ITIL Change management: roles and responsibilities

The Change Manager

The main duties of the Change Manager, some of which may be delegated, are listed below: Receives, logs and allocates a priority to all requests for changes that are totally impractical Tables all Request for Changes (RFCs) for a Change Advisory Board (CAB) meeting, issues an agenda and circulates all requests for changes to Change Advisory Board members in advance of meetings to allow prior consideration Decides which CAB members will come to which meetings, who gets specific RFCs depending on the nature of the RFC Convenes urgent CAB or ECAB meetings for all urgent RFCs Chairs all CAB and ECAB meetings Authorizes acceptable changes, either alone or after a CAB or ECAB has taken place Issues change schedules Liaises with all necessary parties to coordinate change building, testing and implementation, in accordance with schedules Updates the change log with all progress that occurs, including any actions to correct problems and/or to take opportunities to improve service quality Reviews all implemented changes to ensure that they have met their objectives; refers back any that have been backed out of have failed Reviews all outstanding RFCs Analyses change records to determine any trends Closes RFCs Produces regular management reports

Change Advisory Board (CAB)

A Change Advisory Board (CAB) is an advisory body for higher risk changes. The CAB is a body that exists to support the authorisation of changes and to assist change management in the assessment and prioritisation of changes. As and when a CAB is convened, members should be chosen who are capable of ensuring that the change is adequately assessed from both a business and a technical viewpoint. To achieve this, the CAB needs to include people with a clear understanding across the whole range of stakeholder needs. The Change Manager will normally chair the CAB, and potential members include: Customer(s) User manager(s) User group representative(s) Applications developers/maintainers Specialists/technical consultants Services and operations staff, e.g. service desk, test management, ITSCM, security, capacity Facilities/office services staff (where changes may affect moves/accommodation and vice versa) Contractors or suppliers representatives Etc.

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The Emergency Change Advisory Board (ECAB)

When the need for emergency change arises the Change Manager will convene a smaller change organisation with authority to make emergency decisions. This is the Emergency Change Advisory Board (ECAB).

The change authority

Formal authorisation is obtained for each change from a change authority that may be a role, person or a group of people. The levels of authorisation for a particular type of change should be judged by the type, size or risk of the change. A degree of delegated authority may well exist within an authorisation level, e.g. delegating authority to a Change Manager according to preset parameters relating to: Anticipated business risk Financial implications Scope of the change (e.g. internal effects only, within the finance service, specific outsourced services)

Change Initiators
A Change Initiator can be anyone in the organisation/business who is allowed to raise a request for change. However, it is advisable that access to the request for change is controlled as far as users are concerned to ensure that RFCs are only raised in appropriate circumstances.

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