Transcripts from Past Events

Agile / DevOps (NS230)
Experiences with Agile; transitioning from Waterfall projects to Agile; framework to transition from Waterfall mentality to Agile mentality; promoting a cultural mindset change from Waterfall to Agile across the organization; best practices when working in a portfolio with a mix of Agile, hybrid, and Waterfall projects; rolling out a DevOps initiative; and the necessary amount of standardization across all development teams vs giving them the autonomy to operate and use what works best.

Agile / DevOps (NS236)
Future organizational growth of Agile / DevOps; organizational changes necessary to ensure DevOps success; DevOps success with development lifecycle outside of SDLC and projects with a hybrid approach; implementation of DevOps in organizational silos; setting up DevOps teams and assigning responsibilities; security requirements in the DevOps process – integrated or considered +1; economies of scale; lessons learned adopting a DevOps culture; and transitioning from Waterfall projects to Agile

BI / Data Analytics (NS231)
Structure of data teams; self-service reporting and analytics; expected level of technical ability of users in a self-service model; yearly adjustment of KPIs and metrics and frequency of review with leadership; different reporting tools with Cloud and on-prem applications vs combing the data for a single reporting tool; migrating to Cloud reporting tools; issues with on-prem systems and real-time reporting; data analytics / BI tools; lessons learned from replicating on-prem data sources to a Cloud data warehouse; and BI / data analytic trends.

Change Management (NV2439)
Frequency to allow changes; strategy used to define change windows; intake and prioritization of change requests; Change Advisory Board (CAB); change management toolsets; integrating automated configuration change technologies to catch unauthorized changes; tracking changes in SaaS, IaaS, or PaaS configurations; security review of changes; IT Change Management integration with overall company change management process; maturing Change Management / change enablement process; and change Management in DevOps, CI / CD, and Infrastructure as Code.

CIO – Building a Cybersecurity Culture (CV081)
Current pain points around cybersecurity; layering cybersecurity education; partners used for immutable backups; offering cybersecurity education when onboarding new employees; MFA methods in use to safeguard users and for audits; cybersecurity policies for users to read and sign; cyber Cloud insurance; frequency to audit security practices; reporting Key Risk Indicators; IT department structure for manufacturing organization; and vendors for implementation of a machine learning approach.

CIO – IT Department KPI (CV080)
Members discussed metrics shared with Executive Leadership to show IT department’s value, performance-level KPIs tracked other than MTTA and MTTR, creating a balanced scorecard for infrastructure, total tickets vs open tickets, measuring customer satisfaction rates, KPIs and data interpretations of security-related issues, KPIs to monitor with Managed Security Service Providers.

Data Governance (NV2413)
Support and ownership of Data Governance in an organization, explaining the value of a Data Governance program, steps to start a program, finding success launching Data Governance in 1 discipline, how a Data Governance model impacts the end-user community, measuring success, tools to track compliance with policies, practical ways to measure and report on data quality, and Data Governance-related roles necessary for smaller companies.

Disaster Recovery / Business Continuity (NV2443)
Practicing / simulating DR and on what schedule; process to determine critical systems for restoration; DR strategy moving from onprem to Cloud; separating backups from production to protect against ransomware events; steps to review suitability of DR plans for a ransomware attack; mass communications systems in use to notify stakeholders of major incidents; prioritizing processes / applications; and ultimate accountability for DR / BC.

Enterprise Architecture (NS237)
Top priorities for your Enterprise Architecture team in 2023; recommendations on maturing a “new” EA team; EA team as centralized, decentralized or a hybrid of both; EA groups providing value to Agile development groups; effective training methods for a new EA team; techniques to assess cybersecurity for an architecture; evolution of Zero Trust concepts and data governance; and value from an investment in an EA tool.

Enterprise Architecture (NV2450)
Enterprise Architecture maturity; where the Enterprise Architecture team exists in the organization; governance roles and processes EA owns; executive sponsorship of the EA team; introducing EA with a slow approach; an agile approach to defining and implementing an EA; how smaller groups should handle EA; tools and software recommendations for Enterprise Architecture Management; and developing an MDM solution to incorporate in an existing EA design.

IT Service Management (NV2437)
Adopting a formal ITSM practice; ITIL v3 and v4; other frameworks used; what works well vs what does not; tools utilized; integrating Microsoft Teams with Service Management Software tools; self-service knowledge management tools; implementing a knowledge management framework; and using the ITSM system for Enterprise Service Management (ESM).

Microsoft 365 / Teams (NS234)
Members from Fortune / Forbes 1000 organizations discussed Unified Communication strategy; operationalizing the rapid changes in M365; use cases for a Team vs a Channel; the Wiki app to provide a knowledge base of articles; integrating Records Retention Schedule (RRS) into MS Teams / SharePoint / OneDrive; workarounds used if MS Teams / SharePoint / OneDrive is unavailable; integrating Azure / Azure AD with M365; processes used to manage business requests to add Teams apps; managing access in the SharePoint site that comes automatically with a Team; and internal support structure implemented to support Teams / M365 within IT and / or the business.

Project Management (NV2451)
Leadership buy-in to form an infrastructure PM team; applications in use to track project deliverables and progress; tools utilized for project management; scheduling time for projects daily and across a calendar year; pros and cons of using Microsoft Project Online; combining traditional project management methods (Waterfall) with the Agile methodology (Scrum); working with Agile Development Teams when the business is Waterfall process; platform to work with multiple IT stakeholders who use Jira and ServiceNow; and allocating time for the unexpected work driven by business needs.

Security Initiatives for 2023 (NV2440)
Quantifying cyber risk to justify investment or avoid spend; implementing a Zero Trust framework and with what vendors; changes to security environment to accommodate clients / customers sending questionnaires about security posture; MDR service and pen testing with a 3rd party; EDR vendors; GRC tools to manage change and improvement of cybersecurity controls; open source security software; and email security vendors.

ServiceNow (NV2429)
Members discussed the reasons to select ServiceNow and moving from other toolsets; pros / cons with implementing ServiceNow; utilizing customizations within ServiceNow and experiences with customizations during system upgrades; time to implement ServiceNow; staffing model for management; end user experience via mobile usage; Configuration Management Database; Teams integration and deploying the catalog / portal to the Teams client; Employee Center; integrating ServiceNow with work-tracking systems like Azure DevOps; Software Asset Management module; ServiceNow Discovery tools; metrics to measure customer experience; and Project Management module.