ITIL Change Management Roles and Responsibilities

Change management is a group that accesses, approves, implement and reviews a change in a controlled manner. Each role is responsible for completing a specific task. The roles identified in change management are –

 

Change Manager 

 

The Change Manager acts as a facilitator, responsible for the overall change management process. His primary responsibilities are – 

 

• Authorize and approve minor/low change
• Coordinate and conduct meetings with Change advisory board (CAB) to discuss higher risk changes
• Authority to implement or reject a change
• Ensures that all the activities designed to implement the change are as per the standards. The policies and procedures should be well defined, recognized and reviewed
• Prepare Change Summary Sheet that summarizes all RFC’s. This sheet helps the CAB team to understand and evaluate the proposed change

 

Change Advisory Board (CAB)

 

It is a group of individuals that act as an advisory committee for the changes that are categorized as major or significant. CAB, along with Change manager is responsible for final review; approval and authorizing a change .They have the authority to re-asses the risk level or impact level. They can request for additional information before approving a change or can reject it if required.

 

Emergency Change Advisory Board (CAB/EC)

 

A subset of CAB that acts as decision makers on the changes categorized as emergency. An emergency change needs to be approved and authorized immediately.

 

Change Requestor or Change Initiator

 

A person who initiates or requests for a change. The change requestor is required to provide all necessary information and justification for the change.  Apart from this his other responsibilities include –

 

Organize and plan activities for a change.

 

• Provide necessary information to the owner of the change
• Attend CAB meeting and provide necessary inputs to them
• Review and document change plan
• Resolve issues related to change
• Updates the user with the change activity
• Support and involve in testing activities before and after the implementation of change

 

Change Assignee/Tester/Implementer

 

The owner of the change – if the change requestor is someone else. His responsibilities include – 

 

• Liaise with the change requestor for business and technical queries and issues, if any
• Create an RFC (Request for change) and update its status whenever required. Check and decide an implementation date, ensuring that it doesn’t conflict with other activities
• Assess and manage the risk involved
• Test and implement the change
• Coordinate and communicate with the other impacted team prior to submitting the change
• Once the change is approved create a remedial case for the scheduled change. Execute the change as on the scheduled date and time. Update the remedy case
• After successful completion provide closure status
• Document the change procedure after its implementation

Change Approver

 

Manager who provides first level approval to a RFC before it goes to CAB review. His responsibilities include –

 

• Review all RFC’s submitted by the change assignee
• Ensure all necessary communication; documentation and testing are done prior to approval
• Request for a review from technical peer who will ensure that all technical steps are appropriate and correct
• Approve or Deny the RFC

 

Changes are maintained and controlled through a change management system – a tool utilized for tracking and documenting all the activities (initialization, approval, update, close) related to the proposed change.