Fast Track Changes

[Puli]

Hi All.

Our business has some 1500+ changes going though my team at the moment.

We use a Risk Assessemnet and A leadtime rating which gives us a risk (Red Amber and Green), and a Leadtime rating E (Emergency, 1 2,3 and 4). This is done via asking different questions eg Impact of change No of users effected etc.

All our changes are vetted by my team before being sent out for approval. If there is a problem with the change we go back to the raiser logging the fact that there was a problem and sent it out.

What we would like to do is to have all our Green 4 changes (Which is the lowest risk and some 40% of all changes), bypass the change team, and go striaght out for approval. However the is a big conccern that as my team will not vet it (But we still get ouside approval) more incidents will happen and a bigger risk to our service.

Has anyone done this before?, and if so what sort of things did you tried to reduce Risk? Or is this really against ITIL?

I understand the term Standard Chnage which I know this is not and am looking at this as well.

Thanks very much

Paul.

[Ed]

Hi Paul

I am not sure that I understand your process.

When you say that the Changes go out from your team for approval, are you saying that the Change Management Team do not have the final say?

If so, this is not Change Management, but simply risk assessment, without any responsibility.

Have I got this right, or have I misunderstood?

Regards

Ed

[Puli]

Hi Ed,

Currently the change comes into us and we assess them. If they clash with something happening over the weekend, or the Business requires a service to be up we do have via our CAB the final say.

We will of course try and suggest a different time that the change could be done etc.

"Fast tracking" would bypass us as a team althought other people either IT or Business would still have to approve. So the process will be Raiser- out for approval, approved, (Or rejected) ,implemented, and then closed.

Of course there will be rules such as If this is happening at a weekend for example then its not a Green or leadtime 4 type change and then get assess according.. We would also do Reports done on any incidents, random sampling etc......

So at the moment we do change management, but the push is to use the 40% of our time on other things other than assesing low level changes to the ones that could cause us harm.

Hope this helps

Paul

Cheers
Paul

[Ed]

Hi Paul

I guess for me the basic problem here is the loss of control.

I fight to ensure that all the changes come through me/my team.

I actually want to manage those changes you are trying to shed.

I understand that these changes do not fit the Standard Change criteria, and this makes them even more in need of control for me.

They do not have to go the whole CAB route if it is decided that the Change Manager has sufficient authority to authorise these low risk/low impact Changes. This might be your way out.

I really, really would not want to let them go to be approved by someone who was not looking at the big picture.

Regards

Ed

[Puli]

Thanks for the infomation and advice Ed.

Paul

[Mark-OLoughlin]

I agree with Ed.

You may want to do it the other way.

You need to ensure that all changes are vetted before going to CAB. This allows you to ensure that all details are correct and there are no conflicts etc.

This also allows you to ascertain if there are any ones that can be pre-approved at this level i.e. that do not need to go to the CAB so you free up CAB time if anything.
_________________
Mark O'Loughlin
ITSM / ITIL Consultant

[Skinnera]

For my organisation we have a fast track process which means that whilst my team still vet the content of the Change, it doesn't go to a CAB but directly to an empowered representative within the support organisation (ie the Head of the area of one of their DRs, never lower). This is typically done for Fault Fix or Emergency (preventative) Changes.

Equally, these same people have given my team the authority to approve Changes that have been rated as Low Risk and Low Impact, again after we have vetted that the right information, clarity, plans etc are present.

This reduces the volume of Change coming to the CAB (put into context we implement 30k Changes per year) without exposing us to inordinate risk.

In terms of 'losing control' of Change approval, or Chaneg Management not having 'the final say', I guess there are different models in different organisations.
In my case, the volume of Change we deal with, the speed at which it is implemented, and the scope of infrastructure and service it touches is too vast for my team to understand everything and 'technically' approve it. That's what our CAB is for.