Change Management in ITIL

Under the ITIL framework, the three types of changes are: standard, normal, and emergency changes. Let’s have a look at the first two kinds of change namely standard and normal changes and then talk about emergency changes.

Changes that go via the fixed process of change management are considered to be normal changes. These are changes which start with the creation of a Request for Change (RFC) which is in turn reviewed and assessed.

Standard changes are those that are pre authorized and are of low risks. In organizations, they would have their own method of deciding the type of standard changes that are allowed and also the conditions for a change to be considered as standard. They would also decide on who is approved to allow such changes and also how to manage such changes. Recording and approval is needed on the lines of normal changes. The approval of this kind of change does not travel up the management of change. It is rather done by someone who is pretty much closer to the action in real time scenario.

Normal changes do vary in the terms of complexity that they go through in the change management process. Those service changes which are major i.e. which have an impact on multiple divisions inside the organisation would require an exhaustive change proposal along with the RFC and also needs the approval of the IT management board. Those changes which would incur high cost and risk will need to be approved by the business board. Those changes which are of low risks can be approved by the Change Advisory Board (CAB).

The CAB approval process can be sometimes painful and long. However as per ITIL this process can also be performed in an electronic manner and it does state that not all in CAB needs to approve all change.

Cooperation between the CAB and the delivery team is important in order to make the approval process efficient.

Changes which come under emergency procedures may often be due to poor planning but either ways they are unavoidable.

An Emergency service change if not addressed causes service interruption which has high impact or can affect a number of users must be responded to at the earliest.

ITIL framework recognizes the need for IT processes to be swift enough to encounter the demands of business. The ITIL Change Management process hence integrates a procedure for Emergency Change, which can only be raised when a Change is required to fix a high priority IT Incident that is causing a major impact on business operations.