What is Change Advisory Board (CAB) Approval?

For any organization that has attained maturity, it is important to incorporate various changes into its software. Change, no matter how small, is always critical for a successful software product. For a business to perform essential business operations seamlessly, it must rely on software operating. They also have to count on software updates.

What is Change Management?

Changes in software can be as small as incorporating a small shiny feature to something as big as a security update, which is critical. Businesses must make sure that the latest changes in the features do not tamper with the existing infrastructure. This is the purpose of change management. It helps in ensuring that any update or change in software does not tamper with the existing functions.

Change Management CAB refers to all the activities that are related to preparing, supporting, and assisting the individuals, teams, and the organization, to bring about a structured change in the organization. To have a better understanding of the concept, you can undergo an ITIL 4 Foundation Certification.

What is the Change Advisory Board (CAB)?

Change Advisory Board or CAB refers to a group of people who are entrusted with the task of monitoring and evaluating the changes that are incorporated in an IT environment. The business and its culture are responsible for assessing the level of appropriateness of a change that is being incorporated. Some of the IT Services certification courses will help you have a better insight into these topics.

Now a question might arise in your mind about who makes up the Change Advisory Board. Well, the CAB consists of key people who are responsible for decision-making and technically skilled staff. There is no fixed rule about who can be a part of the Change Advisory Board. There is a Change Manager, who makes sure that the right people who have the right information, background, and knowledge are entrusted with the task of reviewing the changes made to an IT environment. Sometimes Subject Matter Experts are called in so that they can review the changes made and advise on them if required.

The main task of the Change Advisory Board is to review the changes and make sure that they do not pose any threat or risk in the future, so as to avoid unwelcome consequences. What differentiates Change Advisory Board from Change Management is that Change Management refers to the entire process of raising, reviewing, monitoring, evaluating, and finally approving and tracking the changes to oversee the impact that it has brought about in the IT environment. However, CAB approval only means that the team approves (or disapproves) the changes that are to be incorporated into the IT environment.

Change Advisory Board (CAB) Members

There are several members who are involved in the Change Advisory Board. All these personalities work at diverse levels of the Change Advisory Board process flow and aid in the process of efficient Change Management.

• Service Desk Analyst

A Service Desk Analyst is assigned who takes the calls related to service, documents the incidents, and then escalates the matters to the Service Desk Manager. To put it in simpler words, the Service Desk Analyst helps to offer awareness regarding the issues that might arise with service delivery and helps to resolve them to ensure the smooth functioning of the IT environment.

• Operations Managers

The Change Advisory Board also consists of the Operations Managers, who are accountable for looking over the daily administrative activities of the organization.

• Engineer or Application Manager

The application Manager is responsible for looking over the development of the applications and their arrangement. To be suitable for this role, a professional has to have the ability to make quick and error-free judgments. He should also be knowledgeable about the ins and outs of all the products that are offered to the clients.

• Information Security Officer

As the name suggests, the Information Security Officer must take care of issues that are related to network security daily. He should also provide knowledge related to the possible threats or any susceptibilities that might be associated with any system or application.

• Senior Networking Engineer

The task of the Networking Administrators is to supervise the networks and cloud infrastructures of a company and manage them. This post holds considerable responsibility; therefore, it requires a Senior Networking Engineer to have certain years of experience.

• Business Relationship Managers

They are the ones who directly work with the clients in a B2B kind of setting. Nevertheless, they can also work on issues related to customer service. They are the ones who offer a deep insight into the needs and wants of the clients.

These, along with other professionals of eminence, ease the CAB approval process and help to bring about the proper functioning of the IT environment of any organization. KnowledgeHut's Service Management training will help you better understand these topics.

Characteristics of a Change Advisory Board (CAB) Team

The Change Advisory Board consists of people who are from varied fields and hold varying levels of expertise. If you are willing to have a look at the characteristics of a Change Advisory Board Team, they are as stated follows:

1. All the members of the team help in nurturing professional courtesy amongst themselves, thereby maintaining decorum across the business.
2. The members of the team offer different standpoints, which helps to suggest variety for the team to choose from.
3. The goal of change is driven by a strong sense of motivation among the members.
4. The team members help to offer a dedicated approach that helps to seamlessly warrant all the services. This helps to keep the endurance of the business unaltered at the time of the change.

What are the Goals of the Change Advisory Board (CAB)?

As per the ITIL framework, all the changes in the IT environment of an organization are to be introduced through the Change Advisory Board. The main goal of the CAB Change Management is to certify the quality of the release. The following are the objectives that help the CAB to accomplish its task in an efficient manner:

1. The timeline of the application should not clash with the other prerequisites of the business.
2. All the architectural criteria should be met.
3. The process that consists of retention of the change management process' ownership should be looked after by the CAB.
4. The CAB has to make sure that the standard quality is maintained throughout.
5. The process of evaluation and then approval is also to be supported by the CAB.

CAB should not be mistaken for CAB Change Approval Board; it stands for Change Advisory Board. This means that its task is only limited to reviewing, and not approval.

What are the Functions of the Change Advisory Board (CAB) ?

If you are wondering what the role of the emergency change advisory board is, the functions of CAB in Change Management listed below will give you an idea:

1. Every change has a number of consequences and risks associated with it. It is the task of the Change Advisory Board to make sure that all the risks are calculated.
2. Based on the availability of resources and the portable influence, the CAB has to review the requests for change, also known as RFCs.
3. The CAB has to extend its support to the Change Manager, who is ultimately the decision-maker of a change.
4. The CAB has to get the documentation ready for review.
5. The CAB has to collaborate and take care of the forthcoming changes that are to take place throughout the organization.
6. The CAB also has to make sure that all the changes are well understood so as to eliminate the chances of occurrence of any error.
7. It has to come up with suggestions that will help to reduce the company’s risk on the whole.
8. The CAB is also involved in the continuous initiatives that are taken during the process of change management so that each and every step can be thoroughly evaluated before being put to use.
9. The CAB also has to keep the Change Managers acquainted with all the latest updates.

The Change Management CAB also conducts intermittent revisiting of the previous meetings, which helps in enhancing their learning of the consequences. During such meetings, the CAB reviews the following:

1. The changes that were taken up in the initial period.
2. The changes that failed to make the desired impact.
3. The changes that were successful.
4. The changes that were not implemented by the team.
5. The team also discusses the incidents that took place as a result of the changes that the team implemented.

Change Advisory Board (CAB) Operations

Every managing body follows a certain course of action to be able to work properly. In the case of the Change Advisory Board, it is the Change Manager who oversees conducting timely meetings of the CAB, in which it discusses its agenda and course of action to be able to perform seamlessly. The meetings can either be conducted on a timely systematic basis or can be called based on the intensity of any matter that needs to be discussed and taken into consideration.  

In case of a crisis where a meeting is to be called on an urgent basis, it has to be related to some incident that can threaten critical business tasks. However, it is only the Change Manager who has the right to take a final call on the change, even in case of emergencies.

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Challenges Facing the CAB

No process continues in an error-free manner. Even the Change Advisory Board meets certain challenges during its action. Here are some of the common problems that the Change Advisory Board might come across: 

1. It might be inefficient and slow: In case of an emergency change, CABs are not able to incorporate them on an urgent basis. They are a little slow and inefficient.  
2. It might be difficult for CABs to track the project health throughout: In order to track the project health, it is important for CABs to track the health of the project, which might be a little difficult sometimes. 
3. Incorrect planning might be an issue: In the case of Change Management and Change Advisory, incorrect planning may pose a massive threat. It is, therefore, of the utmost necessity to ensure that proper planning is done before the execution of every stage, followed by proper evaluation of the change incorporated.   
4. Insufficient resourcing: Sometimes, experts may not be enthusiastic enough to deliver their best; therefore, insufficient resources might be another problem that needs to be dealt with to ensure the seamless functioning of the IT environment of a business or organization.  
5. The change implementations may sometimes be partial: With the ITIL change management procedure, CAB may sometimes implement only a few parts of the changes to be incorporated while leaving behind some of the others. 

Future of CAB

CAB is a strategic change that has helped in automating the methods. This helps to free the attention and time of the leaders and managers so that they can focus more on the other strategic kind of work, which can be executed better with their involvement. 

Therefore, it is no wonder that CABs are going to have a great demand in the future. The requirement for agility in the delivery of superior quality services and products is never-ending. Technology, if it goes wrong, can disappoint the clients. Therefore, companies need to invest in a robust Change Management system, of which the Change Advisory Board is an inseparable part.  

However, owing to the kind of inefficiency that CAB exhibits, there might be some disadvantages. In the case of structures where digital organizations adopt structures that are more product-centric and the product life cycles are managed entirely by small teams, CAB may be irrelevant. Nevertheless, CAB might still be useful for huge organizations with a soiled structure.

Conclusion

In a nutshell, we can say that CAB, or the Change Advisory Board best practices help in delivering support to the team of an organization that deals in change management. The team works by advising on the changes that have been proposed, assessing, and prioritizing the changes that are to be or have been incorporated. Therefore, CAB helps in offering a varied perspective for efficient decision-making. Hope this gives you an idea about the role of CAB and the importance of CAB approval in decision making.