What are the important components of a project’s interaction between the Scrum Master and Product Owner – and why does it matter?

When employees in each capacity display the Scrum principles of commitment, boldness, focus, openness, and respect, success tends to follow. These tend to establish a strong bond between the two positions; cracks begin to appear without them.

People in these positions need to get off on the right foot together: it makes the work more enjoyable, and when there are delivery issues, a good connection helps everyone work together to reach the correct outcome.

Understanding the differences between Scrum Master and Product Owner

The Product Owner’s role in a Scrum project is to understand the company, stakeholders, what customers or users need, and the path a product should follow to provide the most value. The Product Owner successfully communicates the product’s goal, vision strategy, and the value it will provide so that the team can collaborate with the Product Owner to maximize the value of the product. This position also includes excellent Product Backlog Management, which ensures that the team knows the priorities and effort required to effectively plan for the Sprint and meet the Sprint’s goals.

Meanwhile, the Scrum Master’s role and responsibility are to ensure that the entire team is capable of delivering the product, as well as to assist all stakeholders in understanding Scrum as defined in the Scrum guide, namely, to act as a change agent, enabling both the organization and the Scrum team to collaborate effectively.

This covers two main aspects:

First and foremost, it is about ensuring that everyone has what they need to execute their work while removing roadblocks and promoting the Scrum technique and so-called “ceremonies.” These include sprint planning, daily stand-up, sprint review, and so on in an Agile context.

The Scrum Master grows themselves, trains the team on an individual or group basis, and shares learnings with other Scrum Masters in a community of practice — a venue for sharing the good, bad, and ugly of what they’ve learned.

While the jobs are different, there must be a natural link between them. The Scrum Master should understand the end-user and the product’s requirements. In contrast, the Product Owner should be aware of any delivery problems so that they can prioritize and help the delivery team maximize value.

What are the possible risks in the Scrum Master/Product Owner relationship?

One of the most serious threats to a Scrum project posed by the Scrum Master/Product Owner relationship is a loss of focus.
If they, and therefore the team, lose focus and this problem is not handled, the final goal is endangered. Identifying the risk necessitates the team being transparent in whatever it does, i.e., having the courage to recognize problems and find solutions to them.

Lack of communication is another important “red flag” in the Scrum Master/Product Owner interaction.

People in these two jobs, like the comic book characters Batman and Robin, must be a fully functional team – which involves maintaining excellent communication, creating mutual understanding, and being honest and open with each other. In this manner, anything overlooked in the project will not go ignored.

Starting and maintaining a productive relationship

Starting a new project might be intimidating, especially if the Scrum Master and Product Owner have never worked together before.

Because there is a learning curve, it is essential to get to know each other as soon as possible and begin to create the required trust in the relationship.

Aside from the apparent human component of communication, some activities can help in working methods. For example, creating a matrix of all the positions in the team and having everyone provide a brief assessment of how they see the roles of others (as well as their own).

This activity might extract the team’s expectations, such as what the Scrum Master should do to assist them. When a job becomes the center of conversation – with common themes or worries surfacing from different people on the team – it implies the person in that capacity may directly address those questions and better understand what people require.

The importance of this feedback may be applied equally to a Product Owner, beginning to establish a better relationship between them and other team members.

As a result, everyone should get focused on the same issue, which is important to an Agile strategy.

Scrum Master/Product Owner – a relationship that matters

The Scrum Master-Product Owner connection is so obvious to individuals both inside and outside the team that it must function well.

This mutually beneficial connection is especially important when interacting with top stakeholders. When the Scrum Master and Product Owner agree on what the product and its features are capable of, they can provide a unified message to senior management and obtain any assistance that is required.

Finally, a Scrum team has several relationships inside it. The Scrum Master/Product Owner connection is one of several, but you won’t go far wrong if you continuously review yourself and your team’s alignment to the values.

As many service managers in the United States are well aware, ITIL® 4’s greatest strength is its holistic and comprehensive character, without being too prescriptive. Practitioners may also see similarities between it and other approaches and frameworks like Agile, DevOps, Lean, and COBIT.

However, there has been less discussion concerning ITIL’s compatibility with PRINCE2®. Moving through the ITIL certification path can lead to further qualifications, one of which is PRINCE2.

When businesses combine service and project management, PRINCE2 is the logical and evolutionary best practice step, and, like ITIL, it recognizes the existence of complementary bodies of knowledge.

Everything in service management is essentially a project in some shape or form: new services, upgrading infrastructure, or adopting ITIL practices; however, what is critical for success – in my experience from the United States – are looking not only at the “what” and “how” of projects but also the “why.”

US project management – more methods needed

Some organizations in the United States have project management down to a science, depending on their maturity.

However, in the small to medium-sized firm (SME) industry, initiatives are less formalized and operated more “by the seat of their trousers.” While I believe that SMEs are in desperate need of good project management approaches, I believe that major enterprises in the United States might benefit as well – especially if they operate on a world basis.

PRINCE2 – taking a lead from ITIL

Reading and working with the PRINCE2 guidelines reminded me of ITIL 4 Foundation in its easy-to-digest approach, which sets it apart from other, often formal textbooks. And, like with ITIL, you may adopt and adjust the recommendations to your company and environment using the “tailoring” concept.

While organizational change management (OCM) – the strategies employed to win hearts and minds – is more explicit in ITIL 4, But believe PRINCE2 project managers are more likely to conceptualize and work in this manner. This is critical because corporations simply introduce risk into initiatives by failing to examine how the change would affect people’s lives.

Project management skills today

During the Covid-19 outbreak, there was no new technology to facilitate remote work. However, businesses have struggled to adapt their systems and procedures to suit employees working from home.

This has made it difficult for project managers to move programs ahead when employees are scattered. However, by employing projects to re-evaluate and “bake in” continuous improvement, firms will be in a condition of ongoing learning and will emerge from Covid-19 much stronger.

PRINCE2 certification

People that have achieved professional development qualifications like ITIL 4 Managing Professional and PRINCE2 show how to achieve effective change, not just intellectually but practically. It is also important to have the ability to manage the continuing investment in change and improvement, human resources, and the integration of OCM into an effective change effort.

Lastly, the combination of best practice knowledge, beliefs, and practices offers the ideal method for making individuals successful change agents.

One of the most interesting technological developments these days is the migration of organizations’ IT services to the cloud.

There are several benefits to doing so, ranging from more flexibility and collaboration to lower total expenditures.

You’ve spent the last year working with multiple enterprises to migrate their data centers and apps to the cloud. You discovered that enterprises and providers may not always be on the same page regarding how cloud frameworks function and operate.

Customers, anxious to save time, money, and resources, select a vendor to host their cloud services and begin migration activities, only to discover that the cloud environment does not operate exactly like their on-premises environment. Customers demand the same procedures, structure, and general maturity that they have created over many years for their on-premises technology systems.

Different languages, different meanings

To start, each side has its own set of processes and a separate language. This implies they may use similar language but with distinct meanings. For example, “change management” can imply many different things to various customers and vendors.

When one side believes the other is responsible for, say, change management, a gap between customer expectation and service actuality develops. For example, an on-premises update might take place in two hours — with procedures so developed that any problems could be resolved quickly. A shift to cloud services might need two to three days to complete.

Meanwhile, cloud suppliers have evolved their processes, structure, and maturity to assure scalability across a much bigger and uncertain scope: their infrastructure may be global, with infinite clients, and all the unpredictability that entails.

As a result, both firms and suppliers may discover that their working methods do not quite match.

Why has this been let to happen? Because of the focus on speed to market, governance and controls have taken a back seat.

How does ITIL help?

How does ITIL 4 handle the unique issue of businesses migrating to cloud computing?

Just because a corporation is using newer technology does not imply it can abandon the controls, standards, and processes/practices that have made the IT function effective in the past.

Additionally, ITIL 4 identifies and collaboratively integrates other techniques, such as Agile, Lean, and DevOps. Rather than each strategy working in isolation, ITIL 4’s unified approach strives for comprehensive experience management.

DevOps, Lean, and Agile are fantastic, but how can you simultaneously implement Agile and waterfall-based change that benefits the whole organization? ITIL comes into play when consistency is required.

To be clear, the goal isn’t ITIL 4: it’s about enhancing collaboration among a variety of organizations.

As a result, when both cloud service providers and their customers have accepted and modified the ITIL framework, it almost assures that everyone is on the same page and speaking the same language before migrating on-premises infrastructures or applications to the cloud. The ITIL framework scales independently of the location of infrastructure or applications (on-premises or in the cloud).

Without a common framework, providers may fail to match customers’ expectations, leading to increased irritation on both sides. Using the same framework, regardless of the amount of detail in its adoption or specific procedures, ensures that cloud migrations occur as quickly as possible.

The need to completely retrain people or, worse, rebuild apps and procedures to run properly in the cloud is also much reduced.

When both enterprises and providers utilize ITIL as the baseline and core that binds everything together – and aspires for the final goal the company desires – moving to the cloud can be a smooth and efficient process.

What characteristics, skills, and organizational culture contribute to today’s successful service management team?

This is important because the Covid-19 pandemic has caused businesses to shift more quickly: developing efficiency and decreasing expenses that will help them escape extinction next year or even next quarter.

As a result, the skills and cultural behaviors necessary have broadened – not only generalist or specialized – and employees must be prepared to learn and adapt regularly.

ITIL 4 outlines three competency models:

• T-shaped – professionals with deep knowledge who specialize in one area
• Pi shaped – broad knowledge combined with competence in two or more areas
• Comb-shaped – having multiple areas of skill and deep knowledge

To allow proper service management and increased maturity, organizations must have a solid mix of individuals with the skill sets and capabilities across all three competencies.

What is service empathy?

Service empathy is another important factor for the service management professional and team: it is about considering the interests of others by putting yourself in their shoes.

This requires a certain level of flexibility and emotional intelligence to empathize with individuals working on various company tasks based on a thorough understanding of their requirements. Therefore, it comes down to how a service manager may assist a client in having a better result in their day or difficult situation.

Because of the pandemic, believing in company leadership teams are evaluating strategy, direction, and company culture, which indicates people’s perspectives in service management are evolving to greater empathy.

Creating a culture of service management

The digital mindset needed in today’s service management requires a culture that is collaborative, creative, and always learning.

Taking an innovative approach to creating tomorrow’s ideas and skills must begin with a solid foundation of leadership that supports a cultural transformation.

To achieve this, a clear picture of why and what’s in it for the people involved, as well as the organization, is needed. The reasons for change must be presented strategically, not like a hammer to the head, but like a distracting butterfly that people want to pursue — engaging people on their level and showing the worth of change.

However, it is also important to recognize that the path to altering culture is not without flaws. You must empower individuals to participate in the solution by providing practical means to bring them into the conversation and soliciting their thoughts.

Have we got there? Meaningful methods to measure improvement

How can you tell whether your organization’s service management skills and culture have changed and improved?

It’s less about statistics, in my perspective. For example, are people more interested if you measure their ideas and attitudes near the end of a cultural change journey? Do they believe the environment is a haven for failure? How do they rank the customer focus? How much continuous learning occurs?

These are the outcomes that may be expected if leadership empowers and accepts this form of core change – successfully changing the organization’s culture, approach to service management, and employee experience.

Leaders who embrace this – and inspire empathy – will see why these factors of advancement are important.

Even a simple Google search for “risk management” will reveal that this is a hot issue right now.

In recent years, the world – and the nature of risk – has altered dramatically, with threats and possibilities arising from security, climate, health, finance, and other areas. The volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous – VUCA – environment is more than an abbreviation.

The stakes in risk management are bigger than ever before, and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) problems are increasingly on the boardroom agenda.

As a result, everyone’s awareness of risk must improve significantly.

While there are certain professional categories and businesses that specialize in risk management, it is a discipline that is truly everyone’s responsibility. To handle that responsibility, greater preparation and broader talents are required.

Creating a risk management culture

Organizational leaders must establish the correct environment to encourage a culture of proactive risk management. Essentially, a top-down directive that something is critical.

Competence is required throughout the business, including both establishing competence in risk experts and boosting everyone’s awareness and understanding so that it is no longer “someone else’s job.”

This is difficult to achieve in companies. Researchers observed examples of good and less good behavior in companies when producing the current version of the Management of Risk best practice – M o R® 4 – the latter especially where risk is considered a culturally bad thing and is only paid lip service.

M_o_R 4 – a timely guidance update

Organizations functioning in a VUCA world want a risk management framework that is as up-to-date as possible while still being practical/usable.

As a result, we believed M o R 4 might be even more useful than its predecessor; something practitioners could use right away. This was also a chance to include new ideas and close gaps, increasing the framework’s value as a practical and comprehensive framework for successful risk management.

However, while M o R 4 is obviously associated with the world of portfolios, programs, and projects, it is also applicable on an enterprise-wide scale, including both strategic and operational operations.

Risk has always been a part of programs and projects. Yet, with its increased potency today, change professionals must up their risk management game.

And, in addition to the advice provided by PRINCE2 and Managing Successful Programmes (MSP), M o R 4 goes further, allowing the practitioner to delve deeper and build more skills.

What’s new in the new M_o_R 4?

1. The eight principles of M o R 4 are now more clearly described, providing something more practical than theoretical.
2. What was once a four-process lifecycle is now an eight-process lifetime. They have broken down the processes in greater depth, which will provide PRINCE2, MSP, and other change experts and managers with additional risk understanding.
3. Techniques for recognizing risk are intimately connected to specific periods of the process cycle. For the first time, we have provided examples of fictitious scenarios in the presentation of approaches.
4. A new “people” chapter recognizes that people’s decisions may make or break risk management. For example, organizational cultures typically promote so-called heroic behavior, such as continually “fighting” problems. They wouldn’t have to start “fires” in the first place if they behaved differently.
5. The guideline recognizes multiple points of view and how different elements of an organization will utilize M o R 4 in different ways, including strategic, operational, and product management functions.

Why manage risk with M_o_R 4?

The current advice is titled “Creating and Protecting Value.”

That is, risk management is more than just a cost: it provides advantages to the company and, if done well, will produce and protect business value by better managing threats and opportunities.

Individual practitioners will benefit from learning and certifying in M o R 4 because it will help them become more successful managers, leaders, and supervisors who are aware of what could happen in the face of persistent uncertainty.

Have you ever required service but found the entire procedure to be half-baked when you received it? Consider going to a restaurant where the seating isn’t well-designed, the employees aren’t adequately educated, and the food is great but cold. You’d be irritated, wouldn’t you? If your IT service management delivery isn’t well-planned, the same thing might happen.

When we think about IT, especially in the context of ITIL, we frequently focus solely on the technical aspects, overlooking the relevance of project management in service management and delivery. Thankfully, the 4 P’s of ITIL have considered that for the more than 20,000 companies in the United States who utilize IT Infrastructure Library, or ITIL, for framework, procedures, and best practices for ITSM1.

If you’ve worked with ITIL before, you’re probably aware of the differences between ITIL v3/2011 and ITIL 4, which include an update to the 4 P’s of service design and service strategy.

In this piece, we’ll look at those changes and how you can leverage ITIL’s 4 P’s to help you succeed with ITSM.

A Recap of the Service Design Package

To begin discussing the four P’s, you must first grasp the notion of the Service Design Package (SDP), which has changed between ITIL v3/2011 and ITIL 4. In ITIL v3/2011, the SDP was defined as documentation that describes all aspects of an IT service and its needs at each point of its lifetime. The SDP’s purpose is to design and record all aspects of the service in detail, then provide users and support with a roadmap of what to expect. In some aspects, this is related to ITIL 4’s Service Strategy, but it is ultimately a separate idea.

There has been a significant transition to agile at the IT service desk, which many believe is in direct contradiction to ITIL and SDP, but this does not negate the need for SDP. The SDP is no longer utilized as a standard, but rather as a starting point for service delivery, with agile methodology assisting you in making adjustments along the way. The four P’s of ITIL Service Design may then be used with this in mind.

Remember that the SDP must address all four aspects of the service and be centered on the customer and user experience to be effective. It’s also worth noting that the SDP in ITIL 4 has changed. Notably, the Service Strategy has been broken into various concepts in ITIL 4, extending from Strategy Management to Business Analysis.

What are the 4 P’s of Service Design in ITIL?

Before we go into the description of the four P’s, it’s worth noting that ITIL has two sets of four P’s. The four P’s of Service Design will be the emphasis of this piece, but we’ll also touch on the four P’s of Service Strategy later on.

Let’s begin with ITIL v3/2011’s four P’s of Service Design, which has been renamed the Four Dimensions of Service Design in ITIL 4.

These four P’s were introduced in ITIL v3/2011 and are four things to consider when planning or developing a service or strategy. They are helpful outside of the ITSM setting as well. These are some of them:

• People: Ascertain that individuals are appropriately trained, as well as that they are aware of who is engaged in the delivery of IT services.
• Products: What technology management solutions will be required to supply efficient IT services?
• Partners: Which vendors, software providers, and other third parties will be engaged in the service provision?
• Processes: What procedures are in place to guarantee that service level agreements (SLAs) are met?

These four P’s were designed to guarantee that a comprehensive approach to service design is taken, with a focus on the procedures in place for success, who the service will serve and influence, what products will be required to execute the service, and whose partners or partnerships will be required.

What are the 4 P’s of Service Strategy in ITIL?

Although we’re focused on the four P’s of service design, we’d like to mention another set of P’s in ITIL: the four P’s of Service Strategy. These are not to be confused with the SDP’s 4 P’s of Service Design, which is focused on how you might plan to approach service delivery. These are some of them:

• Perspective: What do you want to achieve with the services you’ll be providing? This information will come from several sources, including agents and customers.
• Position: What is your value statement or position about your competitors – even if they are shadowed IT competitors?
• Plan: How will you attain the position and viewpoint while focusing on practical factors such as financial budgeting, services provided, development, and scalable improvements?
• Pattern: How can you ensure that you provide consistently excellent service and services? Having this in place will help you stand out.

These P’s, like the rest of ITIL’s P’s, aren’t just for service management. These can be utilized by DevOps and even by those who aren’t in IT.

4 Dimension of Service Design instead of 4 P’s of ITIL

ITIL 4 was released in late 2019 and shocked the world of ITSM and ITIL, flipping many procedures on their heads. This is an example of how the adjustment improved the design and delivery of services.

ITIL 4 differs from ITIL v3 in a few ways, the most notable of which is the absence of the service lifecycle. Through the implementation of the Service Value System, ITIL 4 also promotes a change in focus from service delivery to value generation (SVS). This is important in understanding the actions required by the entire business to produce value, which is why the 4 Ps model was replaced with the 4 Dimensions model.

The four P’s of ITIL were replaced by the four Dimensions of Service Design (4D model), which expanded on concepts introduced in ITIL v3/2011 and are necessary to combine for an efficient SDP:

• People → Organization and people: this covers training requirements, as well as support and operational models.
• Products → Information and technology: anything from data management to IT assistance to monitoring IT infrastructure.
• Partners → Partners and suppliers: Integrations and contracts with partners and providers.
• Processes → Value streams and processes: This covers any processes or value streams that might otherwise go unaccounted for.

What does that imply in terms of practicality? It encourages service management strategists and teams to broaden their emphasis on a high-level viewpoint. Instead of focusing just on whether or not people are appropriately trained, you would examine the entire business.

Instead of concentrating just on the items required, you would concentrate on everything related to information and technology. Instead of focusing just on software providers, you would include everyone who is a service delivery process supplier. Instead of concentrating simply on procedures and best practices, you concentrate on value streams and how to generate and maintain them.

Can you picture going to a brand-new location without a map or GPS, and having no idea what to expect when you arrive? That’s what it’s like to deploy a change in an IT company without following ITIL best practices.

In this article, we’ll look at why the trip is just as essential as the goal and how change management may help you stay on course.

Basic and Benefits of ITIL Change Management and Change Enablement

Between ITIL v3/2011 and ITIL 4, change management has been enhanced. For the sake of this article, we’ll talk about both.

According to the ITIL 2011 Glossary, the change management process is defined as follows:

“The process responsible for controlling the lifecycle of all changes, enabling beneficial changes to be made with minimum disruption to IT services.”

There are 5 steps in the ITIL v3/2011 change management process flow:

1. Request for Change (RFC)
2. Change Assessment and Planning
3. Change Approvals
4. Change Implementation
5. Post Implementation Review

The basic goal of ITIL change management is to implement changes without causing any business interruption or downtime, whether they are caused by internal or external reasons.

In the end, change management is a balancing act between the demand for speed and the management of the change’s inherent hazards. After all, no company wants its newest change to cause problems for its customers and/or staff, and no IT service desk wants to be swamped with change-related events. The requirement for a change management strategy is based on this unwelcome disturbance and associated cost.

ITIL 4

The concept of change management was relocated to the change enablement practice in ITIL 4. The decision to abandon the term “change management” reflects the extent of ITIL’s scope having been expanded with the introduction of ITIL 4.

The change enablement practice’s goal is defined as follows:

“To maximize the number of successful service and product changes by ensuring that risks have been properly assessed, authorizing changes to proceed, and managing the change schedule.”

ITIL 4 acknowledges the application of service management and best practices to other business processes, whereas prior editions of ITIL focused on IT service management (ITSM). As a result, the risk of miscommunication with the people-focused form of change management has to be taken into account.

When is it necessary to Change Management and Change Enablement?

There are several sorts of change that will necessitate diverse delivery systems. This is because, in terms of complexity and/or business effect, some changes are substantial and others are little. Some are riskier than others, and some must be completed right away.

The change management guideline in ITIL v3/2011 contains a variety of change kinds, or models, that are managed differently depending on how an organization views them in terms of risk and business effect, which is likely to be based on prior experiences.

These are some of the models:

• Pre-approve changes (commonly called standard changes) – Low risk and performed regularly using well-established protocols. Changes may be made quickly and with a light touch using this model type. Multiple change model versions may exist to represent the various levels of risk and complexity associated with modifications to various infrastructure domains. The installation of commercial software on a PC is an example of a pre-approved alteration.
• Emergency changes (commonly called exceptional changes or urgent changes) – Need must be handled as soon as feasible, frequently with some of the standard change management process rigor applied retroactively to expedite the process. Changes in reaction to large occurrences are one example, but this might also be another change type/model if appropriate. Importantly, because of the possible hazards, emergency modifications should be limited to a bare minimum, and this change model should not be utilized as a “get out of jail free card” for poor preparation on the side of change requesters.
• Normal changes (also called non-standard changes) – These are the modifications that don’t fit into any of the previous categories. These modifications must be evaluated on their own merits, and they are usually brought to a Change Advisory Board (CAB) for evaluation – as stated below. Major changes are a distinct form of change that may be separated from routine changes.

These scenarios are similar to ITIL 4, however, they now contain more people-focused situations, such as team member changes. Even if changes can be made without a formal change management process, there may be additional procedures to consider.

ITIL Change Management Best Practices

There are a few best practices to consider that apply to both change management and change enablement, whether your ITSM strategy follows ITIL v3/2011 or has completely converted to ITIL 4.

1. Don’t Treat ITIL as Law

You realize that the map isn’t the only route to reach where you need to go if you’re on a journey. There may be a few side roads to take or pauses to make along the route that your GPS does not recognize right away. Similarly, you should think about ITIL as a framework rather than a set of hard-and-fast rules to follow. It’s fine to deviate from the rules in areas where it’s not beneficial to your company.

This all links to the idea that change enablement is a spectrum of complexity. Not every change will necessitate a CAB, and the amount of complexity will determine which approaches to use.

Change comes in various forms, as indicated in the picture, ranging from everyday tasks, where normal changes may be performed, to business-continuity-related demands, which will almost certainly necessitate emergency-change procedures.

2. Use the Agile Methodology to Consider Smaller or Releases Over Time

When your IT department is implementing a large change, it may be helpful to split it down into smaller, more manageable portions. This might assist your team in adhering to the agile methodology.

For example, by delivering smaller modifications over time, your team may constantly implement input from consumers and on the processes from stakeholders.

To further simplify things, you may split down the processes in the ITIL 4 service value chain into smaller chunks that you can enhance over time, such as:

• Design and transition – changes are typically the outcome of new or updated services, with change enablement a major contributor to service transition.
• Obtain/build – Changes to infrastructure components, whether produced or delivered by third-party suppliers, are subject to change enablement.
• Deliver and support – Changes generally influence service delivery and support operations, thus these functions must participate in reviewing and approving them.
• Improve – Usually, improvements will necessitate adjustments that have been examined and accepted.

3. Revise the Cab’s Role and Encourage Collaboration

When it comes to making changes, there’s a common misconception that what’s being done has come down from high and is fixed in stone. However, to achieve successful change, you’ll need to promote cooperation and openness.

You may achieve this by altering the way the Change Advisory Board interacts and their role in giving input during the change’s implementation. You can also add stakeholders that aren’t explicitly identified in the ITIL CAB rules.

The most essential thing is to involve individuals who will bring the greatest value, as well as to create opportunities for cooperation and avoid duplication of work.

ITIL is widely regarded as the gold standard for IT Service Management (ITSM) best practices, and some of the world’s most successful businesses have used it and its various incarnations for years. Though we won’t go into great depth about ITIL (we have a Definitive ITIL Guide for those that want the whole scoop), it may be summarized as a set of recommendations, best practices, and diverse approaches to ITSM.

For the most critical ITSM practices, ITIL provides particular techniques. Among ITIL’s various approaches is the question of how to implement changes in any IT system, which is where Change Categories come in. We’ll go through each of these categories and some examples of how they might be used. But first, we must understand what ITIL defines as Change Management.

What does ITIL define as Change Management?

Change Management is essentially a recommended process flow that allows businesses to assess, plan, and deploy certain change requests, as defined by ITIL. Change Management is defined as “the addition, modification, or removal of any authorized, planned, or supported service or service component that could affect IT services.”

The major purpose of Change Management is to ensure that these adjustments do not hinder or slow down already-running processes. As a result, Change Management may be thought of as a clearance system that approves every change record before its release management stage.

Overview of the Change Management Process

We need to grasp the core workings of Change Management before we can dig into the various Change Categories. The Change Management process may be broken down into six parts that take you from submission to closure and guarantee that the modifications you’ve made don’t need to be revised again. The following are the details.

1. Submission

Change initiation is, of course, the initial stage. This entails establishing change tickets from your preferred service desk and gathering the essential information via a change form with mandatory fields. Change roles must also be established. This entails allocating tasks and determining how much access each stakeholder has at each step of a change.

3. Planning

Planning is a crucial aspect of any successful change implementation, as it is with every IT endeavor. It’s also critical to obtain the necessary clearances before implementing the modification. Key details like rollout/backout plans, projected downtime, and effect are all communicated to executive powers at this point to justify why a given change is required in the first place.

3. Approval

The approval stage, as the name implies, is when the Change Advisory Board (CAB) gives the go-ahead to the change plan. The CAB is a collection of teams and responsibilities inside a corporation that might include executives and team managers, as well as financial and technical workers. Custom CABs are frequently built to manage approvals quickly. Depending on the firm and the change in question, automating these approvals may be a possibility to speed up the process.

4. Implementation

The true change happens at the implementation stage. There are two approaches to this: task creation and project creation.

While projects are larger in scale and require more rigorous preparation, task creation includes allocating assignments to separate technician teams to oversee and supervise the work done during the implementation. Updating security software in a specific dependence is an obvious example of a task-based implementation, while a project-based implementation may encompass shifting an entire company’s infrastructure to the cloud.

5. Review

This is the stage where everything is being ironed out. Before the modification is closed, any concerns with it are investigated to confirm that it was implemented appropriately.

6. Closure

This is the final step in the Change Management process. Depending on the outcome of the modification, it is categorized as successful, unsuccessful, or unfinished. This labeling approach helps businesses in getting more accurate and meaningful metrics for future adjustments.

Change the categories and their uses

There are four main change types, each corresponding to a particular level of complexity and/or scope:

Major Change

Major changes are associated with a high level of risk and effect. Because these big changes have the potential to interrupt production and workflow, their implementation must be efficient. The timing of such modification is determined following a significant change review during the planning phase, and it requires CAB and management high-level agreement.

The deployment or change of an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution is a suitable example of a Major Change scenario in IT. Following the submission step, the workforce’s preparation was examined, as well as the organization’s and stakeholders’ identities. For this sort of change, a project methodology is advised, so the aforementioned project’s milestones, deliverables, and essential success criteria may be defined.

It’s also essential to be able to predict how the transition will go following the implementation. If the ERP installation is deemed effective, the significant change may be closed, and post-implementation tasks such as job redefinition and competency assessments should be completed and appraised.

Minor Change

Minor modifications, as their name indicates, are low-risk and low-impact. It’s crucial to remember that just because they’re low-impact doesn’t imply they’re unimportant (a common misconception). Minor changes, to speak of popular misunderstandings, are involved in all phases of the Change Management process since they aren’t frequent. As a result, they must be approved by the CAB before they can be carried out. Despite their name, it’s safe to infer that these adjustments aren’t done lightly. They’re well-documented and stored, and there’s a chance they’ll become common adjustments in the future.

Updating or upgrading an internal portal or a workflow management system is an example of a minor adjustment. Despite the fact that there is a lot of onboarding and communication between the parties, service delivery and production continuity are seldom jeopardized. Of course, a Request for Change (RFC) will be required, and it should include a description, a business explanation, and a deadline for execution.

Standard Change

These alterations vary from the preceding two in that they occur regularly. They do share some land with modest modifications since they are low-risk and low-impact. The most significant difference is in the way they handle approvals. Standard operations processes are frequently incorporated into the deployment of standard modifications. As a result, they’ve been pre-approved and defined. The change management steps are streamlined since they are periodic and do not require CAB clearance every time.

Patch deployment is a typical example of Standard Change. Patch deployment includes steps and methods for the components of the IT infrastructure, evaluating the sensitivity and risk rating of that infrastructure, creating a test environment, testing the patch in question, and maintaining it. A description of the implementation timeframe and strategy, as well as a carefully monitored development of the testing environment and a back-out plan, are also essential.

Emergency Change

Emergency Changes, out of all the Change Categories, are the ones that demand immediate attention owing to their unpredictability. Transition management has several exceptions, which are to be anticipated because it allows for a lot faster change.

An IT system security breach is an unpleasant but very real issue that might emerge. If this occurs, the RFC might be assessed during or after implementation. Similarly, an exceptional emergency CAB may be required to investigate and examine the modification while also speeding approvals. The post-implementation evaluation is unquestionably the most important aspect of an Emergency Change. This is due to the quick nature of emergency changes and their proclivity to cause worse problems in the long term if not properly analyzed. This will offer CABs sufficient information to not only determine how successful the implementation was post-crisis but also to avoid such issues in the future.

Remember that, under ITIL best practices, post-implementation documentation must be thorough. A communication strategy, test plans, back-ups, roll-back restoration mechanisms, and a review of the test plan may all be included in emergency change plans (provision for performing test transactions included).

Final Thoughts

Changes in ITIL provide a wide range of techniques, and you may choose which one best matches your company. The most important thing to remember about these categories is that each one necessitates a unique set of tools and administrative decisions. Whether you’re trying to scale up, create a monthly update plan, or be ready for an unforeseen crisis, understanding how to handle each scenario is important when operating a successful business, and we hope this guide has been helpful.