September 2005 Volume 9, Number 2

New for 2005… TurnOver Audit Service

By Paul Thiel, Director of Professional Services

The features and functions available within TurnOver increase steadily year after year. This fact, coupled with the relentless change cycle that many companies must manage every year, makes it inevitable that some of you might not be getting the utmost from TurnOver.

Do you suspect that TurnOver could work harder for you? Is your company missing opportunities to further improve your programmer productivity? Regardless of whether you need to comply with regulatory requirements like SOX and HIPAA, or simply want to observe one of the many industry standards (CobiT, ITIL, CMM, CMMI), SoftLanding can help you get more from your investment.

Building on over 15 years of experience gained from implementing TurnOver at hundreds of customer sites worldwide, SoftLanding has formalized a new TurnOver Audit Service for 2005. This new offering will put your change management environment under a microscope, allowing you to make improvements in both your TurnOver configuration and in how you apply industry best practices.

An example of management information and analysis in a TurnOver audit report.

Objectives

The purpose of a TurnOver audit is to pinpoint any existing problems hiding in your current change management processes and address any impending, unmet requirements; to identify TurnOver features that apply to your change management environment that you are not currently using, and to fine-tune the features you are using to achieve maximum benefit; to ensure that your configuration truly supports your needs; and finally, to help you identify areas where your policy, practice, or process contradicts industry best practice.

A Typical Audit Schedule

Depending on the complexity of your environment, a TurnOver audit will likely take three or four days. We will spend the first two to three days reviewing your configuration and interviewing the key departments involved in the change management process. The last day will be devoted to writing the TurnOver Audit Report.

Examples of Audit Topics

To meet the audit objectives, your SoftLanding expert will examine all the components of TurnOver as they are implemented at your company and compare them to industry best practices, including (but not limited to) the following:

Application Definitions. We will study all application settings, your type codes, your archiving and purging procedures (including PC source archiving, if applicable), and your use of related and emergency application definitions.

System configuration settings. We'll check your global default settings and scrutinize your enrollee and programmer records for outdated, incomplete, or inaccurate information. We'll study the way you use exit points, APIs, and user defined fields. We'll evaluate your system definitions, distribution settings, and form approval procedures.

Project system. We'll analyze your project structures and task workflow; your status codes, escalation tables, and other project control files; and your Wisedesk trees.

At the end of the audit, we'll present and discuss our preliminary findings, and provide you with a comprehensive written report of both our findings and our recommendations.

Positive Customer Feedback

All customers who have already undertaken a TurnOver audit assure us of the usefulness of the process and the resulting report. These customers claim that the list of issues, questions, and concerns identified in the Audit report have been critical to them for tracking progress. They also report that the summaries and analysis of the audit points are useful to management, and they provide both internal and external auditors with a third-party opinion.

Interestingly, many of those who have participated in an audit indicated that they would certainly recommend it to any TurnOver user. Moreover, they say they would especially urge new TurnOver customers to sign up. They point out that new customers have not used TurnOver long enough to know what to ask about. They suggest that new customers are generally quite eager to verify their configuration's soundness, and would especially welcome the invaluable clarification and training in uncertain areas that the process provides.

To schedule a TurnOver audit for your company, contact Amy or Jen in Customer Service (option 3 on our voice menu).

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