Program management overview
The best practices in the program functional area include business alignment, operations, collaboration, use cases, and staffing, which enable you to realize maximum value from your Splunk deployment. A program manager generally drives these activities and manages interdependencies among the stakeholders.
Follow these best practices according to the standard, intermediate, or advanced goals you have set.
Activities | Standard | Intermediate | Advanced |
---|---|---|---|
CHANGE CONTROL, MAINTENANCE, UPGRADES
Change management systems that include approval, tracking, and communication. |
Establish a regular schedule for releasing updated Splunk content and software updates Establish a communication plan (see Establishing and communicating with your Splunk user community) |
Everything outlined in standard Create a change control board Utilize Splunk notification web messages |
Everything outlined in intermediate Implement a source control system (see Change Management) Establish an executive review board |
COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT
Practices to share standards and policies and ensure consistency among the Splunk user community. |
Establish standards and policies Establish naming conventions for indexes, apps, and source types (see Naming conventions) Use roles to separate access to data from capabilities (see Managing data based on role) Establish a program that fosters user development (see Enabling users with incentives) |
Everything outlined in standard Publish standards and policies |
Everything outlined in intermediate Enforce standards and policies Use Splunk software to monitor for configurations and knowledge objects that do not meet standards |
COLLABORATION
Practices to share successes that inspire new ideas across different user communities and expose day-to-day wins to organization management. |
Establish an informal or ad hoc community forum Participate in local Splunk user groups (see user groups) Attend local Splunk Live events (search for events) Follow other Splunk users on Splunk Answers (see answers.splunk.com) |
Everything outlined in standard Establish a central network location where users can save and access Splunk content Establish a stakeholder register (see Managing stakeholders) Establish office hours for Splunk subject matter experts to consult with your Splunk user community |
Everything outlined in intermediate Establish a Splunk community portal (see Establishing and communicating with your Splunk user community) Attend the annual Splunk user conference (see .conf) and take education courses from the pre-conference training sessions, Splunk University (see Splunk University) Publish a regular Splunk newsletter (see Establishing and communicating with your Splunk user community) Host internal workshops |
STAFFING
Practices to maintain staff skills and responsibilities and communicate regularly about responsibilities and assignments. |
Establish and maintain a staff list with contact information Establish Splunk roles and responsibilities on your team (see Setting roles and responsibilities) |
Everything outlined in standard Establish a staffing model (see Staffing a Splunk deployment) |
Everything outlined in intermediate Establish a RACI (responsible, accountable, consulted and informed) matrix as part of your staffing model (see Assigning responsibility for a Splunk deployment) |
BUSINESS ALIGNMENT
Practices to ensure that your Splunk implementation stays on track with business goals |
Align with stakeholders Establish a stakeholder register (see Managing stakeholders) |
Align with departments Everything outlined in standard Hold regular stakeholder coordination meetings |
Align with business units Everything outlined in intermediate Hold a regular quarterly business review (see Scheduling quarterly business reviews) |
VALUE REALIZATION
Practices to unlock, discover, and demonstrate the value of your Splunk investment. |
Demonstrate value to users Establish a use case registry |
Demonstrate value to departments Everything outlined in standard Establish metrics (see Setting success metrics) Publish Splunk use case success stories |
Demonstrate value to business units Everything outlined in intermediate Assess and optimize the input from data sources Establish dashboards that demonstrate use case effectiveness Establish a log that measures the positive effect of Splunk use cases over time Establish a showback plan and value realization cycle (see Showing the value of your Splunk deployment) |