Many business organizations who have a small in house IT department, fail to establish any standard policies and methods for managing the change. The end result is that they practice ad hoc and haphazard policies, which in turn results in mismanagement of the IT changes. All of us understand the fact that the IT might arise out of the reactive response to the problems, or as externally forced requirements. For example, the regulatory or the legislative imperatives, or may be out of the proactive quests so as to improve the efficiency, or simply an initiative for improvement of the business organization.
The ITIL (IT Infrastructure Library) defines among the other areas of the service management, as a set of the standardized operational management practice and procedure so as to let the organization manage the changes within the IT infrastructure. Originally the ITIL got created by the agency called the CCTA under the patronage of British Government. In the UK government Office of the Government commerce (commonly called as OGC), the ITIL is the registered trademark. The risks and challenges for successfully managing the IT changes are too many. For many of the successful divisions or departments of IT, the doctrine of change management of the ITIL result as a guiding principle that integrates itself flawlessly with the related service management forces network like the service desk, configuration management, request management, the service level management, the service catalog management and many others.
The key success factors in the IT change management is normally dependant on the capability of the organization in control of the changes in IT. This can also be done by protecting the present services in the implementation of change and the aftermath as well as affecting the accurate and the fast changes depending on the business organization. The targets of the ITIL arrayed process of change management have a number of aspects.
Setting of the guidelines and the policies as the framework of the techniques and methods for efficient handling of change.
- Creation structurally the role based officers as change coordinators or change managers.
- Formalizing the (CAB) Change Advisory Board by changing approval and assessment examination body.
- Making a change calendar visible for the future schedule of changes.
- Publishing the related availability of service reports
- Communicating the pre and the post change notifications as well as performing post change reviews.
It is not necessary to have an application or a toll for controlling the IT change management. But, it is very much needed to have a set of strict guidelines and well defined process. Therefore, the principles of ITIL are process driven that can be easily practiced without the ITIL compliant tool of change management.
Controlling the changes that are unauthorized by the CIS in CMDB is another aspect of the change control. The urgency factors due to lack of clear instructions and guidelines might compel the stakeholders might give way to making the unrecorded changes with dire consequences. Such kinds of mishaps are prevented and trapped by ITIL change management through the procedural guidelines. ITIL also recommends the Emergency change Advisory Board for the urgent changes.
Every sector of the IT advances through different levels of maturity. It is quite evident that the commitment of the best practices included in the framework of the ITIL will significantly strengthen the IT Department for scaling high standard of effectiveness and efficiency.
