What is IT Change Management?

IT change management has an impact on essentially every part of an organization. As such, the roles and responsibilities associated with change management can be difficult to clearly define. Likewise, different businesses may assign different tasks to different roles, making a universally standardized list impossible. That said, many companies include the following (or similar) roles in their change management initiatives:

Oversees and takes responsibility for the entire change management process.

Manages the CAB, coordinates teams and stakeholders, makes final decisions to approve or reject proposed changes, and directs the implementation of approved changes.

Proposes changes, collects, and organizes relevant details, and creates plans for change implementation.

Analyzes and evaluates proposed changes and provides recommendations that the change manager may use in making approvals.

Often takes on the role of ‘change initiator;’ software developers are directly involved in most IT changes and are worth considering in conjunction with most other IT change management roles.

IT change management is an essential aspect of business growth and adaptation. The key objectives of IT change management include the following:

Without the right processes, changes can quickly get out of hand. IT change management gives organizations more control over the changes they implement, allowing for effective administration every step of the way, including planning, risk assessment, and tracking. This helps minimize risk and ensures that changes are implemented quickly and accurately.

IT change management tracks all change requests. This not only allows for a more organized and manageable approach to IT changes, but it also helps eliminate unauthorized changes. By creating a single set of processes and establishing clear responsibilities, organizations can optimize change implementation throughout their business.

Huge, sweeping changes tend to entail significant risk, and often throw everything into disarray. On the other hand, ongoing changes that take small, on-going steps to refine and enhance IT infrastructure are much more manageable. Proper IT change management allows businesses to maintain continuous improvement, keeping up with industry trends and rolling out important changes without significantly interrupting their day-to-day operations.

Possibly the most important goal of IT change management should be to unite teams across ITSM, ITOM, and DevOps. As DevOps and related approaches demand increased rates of change, change managers may find themselves feeling increased pressure. Top change management solutions not only incorporate advanced automation and governance capabilities to ensure that changes are being effectively and timely implemented, but they also need to be able to facilitate improved communication and coordination between departments.

By bringing together each of these key players and providing a single centralized source of truth throughout the entire organization, the ServiceNow Now Platform makes optimal change management collaboration possible.

Before being sent off, the RFC is reviewed to ensure accuracy, and to validate that the requested change is necessary and feasible.

With the request finalized, the change must now be fully planned out. The planning stage should incorporate and document details such as impact, rollout plans, backout plans, change roles, and any associated downtime the change might necessitate.

The RFC is sent to the CAB, as well as any other authorities or internal groups that might have a stake in the change. The CAB reviews the available information, makes an educated assessment of the risk and rewards, and provides a recommendation to the change manager responsible for giving final approval. The change manager then accepts or rejects the change.

With approvals in place, the organization can begin implementing the change. Implementation includes scheduling, assigning, and delegating related tasks. Also, by leveraging IT project management, organizations can more effectively handle large-scale changes, more easily directing increased numbers of people and tasks.

Once the change has been implemented, organizations must then review and assess to determine whether the change was successful and if there are any unacceptable deviations from the plan. If any issues are present, they must be resolved before the change can be closed.

By providing a set or clear processes to follow in planning, approving, and implementing IT changes, change management provides several significant advantages.

• Decreased number of change collisions, in which too many changes are scheduled simultaneously, resulting in conflicts and strained resources.
• Increased ability to roll out changes without negatively impacting other operations.
• Fewer failed changes, due to detailed documentation and effective review and evaluation processes.
• More-accurate change classification.
• Integrate organization-wide change processes.
• Improved change automation, streamlining processes and freeing up teams to focus on other vital tasks.
• Enabling of business outcomes, in line with ITIL 4, which blends key DevOps concepts—such as CI/CD, safe-to-fail testing, and shortened feedback loops—into change activities.

• Enhanced transparency related to scheduled changes.
• Reduced downtime due to improved communication.
• Fewer disruptions because of unauthorized or poorly planned changes.

While the benefits of IT change management are widely recognized, there are also several challenges that can easily stand in the way and hinder effective deployment.

Depending on the scope of the proposed changes, IT change management processes may be prohibitively expensive to deploy.

Occasionally, incorporating a detailed, step-by-step change process may slow down the overall time to delivery, particularly in the case of standard changes that could otherwise be handled without having to include them in the IT change management process.

A high number of failed changes may be indicative of a poor change management process and can eat up resources and time without producing viable results.

Unauthorized changes occur when IT change management adoption is not widespread, approval mechanisms are not effective or not in place, or relevant stakeholders are not included in the approval process. Unauthorized changes incur expenses without being properly documented and are thus difficult to track. They can also create unanticipated problems that could otherwise be avoided by following established procedures.

Poor communication and ineffective planning may lead to multiple changes being scheduled for implementation at the same time. This can cause interruptions in the changes themselves and result in further complications within the IT infrastructure.

Because emergency changes must be addressed as quickly as possible, they tend to circumvent certain parts of the IT change management process. When too many changes are flagged as emergency changes, it can easily lead to delays, confusion, and failure to handle actual emergencies with the earnestness they require.

To ensure the best possible results, organizations should approach change management using the following best practices:

Different kinds of changes may demand different sets of processes. Creating specific categories for proposed changes, and establishing processes for each that are most effective, depending on priority and other requirements empower organizations to approach each change in the most efficient way possible.

Organizations have their own levels of risk tolerance and regulatory restrictions. Understanding these considerations and incorporating them into planning and evaluation phases will help ensure that proposed changes don’t create unnecessary problems.

Where possible and appropriate, change managers and other change leaders should be willing to delegate responsibilities to other reliable individuals. This will allow them to focus on the bigger picture without getting too bogged down in the day-to-day tasks.

Change documentation should begin during the change-request stage. Managing and proposed changes in a single digital location allows organizations to prioritize changes more effectively, and to revisit lower-priority changes when bandwidth allows.

Every proposed change brings with it certain risks and resource requirements. Applying risk and impact analysis to each change gives decision makers clearer insight to use in making final approval.

The change management process often includes many different steps incorporating a range of roles and can easily get bogged down waiting for approvals or other information. Effective automation helps streamline the entire process and should be employed liberally to ensure that the change is proceeding on schedule.

Change-process templates are essentially forms that can be customized to the needs of individual organizations. Creating and using these templates can help standardize change requests and the assigning of relevant tasks.

IT change management is as much a cultural shift as it is a procedural one. Organizations should work to make ongoing change the new normal and strive for full adoption among all relevant departments and stakeholders.

A range of frameworks exist for facilitating effective change management. Businesses should take the time to fully review the advantages of each and select the framework that best fits their needs.

When stakeholders are not informed of planned change schedules, it can lead to incidents and confusion, and can also negatively impact other services. Including stakeholders in scheduling not only helps eliminate possible problems, but also encourages continued support from management.

To determine how effective a change process is, businesses must first identify relevant metrics and KPIs. Quantifying and measuring change management success provides concrete data that can be used to improve processes going forward.

Not every change is going to produce the desired outcome. When changes fail, having a backout plan can help organizations cut their losses, and may be the only thing standing in the way of damaging the existing IT infrastructure.