A normal change includes three phases:
- Classify and Schedule
- Assess and Approve
- Implement and Review
Classify and Schedule
This tab of change asks you to fill out the basic details of change including:
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Requestor | The person requesting the change, doesn't necessarily have to be the person carrying out the change. This person should be available to justify and defend their change at CAB. |
| Change Type | The type of change (normal) |
| Primary Configuration Item | The primary associated CI for the change |
| Assign Team | The team that will be carrying out the change |
| Assign To | The primary person who will be carrying out the change |
| Impact | The impact (breadth) of the change |
| Urgency | The importance of the service |
| Priority | The calculated priority based upon impact and urgency |
| Reason | The reason for this change |
| Schedule | The proposed start date, and proposed end date of the change |
| Title | The title of the change |
| Description | A short description of the change |
| Impacted Service | Which service is this change related to |
| Service Importance | The importance of that service to the university |
| Review Date | When will this change be scheduled for review? |
Assess and Approve
This section includes four risk factor Boolean:
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Not during normal maintenance Window? | If this change is scheduled outside of a normal maintenance window, this increases the risk to the university. |
| Requires Service Outage? | If a service is required to be disabled to implement the change, and there is no redundancy, or load balancing, this increases the risk. |
| Mission or Business Critical? | If this is a critical service to university business, risk is increased. A critical service is a backbone, or foundational one such as Email, Networking, Accounts, Building Access etc. |
| Fast Track? | If a change needs to be approved quickly outside of the normal CAB process, or outside the advanced planning period, this can be an issue that increases risk. |
Beyond the check boxes there are several open response sections for assessing the change:
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Risk | What is the risk to WPI if we do this change? What is the risk if we don't? |
| Impact Assessment | What is the impact of this change on the service? Does it modify processes, SLAs, or documentation? |
| Necessity Assessment | Is this change needed? How necessary is this change? |
| Back out Plan | Can this change be backed out? What does that require? How do you back out the change? |
| Feasibility Assessment | Do we have the capability, resources, and time to successfully make this change? are there concerns? |
Implement and Review
The first section implement asks the implementer to define their implementation plan, and the acceptance criteria.
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Implementation Plan | The implementation plan should cover the steps and specific schedule or order of events to carry out the requested change. |
| Acceptance Criteria | Acceptance criteria is a shorthand field for the "definition of done". In order to consider this change successful and complete, what will we need the after to look like. |
After filling these out the change can be submitted for approval.
Upon completion of the change the implementer will need to fill out the review section.
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Final Disposition | Was the change successful? |
| Implementer's Notes | Any notes from the implementation |
| Actual Start Date | When the change actually started |
| Actual End Date | When the change was completed |
Approvals
For a normal change there are two rounds of approvals:
- After you have classified and scheduled and assessed the change, your direct manager will need to approve the change
- After filling out the Implementation Plan, the CAB will need to approve the change. This can be virtual or at a CAB meeting by show of hands.