Change management, CMMI and CMDB

Change management in IS implementation

Change management is the structured process of planning, approving, implementing and reviewing changes (to software, hardware, procedures and people) so that disruption and risk are minimised. During IS implementation it covers (a) the organisational/people side: communication, training, handling resistance; and (b) the technical side: change requests, impact analysis, approval, testing, release and rollback.

Typical steps: raise a change request, assess impact and risk, approve (change advisory board), schedule, implement and test, record, and review.

Relation with CMMI

CMMI (Capability Maturity Model Integration) is a framework to improve the maturity of an organisation's processes in five levels: Initial, Managed, Defined, Quantitatively Managed, Optimizing.

• Change management is a core part of CMMI process areas such as Configuration Management (change control of baselines), Requirements Management (managing requirement changes) and Organizational Performance Management (deploying process improvements).
• A higher maturity level means changes are controlled, documented, measured and improved, not done ad hoc.
• CMMI gives the process discipline (what to do); change management is how changes are handled within it.

Relation with CMDB

A Configuration Management Database (CMDB) stores information about configuration items (CIs) such as servers, applications, network devices, licences and documents, and the relationships between them.

• Before a change, the CMDB shows which CIs and services are affected (impact analysis).
• After the change, the CMDB is updated so that records stay correct.
• It supports baselines, version control, audit and rollback.
• It is a main tool of ITIL's change and configuration management.

 Change request -> Impact analysis (CMDB)
        -> Approval -> Implement/Test
        -> Update CMDB -> Review (CMMI)