Who's responsible for a Change from end to end?

[NewCMRole]

I'm new to CM, was wondering who should be responsible for creating a change record and is responsible for its accuracy and completeness. Will this person be the liason between IT and business?

[Corde Wagner]

This is a good question. It’s very common for new change managers to ask. This is what I recommend:
1. Require Non-Technical users to submit a service request ticket asking for the change they want to be made.
2. Allow technical teams (e.g. software developers, web support teams, infrastructure teams, etc.) to create and submit their own change requests. Their CRs will still need to be reviewed and approved, and follow the other change management requirements (change windows, etc.)

Here’s why:
Having been in the change manager role with several large organizations, we required non-technical business users to raise a request ticket for proposing a change. If their proposed change fit the established criteria and was accepted, then the technical team who would make the change, would be required to create the change request ticket (CR). The request should require as much information as necessary for the technical team that will implement the change, to make the decision on if the change should be made. I also recommend that you require the requesters manager or the owner of the service to be modified to agree/approve that change be made. This can be done as part of the request or as part of the change management process. If the service request is agreed to, then the technical team that will perform the change must create the change request (CR) ticket and follow the change management process. An example of his might be where a business unit (e.g. marketing, HR, etc.) needs to allow access through a firewall, and they want IT to make that change for them.

For those technical users and support teams, we always had them create their own change requests. This not only applied to IT admins and support teams, we also allowed internal business units whose job is to develop and/or support applications (either those applications developed in house or those “commercial off the shelf” (COTS) applications like SAP, Sales Force, etc.)) to create their own change request tickets. This is because those technical teams in or out of IT (applications developers from business units or IT members who are system admins, web developers, etc.) know what change they need to make in production and they are the best person to create the documentation required for the change record. All change requests require the agreement and approval of the service owner and/or management of the team who is to make the change.

I hope this helps and feel free to add on if you have other questions.

Cheers,

Corde