Change Management Process Documentation

[kimberly_hibbit]

Hello.   I want to improve our change management process.   Does anyone have process documentation that they are willing to share?

Thank you.

Kimberly

[Uncle Rob]

Hey Kimberly,

So, the consultant in me wants to know what you've got for a process today, and where you think it requires improvement.

That might be a better place to start.   What you'll receive here are anonymous processes.   It *might* get you where you want to be but...

- you don't know how effective the donated process actually is in its native environment

- the donated process may not be a good fit for your culture

- the donated process may not "scratch the itch" of what's driving your desire to improve in the first place.

[jstoecklein]

Hi Kimberly,

I wanted to support Robert's view that it's difficult to weed through processes that come from other organizations since each organization is trying to solve a specific pain point. If you haven't already, I would suggest that you do an internet search for ITIL Change Management. Many organizations use this standard as a starting point. It pretty clearly covers best practices and will give you something to work with which night be helpful.

However, you'll want to take the time to clearly understand and articulate why you want to improve your current change process so that you can clearly focus your improvement efforts. This is the specifics of 'scratch the itch' Robert mentioned in his reply. Here are some of the things I commonly see:

• The process is inefficient due to approval overload (too many meaning less approvals become rubber stamps)
• You're sacrificing efficiency because of stringent workflows and procedures (causing some folks to skip the process altogether)
• The risk assessment method is not correctly assessing risk; failures have a higher impact than anticipated
• You have a high percentage of change failures
• You have a low percentage of standard changes

Good luck with your Change Management effort. Change is a fun process to work with! Please post back to the community if you have any other questions. I'm sure others will benefit for your questions, comments and experiences.

Jodi