IT Change Management

Introduction

Change is inevitable in every IT work environment it is includes but not limited to (hardware, software, processes, etc.). Many types of changes in work environments, as example:

1- Strategic changes.

2- Governance changes.

3- Technological changes.

4- Operational changes.

Some of the changes should be applied, for example, changes that come from the government.

Definition

The change management is an IT service management (ITSM) discipline. The process responsible for controlling the life cycle of all changes. The change management is a set of procedures, processes, and processes to manage all changes in the work environment with minimum negative effect on the IT service and/or business.

Change management objectives

The primary objective of Change Management is to apply beneficial changes, with minimum disruption to IT services.

Another objective of Change Management is to ensure that you applying the standardized methods and procedures for efficient and prompt handling of all changes to control IT infrastructure, in order to minimize the impact of any related incidents.

Change Management Processes

1. Raising and record changes

Many of ways can generate a new change record:

• Request a change from an incident.
• Request a change from a problem.
• Request a change from a business need.
• Request a change through a service catalog.
• Request a change from an email

2. Assessing and evaluating changes

Once a change request is in place, the change management team must populate the change request with as much information as possible in order to fully assess the requested change.

Information that can be collected :

• Priority
• Category
• Impact
• Urgency
• Schedule - Includes a requested by date, a planned start and end date, and work start and end dates. This can be integrated with Outlook so that the change schedule will appear in Outlook's calendar. Note that changes made to the schedule in Outlook will not change the change record.
• Change/Roll Out Plan/Backout Plan/Test Plans
• Approvers - All CAB members.
• Related Problems - All related problem to the change will be associate to the change form. 
• Related Incidents - All related incident to the change will be associate to the change form.
• Affected CIs - a list of configuration items (from the CMDB) that will be affected by the change.
• Impacted Services - a list of business services (from the CMDB) that will be affected by the change.

3. Planning Changes

Changes can be planned directly in the change record, but for complex, multi-step changes, Project Management allows specificity of planning. 

4. Authorizing Changes

Any change should be reviewed and approved by the Change Advisory Board (CAB)  before put it into production environment. Usually, the CAB consist of a group of people with different perspectives, backgrounds and areas of expertise. Their function is to review the change from a process and governance standpoint to assure that all foreseeable risks have been identified and mitigated, and that compensatory techniques are in place for any elements of exposure (things that could go wrong). The development team and the change sponsor will present the change to the CAB. Evaluation of risk will be the focus. Implementation strategies, communication to affected stakeholders, backout plans and post-implementation monitoring are elements on which the CAB is required to focus. The CAB is not responsible for determining if the change is appropriate – that decision has already been made. The CAB is also not responsible for determining if the change is cost effective. Again, that is strictly a business decision.

5. Closing Changes

Once the change has come to an end, and the change has been tested and confirmed, the change can be closed by changing the state. If the change was generated from an incident or problem, you have to close all related incidents and/or problems.

Workflow Sample

Here is a sample of change management workflow (The workflow for change management is configurable, it depends on the work environment).

IT Change Management Workflow Sample