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What is Change Management Methodology?

Need a change management methodology and want practical standards and best practices for information management governance and accountability?

A change management (CM) methodology provides a disciplined process forChange Management Methodology introducing changes into the production environment with minimal disruption to ongoing operations.

What standards and best practices are required?

The CM process should include the following objectives:
  • To formally initiate a change through the submission of a change request (CR);
  • To determine impact on existing documentation and configuration items e.g. requirements, architecture documents and/or software configuration items;
  • To establish a formal process for authorizing change;
  • To plan the deployment of any change which may impact the production environment;
  • To manage the deployment of releases in a consistent manner with the least impact upon production; and
  • To conduct a post-implementation review to determine if the change has achieved objectives and whether to keep the change or back it out.
It should:
  • Provide an authorization and tracking processes to ensure only approved changes are deployed;
  • Require a configuration management process to assess the impact of change on all potential configuration items (CI);
  • Require release management to package the changes for successful deployment with minimal disruption to production.
What is change?

Change is defined as anything—hardware, software, system components, services, documents, or processes—that is deliberately introduced into the production environment and which may affect a service level agreement (SLA) or otherwise affect the functioning of the environment or one of its components.

All changes falling under this definition should be managed by the change management methodology as changes may:
  • Affect multiple users;
  • Potentially disrupt business-critical services;
  • Involve hardware (such as servers or networking equipment) or software modifications;
  • Affect data stored and hence the data management, data movement and data presentation environments; and
  • Involve operational and process modifications that affect multiple users.
What is change management methodology scope?

A change management methodology should normally include changes to the following:
  • Requirements;
  • Architecture/design documents;
  • Database objects;
  • Data movement code objects;
  • Unix scripts;
  • Business intelligence code objects;
  • Infrastructure objects i.e. Requests for new systems and/or improvements to existing systems and infrastructure;
  • Operations, i.e. Changes that affect or improve day-to-day computer operations;
  • The change management methodology i.e. Requests for change to the change management process guide, and configuration management plan;
  • Security i.e. Changes to the security processes—e.g. Authentication or network security improvements; and
  • Support i.e. Changes to the help/support desk process
What roles and responsibilities are involved?

Change management  methodology roles and responsibilities should be defined for the following key roles:
  • Change initiator should be responsible for:
    • Completing a change request;
    • Submitting the change request to the change manager; and
    • Helping the change manager complete the change request.
  • Change manager should be responsible for:
    • Managing the activities of the change management process and should be involved in every step of the change process, from receipt of a change request thru the deployment of the change in the production environment. 
    • The change manager should be ultimately responsible for the successful implementation of any change to the environment.
  • Change owner should be responsible for:
    • Planning the release implementation, including developing implementation plans, and establishing the implementation schedule;
    • Ensuring that proper implementation training is provided to team members prior to implementation. The change owner should also validate the deployment and, more importantly, the back-out procedures, before a release is implemented to the production environments;
    • Creating a release delivery plan;
    • Providing technical leadership during release development;
    • Coordinating release deployment activities; and
    • Validating deployment and back-out plans.
  • Change management team (CMT) should be a decision-making body that evaluates and votes to approve or reject change requests.
  • Release manager should be responsible for managing the release process, which includes:
    • Planning for the release;
    • Ensuring user acceptance tests have been completed;
    • Verifying training has been provided to the affected user community if needed;
    • Validating the back-out plan;
    • Staging the pilot tests; and 
    • Implementing the full deployment of the release.
  • Documentation coordinator should be responsible for reviewing existing manuals and making appropriate changes that reflect the modifications made to the production environment. 
  • Communications coordinator should be responsible for developing, updating, and managing the change communications plan.
  • Change test coordinator should contribute to the development of tests, manage the release user acceptance testing process, review the test results and evaluate how to handle failures.
At the completion of testing, the coordinator should develop a test analysis report that should be used by the change owner and/or CMT to decide whether to continue the release process.
  • Data architect, data movement designer and business intelligence designers should be responsible for identifying which configuration items will be changed by the change request and estimating level of effort.
What are change management methodology steps?
  • Initiate change should: 
    • Initiate a change through the submission of a change request (CR);
    • Be created by anyone who is involved with the project; and
    • Ensure that change requests are created with consistent quality and completeness and discards irrelevant requests.
  • Analyze impact should:
    • Determine impact on existing documentation and configuration items e.g. requirements, architecture documents and/or software configuration items; and
    • Require review by development and/or production support teams to determine impact upon each area. 
  • Authorize change request should:
    • Establish a formal process for authorizing change; and
    • Require the change management team to review the change request and vote on the changes according to predefined voting logic.
  • Develop change should:
    • Schedule the change according to business priorities, change pipeline, category, and priority;
    • Appoint a suitable change owner according to the requirements of the change in terms of technology, size, priority, and category;
    • Ensure that the change development process follows a recognized development life cycle;
    • Conduct milestone reviews, with the participation of CMT members, to ensure that each phase has been completed successfully; and
    • Ensure that the change meets acceptance criteria before it is passed to the release management process.
  • Release management process should:
    • Plan production releases resulting from approved change requests;
    • Build effective release packages for the deployment of one or many changes into production;
    • Test release mechanisms to ensure minimum disruption to the production environment;
    • Review preparation for the release to ensure maximum successful deployments; and
    • Deploy the release in line with structured implementation guidelines.
  • Review/monitor release should: 
    • Monitor change after implementation into production;
    • Review lessons learned from the deployment and document them for future benefit;
    • Handle unsuccessful change implementations by backing out, considering further remedial changes, or using the “accept issues and continue” policy; and
    • Close the CR and inform the initiator.
Change management methodology checklist.

The following items should be addressed in an information management change management methodology:

Approved approaches to change management should be defined.
Change and configuration management software should be identified in the list of approved information management technology.
Change assessment should be included in the change request procedures.
Change communication management should be part of the change management plan.
Accountabilities for change database field management should be clearly defined
Change database management procedures should be defined.
Change information management should be part of the information management practice.
A change information management system should be considered.
Change information management technology should be identified in the list of approved information management technology.
Change it management policy should include information management specifics.
Change management activities should be defined and communicated to all stakeholders.
Change management and project management tasks should be defined as part of change management methodologies.
Change management and quality assurance tasks should be defined.
Change management and software development processes should be defined.
Change management best practices should be included in the change management methodology and change management plan.
A change management checklist should be included with each change request.
Change management communications should be defined in the change management plan.
Change management configuration is an ongoing task that should be considered in the project management methodology.
A change management database should be established and populated with base-line configuration information.
Change management development should adhere to information management data movement best practices.
Change management issues must be addressed immediately.
Change management of business requirements should be established as part of the requirements management plan.
A change management plan should always be created.
Change management planning should be included in the change request approval process.
Change management policies should be established as part of the information management framework
Review checkpoints should be established to ensure that change management practices are followed.
All requests for change that might impact the production environment should follow change management principles, procedures and processes defined in the change management methodology.
The change management plan should clearly define change management process steps.
Change management project management and a change management project plan should be defined for all change management projects.
Change management plans should include provision for change management quality assurance.
Change requests should be subject to a change management review to help minimize change management risk.
A change manager should be appointed to manage change requests.
Change management should include potential changes to change process management
Change request management processes should be defined.
Procedures for document change management should be defined and adopted.
Enterprise software change management tools should be standardized.
Successful information management should consider steps necessary to implement change management.
The importance of change management should be stressed at project status meetings.
IT change management best practices should be identified in IT change management policy and IT change management methodology.
Changes to master data management must be included in the change management plan.
Release management, the release management process and the use of a release package should be defined in the change management plan.
Requirements change management must be addressed in the project requirements management plan and should include the requirements change management process.
Risks associated with change management should be documented in the change management plan.
Summary...

A change management methodology provides a disciplined process for introducing changes into the production environment with minimal disruption to ongoing operations. A change management guide should be produced to define change management roles and responsibilities, tasks and deliverables.

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