2.1 Transferring responsibility to the operations team

I have worked with many corporate IT organizations in a variety of industries. No two IT organizations have been structured in the same manner. However, almost all IT organizations, regardless of industry, corporate size, or geographic dispersion, share one common feature. All tend to isolate their operations team from the groups that design and implement new technologies. Unfortunately, only the more enlightened Exchange deployment and migration project teams include representation from the people who will be tasked with managing the Exchange environment once it becomes operational.

It is not unusual for Exchange deployment and migration project teams to simply not consider how the Exchange environment will be managed until the migration project nears completion. The migration project team is doing daily battle with issues that demand immediate attention. Management issues can too easily be postponed while the migration team is busy with more immediate issues. As a result, many companies design and implement complete Windows 2000 domain model and Exchange organizational infrastructures with very little concern for operational staff or procedures. The operations team and the help desk can provide valuable insight since they routinely deal with the reality of how users interact with software products. These key people often have better insight for how a particular implementation or design will affect the users.

Concern, panic, and lengthy meetings often result after the deployment and migration team transfers management responsibility to the operations team. Too often, this transition takes the form of a...