The Service Excellence Release 2 team has been designing our future change and configuration management processes. In this pursuit, we are defining the word “change”, which is critically important in establishing the scope of the change process.
Our working definition states that a change is “the addition, modification, or removal of anything that could have an effect on customer-facing services.”
As an example, “Wireless Internet” is an IT service, and one we will use here to illustrate the scope of “Change”. Things used to provide the Wireless Internet service include:
- machine room and network architecture
- software on servers and network devices
- data (e.g. list of users that can use the service)
- established IT processes (e.g. process for adding new access points)
- metric definitions (e.g. how bandwidth is measured at a client’s workstation)
- official end-user documentation (e.g. knowledge base cases)
Adding, removing, or changing any of the above constitutes a change, and is in-scope for Release 2!
For a more detailed look at the definition the team has created, see our full working definition.
We know what you’re thinking: Overhead. Bureaucracy! Waste. Fortunately the team shares that concern and is working hard to create a process that scales to optimize our risk as we deploy changes to production.
Stay tuned for more information about how this new process will allow us to:
- Respond to changing business requirements and align services with business needs
- Ensure that changes are properly handled and result in positive outcomes
- Ensure that all stakeholders are properly prepared for the change to take place