I am in the process of writing a book on SAM.
The book in entitled ‘Software Asset Management – The First Ninety Days‘.
My goal is to help new SAM professionals learn the territory and begin to plot their strategy.
Book Objectives
- Highlight the benefits of SAM
- Allow the reader to assess their current position
- Allow the reader to plot their course
- Provide a framework for progress
- Balance of SAM theory and pragmatic advice
- Low cost (say less than about £40/$60/€50)
The outline for our book is published below.
Get Involved
- Is there a specific topic you would like to see covered which is missing from our outline?
- Would you like to contribute a section based on one of the topics below?
To get involved please leave a comment below or get in contact.
Thanks, Martin
Software Asset Management – The First Ninety Days [Book Outline]
- Introduction to SAM
- An Asset Management Primer
- Business Drivers
- Benefits (Tangible and Intangible)
- Risks (vendor audit / licensing complexity)
- Key Tenets
- Scope
- Begin with the end in mind
- Business as Usual / Why SAM framework
- The Theoretical SAM Framework
- SAM Definition
- Mission / Vision / Objectives
- SAM Process Framework
- How SAM relates to other disciplines and frameworks
- ITIL
- Cobit
- ISO/IEC 19770
- ISO/IEC 20000
- Governance
- Pragmatic SAM / Preparation (Where am I? where do I need to be?)
- Agree on planning and approach
- How to prepare stakeholder interviews
- Workshop and Exercises
- Maturity Assessment
- Pragmatic SAM / Implementation
- Your organization
- Placement within an organization (reporting lines)
- Roles and Responsibilities
- Sheriff or Lynchpin
- Characteristics of successful SAM professionals / skills
- Training
- Ownership of the (key) processes (RACI)
- Policies – Giving Your Practice Teeth
- The Operational Business Plan
- Goals
- Checklist for building a compliance position
- Selling SAM to Stakeholders
- Reporting (operational kpi’s)
- Your Communications Plan
- SAM Artefacts (Data Gathering, Data Sources)
- Technology
- Pitfalls
- Terminology
- Your organization
What about a section dealing with vendors? Meeting with them, asking them for their data to compare with your own? Especially as you may have more than 1 internal group buying the same software at different times with the vendor – you’d want a consolidated list – it might be that the vendor has more complete information about your enterprise than you do.
I happened to have blogged about this not that long ago…
https://itsmmd.com/2013/01/26/vendor-management-some-thoughts/
Great feedback, thanks Stephen. More on Vendor Management here too: https://www.theitsmreview.com/2011/09/segment-prioritize-vendors-suppliers/
One area that seems to keep popping up is the personally owned device. There are varying approaches to managing BYOD (laptops v. smartphone/tablet). Without supporting VDI for instance, SAM can become much more complicated. I would love to see a section that focuses on this new trend and how to manage software assets that are a blend of corporate-owned and personally-owned inventoried for a device. I could see the development of best practices on how to work with employees, write a policy for this BYOD approach, etc would be extremely helpful and valuable. Looking forward to this book! Thanks for pulling this together.
Hi martin, I would be very interested in contributing a section. i can be reached on twitter @formerjim if you want to Dm me
Hi Martin.
Good initiative.
What about some smart/short guidelines to select tools to support SAM (no brands but functionalities) and something about basic templates for data collection/analysis ?
Feedback from a reader: “why not add how to track savings and benefits. This seems to be a key item missing in most publications and impacts teams moving forward to getting the funding for the business case.”
Hi Martin, I have been involved in several SAM initiatives as a SAM Manager and currently as a consultant and the issue that appears to be the most difficult to address is that organizations continuously treat SAM as a short term project and need to realize that SAM a living and breathing initiative that is on-going. This appears to happen often where SAM/ITAM reports to the technology area which is an expense department. I am currently south for the winter however would enjoy contributing to your initiative. Thanks
SAM in the CLOUD.
Do I need to say more (-:
The Introduction/Business Drivers may already have this suggestion, but if not I think it is important that ITAM newcomers realize what I think is common knowledge, which is that 90% of all ITAM projects are justified by the SAM portion from a $ savings/return perspective. Also, for a quick kill in 90 days, come into SAM with a laser focus on finding a single vendor (e.g., adobe, or Microsoft Office), do a quick comparison of purchase records, install base, and, if possible, usage. Calculate the delta and in a quick fashion this does three things: 1) It gives a very quick validation of savings and/or risk, 2) it teaches the group the complexities of sorting out the three numbers (purchase/installed/usage), as well as versions, upgrades, bundles…things the casual C-level sponsors aren’t typically exposed to, and 3) the lessons learned in one exercise is a good POC to launch a broader initiative.
P.S. If you want to launch a crowdfunding exercise:) put up a pre-order ticket, I’d be willing to purchase a copy based on the outline, plus I don’t think there are any good books out there like this, at least recent ones, so this is a great idea and one you should contact a publisher for. Good luck with the process.