What is a Runbook in RBM
A Runbook is used to create a cutover plan which will house all the steps or actions required to execute a cutover, or part of a cutover. A Runbook can consist of three distinct phases: a Pre Imp phase, an Imp phase and a Post Imp phase.
A Pre Imp phase will contain the steps required to be done directly prior to a cutover go-live. Steps such as Change Management governance, resource organisation or Go/No Go calls may form part of the Pre Imp phase.
The Imp phase, which is the only mandatory phase, will contain all the go-live actions for the whole cutover or actions which a specific workstream might be responsible for.
The Post Imp phase is for steps to close down the activities and might include completion of Change governance or a post cutover or walkthrough review.
Within each phase, stages are created to group certain activities. Stages can be organised in many different ways. For example, they can be created for tasks to be completed by a certain team, for different applications or for different global regions.
Within each stage, tasks are created to represent all the actions or steps required. Each Task will have a task title and can then be expanded upon by adding to the task description or technical detail. Each task can be assigned to a team a user or a group. Tasks can have other attributes such as auto-activate, auto-complete and skip. Skipping tasks is a useful tool to use during walk-throughs or rehearsals where all the activities are not covered, but still retained in the runbook. Attachments can also be uploaded to Tasks.
On creation of tasks, a duration can be defined. Dependencies can also be set between tasks and stages. Dependencies cannot be created between phases within the same Runbook. However, dependencies can also be set across multiple Runbooks and in that scenario, Imp tasks can be linked to Pre Imp or Post Imp tasks in different runbooks. RBM will automatically calculate the start and end times of tasks, based on task durations and dependencies. In a Runbook these will be depicted by logical times.
On creation of a Runbook, it can be aligned with a Planned Change, Disaster Recovery or Service Recovery.
A Runbook can also be cloned as part of an Event, to copy all existing attributes of the original Runbook.
The Runbook Planner is where stages and tasks can be quickly added, copied, moved or deleted. Here, tasks durations can be updated, dependencies can be set, and tasks can be assigned to users, teams or groups.
As stages and tasks are created and dependencies set, RBM will calculate the Critical Path. The Critical Path highlights the tasks which are contributing to the overall end time of the Runbook.