“Should you be called Software Governance or Software Asset Management” I was asked by a former boss. I wasn’t quite sure what to say. We hadn’t been working long together. Was this a shell game? No matter which I uncover, it would take us both down a path of me explaining something for which there was little interest, but for the name.
Software Asset Management, aka SAM, is the broad term that encompasses three (3) different phases of a practice maturity progression, I like to call, SAM OPS.
- Operational Software Asset Management
- Proactive Software Licensing
- Strategic Software Governance
We all begin the same – Operationally. We collect & track past and existing IT purchases, entitlements & contracts. As we track and capture, we may get a little OCD and begin categorizing and normalizing for fun. Because as automations and inventory begins to fill in the gaps, possibilities of how to slice and dice the data begin dancing in your head (well, maybe not yours . . .) instead of sugar plum fairies, I am seeing KPIs and dashboards.
And just around the bend, we have merged onto the road of Proactivity!
Entitlements? Check
Inventory? Check
Now, we can create our Software Licenses with a bit more confidence so by the end of the license configurations, we can begin down the validation path. But first, we must make sure that, whatever tool being used, publisher expertise validates the findings. Why is this important? Because every organization is unique, and no tool is infallible.
For Proactive Software Licensing, a tool is great, but a skilled SAM Licensing Specialist, can do the same with a spreadsheet if they are given clean data and their knowledge. I am in no way encouraging this, because the tool is vital to the efficiencies it provides, but it is the publisher knowledge, the applied critical thinking and attention to detail that sets them apart.
And finally, all of your licenses are configured, your compliance baselines are ready at the stroke of a key. Renewal notifications are allowing time to prepare for upcoming renewals. SaaS portals are consolidated, actively managed, and reviewed by stakeholder spend.
You have reached Nirvana.
You’re welcome.
Now what?
Well, all of this did not happen magically. There was a whole lot of thought put behind everything that made this possible. Strategic Software Governance has set the tone for how these first two steps are achieved. They collect the requirements from Stakeholders; they define the standards of required field attributes and orchestrate the structural design of the program. They help forge the policies and processes that will be communicated across the scoped environment(s).
Through metrics, KPIs, dashboards and detailed reporting, a successful SAM program can highlight an entire organizations software estate, one publisher at a time.
SAM cannot exist without HAM.
No one person can know the use rights for every single publisher. Prioritize.
No SAM team can exist without executive support. Communicate vision and goals.
No one of these phases cannot exist without the other.
