What is Change Management in ITIL? 

Businesses and organizations are always going through the digital transformation phase to meet the needs and wishes of customers. IT personnel should keep up with the pace of the technology, lower the risk, and gain a competitive edge. Today, we’ll discuss what is change management in ITIL; its importance, its various types, steps in the process, roles and responsibilities, advantages, disadvantages, and examples.

What is Change Management in ITIL? 

The term ITIL stands for Information, Technology, Infrastructure, and Library. Change management in ITIL is the process of developing strategies and methodologies to provide IT services during the change process without any incidents. In short, the IT department plays a significant role during the digital transformation phase.

ITIL is a systematic approach that helps businesses and organizations to deal with various types of issues and challenges;

• Strengthening customer relationships
• Developing cost-effective strategy
• Risk management

In short, it develops a stable IT environment for effective and efficient change management by allowing scalability and growth.

Importance of Change Management in ITIL 

The change management in ITIL is important because of the following reasons;

• Decreasing the total incidents and unexpected events during the implementation of the change program
• Optimal usage of resources and effective planning change
• Approval management and communication
• Maintaining the existing working state
• Decreasing the risky impact

Types of Change Management in ITIL 

Some of the main types of change management in ITIL are as follows;

Emergency Change

Emergency change happens due to server outages, security breaches, or any type of unexpected disruptions that need solution and resolution on a top priority basis. It deals with various types of issues like request changing, post-execution stage, or need urgent approval to decrease the impact of the change.

Small Change

The small changes are ordinary like updating your website that doesn’t have a bigger impact or high risk, and they have a transition potential to become standardized over time.

Large Scale Change

Big changes like changing a company’s system or software that has got a higher risk and bigger impact. Such types of big changes require CAP approval and strict management protocol. You should have a detailed proposal comprised of financial implications, risk-impact analysis, and cost-benefit analysis.

Standard Change

Standard changes have got a low-impact and limited risk and periodical in nature and follow the standard protocol and procedure. Such types of standard changes demand initial approval and not the requirement of ITIL. CAB (change advisory board) demands approval every time like patch deployments and OS updates.

Process Flow of Change Management in ITIL 

Some of the key steps involved in the ITIL implementation process of change management are as follows;

Requesting For Change (RFC)

First of all, you should send the change request based on the current problem, user request, or any type of incident. A detailed proposal of RFC discusses various things like cost-benefit analysis, implementation and execution timeline, impact, and the need for change.

Planning & Change Approval

It is the stage where the change leaders would conduct a detailed change analysis to lower the risk and impact of the change. They should find out various things like a back-out plan in case of emergency, launching, work schedule and timeline, priorities, and change types.

Approving Change

It is a critical stage that focuses on protecting the failure and downtime of the change program. In order to make the approval, a change advisory board would discuss it with various stakeholders. The workflow and the change process are different depending on the priority and change type.

Executing Change

After the approval of the change request, it moves to the deployment team to establish coordination with the relevant management and technical team to build, test, and execute the change. Every change execution plan should have a contingency plan in case of failure or any other type of interruption.

Reviewing & Closure

Post-implementation review of the change plan is significant and it analyzes whether the change plan is going on track or not before considering it complete or successful.

Key Roles & Responsibilities 

Some of the key roles and responsibilities of the people involved in the ITIL change management process are as follows;

Change Leader

It is the commanding and controlling position, and the change leader would advocate and influence the long-term transitional initiatives. They engage during the process of change rather than imposing it.

Agent Change

A change agent is a person that facilitates and supports the change process and helps the organization during the implementation of the change program and influences others.

Initiation of Change

It is the person that recognizes the need for change and starts the change request. Customer service and support staff are the best people for this role due to their engagement with the system.

CAB (Change Advisor Board)

The CAB analyzes the change, change requests, and other relevant risks. The board would analyze the impact on all the stakeholders and other risks and issues attached to it.

Approving Change

It is the person that has the authority to approve or disapprove the project.

Advantages of Change Management in ITIL 

Some of the main benefits and advantages of ITILCM are as follows;

• Makes sure that the company is on the right track of improvement and pacing up with the industry trends
• Communicating in the difficult time like the unavailability of services due to the schedule changes
• Limited disruptions and incidents relevant to the IT sector
• Effectively deal with the changes by employing the various tools to speed up the workflow mechanism and finish the RFC process

Disadvantages of Change Management in ITIL 

Some of the main limitations and disadvantages of ITILCM are as follows;

• If ITIL focuses on improving the process, then employing any 3rd party for existing or future change results in the form of conflicts and resistance to the change program
• ITIL has got a small room for flexibility, if implemented wrong, then it would become highly costly or expensive
• The framework and structure of ITIL are limited and it can’t go beyond

Examples of Change Management in ITIL 

Some of the main examples of change management in ITIL are as follows;

• Upgrading the OS
• Replacing service providers like ERP (enterprise resource planner)
• Patch of windows
• Fixing and resolving the bug in the production facility
• Launching new data centers

Conclusion: What is Change Management in ITIL? 

After an in-depth study of what is change management in ITIL; its importance, roles and responsibilities, types, advantages, disadvantages, and examples; we have realized that ITICM is highly significant for businesses. If you are learning about the ITILCM program, then you should keep in mind the abovementioned tips and guidelines.