Introduction
I think it is safe to assume that IT change management, as defined by ITIL v3, is well known to the majority of ITSM personnel. Therefore, in this paper it is not my intention to attempt a ground up design of a Change Management process, but rather to start with the premise that all IT organisations will by necessity be operating some form of IT change management.
In some IT organisations I’ve encountered the Change Management process is often viewed as just another administrative function. This often means it is not taken seriously, until a major incident occurs, of course. Furthermore, if the right checks and control points are not in place, or are too complex, then there will always be the temptation for personnel to work around the system to get things done quickly. This leads to a culture of ‘fix a problem first, then do the paperwork later’. Of course, a lot of the time the paperwork fails to be completed so the system configuration never gets updated. But more on that later.