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Change Request Management
Need a change request management process
and want some practical suggestions to ensure rapid project delivery?
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.
What is change request
management?
Change management defines the processes required to:
- Initiate change;
- Analyze impact;
- Authorize change request;
- Develop change; and
- Release change into production.
What is initiate change?
The objective of initiate change is to formally initiate a change
through the submission of a change request (CR).
Change requests may be initiated:
- before a project is completed i.e. a project change
request made after a project has started but before it has completed
and transitioned to production;
- after a project has moved to production i.e. a
production change request; and
- by any member of the project team or any other
stakeholder with a vested interest in the project
The change request management process ensures that change requests are
created with consistent quality and completeness and discards
irrelevant requests.
Although a project change request can be requested by any stakeholder,
it is typically initiated and submitted by one of the project team
members who submits requests for changes relating to its area of
responsibility e.g. the data movement team may initiate database change
requests or ETL change requests required to satisfy new or changed data
sources.
The change request form is designed to capture the key information
leading to the request together with relevant impact analysis
documentation created by project team members, or production support
staff.
The following process is required to initiate change:
- Create change
request, the change initiator completes the following basic
information on a change request:
- Request Date;
- Requested By;
- Phone Number;
- Request Name;
- Change Description; and
- Anticipated benefits, if known.
- Assign priority,
the change initiator shall assign a priority as:
- Emergency;
- High;
- Medium; or
- Low.
- Submit for approval,
the Change Initiator shall forward the CR to the Change Manager.
- Log Change Request,
the Change Manager shall:
- Assign a change number to the Change Request;
- Complete the following portions of the Change Log
- Request Date;
- Requested By;
- Request Name; and
- Change Manager Name.
- Add the Change Request and Change Log to the project
documentation Change Request Folder.
What is analyze impact?
The objective is to determine impact on existing documentation and
configuration items e.g. requirements, architecture documents and/or
software configuration items.
Each change request should be reviewed by the appropriate development
or production support teams to determine impact upon each area.
Following that review, the Change Manager shall assign a change
category.
The following change request management process is required to analyze
impact:
- Submit CR to development teams for impact analysis.
The
Change Manager should submit a copy of the CR to each development
and/or production support team with a request to analyze impact.
- Analyze impact. Each development and/or production
support team should review
the CR and determine if it involves a change to a Configuration Item
(CI).
- Identify CI’s that are impacted by the CR.
If the CR involves a
change to a CI, each CI that will be impacted shall be documented in
the appropriate work sheet on the CR. NB one worksheet should be
created for:
- Requirements e.g. a list of all requirements that
are under version control
- Architecture e.g. a list of all architecture and
design documents that are under version control;
- Data Management e.g. a list of all documents that
are under version control and/or all Configuration items.
- Data movement e.g. a list of Informatica & Unix
Configuration Items;
- Business Intelligence e.g. a list of Micro Strategy
Configuration Items; and
- Infrastructure e.g. a list of infrastructure
Configuration Items.
- Return CR to Change Manager. Each development team
should return
the CR to the Change Manager indicating if there is a change in their
area and, if so, all of the items impacted.
- Assign Category. The Change Manager, with input from
development and production support team leads, should assign a
change category to the
CR as:
- Major;
- Significant;
- Minor; or
- Standard
- Validate CR. The Change Manager should be responsible
for reviewing the CR
to verify that there is sufficient detail to permit the Change
management team to make an
informed decision about the CR.
- This review is not concerned with the validity or
approval of the
change request, but determines whether a decision to authorize or deny
the change can be made based on the information in the CR.
- If there is not sufficient detail, the change
request shall be returned
to the Change Initiator and/or the appropriate team lead with a
request for additional information
- Submit For Approval. If there is sufficient detail to
make a
decision, The Change Manager should submit the updated CR to the change
management team for
review/approval.
What is authorize change
request?
The objective of authorize change requests is to establish a
formal process for approving change.
A change management team (CMT) should be established and responsible
for reviewing Change Requests and voting on the changes according to
predefined voting logic.
The following change request management process is required to
authorize a change request:
- Authorize Standard Change Request. A Standard changes
do not require CMT approval since they are automatically approved and
move directly to change deployment;
- Authorize Minor Change Request. The Change Manager is
responsible for
determining if the change is minor and, if so, may approve it or submit
it to the CMT for review/approval.
- Authorize Significant or Major Change Request. The
Change Manager is
responsible for submitting all significant and/or major changes to the
CMT for approval. The CMT shall vote to:
- Accept the change;
- Reject the change; or
- Escalate the change to senior management.
- Log authorization. The Change Manager shall update
change log with the CMT decision (Status) and the Status date.
What is develop change?
The change request management development and release process:
- Schedules the change according to business
priorities, change pipeline, category, and priority;
- Appoints a suitable change owner according to the
requirements of the
change in terms of technology, size, priority, and category;
- Ensures that the change development process follows a
recognized development life cycle;
- Conducts milestone reviews, with the participation of
CMT members, to
ensure that each phase has been completed successfully; and
- Ensures that the change meets acceptance criteria
before it is passed to the release management process.
This change development process is concerned with the steps necessary
to plan the change, develop the change and handover the change to the
release management process for the deployment of the change into the
production environment.
The speed with which the steps in this process are executed can vary
greatly.
A small—but emergency—change may be planned, developed, and implemented
in minutes.
A change involving deployment of an upgrade to a key infrastructure may
take months in the development and deployment phases.
Because of this wide variation, considerable flexibility is required in
the individual steps. However, some steps, such as the change request
management reviews, must always take place.
What is release change
into production?
The release management process will:
- Plan a production release (Release Plan) 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.
Change request management
summary...
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.
Change request management defines the processes required to initiate
change, analyze impact, authorize change request, develop change and
release change into production.
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