Change management captures our desire to make a change to a production system that has potential to impact our ability to deliver the services those systems support.
The CAB
In Change Management we have a weekly meeting where constituents from across the enterprise (both inside of and out of IT) meet to discuss proposed changes. This group of people is called the Change Advisory Board (or CAB).
In some organizations the CAB is a very structured affair with appointed representatives, and tracking quorum for our ability to vote. At WPI, CAB meets weekly, and is made up of self-selected representatives who have an interest in managing changes on campus.
The CAB's Approval
The purpose of change is to prevent outages, wide-spread issues, or impact due to collisions when scheduling a change. Because of this, any change entered into the system is considered a change request, or proposed change.
It is a proposal / request, because the practitioner is seeking approval of the CAB, IT Leadership, and their peers to carryout the change. Changes entered into the system have varying levels of approvals necessary depending on their severity, and potential impact to the campus.
Changes are not designed to micro-manage or hinder practitioners. They augment our organizational transparency, accountability, and auditing.