Change Management process and its workflow

What is change management?

The Change Management application offers a systematic approach to controlling the life cycle of all changes, allowing for beneficial changes to be implemented with minimal disruption to IT services. It helps users simplify, automate, and accelerate complex change processes using built-in AI, minimize failure, and lower costs.

IT Change Management is an IT Service Management (ITSM) process that assists organizations in adhering to standard procedures and practices for effectively managing requests in order to drastically reduce the risk and disruptions that a change can have on IT and business operations.

To effectively manage the change process, ServiceNow has a change management tool. The application includes a variety of features that will assist you in governing and tracking the process throughout the change lifecycle.

What is the process of Change Management?

It assists you in systematically initiating the change and assists your organization in keeping track of:

• Why is the change significant for the organization or department?
• What kind of planning is required?
• Who is the change’s owner?
• How will the implementation take place?
• What effect will it have on various departments and stakeholders?

The ServiceNow platform can map all of these variables. The change Management seeks to reduce any unfavorable disruptions to existing IT services caused by change implementation. Change management entails establishing a process for dealing with changes and ensuring that:

• Change is classified with an appropriate change type and processed through a workflow for that change type.
• Change is implemented in accordance with a predefined process, with tasks designed to ensure that all aspects of the change are implemented.
• Change implementation is scrutinized to ensure that overall business risk is kept to a minimum.
• Change implementation also ensures that the change is recorded in all relevant systems before the system is closed.
• Change is submitted using the appropriate change approval process for the type of change.

Benefits of Change Management:

Improve proficiency and accuracy:
When evaluating change requests, use the change success score to determine how much rigor is required.

Increase change velocity:
Use dynamic change approval policies to accelerate change management.

Integrate organizational-wide change management processes:
By automating change frameworks and governance, you can reduce friction between IT and DevOps.

Each change should be perfect:
Using out-of-the-box templates, tailor each change lifecycle to a specific use case.

Stages of Change Management Workflow:

Stage 1:
Make a Request for Change: An individual or a group of people creates a change request to implement for a specific application.

Stage 2:
Changes to Consider: The created change is then thoroughly scrutinized by a person of authority who will oversee the change process and determine whether it is necessary.

Stage 3:
Evaluation of Change: After reviewing the created change, it is critical to assess the impact, benefits, and risks to avoid unnecessary disruption within the IT setup. All stakeholders who will be impacted by the change participate in the evaluation.

Stage 4:
Approvals for Change: The created change requires approval not only from the executive team but also from all stakeholders who will be affected by the change. It also aids in bringing all stakeholders on board before the change process moves on to the implementation stage.

Stage 5:
Implementation of change: The implementation partner, in collaboration with the service partner, makes the necessary changes once the approval is in place.

Stage 6:
Validation of change: The implemented change is tested to see if it is working as intended or any change ecosystem’s components are broken. The validation process will differ based on the run checks for their dependencies.

Features of Change Management:

• It aids change managers a simple way to tailor change activities and flows to specific use cases with multimodal change.
• To automate approvals for low-risk changes and assess the likelihood of success, use a numeric score.
• Using individual change conditions, assist change teams in balancing velocity, stability, and compliance.
• Make data-driven risk predictions using machine learning similarity algorithms and classification.
• Calculate and assess risk using data-driven calculations and assessments based on top-level CMDB data and user responses to a series of quantitative questions. Use the data to assess the overall risk of change and make better, more informed decisions.
• By selecting available dates and times from a consolidated view, you can avoid potential conflicts.
• Using an interactive timeline calendar, you can see planned changes, blackouts, and maintenance schedules.
• It enables you to eliminate the need for manual approvals, increase work velocity, and assess the likelihood of future success.
• Recognize the impact of changes and release schedules and see Configuration Items and Connected Services for more information.
• Change Management can be deployed in days thanks to simple steps, embedded help, and visual status checks.
• Organize an effective Change Advisory Board meeting to obtain guidance on proposed high-risk changes.