The CAB (Change Advisory Board) is probably the single most important meeting in the world of service management. Certainly for those concerned with reducing the risks of transition and just simply keeping the lights on from day to day within the IT department.
Estimates have been made by organisations such as Gartner that somewhere in excess of 60% of all your incidents can be traced to poorly implemented changes, some claim the figure is higher, some claim its lower. Whatever the true figure is there is no doubt that uncontrolled changes hurt. A lot!
It’s common practice within an IT department to introduce a change freeze when the business is in a particularly important or volatile period in order to reduce the likelihood of business affecting IT issues occurring.
There is little doubt that the management of change is of extreme importance to a successful IT department. If this is the case then surely the most visible part of this critical process is the Change Advisory Board where the important changes for the period are discussed.
So, if this meeting is so critical, why do so many technical personnel dread it? I have heard it referred to as the weekly torture session, or nap time.
Does this sound familiar to anyone?
I believe that the root causes of the issue can be traced to these areas
So to all those who are suffering from the pain of an unfocused, rambling, tech-heavy CAB I offer the following advice.
A formal meeting should not be a collection of whoever happens to be available asking ‘So what are we talking about this week?’ There are some basic rules you should put in place.
CAB meetings require prep work and follow up work
CAB meetings don’t just occur in a vacuum. There is considerable prep work, and follow up work, for all parties and not just the Change Manager.
I find that establishing expectations of the meeting, as well as scheduled timelines so that everyone knows what will happen and by when help a lot.
CAB meetings are one of the most valuable meetings in the whole of Service Management, but they don’t happen by magic. Putting a little effort into defining how your organisation wants them to occur will pay off huge dividends in a short period of time.
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