Policy Series - 4.: Change Management Policy

INTRODUCTION:

This policy document is aligned to ISO/IEC 20000 and ITIL V3 best practices.

As per this policy Change is defined as addition, modification or removal of any Configuration Item (CI) or its attributes.

SCOPE:

This policy is applicable to the entire change management life cycle as described in Change Management process document. Thus, the scope encompasses:

•        Business/IT services & CIs

•        Documents (Process, policy, contracts, manuals, SOPs, etc.)

•        Other CIs

This policy is applicable to all permanent, temporary and contract staff.

POLICY:

• A standard Change Management process will be defined and adopted by all business units/functions

• Emergency Change Management sub-process will be defined and followed to address major changes

• Staff should be trained to ensure that a common understanding on change and emergency change management prevails across the organization

• Roles and responsibilities shall be defined and communicated for effective Change Management

• Change Manager will be the single focal point for coordinating all changes

• Change requests should be classified, recorded, validated, accepted and prioritized

• All changes should be recorded in the change management tool

• Change Manager will allocate a priority for every RFC based on the impact and urgency; This priority rating should be used to decide which changes should be discussed and assessed first, either by Change Management or by the Change Advisory Board (CAB)

• Testing should be successfully completed before change is authorized/approved for implementation by Change Manager; Emergency Changes require Emergency Change Advisory Board approval for this exception but needs as much testing as possible before implementation

• All Changes to the production environment should be made within agreed Change windows;  Any exceptions will be agreed and communicated via a Projected Service Outage (PSO)

• All changes will be assessed for performance, risk and resources needed to implement the change

• Back out or roll back plan is mandatory for all changes including emergency changes

• Forward Schedule of Change (FSC) should be communicated to the users; Change Manager should inform Service Desk for effective communication of FSC

• Post Implementation Review is mandatory for all changes; Standard changes is an exception to this

• Any addition of service to the standard change list should be approved by CAB 

• Any unauthorized change should be considered violation of this policy

• Progress of all changes should be monitored by Change Manager till closure of RFC

• Change Management performance shall be reported and reviewed periodically

• Continual Service Improvement (CSI) initiatives should be taken up by Change Management 

ACCOUNTABILITY & RESPONSIBILITY TOWARDS POLICY ADHERENCE:

• Team Leads and delivery heads are responsible to ensure that their staffs are adequately trained to support this policy

• Change Manager(s) and Quality Leads are responsible to drive adherence to the policy and process

• Accountability to adherence to policy and process lies with individual staff

• Change Management process document

• Release & Deployment Management policy

• Request Fulfillment policy

BREACH:

Non-adherence to this policy will lead to disciplinary actions as per the organization's disciplinary policy and may even lead to termination of employment.

REFERENCES:

Following documents should be referred to along with this policy document: