Modernize Change Management While Minimizing Business Risk

Executive Summary Technology is changing the world around us faster, and with greater impact, than ever before. The consumerization of enterprise IT continues to challenge working practices, while the proliferation of devices and endpoints is forcing us to build Internet of Things strategies for our enterprises. The explosion of virtualization and cloud technology is also introducing revolutionary, new ways to consume services. Managing a complex infrastructure is difficult; effectively managing continual change across a complex infrastructure can make or break an enterprise. Finding the balance of agility and control is critical for IT organizations that are looking to minimize risk and become business enablers. This white paper discusses three key principles for creating a new approach to change management—one that allows the IT department to manage change more effectively. • Automate with purpose: eliminate risk and do it sooner rather than later • Move from data to insight: make better decisions with contextual data • Empower the occasional user: make the experience simple and intuitive 1 AUTOMATION WITH PURPOSE Typically, machines are better at implementing changes than humans are. Humans can forget things, miss a step, or perhaps misspell a word. Machines and computers don’t make these errors. That’s not to say they aren’t fallible: The stock market “Flash Crash” on May 6, 2010 is a great example of how technology automation can be disastrous when not managed properly. This is why it’s important for automation to be implemented with the right purpose. Differing types of automation can facilitate change management at various points, such as: • Discovery automation: to populate the configuration management database (CMDB) with assets and relationships • Workflow automation: to streamline approvals • Deployment automation: to automate changes to infrastructure and applications • IT process automation: for closed-loop change management involving disparate technologies When implemented well, automation can empower the workforce to be more productive. Automated IT is excellent at documenting changes, creating an audit trail, and generating useful data. Automation is also critical for eliminating manual errors and therefore reducing risk. The benefits are manifold, so the real question is why many organizations delay using automation as part of change management. To understand why many companies hold back on automation, it’s helpful to understand some industry backstory. IT service management (ITSM) and the ITIL framework were created to deliver process management. In the past, there was a common view that if something wasn’t working, you needed to fix the process first. When the process was perfect, you could you look to automate it. The reality today is that automation can eliminate the need for a process, at least in the traditional sense. Automation is your ticket to a living, self-updating, current CMDB. It is your pass to self-documenting changes and it’s also the best way to minimize errors during releases and deployments. Taking the automation plunge is the best way to supercharge you ITSM or ITOM strategy. Before you charge ahead and automate everything, be sure that you fully understand the purpose of automation for your own organization. Be clear about the benefits to the business and ensure that workforce empowerment is part of your strategy. Finally, make sure that a healthy portion of your purpose is in facilitating more efficient, effective, and reliable change. MOVING FROM DATA TO INSIGHT Enterprise IT systems and components generate a lot of data. From data, we can derive information, and good information, in context, gives us insight. It’s insight that helps us make better decisions. THE DATA IT ORGANIZATIONS COLLECTS ENABLE US TO DO MANY THINGS: GENERATE REPORTS IDENTIFY PERFORMANCE ISSUES PERFORM COST ANALYSIS AUTOMATE PROCESSES AND MUCH MORE Change management is one of the most important activities we undertake that relies heavily on all of this data. When we have the right data and the right information, we make better decisions and our chances of success are high. When we don’t have enough information, or we have bad information, we run the risk of a failed change, which can impact revenue. Successfully managing a change depends on our ability to turn data into insight by understanding it in context. For example, asset managers implement many automated discovery tools to keep an inventory of client devices or data center assets. This is an example of collecting data: Knowing simply that a server exists might be sufficient for this use case. For change management, we need to know that the server exists and also the applications it supports and what business services are dependent on these applications. If you knew that a particular server was supporting a critical, revenue-generating business service, you would have useful insight that could help you plan a proposed change more effectively. 2
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