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Change is never easy, but acclimating to change that you are unprepared for, is even harder.  In the IT world, a standardized change management process ensures that there is minimal impact due to any changes that are imposed.  It is especially important to have the proper change management process in place because changes can affect anything from multiple users, disrupt key business activities, involve modifications to the infrastructure, or involve process modifications. It also facilitates efficient and prompt handling of all changes maintaining balance between the need for change and its potential impacts.  So what exactly defines a change?  A change can be defined as anything that is hardware, software, system components, services, or processes that is introduced into a production environment which may affect the functionality or any service level agreements between the customer and the consultant.

A successful change management process should be comprised of the steps shown in the diagram below.  These steps can vary depending on your organization's needs: Identify potential change, Analyze the change request, Evaluate the change, Plan for the change, Implement the change, and Review and close the change.  Each step also involves certian certain key roles.

When the need for change is identified by the customer through either a defect or the need for new functionality, the customer will address the need for a potential change which will be documented as a new requirement (if it is a new feature)  or a change request (if it requires a modification to an existing requirement).  The project manager will then analyze the change to determine any associated costs, benefits, and scope of the proposed change.  The change committee will then review the proposed change and discuss the technical feasibility, costs, and benefits prior to approving the change.  Any potential impacts this change would have can also be reviewed at this time.  Once a change has been approved, a new requirement is created or an approved requirement is updated by the business analyst.  The business analyst or quality assurance analyst will then build test cases to satisfy the new or updated change, and a new release will be deployed which reflects the applied change and made available to the customer.  The final step involves the customer testing the change to verify that it has been implemented correctly, oftentimes during a User Acceptance Testing cycle (UAT).

Having a proper change management process in place for your organization ensures that no ad-hoc changes are made throughout the scope of the project and that the customer's changing needs are always addressed.

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