ITIL describes change management as the process of monitoring and managing change throughout its life cycle, from start to finish, with the objective of minimizing risk. Establishing a systematic change management process helps organizations implement changes without incident and with a high success rate. Change management plays an essential role in the area of service transition, as part of the ITIL framework, providing best practices for creating, implementing and transitioning services. We can even say that change management is the key factor in transforming an organization from a regular service provider to a business innovator.
If there is a change in one of the services or several changes in many of the services, these changes must be made in a controlled manner. Change management seeks to reduce the risk associated with changes, where ITIL defines a change as the addition, modification, or elimination of anything that may affect IT services. Therefore, it is important to communicate a change in a transparent and honest way, expressing confidence in the good of the change. Since the processes defined in ITIL V3 have not been invalidated with the introduction of ITIL V4, organizations can continue to use the ITIL V3 change management process as a template.
For example, the marketing director can give feedback on how this change will affect their marketing strategy and know what work they need on their part to prepare for this change. It often happens that a senior manager shares a change and expects everyone to understand and accept it. On the one hand, change advisory boards can help reduce risk and alert when a change simply isn't working for the company. Clearly defined roles and responsibilities lead to an effective and efficient ITIL change management process. Because change management addresses challenges related to risk and compliance, auditability and coordination between teams, all too often it becomes complex, bureaucratic and painful.
This phase allows for detailed planning of changes and versions and for evaluating the resulting project plan before authorizing the change creation phase. For example, a country's government may require that every change be documented and stored in a bank's files for at least five years if there is a change in service at the bank. Change management focuses on the transition of new services or on modifying existing services to the IT operating environment, ensuring that the changes do not cause disruptions in the IT environment. With the right practices and culture, managing change can result in fewer incidents, less stress for teams, and more time spent delivering value to customers. Some change communicators believe that spamming colleagues with emails explaining the change several times will cause them to change their minds. However, this approach is not effective since it does not take into account how people process information differently.
It is important to understand how people react to changes so that you can create an effective communication strategy that will help them understand why this change is necessary. In conclusion, setting up an effective change management process is essential for any organization that wants to minimize risk associated with changes while ensuring successful implementation of new services or modifications to existing ones. By understanding how people react to changes and creating an effective communication strategy, organizations can ensure that their changes are accepted by all stakeholders.
