processing, receiving, and sending servers.
- The BizTalk Server administrator creates the hosts and installs the host instances on the appropriate servers to provide high availability or to increase capacity, or both.
Operating Quadrant
The operating quadrant includes the SMFs required to monitor, control, manage, and administer service solutions daily to achieve and maintain service levels within predetermined parameters.
Job Scheduling
Job scheduling involves the continuous organization of jobs and processes in the most efficient sequence, maximizing system throughput and use to meet service level agreement requirements.
Make sure that you schedule planned downtime, such as scheduled updates, at times when the message load is low (for example, late at night) to minimize the potential effect on your business.
Supporting Quadrant
The supporting quadrant includes the SMFs required to identify, assign, diagnose, track, and resolve incidents, problems, and requests within the approved requirements that are contained in the service level agreements.
Optimizing Quadrant
The optimizing quadrant includes the SMFs that contribute to maintaining business and IT alignment by focusing on decreasing IT costs while maintaining or improving service levels. This includes review of outages and incidents, examination of cost structures, staff assessments, availability and performance analysis, and capacity forecasting.
Service Level Management
The goal of service level management is to maintain and continuously improve the quality of IT service, through a constant cycle of negotiating and monitoring service level requirements. The successful service level management function causes an improvement in quality of service, greater levels of customer productivity, and ideally, a reduction in the overall cost of services provided.
During the service level management process, you can do the following:
- Evaluate how the current environment satisfies your service level agreement requirements.
- Recommend the addition of new servers for processing, receiving, or sending messages to meet the requirements.
- If necessary, recommend creating highly available solutions for points of failure that were not originally mitigated to meet the availability requirements in the service level agreement.
Availability Management
The single goal of availability management is to make sure that your customers can use a particular IT service whenever they want.
For the availability management process, you can establish mechanisms for notifying IT personnel when a hardware failure occurs so that they can fix or replace the hardware as quickly as possible, and mechanisms for notifying IT personnel when the server load is larger than a particular threshold.
Service Continuity Management
The objective of the service continuity management function is to make sure that a specified IT service provides value to the customer if regular-availability solutions fail.
During the service continuity function you must examine what high-availability configuration to implement to make sure that you continue providing your customers with the services they expect even when a planned or unplanned downtime occurs. Examples of unplanned downtime are hardware failures or acts of nature.
See Also
Other project managers have been down the road you’re traveling. You can save a lot of time by building on their work — existing projects and templates — when setting up your new project.
Newer versionsOffice 2007
Start with an existing project
- Open the project or template you want to use as the basis for the new project.
- Click File > Info.
- Under Project Information, change the project’s start date and finish date.
- Click Save As and pick a new name and a new home for the project.
You can start working on your new project right away, but chances are you’ll need to clean up some of the existing project information before you do.
One way around this clean up work, especially if you want to use the old file to create more than one project, is to save the old project as a template. You have the option of stripping out all that progress information as you save it, leaving only tasks and resources behind.
Start with a template
- Click File > New.
- Search for templates in the box or click the template you want below.
- In the preview dialog box, click Create.
Make sure that the resources, tasks, and durations in the template are right for your project. Of course, you’re now free to change them as you see fit.
These instructions are specific to Microsoft Project 2007.
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Create a new project from a template
Project 2007 includes many default templates that you can use. Additional templates are available on Microsoft Office Online. If your organization has its own custom templates, it may store them on its corporate intranet. Follow these steps to access any of these templates.
- On the File menu, click New.
- In the New Project task pane, under Templates, click On computer.- OR -If your organization stores templates on a Web site, under Templates, click On Web sites.Tip: Additional Office Project 2007 templates may be available on Microsoft Office Online. In the task pane, under Templates, click Templates on Office Online.
- In the Templates dialog box, click the tabs to see the templates available.
- Click the template that you want to use, and then click OK.
- On the File menu, click Save As.
- Type a name for the new project in the File name box, and then click Save.
Available templates
There are several categories of templates available to help you begin planning your project. Use the following sections to help identify the right template for your project.
Customer service templates
The following templates provide starting points for customer service projects.
Template | Description |
---|---|
Customer Feedback Monitoring | Provides a framework for developing processes to monitor customer feedback as part of a continuous improvement effort. This template is focused on processes to monitor feedback after it has been collected. It has a limited amount of direction on data collection. |
Customer Service Ramp Up | Helps a customer service organization set up a support structure for a new product. This is a complex topic that can require several schedules to cover all of the components. |
Post-Manufacturing Customer Service Planning | Provides the basic steps needed to establish a post-manufacture support service for a new consumer packaged good (CPG). CPGs are consumable goods, such as food and beverages, footwear and apparel, tobacco, and cleaning products. |
![Templates Templates](https://image.slideserve.com/289232/microsoft-solutions-framework1-l.jpg)
Finance and accounting templates
The following templates provide starting points for finance and accounting projects.
Template | Description |
---|---|
Annual Report Preparation | Addresses the general financial and accounting activities that define a typical effort to prepare the Annual Financial Report. Activities include obtaining information from multiple departments, working with other departments (for example, Legal and Public Relations) to ensure that all required information is presented accurately, printing, and distribution. |
Finance and Accounting System Implementation | Outlines the steps needed to implement a finance and accounting system. It assumes an existing system or process is in place and a new system will be replacing it. It also assumes that the new application software system has already been chosen. |
Preparation of an Opening Balance Sheet at the Date of Transition to IFRS | Addresses the significant financial and accounting activities required of companies to prepare their opening balance sheet at the date of transition to International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), within the context of a conversion from previous Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). |
Human resources and resource management templates
The following templates provide starting points for resource management projects.
Template | Description |
---|---|
Develop Skills Needs - Hiring Plan - Hiring Forecast | Provides a framework for the general human resources activities needed to perform an analysis of forecasted skills needs and to develop the potential hiring and training plans needed to address the gap. |
Evaluating Offshoring Strategy for HR Functions | Addresses the general activities needed to evaluate an offshoring strategy for human resources functions. It includes phases for analyzing your current situation, doing preliminary research, performing a deep analysis, and rolling out a pilot program. |
Human Resources Information System Implementation | Outlines the high-level steps needed to implement a Human Resources Information System (HRIS). It is not specific to any commercial software system. |
Performance Reviews | Addresses the general activities that define the typical quarterly or annual performance review cycle. This template assumes a performance review process has been established and that performance is not tied to compensation. |
Vendor Evaluation and Consolidation | Addresses the process for identifying preferred vendors. |
Vendor Request For Proposal (RFP) Solicitation | Provides a standard process for creating, distributing, and evaluating requests for proposals from potential vendors. It is intended for use by organizations that require formal compliance with an approved process to obtain the services of vendors. |
Sales and marketing templates
The following templates provide starting points for sales and marketing projects.
Template | Description |
---|---|
Financial Service Offering Launch | Helps track the planning, execution, post-launch, and closedown of a financial service offering launch. This template focuses on the launch of the offering, not its development. |
Internal Readiness Training | Presents a plan that helps to identify training needs, develop training solutions, and deploy internal training programs. The template focuses on internal training for sales purposes, but the general framework can be used for other training as well. |
Managing Incoming Requests For Quotes (RFQs) | Provides sales managers with a regimented method of managing the request-for-quote (RFQ) process. |
Marketing Campaign Planning | Outlines the various considerations that you might need to plan a marketing campaign in your organization, including understanding your position in the marketplace, collecting data, and analyzing campaign effectiveness. |
Marketing Event Planning and Execution | Outlines the main categories that you should consider when planning a marketing event. |
Tradeshow Planning, Execution, and Wrap-Up | Provides an outline of the steps involved with trade show planning. Tasks should shorten as you perform more trade shows and develop a rhythm. |
Product development life cycle templates
The following templates provide starting points for projects within the product development life cycle.
Template | Description |
---|---|
External Technical Readiness Training | Covers planning through deployment of external training programs, with regards to assessing needs, developing materials and content, generating demand, and executing activities. |
MSF Application Development | Comes from the Process Model for Application Development, a key component of the Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF). This flexible model improves project control, minimizes risk, improves product quality, and increases development speed in the software industry. |
New Product | Provides the framework for developing a new product, using a disciplined approach that should increase the success rate. |
New Product Launch | Helps define and manage the key components in a strong product launch plan: clearly defined sales objectives; assured sales channel readiness; promotional functions (public relations, marketing, and advertising); and resources to track, monitor, and account for execution. |
Product Development Planning | Outlines a strategic approach for product development. By working with your business position in the marketplace, establishing product infrastructure, and leveraging knowledge of your targets and competitors, this template establishes a framework to begin product development. |
Product Evaluation Post Launch | Outlines key areas of evaluating a product's performance after it has been placed in the marketplace. |
Software Development | Focuses on the steps and processes required to successfully initiate a software development process. You can use the template as is, or modify it for recursive development. |
Software Localization | Focuses on the steps and processes required to successfully localize software. |
Process streamlining and compliance templates
The following templates provide starting points for projects that track process streamlining and compliance activities.
Template | Description |
---|---|
ISO 9001 Management Review | Guides you through the management review process for audit compliance with ISO 9001, including planned intervals and strict guidelines for review. |
Project Office | Focuses on the required steps and processes to successfully initiate, monitor, and establish an enterprise project office. |
Six Sigma DMAIC Cycle | Outlines the phases, key activities, and deliverables in the standard Six Sigma life cycle. |
SOX Compliance and Technology Options | Addresses the general activities for reviewing existing internal controls and evaluating potential technology options for more efficient Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Section 404 Compliance. This project assumes that the organization is already SOX compliant. |
IT templates
The following templates provide starting points for IT projects.
Template | Description |
---|---|
Infrastructure Deployment | Focuses on the required steps and processes to successfully initiate, design, and deploy a new infrastructure. |
Security Infrastructure Improvement Plan | Provides an approach for identifying, planning, and rolling out infrastructure improvements. It focuses on security infrastructure to illustrate a plan that requires a balance between two driving needs: maintaining security and maintaining the ability to do business. However, this approach can be used on many infrastructure initiatives. |
Strategic business development templates
The following templates provide starting points for strategic business development projects.
Template | Description |
---|---|
New Business | Outlines the process of developing an entrepreneurial opportunity into a new operating business. It can be customized to be used for a wide range of specific business situations. |
Strategic Merger or Acquisition Evaluation | Addresses the general activities that a company goes through to determine its business growth strategy. The road map includes understanding market position, evaluating trade-offs between mergers and acquisitions and internal development, evaluating merger and acquisition candidates, and placing valuation on target companies. |
Other templates
Framework Document Template
The following templates provide starting points for several other types of projects.
Microsoft Solutions Framework Phases
Template | Description |
---|---|
Commercial Construction | Includes the basic tasks required to construct a multiple-story commercial space, and shows the relationships between those tasks. You can use the template strictly as a training tool or to guide development of custom schedules for your projects, or you can modify the template and use it as the basis for an initial project schedule. |
Electronic Government (E-Gov) Project | Provides a sample E-Government application for a state or local government agency. The sample application is an electronic payment system, an example of a Government to Citizen e-Gov project. It is organized as a program with three projects (Technical Architecture, Security Extranet, and e-Payment), demonstrating one way of organizing complex projects. |
Engineering | Helps you identify the normal activities required for an effective engineering project and link them into a typical schedule format. You can use this template for training, or modify it and use it as the basis for an initial project schedule. |
Home Move | Focuses on the steps to successfully move to a different home. |
Insurance Claim Processing | Outlines property and casualty insurance claim processing from the point of view of the insurance company. It was designed for automobile insurance, but can also be used for homeowner's insurance. |
Office Move | Focuses on the required steps to successfully move your office from one location to another. |
Residential Construction | Includes the basic tasks required to construct a single-family home and the logical relationships between those tasks. You can use this template for training, to develop custom schedules for your projects, or as the basis for an initial project schedule. |