Change Management Roles

Happy Autumn — Change is in the air! But who is making the changes and when and why? Here is a brief rundown of the roles involved in Change Management (there may be a quiz):

Change Manager

Person charged by the CIO to Stabilize the Core — ensure that improper Changes do not reduce the robustness of the IT environment

Also known as the Change Manager, and Chair of the CAB

Currently, Dave Beitz is the Change Manager (and also the Champion of Production, reflecting his role to ensure a robust infrastructure).

Change Process Owner

Person charged with working with the Change Manager to ensure effective and efficient an Change Process exists and is followed to ensure a minimum amount of interruptive effects upon the running operation.

Currently, Micah Cooper is the Change Process Owner

Requestor

Can be someone inside or outside IT Services who asks that a change be made in either technical or non-technical terminology.

e.g.: Bursar asks for a transaction backout — the Bursar is the Requestor.

Implementer

The person who actually executes the change.

e.g.: George backs out the transaction. George is the implementer.

Local Change Manager (LCM)

Often the Service Owner or First Line Manager (FLM) over the Service affected by the Change.

This person is responsible for verifying the risk of the change, scheduling the change, and either approving the change for low risk (Category 3 and Category 4) changes or escalating the change to the CAB for higher risk changes (Category 1 and Category 2).

If a change affects more than one Service, you will probably need approval from more than one LCM.

e.g.: Dan Johnson is the FLM and Service Owner over the portion of Banner where the financial blackout needs to occur. He is the Local Change Manager.

Change Authority

The person or persons charged with approving the Change. Depending on factors involved in the change, this may be the implementer, the Local Change Manager, CAB, or eCAB.

e.g.: If the Bursar’s requested Change is Category 3, Dan Johnson is also the Change Authority.

Change Advisory Board (CAB)

An ongoing team of individuals approved by the IT Services Leadership Team to provide on-going advice on Change and improvement in Change Management processes.

The CAB also reviews and authorizes the list of Standard Changes

Responsibilities are listed here

The CAB meets for 1 hour on Monday afternoon and for 1.5 hours on Thursday morning.

Emergency Change Advisory Board (eCAB)

A team of individuals gathered to act as the Change Authority for a Change that does not fit into an approved Change Window.

For Category 3 & 4, the eCAB comprises the Implementer, optionally the requestor, and at least one of the Implementer’s manager, Service Owner, Major Incident Leader, LT member, and/or the Change Manager

For Category 1 & 2, the eCAB comprises the Implementer, an LT member, the Change Manager, and one or more of the Implementer’s manager, Service Owner, Major Incident Leader

These are the key roles in Change Management. There may be a few other roles that get brought up from time to time, but these are enough to get you started and fascinate friends at your next Fall Harvest party. Stand by for more communication about Change Management! If you have any questions, reach out to any of us.