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Change Management Real-World Examples
An overview of the Change Management Process and What Companies are Doing in the Real World
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StrataCom, Inc. Overview
Founded in 1997 as an ITSM Consulting Company Head-quartered in Midwest, offices around the country: MN, ND, WI, SD, NM, FL, VA, NV Niche and focused on ITSM Staff entirely comprised of W2 resources Consultants versed in both process and technical consulting Resources are primarily very senior, with newest consultants having 7 years of ITSM experience
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Services Offered ITSM Tool Implementations ITIL Process Evaluations
ITIL Process Consulting ITSM Tool Tailoring and Integration Work Staff Augmentation Managed Services Offerings around the ITSM Toolsets Primary Administration Tool Development and Maintenance Primary Support and Off-Hours Support
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What is ITIL? The Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is a set of practices for IT service management (ITSM) that focuses on aligning IT services with the needs of business. In its current form (known as ITIL 2011 edition), ITIL is published in a series of five core publications, each of which covers an ITSM lifecycle stage. ITIL underpins ISO/IEC (previously BS15000), the International Service Management Standard for IT service management, although differences between the two frameworks do exist.
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Is ITIL Useful? ITIL describes processes, procedures, tasks and checklists that are not organization-specific, used by an organization for establishing integration with the organization's strategy, delivering value and maintaining a minimum level of competency. It allows the organization to establish a baseline from which it can plan, implement, and measure. It is used to demonstrate compliance and to measure improvement. It is only a ‘Framework’—Guidelines on how to manage IT.
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What is Change Management?
Change Management is a part of ITIL ITIL Change Management aims to control the lifecycle of all Changes. The primary objective of Change Management is to enable beneficial Changes to be made, with minimum disruption to IT services
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Function of Change Management?
Ensure that all changes are properly recorded Ensure that changes are properly categorized within the organization Ensuring that changes are recorded, risk assessed, categorized, prioritized, planned, tested, evaluated, released, documented and reviewed in a controlled and standard manner The primary goal of Change Management is to minimize unexpected downtime for the users. Change Management is NOT a way to speed up change in the organization
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ITIL Change Management Benefits
Reduced business impact of Incidents by timely resolution Proactive identification of beneficial enhancements Availability of business focused information related to SLA’s Improved monitoring of performance against SLA’s Better staff utilization leading to greater efficiency More accurate CMDB information enabling an ongoing audit while registering Incidents Improved user satisfaction Less disruption to both IT support staff and users
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ITIL Goal of Change Management
Ensure that standardized methods and procedures are used for efficient and prompt handling of all changes, in order to minimize the impact of Change-related incidents upon service quality, and consequently to improve the day to day operations of the organization
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When Should I Implement a Change Management Process
We typically see companies introduce ITIL processes in their organizations in this order: Service/Incident Service Desk Event Management Problem Management Knowledge Management Configuration Management Change Management Service Level Management Request Management Service Request Catalog Deployment Management
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When to Implement Change
We typically recommend that the Service Desk functions are in place first Problem Management is essential, it will actually help you determine which Changes to initially focus on Some type of Asset Management is pretty much mandatory. Changes are recorded against Assets (CIs) CIs should be mapped to Services if possible, even if the number of services is low
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Important Change Roles
Change Manager Change Advisory Board (CAB) Emergency Change Advisory Board (ECAB)
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Change Manager Controls the Lifecycle of the Change
Primary objective is to enable beneficial changes with minimal disruption to IT services Key to Success: You must have a Change Manager Role in your organization! This person may also handle the Release Management duties In smaller organizations, could also be the Problem Manager Every organization we’ve worked with that has implemented Change Process has a Change Manager
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Change Advisory Board (CAB)
A group of people that advises the Change Manager in the assessment, prioritization and scheduling of Changes. This board is usually made up of representatives from all areas within the IT organization, the business, and third parties such as suppliers. We see the CAB arranged in very different ways in different organizations
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CAB Procedures Typical organization
CAB board is made up of various individuals from Infrastructure teams, process teams, security teams, etc. Change requests are ‘Brought before the CAB’ which is typically a meeting that occurs once per week for a duration of a few hours The floor is open for anyone to discuss the Change requests Business users are invited to be informed of any changes that may affect their business units, but may not realize that a specific change affects their Business Unit Typically this type of CAB turns into a Bureaucracy of the worst kind. Changes with the correct forms filled out are rubber-stamped as good-to-go Emphasis is not on the quality of the Change’s plan, but the ‘thoroughness’ of the documentation (i.e. is every boxed filled out with something?)
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A Better Plan… Electronic CABs may work much better for you
Change approvals are automatically routed to Business owners for approval based on impact to their Business Units by which Services or Vital Business Functions are affected Important Change procedures like the Implementation Plan and Back Out Plan are evaluated by Subject Matter Experts and approved or rejected Change Managers have more flexibility managing the Change’s lifecycle when it’s not tied into a single meeting per week
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Emergency Change Advisory Board (ECAB)
A sub-set of the Change Advisory Board who makes decisions about high impact Emergency Changes Membership of the ECAB may be decided at the time a meeting is called, and depends on the nature of the Emergency Change ECABs are typically called during ‘War Rooms’ by the Command Center Normally a ‘quick fix’ for a high-priority Incident
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How are Companies Utilizing ECABs?
A Change Manager or Incident Manager normally handles this process Subject Matter experts have already come up with a fix for the Incident. Emphasis is on quick resolution Approval typically done by the Business Owner of the Service affected Documentation of Process and Approvals done on the fly and officially recorded after-the-fact Very common to have an Emergency Change to fix something that went wrong because of a different Change Request To improve Change Process, post mortems must be done
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ITIL Change Categories
Normal Represents ordinary Changes to services, hardware and applications that happen over the lifetime of a service Standard Represents usual changes that are repeatedly performed May be pre-approved Reduced or no lead times (i.e.: Patch) Most companies choose to implement categories very similar to these.
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ITIL Change Categories
Emergency Changes which are necessary due to an incident or unplanned outage Approvals may be received after the fact Emergency changes are usually linked to a high priority incident Unplanned Change that occurs outside of the Change Management system or changes implemented without appropriate lead time Scheduled Implementation before lead time date Recorded after the fact Captured from unmatched changes to the CMDB Most companies choose to implement categories very similar to these.
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Are Companies following these ITIL Change Standards?
For the most part, yes Many organizations really struggle to come up with Change Scenarios for their organization The ITIL Change Processes are a very good place to start Don’t be afraid to expand on these Categories Allows you to work on Change Workflows without adding complex logic to existing workflows Categorization makes reporting and SLAs very easy
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Other Change Categories We’ve Seen
Minor Change Well-understood Changes which do not require the involvement of Release Management Incident Change Change specifically opened because of an Incident Desktop Change Changes specifically for Desktops Many companies have different Change scenarios for: Easy reporting against those types of changes Ease of Administration of specific change workflows
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ITIL Change Lead Times Change Lead Times
Lead Times apply to Normal Changes Lead Times are based on the calculated risk score of the change ~ More risk = longer lead times Lead Times allow enough time for the change to be reviewed and approved prior to approval Lead Time Examples High Risk – 10 day lead time Medium Risk – 5 day lead time Low Risk – 3 day lead time No Risk – 1 or 2 day lead time Some companies have tried to implement change without lead times. They usually have more issues as they have less control over the change. Companies with stricter lead times tend to be more successful.
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Planning Changes in Downtime windows
Most organizations tie Scheduled Downtime windows to their Business Services Typically, changes are scheduled during the downtime window How are most companies scheduling downtime windows? Standardized downtime window for all Business Services. Normally a number of hours overnight on a weekend Each Business Service Gets it own unique Downtime Window
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Standardized Downtimes
Advantages Everyone knows when the changes will occur Typically scheduled where it will cause the least amount of disruption for the business Disadvantages Multiple Changes at the same time may cause issues What if your change tracking tool has an outage at the same time as the other changes occur?
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Things to Think About Regarding Downtime Windows
Downtime windows should fit the way you do business Think about resource availability It may sound good to have downtimes every Saturday night, but can you get the resources you need if there are issues? Scenarios like patching 500 windows servers that affect 100+ Services may alter your thinking on downtime windows
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Other Common Change Management Tools
Forward Schedule of Change (FSC) A Document that lists all approved Change Proposals and Changes and their planned implementation dates Many companies are using software to create the FSC effectively by avoiding Change Conflicts Not scheduling 2 high-risk changes at the same time Avoiding scheduling changes that affect the same CI at the same time
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Change Compliance Report
Reporting that the Change Manager uses to evaluate how the organization is doing regarding changes Are Changes staying in their allocated downtime and outage windows Are Changes causing Incidents? Was the Change successful? More testing needed? Was back out plan successful? Was implementation documentation correct?
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Change Review/Approvals
Review by Manager or other entity to ensure readiness for Production Review by Change Management for completeness and planning Review by groups affected by Change Approval by implementing groups on Change Approval by Change Authority (CAB) Approvals required are based on evaluated risk Higher risk applications = more risk/approvals Industry/Gov’t regulations = more risk/approvals Minor changes may bypass the CAB approvals Approvals do not have to represent a long delay in implementing change. Organizations with some kind of formal approval process tend to be more sucessful.
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Change Implementation
Change Implementations Most organizations use one master change for planning and approvals Organize separate parts of change into tasks, which can utilize different groups as implementers Change should show encompass the full planned time for the change, including time for all tasks Tasks allow for better reporting and accountability of what parts are successful and what failed
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Post Implementation Review
Post Implementation Reviews allow for organization to review changes PIR’s promote better planning for future changes Can be performed informally or recorded as part of change
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StrataCom Contact Info Eric Krueger, Principal Consultant Laura Walker, Director of Business Development x27
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