What Title Would You Give This Position?

darkerosxx · May 2014

Generally, in a environment where a company provides technology-related services that require a group that comes up with products and designs them, then hands them off to an operations group, what would you title a position sitting between these two groups that bridges the gap, taking the product and making it operations ready, so tasks like:

-Documentation (taking the design and documenting it from top to bottom so an ops group can manage it)
-Standards enforcement (ensuring the product meets operational standards)
-Ongoing life cycle management of the products (the long-term mgmt, not the day-to-day, so for example upgrading to a major new version of software or monitoring performance for required expansions/hardware purchases)

What title would you give to that position? Has anyone seen postings like this anywhere that I could look at?

ratbuddy · May 2014

PLM analyst or PLM consultant is probably the buzzwordy way to say it, see:

https://cognizant.taleo.net/careersection/1nacorp/jobdetail.ftl?job=273401&src=JB-11160
https://macys.taleo.net/careersection/macys_retail_jsa_career_section/jobdetail.ftl?job=1231012&src=JB-10420
NVIDIA Employment

etc etc.

N2IT · May 2014

-Documentation (taking the design and documenting it from top to bottom so an ops group can manage it) This screams Business Analyst
-Standards enforcement (ensuring the product meets operational standards) Project or Program Manager, Product Manager in a functional environment. (Even a QA role potentially)
-Ongoing life cycle management of the products (the long-term mgmt, not the day-to-day, so for example upgrading to a major new version of software or monitoring performance for required expansions/hardware purchases) Product Manager

I currently work for company that collects, warehouses, reports on specific industry data. We also have a software products that are leveraged by our operations team and our customers. I am the liason between the operations team and the design development team. My title is business analyst. I could easily be classified as a quality analyst or data analyst as well. Next up would be solutions architect or business process manager, depending on how the role evolved.

paul78 · May 2014

The role that you are describing in the ITIL world is called Service Transitioning. I've seen Service Transition related titles used in some organizations. More common however are titles and functional groups related to "Release Management" and "Operational Readiness". Some of the more hip orgs call it DevOps.

N2IT · May 2014

Paul isn't service transition essentially the project managers responsibility? Service Transition is not a role it's a set of processes through the ITIL life cycle. Wouldn't the project manager be the one who is responsible for intiation through completion or hand off to the operations team?

In all the roles I have worked the PM managed the coordination of delivery until hand off.

Obviously PGM and EM are other titles that could/would drive this.

paul78 · May 2014

Yes I agree that Service Transitioning is a functional process and not really a role.

But I don't consider service transitioning as the responsibility of a project manager - any more than I would consider the actual testing, design, or implementation the responsibility of the project manager. I view project managers as facilitators and not implementers.

To me - in the real world - Service Transition includes activities such as ensuring adequate training to operations staff, actual release of the services, communications to customers, turn-over control, deployment and configuration into production, validation, etc. These activities don't tend to be skills that project managers would normally have - the scope can be broad.

ITIL uses terms like "Knowledge Management", "Release Management", "Asset and Configuration Management", and "Service Validation". "Change Management". But to me - those are just formal definitions for the activities that I mentioned. Those activities will vary and roles and jobs will depend heavily on the organization and the services being delivered.

Where I work - I call what @darkerossx is describing - change manager or release manager - release managers tend to be more hands-on and actually perform the release activities and are responsible for the actual transition to production.

darkerosxx · May 2014

Thanks, guys! After looking up the role, Solutions Architect is exactly what I was looking for. Appreciate the assist.

ratbuddy · May 2014

Sheesh, do these companies have to hire someone just to get all the job titles straight??

paul78 · May 2014

Ahh - that's a bit different on my planet

- at my company, that title is an individual whose role is to bridge between product and the build team - usually an engineering or application development team. We treat operations as a different functional role.

Good luck in your job hunt!

@ratbuddy - yes - we have people with specific job titles that do that too

N2IT · May 2014

IMO in the real world, service transitioning is a project based activity. While transitioning continually happens through an organization these transitions are usually different and therefore would be classified as another project. Of course you have similiar projects that could be rolled up under a program, however...... Why wouldn't the transition fall under the PM's responsibilities then? Someone has to take ownership of the transition and if this has a end date, which it should if it is being handed off to OP's, then this is a project.

Training to the operational staff is usually led by the PM and defined by the BA or some other hybrid. Sometimes the functional manager or lead would take this responsibility. I've seen the operational staff send someone to spend time with the analyst or developer to document and learn the ends and outs of the new product. Sometimes there is no knowledge share at all except for some documentation.

I agree about the definitions, I have very rarely seen these classified as roles.

I agree that the last bullet mention from the OP has release manager written all over it.

***Back to the original question I think Release Manager for the win. Who knows though it could be any title you wanted to call it.

N2IT · May 2014

darkerosxx wrote: »

Thanks, guys! After looking up the role, Solutions Architect is exactly what I was looking for. Appreciate the assist.

Sounds like a winner. Solutions Architect in my world basically means bad ass technicial resource who transitioned to the business and is even better and badder now in this role.

That has not always been the case though.

paul78 · May 2014

N2IT wrote: »

Why wouldn't the transition fall under the PM's responsibilities then? Someone has to take ownership of the transition and if this has a end date, which it should if it is being handed off to OP's, then this is a project.

I can certainly understand your point of view. Perhaps, I look at it project management a bit differently. I do not ever hold PM's accountable for tasks in a project. If I think about a RACI - a project manager's job is to keep me informed of risks and issues related to a project if I am a stakeholder. And to facilitate the orderly delivery of the project. I.e the PM is accountable for creating the project plan, escalating issues, and responsible for the project schedule. But if I am the project sponsor, I am accountable to the project success, not the PM. Service transition is a set of tasks in a project and it is the release manager that is accountable for the delivery of those tasks - and the release manager owns those activities - not the project manager. Similarly, the application development lead may be accountable for the delivery of the software, and the infrastructure lead is accountable for the delivery of the servers, etc.

Anyways - that's just my view of the world - doesn't mean it works in all organizations. And I would think it would be very different depending on the business model and services being delivered.

@darkerossx - hope you don't mind that we are digressing from your topic.

UnixGuy · May 2014

If it's a vendor, then I'd call them "Pre-Sales Engineers". Solutions Architects don't necessarily take the product and make it operation, they're usually just involved in the design process where the Pre-Sales Engineers do what you described. But this is not written in stone, it varies between companies but this is my experience with vendors/service providers.

What Title Would You Give This Position?

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