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A Publication Featuring The Information Services Technology of Maine State Government

Volume V, Issue 10	October 2002

Change Management Process Revised

By Ginnie Ricker

Recently, the Bureau of Information Services (BIS) created a team solely dedicated to improving the Bureau’s current Change Management process. Based on solicited feedback, the goals of the team were to introduce a collaborative communication opportunity, create guidelines that all users will follow to provide standard information, assure that impact analysis has been reviewed prior to implementing changes and ensure resources are available post changes. As a result, effective 7/31/02, two processes were created – i.e. current change requests are now separated from historical information, while users may continue to access posted change information.

The new process took into account feedback BIS received over time from customers. The most common request was to separate past change information from the current change notes. Additional changes or "highlights" of the new process are outlined below.

The intent of this process was not to capture every little change that was to take place, because many changes are part of daily responsibilities. Rather, the intent was to ensure that the more visible, "risky", and widely impacting changes are capture or documented. These guidelines attempt to provide a standard without generating pages of specific change types that can take place in any service area.

Another objective was to provide BIS employees and customers with a central location to review all upcoming changes. This becomes helpful when technicians, who plan their own changes, can see other scheduled changes.

Today, following a review by the BIS Management team, all changes are posted on Wednesdays at 2:30 p.m. for the upcoming 7+ days using a standard template on the Change Calendar, http://inet.state.me.us/bis/csc/changecalendar. During these team meetings, questions and concerns are voiced. Often Customer Support Center staff asks specific questions in order to prepare for anticipated customer questions following implementation of the change(s).

The Change Notes are still distributed to BIS customers, in a different format. Many customers had indicated the Change Notes were too informative, and the format was difficult to follow. With these concerns in mind, we decided to publish only finalized changes on Thursdays, and provide a link to past Change Notes via the Intranet Site at: http://inet.state.me.us/bis/csc/changenotes/index.html. These newly formatted Change Notes provide a general recap of planned changes, and a link to individual changes for more detailed information. Although we have received some feedback on this new approach, we hope to evolve to a process that is workable for all customers.

An Emergency Change process was also implemented. This was mainly instituted to ensure proper communications within BIS were in place.

As always any process is only as good as the information that is provided. BIS encourages customers to participate in this process anytime.

Questions? Comments? Contact the author by e-mailing ginnie.ricker@state.me.us.

[ Up ] [ A Career in Technology - Richard Riley ] [ BABLO: Generating $237 Million Annually by Operating 7/24 ] [ Building an XML File Exchange Service for All to Use ] [ Challenge for October ] [ Change Management Process Revised ] [ Chief Information Officer Awards for Information Technology Excellence ] [ DHCP Progress Report ] [ Did You Know ] [ Free 2000 Automated Expense Vouchers - MaineDOT's Successful Transition to Another Paperless Process ] [ From 3rd to 2nd in the US ] [ Information Technology Security Policies Under Review ] [ Share Your Maine History ] [ Spam and Junk Mail ] [ State of Maine E-mail Policy ] [ To Your Health ] [ Transitions for October ]