Change management ensures that all changes to the IT infrastructure and the applications based on it are recorded, evaluated, prioritised, planned, tested, implemented and documented in a controlled and monitored manner.

Individual objectives:

• Minimise the risks of changes
• Reduce the duration of the implementation of changes
• Only implement changes that have been agreed with those affected
• Document implemented changes
• Document requested and upcoming (planned) changes

The stability and quality of IT services to support important business processes are not jeopardised by uncoordinated and undocumented changes to the underlying IT infrastructure.

Request-for-Change (RfC):

A request for change is usually created by the service desk. Depending on the source process, it can also be created by other roles. An RfC is a formal request for a change and has the following content:

• Reference number,
• Name / short description,
• Affected service (possibly also the affected business process, the object that is to be changed or the desired effect of the change),
• Impact if the change is not implemented,
• the applicant,
• a proposed date.

This information is added during the course of the change management process:

• Change Manager,
• Members of the(Emergency) Change Advisory Board,
• Classification (standard or non-standard change),
• Evaluation (emergency change or change in normal operations),
• Costs / effort,
• Rejection or approval of the change with reasons for the decision.

Change Manager role:

• The person who accepts the RfC (can be included by service desk),
• must have the technical expertise to be able to assess the change and its effects in advance,
• is responsible for implementing the change management process,
• calls in the (E)CAB and makes a presentation,
• authorises or rejects the implementation of the change,
• creates the change record and the change schedule together with the Service Operation role.
• As a rule, the service manager responsible for the service in question takes on the role of change manager.

Change Advisory Board (CAB):

The Change Advisory Board is an advisory body in which all those affected by a change are represented:

• The composition of the CAB depends on the service concerned.
• The service manager puts together the CAB for the respective service.
• The change manager convenes the CAB as required.
• The CAB evaluates and prioritises the change.
• It supports the change manager.
• It ensures that a fallback solution is planned in the event that a change fails.
• It coordinates the resources required for the change.
• It keeps a list of the RfCs for which it is responsible.

Change Record:

The planning and implementation of a change are documented in the change record:

• Reference number,
• affected service, affected business process,
• Objective of the change (e.g. correction of / integration of),
• Causes for the RfC,
• Systems and components affected by the change,
• Strategy in the event of an error,
• Schedule for implementing the change,
• Procedure for monitoring the successful implementation of the change,
• Downtime of the affected service.

Change schedule:

The change schedule is the process planning for implementing a change; it contains

• Time of implementation of the change,
• Sub-activity(ies),
• Persons carrying out the change,
• duration,

standard change:

• A standard change is a change that has already been approved in advance. With a standard change, the change record and, if applicable, the change schedule are already fixed. The Service Operation role carries out a standard change without further coordination, if necessary, or only coordinates the change schedule with the service users.
• Before a change becomes a standard change, it must have passed through the change management process at least once as a non-standard change. As part of this process, the necessary coordination takes place and the required documents are created. No change that is implemented for the first time can be a standard change.
• After a non-standard change has been implemented, the change manager evaluates whether it can be implemented as a standard change in the future.

Non-standard change:

• Change that is approved or rejected as part of the change management process,
• Change is planned using a change record and change schedule,
• A non-standard change can become a standard change after successful implementation and documentation.

Emergency change:

• Objective: to rectify a disruption as quickly as possible that has a major negative impact on many or all business processes.
• An emergency change must also be evaluated by the CAB (possibly Emergency CAB, ECAB).
• The emergency change is also planned using a change record and change schedule. Subsequent documentation of the change may be necessary if there was not enough time to create the documents before the change was implemented.

Top principle:

• RfCs must be approved before they are implemented! Either by the Change Advisory Board (CAB) or by the Emergency Change Advisory Board (ECAB). This procedure prevents the implementation of changes that are neither documented nor known and therefore lead to unnecessary risks for service quality and additional work in the service desk.

Further principles from ITIL:

• Creation of a zero-tolerance culture with regard to unauthorised changes,
• Coordination of the change management process with other change processes in the organisation,
• Successful prioritisation, for example innovative versus preventive or detecting versus corrective changes,
• Establishment of a central support centre for changes,
• Ensuring integration with other service management processes,
• setting up change windows, performance and risk assessments or performance measurements.

1. Include change requests (change proposal, RfC) that arise in other processes.
2. Determine what will actually be changed.
3. Determine when the change will actually be implemented.
4. Identify the effects of the change.
5. Obtain approval or rejection of the change by those affected by the change (or by representatives of those affected). This includes the customers and users of the service affected by the change, the service manager, the service operation, any external suppliers, service desk representatives and other experts.
6. Plan the change.
7. Document the change.
8. Follow up on the change.

Like every process, incident management is continuously evaluated and improved based on its process KPIs. IT services are currently orientated towards these key figures:

1. Number of important non-standard changes that have to be approved by the CAB (Change Advisory Board),
2. Number of CAB convenings,
3. Average time from submission of an RfC to change approval,
4. Ratio of accepted to rejected RfCs,
5. Number of emergency changes that must be approved by the ECAB.