How many hours of Changes / month

[Sunny60in]

Hello All,

We have been managing IT infrastructure of a multi location client. Customer has multiple authorized callers who can register Incidents and changes with us. Due to this, we end up getting change requests which would require hours and hours of efforts.

1. Would it be good idea to have a pre defined hours/month that we would put towards handling changes? For example: We will do 800 hours of changes/month (exception: emergency changes). Additional change requests will be scheduled for next month and so on.

2. if yes, shall we propose separate hours for maintenance related (proposed by us) and additional/upgrade changes (proposed by customer)?

Please share your thoughts.

Regards.

[UKVIKING]

First

I hate to tell you this...but that is what your company signed up for.

That being said

Is there a change management process - yours or client
is there ....shock... change windows or maintenance periods for work

if so is this spelled out in the contract
if not.. get some and get the client to agree
_________________
John Hardesty
ITSM Manager's Certificate (Red Badge)

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

[Sunny60in]

Thanks for the response John.

Yes, we do have a change management process (ours).
Yes, we do have a monthly freez calander provided by the client. We do not carry out any changes during those days. Freez days are usually first week of every month and then couple of days during rest of the month.

However, this doesn't restrict the customer in submitting the change requests and expecting them to be implemented in remaing (non freezed) days of the month.

[Diarmid]

The customer has to provide prioritization for changes they request. If the request mechanism allows many sources with no linking, then can just keep adding the schedule. If each source has a budget then that would solve the problem.

If you do not have an agreement with the customer as to how much resource they are paying for (or how much they will pay for), then you have a problem.

Is the scoping of change defined in the contract?
_________________
"Method goes far to prevent trouble in business: for it makes the task easy, hinders confusion, saves abundance of time, and instructs those that have business depending, both what to do and what to hope."
William Penn 1644-1718