optimize change management

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Optimize Change Management

Turn and face the change with a right-sized change management process.

Info-Tech's products and services combine actionable insight and relevant advice with ready-to-use tools

and templates that cover the full spectrum of IT concerns.© 1997 - 2016 Info-Tech Research Group

https://www.infotech.com/research/ss/optimize-change-management/optimize-change-management-phases-1-4



Balance risk and efficiency to optimize change management.

ANALYST PERSPECTIVE

Any significant change to the technical environment – be it a core business

application or a critical network/compute/storage appliance – brings a certain

element of risk of unplanned consequences. Organizations that prefer to avoid all

risk will drown in a burdensome process and red tape, entailed by rounds of

technical and configuration reviews. It’s essential to balance the need to mitigate

risk while remaining flexible and responsive to the needs of the business.

A right-sized process will incorporate adequate due diligence, without being so

onerous that sysadmins prefer to bypass the process altogether and implement

changes “under the radar.”

Key success factors for any change management initiative include staff buy into

the need for the control, appropriate processware, an ITSM platform to track the

lifecycle of all changes, and visible management support for this foundational

activity of any dynamic business.

Sumit Chowdhury,

Senior Director, Infrastructure Practice

Info-Tech Research Group




Resolution

Situation

Complication

Executive summary

1. An objective framework for estimating

risk is necessary to assess changes.

Simply asking “what is the risk?” will result in

subjective responses that will likely minimize

the perceived risk.

2. Maximize value through integration with

the IT service management ecosystem.

Change management in isolation will bring

some benefits, but integration with problem,

incident, project, configuration, and release

management maximizes the ROI.

3. A mature change management process

will minimize review and approval activity.

Counterintuitively, with experience in

implementing changes, risk levels decline to a

point where most changes are preapproved.

• IT system owners often resist change management because they see it

as slow and bureaucratic.

• At the same time, an increasingly interlinked technical environment may

cause issues to appear in unexpected places. Configuration

management systems are often not kept up to date to catch the potential

linkages.

• Infrastructure changes are often seen as “different” from application

changes, and two (or more) processes may exist.

• Create a unified change management process that reduces risk and is balanced in its approach toward deploying changes,

while also maintaining throughput of innovation and enhancements.

◦ Categorize changes based on an industry-standard risk model with objective measures of impact and likelihood.

◦ Establish and empower a change manager and change advisory board with the authority to manage, approve, and

prioritize changes.

◦ Integrate a configuration management database with the change management process to identify dependencies.

Infrastructure and application change occurs constantly, driven by changing

business needs, requests for new functionality, operational releases and

patches, and resolution of incidents or problems detected by the service

desk. IT managers need to follow a standard change management process

to ensure that rogue changes are never deployed while the organization

remains responsive to demand.




BUSINESS

NEW

APP

NEW

VERSION

Business requests2

IT change is constant and is driven by:

CONFIGURATION

MANAGEMENT

SYSTEM (CMS)

WORK-

AROUNDFIX

INCIDENT &

PROBLEM

SERVICE

DESK

MAJOR

RELEASE

SECURITY

PATCH

MAINTENANCE

RELEASEOPERATIONS

CHANGE

MANAGEMENT

If you have a CMS, it is used to

keep a record of changes to

the infrastructure and is

queried to assess change

requests.

Operational releases and patches1

Incident or problem tickets3

Business-driven changes may include

requests from other business

departments that require IT’s support.

Operational releases,

maintenance, vendor-driven

updates, and security updates all

can be key drivers of change.

Some incident

and problem

tickets require a

change in order

to facilitate

resolution of the

incident.




Successful change management will provide benefits to both

the business and IT

Respond to business requests faster, while reducing the number of change-related

disruptions.

IT Benefits

Fewer change-related incidents and outages.

Faster change turnaround time.

Higher rate of change success.

Less change rework.

Fewer service desk calls related to poorly

communicated changes.

Business Benefits

Fewer service disruptions.

Faster response to requests for new and

enhanced functionality.

Higher rate of benefits realization when

changes are implemented.

Lower cost per change.

Fewer “surprise” changes disrupting

productivity.

IT satisfaction with change management will drive business satisfaction with IT. Once

the process is working efficiently, staff will be more motivated to adhere to the process,

reducing the number of unauthorized changes. As fewer changes bypass proper evaluation

and testing, service disruptions will decrease and business satisfaction will increase.




Change management improves core benefits to the business:

the four C’s

Change management brings daily control over

the IT environment, allowing you to review

every relatively new change, eliminate changes

that would have likely failed, and review all

changes to improve the IT environment.

Request for change templates and a structured

process shapes implementation, test, and

back-out plans to be more consistent.

Implementing processes for pre-approved

changes also ensures these frequent changes

are executed consistently and efficiently.

Change management planning brings

increased communication and collaboration

across groups by coordinating changes with

business activities. The Change Advisory

Board (CAB) also brings a more formalized

and centralized communication method for IT.

Change management processes will give your

organization more confidence through more

accurate planning, improved execution of

changes with less failure, and control over the

IT environment. This also leads to greater

protection against audits.

Most organizations have at least some form of change control in place, but

formalizing change management leads to the four C’s of business benefits:

1 3

2 4

Control

Consistency

Collaboration

Confidence




You likely need to improve change management more than

any other infrastructure & operations process

8.9

8

8.4

8.7

8.4

8.2

7.9

8.6

7.1

6.1

6.3

6.5

6.2

5.8

5.4

6.1

0 2 4 6 8 10

Service Desk

Asset Management

Operations Management

Incident &Problem Management

Availability &Capacity Management

Release Management

Configuration Management

Change Management

Effectiveness Importance

Source: Info-Tech; N=3,285

Of the eight infrastructure &

operations processes measured

in Info-Tech’s IT Management

and Governance Diagnostic

(MGD) program, change

management tied for the

biggest gap between

importance and

effectiveness of these

processes.

Twenty-one percent of

organizations who have

completed this diagnostic were

classified as needing to improve

change management based on

these scores. More

organizations need to

improve change

management than any

other infrastructure &

operations process.




Executives and directors recognize the importance of change

management, but feel theirs is currently ineffective

Info-Tech’s IT Management and

Governance Diagnostic program

assesses the importance and

effectiveness of core IT processes.

Since its inception, the MGD has

consistently identified change

management as an area for

immediate improvement.

Importance Scores

No Importance: 1.0-6.9

Limited Importance: 7.0-7.9

Significant Importance: 8.0-8.9

Critical Importance: 9.0-10.0

Source: Info-Tech; N=3,285

6.76.3

5.8 5.8

8.7 8.7 8.6 8.5

0.0

2.0

4.0

6.0

8.0

10.0

Frontline Manager Director Executive

MG

D S

co

re

Seniority Level

Change Management - Effectiveness

Change Management - Importance

Effectiveness Scores

Not in Place: N/A

Not Effective: 0.0-4.9

Somewhat Ineffective: 5.0-5.9

Somewhat Effective: 6.0-6.9

Very Effective: 7.0-10.0




You are not alone…

Many organizations suffer from the lack of a defined change management process.

We are always struggling with

utilization, and I think [this] is because of a lack of

user knowledge.

– CIO, Claims Management

Provider

We found that people were making changes ad hoc into production. This would result in change-related incidents.

– Senior Director, Technology and Managed Services

By not pre-planning changes far in advance, we are forced to give the change management form at the eleventh hour (…) Because of these time frame issues, we don’t require proof of testing prior to change, and that’s a big gap.

– Assistant Director of

Technology Solutions,

Municipal Government

Services

We only recognize dependencies after deployment.– Siebel Systems Administrator




After: Right-Sized Change ManagementBefore: Informal Change Management

Overcome perceived challenges to implementing change

management to reap measurable reward

Change Approval: Changes do not pass through a

formal review process before implementation.

10% of released changes are approved

• Implementation Challenge: Staff will resist having to

submit formal change requests and assessments,

frustrated at the prospect of having to wait longer to

have changes approved.

Change Prioritization: Changes are not prioritized

according to urgency, risk, and impact.

60% of changes are urgent

• Implementation Challenge: Influential stakeholders

accustomed to having changes approved and

deployed might resist having to submit changes to a

standard cost-benefit analysis.

Change Deployment: Changes often negatively

impact user productivity.

25% of changes are realized as planned.

• Implementation Challenge: Engaging the business so

that formal change freeze periods and regular

maintenance windows can be established.

Change Approval: All changes pass through a formal

review process. Once a change is repeatable and well-

tested, it can be pre-approved to save time. Almost no

unauthorized changes are deployed.

95% of changes are approved

• KPI: Decrease in change-related incidents.

Change Prioritization: The CAB prioritizes changes so

that the business is satisfied with the speed of change

deployment.

35% of changes are urgent

• KPI: Decrease in change turnaround time.

Change Deployment: Users are always aware of

impending changes and changes do not interrupt critical

business activities.

Over 80% of changes are realized as planned

• KPI: Decrease in the number of failed deployments.




Info-Tech’s approach to change management optimization

focuses on building standardized processes

Phase 1:

Form Strategy

Phase 2:

Build Intake Process

Phase 3:

Build Core Processes

Build risk

prioritization and

categorization

scheme

Assess CM maturity

1.2

1.1

Determine roles +

responsibilities

Build core change processes

2.2

2.1

Establish post-

implementation

activities

Create change intake process 3.2

3.1

• Maturity Assessment

Tool• Risk Assessment Tool • Core Process Workflows

• Change Manager Job

Description

• RACI Chart & Role

Descriptions• Request For Change

Process

• Request For Change

(RFC) Form

• Change Calendar

Guidelines

• Emergency Change

Process Workflow

Phase 4:

Build Implementation

Plan

Implement project

Identify metrics and build change

calendar

4.2

4.1

• Metrics and Reports

• Change Metrics Tool

• Communication Plan

• Executive Presentation

• Implementation Gantt

Chart

• Sunshine Diagram

Outcomes + Deliverables

Change management standard operating procedures (SOP)

• Pre-Implementation

Checklist

• Post-Implementation

Review Checklist• CAB Charter



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