Change Workflow and State Changes

[marybutts]

I am trying to understand the reasoning behind the change workflow and get some advice.

Our Change Workflow for Normal Change is as follows:

1. Requestor creates CR for approval

2. CR goes to CAB for assessment and is in an Assess 'State'

3. CAB approves CR and is sent to Team Lead for approval and remains in the Assess 'State'

4. Team Lead approves CR and is sent back to CAB for final approval and is in the Authorize 'State'

5. CAB authorizes the CR and is in a Scheduled 'State'

6. CR is actioned by requestor and is in a Review 'State' then Closed

Here are some questions I have:

1. On step 3 above, Requestors are finding it hard to determine the status of their request without drilling in because of Assess state.   Is it pending CAB approval, or is it pending Team Lead approval?   My first thought is to add a new 'State' called Team Lead, but we are trying to keep things as close to out of the box as possible.

2. After Team Lead approval (step 4), the CR is completely locked down and IF by chance something needs to be tweaked, such as a scheduled date, the final CAB approval should be able to make those adjustments in the Authorize 'State'.   Is there a specific role that can be used to grant that group access to do so? Otherwise final CAB approval has to reject the CR which sends it all the way back to a New 'State' and has to go back through the process all over again, which could delay the change.

3. We are noticing that some CR's are getting stuck at step 4, because the Team Lead either got too busy or was out of the office and didn't approve the CR, but the change (work) went ahead anyway.   While I understand this is an internal problem that should be corrected, we are trying to find a good way to keep track of these.   What is happening is:

The Team Lead returns and approves the request which sends it to the CAB for final approval.   CAB knows this change has already taken place as an 'unauthorized' change.   His two choices are to approve it, which means it goes through and gets closed as successful by the Requestor OR he rejects it which sends it back to the NEW 'State'.  

What would make sense is that when the CAB gets it for final approver, he should be able to skip the rest of the workflow and close this request as Unauthorized....

Suggestions and best practices are welcomed!

[iamwanshishi]

Here are my thoughts:

1. Once you created a CR, the state is "New", if you change it to "Assess" or click "Request Approval" it will go to Technical Approval (team that is responsible for the specific CI or group), once it gets approve, the state will change to "Authorize", which waits for CAB Approval. After CAB Approval, it will go to "Scheduled" and so on.

2. It appears that Change Manager can still make some adjustment on "Authorize" state. I tried to change the Schedule and it works. I am not sure what issue are you having. As per docs, to process a change request the Role required are itil, admin, or change manager. and role required to create a change request are itil and admin.

Create a change request

Process a change request

3. I am not sure with this part, but based on the workflow, if the change is still on the Authorize state it will not push through to other steps. Meaning change shouldnt be taking place because it wasnt approved at all.