Early in 2019, ITIL 4, a new edition of the ITIL IT service management best practice framework, was launched. ITIL is utilized by millions of individuals across the world for anything from simple event management to the administration of massive enterprise IT operations, so it was major news.
Change management is one of the most often used and referred to components of ITIL best practice. This article examines what changed in ITIL 4 about change management, highlighting the key distinctions.
What is Change Enablement?
By ensuring that vulnerabilities have been correctly assessed, permitting changes to continue, and monitoring the changed timeline, the change enablement approach aims to increase the number of successful IT changes.
It's crucial to understand the difference between change enablement and organizational change management. Change enablement normally focuses on changes in goods and services, whereas organizational change management controls the human elements of action to ensure that improvements and organizational transformation plans are executed successfully.
What is Organizational Change Management?
Where services are concerned, people will be involved. And the approach of “managing the people side of any change” is what Organizational Change Management deals with.
Changing processes may appear easy in theory, but it is people who ultimately put it into practice. OCM practice needs to ensure that there is adequate communication about the change, a buy-in for the necessity of change, definite leadership around change, empowerment through training etc. to implement the change, resistance-management where necessary, and reinforcement to “embed the change into the business as usual (BAU)”.
What Changed with Change Management in ITIL 4
Before moving on to understanding what has changed with change management in ITIL 4, it is crucial to understand exactly what is the definition of change in ITIL 4. Within ITIL, change enablement is a crucial service management approach. We can introduce service upgrades as well as other service management methods here. A change is described as an addition, alteration, or removal of anything that has the potential to affect services directly or indirectly.
Changes to IT infrastructure, apps, documentation, procedures, supplier relationships, and any other important components of the service are often included. Although some IT organizations focus solely on hardware and software change enablement, it is necessary to keep in mind that other aspects play an essential part in service development and implementation and changes to them might have a detrimental impact on consumers.
So, if you are wondering, "Exactly what is change in ITIL?" here is what has changed in ITIL 4:
1. The Benefits of changing your name
Until industry discussion provoked a reconsideration, the change enablement technique was referred to as change control. The decision to abandon the term change management reflects the extent of ITIL scope having been expanded with the introduction of ITIL 4.
ITIL 4 acknowledges the application of service management and best practices to other business processes, whereas prior editions of ITIL concentrated on IT service management. As a result, the risk of misinterpretation with the people-focused version of change management – which ITIL 4 now incorporates as part of its organizational change management practice guidelines – has to be taken into account.
As a result, the change management method is no longer in use, and the change enablement approach has taken its place. The goal of the change enablement practice is to maximize the amount of successful service and product changes by ensuring that risks have been adequately evaluated, approving changes to continue, and managing the changed timeline.
2. Change enablement’s “location” and process versus practice
Change management was placed in the service transition stage of the service lifecycle according to the ITIL v3 best practice framework. Change enablement is currently part of the ITIL Service Value System's service management practices component.
The transition from processes to practices is a significant difference between ITIL v3 and ITIL 4. This is fascinating as practices encompass a lot more than just processes and workflows. ITIL's four aspects of service management are represented in the practices. If you're not familiar with ITIL v3, the aspects are simply an expansion of the four Ps. The following are the four aspects:
- People and organizations
- technology and information
- Business associates and vendors
- Value streams and processes
3. The change authority
The word change authority is a new term for change permission. One of the most common complaints about ITIL v3 was that every change had to go via the change advisory board. It's not true at all!
What about routine maintenance or emergency repairs in the middle of the night? Introducing the notion of a change authority allows individuals to be more flexible when it comes to permission, such as:
- Delegated authority
- Standard changes
- Peer evaluations
- Exceptions in the business world
If you want to know more about the ITIL 4 change enablement practice, Check out ITIL foundation training course online, the course will help you to learn about ITIL 4 changes and help you to understand the key difference.
4. Emphasis on continuous integration
To align with the company and generate value, change must flow. While a standard change may be initiated manually by raising a change request, the ITIL 4 version of change enablement emphasizes the need for automation.
When leveraged properly, technology can be used to build an automated pipeline that enables continuous integration and delivery, automating the majority of the change enablement process.
5. Contribution of change enablement to the Service Value Chain
The transition from the service lifecycle to the ITIL Service Value System is a significant change between ITIL v3 and ITIL 4. ITIL 4 includes the Service Value System, which promotes value co-creation. It demonstrates how an organization's many components and operations work together to create value. The Service Value Chain is at the core of the Service Value System.
The change enablement practice is involved in all the activities of the service value chain as shown below:
Plan | Changes to product and service ranges, rules, and procedures all need some degree of control, which is provided by the change enablement approach. |
| Engage | Depending on the nature of the change, customers and users may need to be consulted or notified. |
Design and Transition
| As a result of new or updated services, several changes occur. Transition is assisted substantially by change enablement activities. |
Obtain/Build
| Whether components are developed in-house or purchased from vendors, they are susceptible to change enablement. |
Deliver and Support
| Changes to the value chain influence delivery and support, and information about the changes must be conveyed to the people who do the work. These individuals may also be involved in evaluating and authorizing modifications. |
| Improve | Many advances will necessitate adjustments, which should be evaluated and approved in the same way as all other changes. |
You can find out more about it through one of the many IT service management courses online provided by Knowledge Hut.
Change Types
We define three types of change in ITIL, each of which is managed differently, namely standard, normal, and emergency changes.
| Standard Change | What is a Standard Change in ITIL? - It is a low-risk, pre-authorized modification that is well-understood and completely described and can be executed without further approval.
- It's usually started as a service request, but it may also be a modification in operations.
- Only when development or amendment due to an organization changes or the occurrence of an event does comprehensive risk analysis and authorization are required.
Now that you know what is Standard Change in ITIL, let's move on to Normal Change. |
Normal Change
| What is a Normal Change in ITIL? - A modification that must be planned, examined and approved according to a set of guidelines.
- Change models specify the responsibilities for evaluation and authorization based on the type of change; for example, low-level changes require local authorization, but high-level changes may need board-level authorization.
- The development of a human or automated change request initiates the process.
Now that you know what is Normal Change in ITIL, let's move on to Emergency Change.
|
Emergency change
| - To fix an issue or apply a security patch, a modification must be performed as soon as feasible without rigidly following the regular method.
- To facilitate speedy deployment, the review and permission procedure is rushed, thus timing and documentation aren't a top focus.
- The change authority may be distinct from standard or standard practice, with a less number of components but more ability to speed approval.
|
Change Authority
A person or organization that authorizes a change is known as the change authority. Depending on the nature of the change and the organizational style and culture, this might be a team, supervisor, management, CEO, board, customer, or regulator. To ensure that change enablement is both efficient and effective, the right change of authority must be granted to each type of change. It's pointless to create a board to assess every low-risk item that can be accepted locally.
Decentralizing change approval is prevalent in high-velocity businesses, making peer assessment a top predictor of excellent performance. An agile product team, for example, would decide which aspects of the product backlog to handle in a sprint, while an agile product manager would decide which client requirements to put in the product backlog. Systemic approval can be established by organizations embracing DevOps principles based on the effectiveness of computerized checks in the continuous integration/continuous deployment pipeline.
Change Communication
Regardless of who is in charge of change, they may need to communicate broadly within the company and with important stakeholders. To avoid surprises, it is critical to prepare all parties involved and those who can be impacted in advance. For example, effective communication with the Service Desk is necessary to ensure that high call numbers do not come as an overwhelming surprise as a result of a failed change. Marketing teams may want to avoid running campaigns planned at a time when important services are likely to be down. When a large number of people with specialized expertise are needed, such as when analyzing the risk of a complicated change, good communication is very vital.
The change schedule is used to help in the planning of changes, communication, dispute resolution, and resource allocation. It can also be used to offer information for incident management, issue management, and improvement planning once changes have been implemented. It's critical to communicate the changed timeline to all key stakeholders engaged in the adjustments using communication methods that are likely to reach them quickly.
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Keeping Pace with Change
In a nutshell, design and transition, obtain/build, deliver and support and improve are the major areas of change emphasis. We hope this article has helped you to understand all about What's Changed with Change in ITIL 4.
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