Business approval in the CM process

[bootwhile]

It is important to have business managers involved in the change management process. It is also hard to get them engaged. Where in a best practice process must they be engaged?

[joshinplano]

Generally, we have them engaged as part of the Change process, having them approve the Change before it can be scheduled for implementation. For a specific Configuration Item (CI), there may be multiple managers that must approve it, from an application side, a business side, and an infrastructure side.

Aside from that, we have a weekly CAB meeting in which changes are discussed and so that people in the IT organization are aware of them and to discuss any potential conflicts that may arise.

[bootwhile]

Thanks for your response.

currently, we use the change request form as the manual, so the business approval must be before the changes submitted for release,and then the technical approval; but the business approver was not been invite to attend the change review meeting.
we have a change management tool go live, we don't know how to get them into the process, it hard to assign a request case to the bussines manager to approve the change request.

[Phoenix]

In a previous position we used a work request system where requests from the BU came in and were approved by IT first. Then after UAT was complete we got enduser sign off and BU approval that it was good to go to production. Then when it was ready to prod the CM process was initiated. At this point we had the offical request from the BU, the approval to do it from the IT manager and the signoff from everyone that it went as planned in DEV and TST and was ready to CCB review and approval. All of this information was attached to the CM ticket.

[UKVIKING]

It depends on how the organization is structture as to who should sit in the CAB or be involved in the change process

Most business mgmt types are involved in the 'project management' aspect and the project mgmt usually is the conduit for this

Also, also if your business has IT service representative - Service Mgmt - or business service mgmt

they would be usually involved in the process
_________________
John Hardesty
ITSM Manager's Certificate (Red Badge)

Change Management is POWER & CONTROL. /....evil laughter

[malwright820]

In my last company we engaged the business managers as 'System Owners' They were responsible to agree and sign off the 'SLA' for the various systems in place, therefore when a change was required that need CAB approval they were required to attend the meeting and sign off or reject the change request.

Getting this in place required the support of CEO & CIO which ITIL says is a must if it is going to work.