Process Overview

Summary

The Network Development Process describes all of the steps required to successfully plan and perform a new or upgraded implementation on the Cisco IS network It requires the group proposing such an upgrade to plan carefully, to clearly document these plans, and to submit these documented plans for review. It requires the filling out of several document templates which will help you detail the architecture, the test plan, and the deployment and support plans for the network improvement process you are about to undertake. It requires formal reviews of these documents, to allow everyone in Cisco who has a stake in this network improvement to understand and suggest improvements early in the planning stages, before problems can develop.

By standardizing this process, we hope to maintain best-in-class procedures in the IS Network organization; and by documenting it, we hope to create a base for continual improvement.This process contains within itself several opportunities for the people involved to identify problems and areas for improvement, and to continue to fine-tune the process over time.

This Project Development Process document contains a step-by-step guide to help people understand and navigate the process. This guide refers to several document templates, or forms, that must be completed and reviewed as part of the process. These templates are found directly following the guide, and can also be found on the Cisco IS Network Improvement web site (http://xxx/NetImprove/Templates/).

This draft Network Improvement Process is new to the Cisco IS community. While most of the steps have been taken in earlier IS Network projects, this is the first time that these steps have been standardized and documented. Some of the steps will be new to even the most experienced IS Networking engineer. Because of this, it might be helpful to have a guide to describe each step, and prepare you for the next step in the process.

Purpose

This Network Improvement Process is part of the IS Governance initiative. This initiative requires us to establish:

• standard work processes,
• standard documentation and language,
• standard review processes, and
• standard client satisfaction measures.

Standard Work Processes

Standard work processes are essential for a company the size that Cisco has become. They allow people to understand and communicate their roles clearly. They ensure that new employees use the best available work practices. Most importantly, they create a baseline that allows Cisco employees and managers to continually improve and update their own work practices. Once documented, these work processes can be redesigned to better match changing requirements; and the quality of these procedures can be measured and constantly improved over time.

Standard Documentation

Standard documentation is an aid to maintaining standard work processes. They serve as reminders of the steps that must be taken to complete the work in a thorough, well planned and well organized fashion. Network improvement products will vary so greatly from each other that the standard document templates will never be completely appropriate as is for any single project, and should be altered to fit the needs of the project. Still, they are the best tool available to communicate each project's scope and impact to the review boards, and to the rest of the company.

Standard Review Processes

The review board is responsible for ensuring architectural and operations standards, while still supporting swift and well managed improvements to that standard architecture when needed. The board's intent is to continue to enhance the Cisco networking infrastructure to support Cisco employees and Cisco sales, and to improve their effectiveness through new technology wherever it makes sense to do so. However, continual improvement of the network carries some serious costs: it makes the evolving network harder to manage. Multiple hardware and software platforms are harder to configure, harder to monitor and maintain, and harder to upgrade in the future when the next new technology comes around..

These standard review processes are required to ensure that proposed architecture changes are well thought out and well planned; that the expected benefits outweigh the likely costs and risks; that the changes will work well within the current complex network; and that the proposed new services will be well supported by IS Operations when they are deployed. All this requires a good deal of planning in advance, but it will avoid a great deal of frustration and failure in the end.

Standard Client Satisfaction Measures

Network improvements will have an impact on the end users of the Cisco network, and on the customers who financed the network improvement. This impact must be measured if we are to know whether all the money and effort that was expended during this network improvement process was justified, to help guide future network investments.

Who is responsible for completion of documentation segments?

Use the process as a prioritization mechanism.

Knowledge Transfer 1 day seminar between Stage 2 and Stage 3.