Change Management -> Standard Change vs Pre-Approved Change (legacy features?)

[jMarshal]

When my organization first implemented ServiceNow (in Helsinki release, I believe), Change Management was not multi-modal, yet. The OOB solution used the classic (legacy?) "Change Interceptor Page" to guide ITIL users to select the correct Change type (Standard, Emergency, Normal) when creating a CR. We did some significant customizations of the Change workflow and state model, to fit our process and terminology...and as a result, we had problems with growth on the platform (a common pitfall of over-customization).

We are now re-baselining our instance and going to use the new(er) multi-modal Change model that ServiceNow provides OOB...but I'm a bit confused about a few things...and one thing in particular seems to be kinda fuzzy in terms of ServiceNow's intentions for future growth in the platform...which is hindering my implementation design.

Under the current model, a CR has both a "type" and a "model" ...and OOB, there is a "Standard" model, which will match with the "Standard" type. I feel as though this is supporting legacy CR processes, as the concept of a change model (as opposed to type) is more mature than most organizations are ready for...but I am not sure/certain.

Going forward, we are also trying to grow/mature in process...so referring to pre-approved changes as such, may be important to that growth. IE - in the multi-modal change management paradigm, a pre-approved change is not necessarily the same as a "classic ITIL standard change"...

...or is that not true, perhaps?

I am not fully confident that it is true because the OOB model itself is called "standard", though the cards which are presented to select changes which are using that model are labelled as "pre-approved". Why would ServiceNow not just label them as "standard" in this case? Why is the tab labelled as "pre-approved" instead of "standard", why would the cards have a "pre-approved" label instead of "standard" as you would expect, based on the traditional change type paradigm AND the "newer" OOB model name?

Further, there doesn't seem to be a way to create a pre-approved change, which isn't intrinsically tied-to the Standard Change Proposal table. From what I can tell, the ONLY way to create a pre-approved change is to use the Standard Change Proposal table/process...and the outcome is a "pre-approved" change. 

Why is there no way to create a "pre-approved change" using a custom model?....at least, I don't see any way to do this.

Further, when I use the materials provided on Now Create, for Change Management, there is reference to Standard Changes being "legacy"...but I can't find any other reference to this in literature on the docs site or community or Now Learning or anything...

...so, what's the road-map here? what's the end-game?

Is "mode-2 change management" a methodology which does away with the "standard change" nomenclature?...is there something we should be paying attention to, when considering growth in the ITSM space?

Is the Standard Change Proposal table/module "legacy", in that it will (eventually?) be replaced with new features that enable/support the creation of new pre-approved models using the oob "standard" model and/or type...but open the door to other models and types being considered "pre-approved" as well, perhaps?

I will be the first to admit that I may be "overthinking this"...but I am worried that I won't be able to build confidence in a solution that is new/changing (at least, in the terminology used) unless I can explain why the change is happening and what it means to our future use of the platform.

note - this question is posted in multiple forums as I was unable to make use of the # feature, to tag/link the "Change Management" or "ITSM" products, for some reason. see Change Management -> Standard Change vs Pre-Approv... - ServiceNow Community 

[luffy3478]

you can find the latest change related process documents in nowcreate. 

https://nowlearning.servicenow.com/nowcreate

[jMarshal · Accepted solution]

Just following up for anyone who may have bookmarked this, waiting for an answer...

I attended some of the Modern Change Management Lunch & Learn sessions and now understand way more about the intended use of these feature(s), how they work currently and where they sit on the product roadmap.

I was able to access this resource as a part of the ServiceNow Customer Success Centre! If you haven't used this before, I strongly recommend checking it out. Here is a direct link to the on demand webinars, which is where you can find the registration links for helpful webinars like this one! https://www.servicenow.com/success/events/on-demand.html 

Specifically, related to the topic-at-hand, the concept (in theory) of a pre-approved change (model) is NOT exclusive to the ITIL Standard change types...but is currently "tied together" in product (in the platform via ITSM Change Management module).

It is true that the only way to get a change model available on the pre-approved change tab on the modern "new CR interceptor" page/screen, is to put it there by way of the Standard Change Proposal table's built-in record producer, which will always apply the "Standard" model and "Standard" type.

Any custom-built model, which happens to have automatic (pre) approval policies (always skipping the Assess & Authorize stages)...but does not always result in a "Low" risk condition, nor is the process necessarily repeatable (thus, not really a "Standard Change", by ITIL type) cannot be on the "preapproved" tab of the CR interceptor page yet.

I did get confirmation that this is on the roadmap for feature development though --> a method to accomplish the creation of a custom "preapproved" model, without using the Standard Change Proposal table/record producer.

In the end, it is known-to and understood-by ServiceNow, that the concept of a preapproved change model is not intrinsically linked to the ITIL Standard Change type definition...and they are continually improving their models OOB and features to accommodate (read: work with) these business needs...but for now, any custom models will not be on the "pre-approved" tab even if they do always skip the approval stages (thus, "pre-approved")...but you can still set them up as such. ServiceNow monitors this customer data to see what kind of demand for this use case would be...so if you have a use case for this, get in on the custom model game! You can set up the conditions still, to ensure it is not being abused and enjoy the benefit of modern Change models!

Also, I've seen some suggestions floating around, where you can simply relabel the "preapproved" tab to be "Standard" and I see that as a viable "crutch" for organizations that struggle to get their technicians to embrace change (I'll show myself out), I would not recommend it being a long-term solution if you're moving away from traditional ("Mode 1") Change Management into Modern Change Management (DevOps, multi-modal, model-based, etc.)