IBM OS/390 manual Project Management, Automated Operations

2.7.5 Project Management

As with application inventory or JCL conversion, the management of a VSE to OS/390 conversion project is nearly always underestimated. The VSE to OS/390 conversion is one of the rare projects that require a coordinated effort from each of the three data processing departments: applications, technical support and operations. When it comes to taking inventory and understanding all the individual items that make up a complete VSE data center, no one has all the answers. Many global answers are obtained by consolidating smaller complementary answers. In fact, in some instances, the participation of the

end-users themselves is required.

This is why a VSE to OS/390 conversion must be commissioned, sponsored, and supported by executive management. The Project Manager must be given his overall mission statement directly from the top management, and must be given authority over applications, operations and technical support for this project.

One of the challenges of managing a VSE to OS/390 conversion is project planning. The conversion of VSE applications (JCL, programs and files), associated testing and implementation (switchover) are complex in themselves. It may involve 10 to 20 people. The project plan averages 150 tasks and

sub-tasks, most of them linked through dependencies. It becomes even more complex, when this plan must be coordinated with the detailed OS/390 software installation and implementation plan, the staff education plan, the OEM (non IBM) software installation and implementation plan, and the parallel application maintenance and development plan. The data center doesn¢t come to a stand still while the VSE to OS/390 migration takes place.

Finally, resource management, both human and configuration-wise, can be a real challenge. Hiring conversion experts to handle parts of this one-time project can be part of the solution for human resources constraints. The project still requires a significant internal human resource investment to handle a number of activities that are best left to the data center personnel itself. This is true for application inventory (sorting out duplicate program versions and so on), OS/390 standards decision that define the key operating processes (naming conventions, device migration, and so on), and regression testing (test plan and scripts and so on).

Project management represents 10 to 15% of the total application conversion effort.

2.7.6 Automated Operations

In recent years, the setup (population) and implementation of a job scheduler and report manager have become a full part of the VSE to OS/390 migration. Regardless of your VSE implementation of a job scheduler and report manager, in OS/390 they will be used for the entire production, all jobs, all reports.

Identifying and carrying over the report management instructions from the VSE JCL (destination, number of copies, FCB, and so on) to the OS/390 report manager is not very challenging. Neither is carrying over existing job scheduling or report management instructions from a VSE to an OS/390 product.

The real challenge is to learn not only how the OS/390 product works, but also how to use it. The OS/390 basic education provided by vendors of OS/390 job schedulers and report managers is just that: ²basic². Even with hands-on exercises, it doesn¢t prepare the production control staff who attend it to design and define on their own how they will use the product to implement operation

Chapter 2. Sizing the Effort 37