Methodologies Smethodologies?

Over the past 6 months I have spent a significant amount of time reviewing different methodologies for operations and infrastructure design. Specifically, I was seeking to improve the Architecture and Engineering process for Infrastructure in my department. Many frameworks or methodologies focus on the entire IT process including change management. I am not interested in deploying such a large framework, although the company I work for is currently moving toward the ITIL framework.

Ok, I am rambling here. What am I talking about? What I am getting at, is choosing the right methodology for your environment. After looking at ITIL, MOF, WSSRA, PBA, and several others, I determined that no one framework was going to give me what I needed. I evaluated the requirements and found that I could take components of each methodology, in order to reach my specific goal. I took the document framework from WSSRA, questioning and impact analysis from PBA, and an understanding of ITIL in order to make sure that my new process fit into the companies larger initiative of deploying ITIL.

Solving your organizations problem cannot always be done by choosing the flavor of the month methodology from a magazine. You will need to understand your requirements and goals, in order to choose the right solution for your company. This could lead to a single methodology, or a combination of multiple methodologies. In my instance, I was able to standardize our architecture and engineering process by taking components of multiple methodologies.