IT Change Management Best Practices
Modern-day businesses have to constantly cope with changing market conditions, regulatory compliance changes, the impact of global crises, and many similar business challenges. Businesses need to accommodate the changes while ensuring business continuity with minimal service disruption.
To adapt to the changes, thrive, and grow, businesses are heavily reliant on technology, which itself is constantly evolving. And that’s the reason why preparing for change has become a critical success factor for organizations in today’s ever-changing world.
In fact, managing change is so important, especially when it comes to technology, that change management has become an important discipline within IT Service Management (ITSM).
In a previous blog post, I shared with you the key concepts of change management, its benefits, principles, and processes. And in this blog post, I will cover the topic from an IT perspective and answer the following questions about change management:
In IT Service Management (ITSM), IT change management is the process of requesting, prioritizing, authorizing, scheduling, and implementing changes. The structured and organized change management process makes it easier to roll out and manage changes that are related to or impact the IT infrastructure of an organization.
Say your organization wants to roll out new software on all laptops and desktops. What can it do to ensure a smooth and incident-free rollout? We know from experience that every new technology is sure to have bugs and implementation problems. If the software installation causes issues on all or even some of the devices, the resulting service disruption can lead to downtime and reduced productivity.
Poor change management can lead to service disruptions, security incidents, and increased exposure to business risks. This can in turn cause a loss of revenue and loss of reputation. On the other hand, like any good change management process, robust IT change management helps minimize risks and reduces disruption to operations and services due to changes.
The Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is a framework for IT service management (ITSM). Its goal is to help organizations align their IT services with business needs. It does so by defining best practices and techniques for selecting, planning, delivering, and maintaining IT services.
The systematic framework of ITIL helps build a stable IT environment to effectively manage risks and establish cost-effective practices. And organizational change management is one of the guiding principles of ITIL.
ITIL change management advocates a process for evaluating, planning, and deploying specific change requests so as to ensure that the change execution does not interrupt business services or operations.
ITIL change management consists of five stages:
Request for change
Assessment and planning
Approval
Implementation, and
Review
The ITIL change management process functions as a checkpoint that ensures that every change is recorded, authorized, and planned, increasing the likelihood of achieving the desired outcome and reducing the chances of unwanted incidents.
According to ITIL, changes can be of the following three types:
Standard Change
Emergency Change
Normal Change
1. Standard Change
Standard changes are those changes that are documented and pre-approved. These kinds of changes follow a standard operating procedure and are low-risk and low-impact. Updating the operating system on company devices is an example of a standard change.
A standard change follows the complete conventional change management process once, the first time it is implemented. After the initial implementation, the changes are initiated as a service request and can be implemented without additional authorization.
A standard change will require risk assessment and new authorization if it undergoes modification due to changes in business processes, technologies, or in case of a security incident.
2. Emergency Change
An emergency change is a change that needs to be implemented immediately to mitigate the impact of an incident. Emergency changes are warranted where a negative impact on service is imminent if action is not taken right away.
The time sensitivity of emergency changes means that the complete change management process is not followed. Assessment, approval, and implementation are prioritized and the rest of the steps are completed retroactively after implementation.
Security measures carried out following the detection of a security breach is an example of an emergency change. In such a case, the mitigation of the security breach gets priority over the other steps of change management. However, detailed assessment, documentation, and review are mandatorily carried out post-implementation to understand the cause and prevent similar incidents in the future.
3. Normal Change
A normal change is a change that cannot be classified as a standard change or emergency change.
Normal changes are usually initiated for process improvement, increased productivity, and other business goals. Since they are often high-impact, normal changes follow all five stages of change management in order to ensure completeness, accuracy, and the least possible disruption to business operations and services.
Changes are more common in organizations than we realize. Organizations undergo changes for one or more of the following reasons:
Improve existing processes, procedures, or business strategies;
Transition away from the current organizational state to a new one in response to internal or external factors;
Materially change how the organization delivers value to its customers, such as in the case of digital transformation.
Here are some common examples of when change management is required:
Implementation of new software,
Introduction of new processes or procedures,
Change in organizational structure,
Mergers or acquisitions,
Response to a crisis such as a cyberattack
Most people find change unsettling and resist it. This makes driving change in the workplace a huge challenge. So, the success of change management depends on getting buy-in from stakeholders and inculcating a culture that embraces change.
Here are some change management best practices that will help you successfully drive change in your organization:
Define Goals Early
Align IT Strategy With Business Goals
Foster Digital Leadership
Ensure Quick Approval
Plan Meticulously
Promote Communication
1. Define Goals Early
Most changes are implemented to achieve specific business goals. In most cases, the impacts of the organizational changes are readily evident. However, often, especially in the case of IT-related changes, the impact is not evident and that makes it difficult to get buy-in from stakeholders.
Therefore, it is important to clearly define the goals of the change and communicate them clearly and frequently. In addition to the goals, it is also beneficial to define why the change is necessary, the key objectives it will achieve, how it will impact the employees, and their role in the success of the change.
2. Align IT Strategy With Business Goals
Defining and communicating the goals of the change will succeed in getting stakeholder buy-in only if changes align with the business goals. The IT changes must strive in delivering the functionalities and services necessary to achieve business goals.
Ensuring this alignment is usually the role of IT governance, which is usually lacking in most small and medium-sized businesses. Therefore, the change management team must ensure that the IT changes drive the organization closer to its business goals.
3. Foster Digital Leadership
Effective digital leadership helps drive change and acceptance of the change. Fostering leadership ensures that there is someone in charge of ensuring that technology initiatives are aligned with business goals.
No change management can succeed without someone who actively promotes it and takes accountability for the quality of the project. Technology leaders are also able to continuously engage with key stakeholders to prioritize and drive changes that actually contribute to the business goals.
4. Ensure Quick Approval
Modern technology evolves at lightning speed. Organizations that struggle to adopt new technologies and are stuck in analysis paralysis are left behind as other more agile organizations leap-frog them in technology adoption.
Often the failure between success and failure is time to market. So it is important to have a swift change approval process that facilitates smooth and timely implementation of change initiatives.
5. Plan Meticulously
Like any other project, change management initiatives also require meticulous planning. Without a detailed plan, it would be difficult to implement the change, overcome hurdles, and monitor the progress of the implementation.
In addition, comparing the planned timelines and milestones against what is actually achieved helps evaluate the overall success of a change initiative. This evaluation can be used as feedback to improve the current change management process and for future change initiatives.
6. Promote Communication
Open and constant communication with stakeholders is necessary to keep them engaged and invested in the success of the change initiative. And the active participation of the stakeholders ensures the success of the change projects and initiatives.
Effectively delivering messages pertaining to IT-related change initiatives to the stakeholders is critical for the success of projects and change initiatives. But its importance is even more pronounced at times of crisis, such as cyberattacks, unplanned network outages, etc. If your organization does not already have an IT communication plan in place, it will serve you well to create one.
Conclusion
Businesses are continuously undergoing change and most of these changes are either driven by or facilitated by technology. However, since the impacts of technology-related changes are not always readily apparent, such changes face opposition and resistance more than others.
Nevertheless, careful planning, coordination, and clear communication help alleviate many of the challenges. The IT change management best practices outlined above can help your organization to manage change consistently and increase the likelihood of success of their change initiatives.
Are you planning to undertake major IT projects or change initiatives? Reach out to us by clicking the button below to learn how we can help you effectively manage your IT projects and change initiatives on time and within budget.
If you liked the blog, please share it with your friends