OIT Change Management

The OIT Change Management program was established to reduce the risk of conflicts between technical changes to our services, and to ensure that consumers of our services understand the reasons for and impact of these changes. We accomplish this by improving coordination between OIT teams and communication with the NC State campus community.

The mission of the IT change management process is to ensure any and all changes made to components (configuration items) of production systems and services are vetted, communicated, and documented using ITIL best practices.

Goals and Objectives

Change is inevitable, and the rate of change in technology is almost constant.  IT change management for IT operations is critical to sustaining and improving availability and performance of IT services for the community.  Managing change is about ensuring changes to the IT operational environment are being appropriately evaluated, scheduled, and communicated to minimize the risk and impact to users and the institution as a whole.

Quick Links

OIT Change Management System (ServiceNow login required).

The change management process is managed using ServiceNow as the platform for IT Service Management (ITSM).  Campus users with specific platform roles can access the change management module to view and create/update change requests.

OIT Change Management Knowledge Base

OIT Change Management Calendar

  • All active and tentative changes are displayed on the calendar.  To access the calendar you will need a ServiceNow account that has the ITIL role and be a member of a ServiceNow group that has access to the change module.
  • Link to the Change Calendar

Process Definition

IT change management is the process to manage the introduction of any enhancement, modification, update, installation, or removal of any hardware, software, interface, database, document or procedure/process that will impact the existing production environment. It ensures that only approved modifications to the environment are implemented. The change process provides high visibility and open lines of communication between technical teams, functional teams and the university community. It provides common expectations and ensures accountability. 

Roles

Change Manager

The Change Manager is responsible for day to day execution and facilitation of the change process and leads the OIT Change Advisory Board (CAB).  The change manager develops and/or manages the change management processes used to administer technology-driven changes that impact OIT’s services.  This role is focused on the management and administration of all changes and ensures ongoing compliance with change management processes and is an advocate for ongoing improvement of those processes.   The change manager is also the change management process owner.  

Change Requester 

The Change Requester can be a member from inside or outside the OIT organization.  Change Requesters can also be coordinators or implementers of the change.

Change Implementer

The change implementer is identified in the Assigned to field on the change form.  If additional individuals are also contributing to the change implementation, they can be added in the change tasks tab on the change form.  Each person added can be assigned different tasks and be from different assignment groups.  Implementers cannot be approvers.

Change Approver

All non-standard change requests will have one or more Change Approvers. The first level of approval is done by the assignment group manager who releases the change to the Change Advisory Board (CAB) for authorization.   Each CAB member provides approval for authorizing the change to be advanced to scheduling. Change requests can be rejected by any approver which reverts the change request back to the Change Requester.

CAB Manager

The CAB Manager facilitates the CAB meeting.

Change Advisory Board (CAB)

A group of people that support the assessment, prioritization, authorization and scheduling of changes. A change advisory board is made up of representatives from all areas within the IT service provider. 

Process

The OIT change management process is closely aligned with the best practice for IT change management as defined in the ITIL V3 Service Transition lifecycle stage.  

Proper vetting of change requests is a critical step in the change management process.  Changes are evaluated for risk, scheduling conflicts and supporting documentation (i.e. justification for the change, test and back-out plans, risk assessment and communication plans) to ensure the highest level of success possible.

The OIT change management process is evaluated, revised and updated for continual service improvement periodically.

Governance

The OIT Leadership Team identifies membership for the Change Advisory Board (CAB) to ensure that respective units are fully represented. The OIT Leadership Team also designates the role of Change Manager to lead the program.

Governance for the Change Management Process is collaborative between OIT Leadership, ITSM steering and advisory teams.

The CAB provides input for the development of any major policies, procedures and integrated tools relating to OIT Change Management and subject to review and approval by OIT Leadership.