WHAT IS A IT CHANGE MANAGER ?

The IT Change Manager plays a crucial role within the team, providing leadership for the IT Change Management service on behalf of a prominent client. This position focuses on harmonizing change management practices with the organization's IT risk approach, managing risks linked with IT Change, ensuring robust service reporting, and fostering effective stakeholder relationships within a diverse multi-vendor service framework. The responsibilities encompass overseeing the operational facets of the IT Change Management service, from initiation to implementation, closure, and post-implementation review. Additionally, the role involves actively advocating for the Change Management service as a vital business support function, facilitating the achievement of successful and beneficial changes.

Need-to-Know Overview of a IT Change Manager

1. IT Change Manager Roles and Responsibilities

  • Work to reduce/remove negative perceptions that Change is a blocker to progress.
  • Support operational teams in the accurate and timely submission of valid RFCs
  • Ensure the risks associate with changes are accurately captured and mitigations included in each change record.
  • Take action to minimize risks prior to implementation and validate that the risk profile is fully understood by all approvers.
  • Guide all changes through appropriate reviews and approvals/authorization to ensure timely progress of change records through the system
  • Convene and chair a regular Change Advisory Board, ensuring adequate representation of key stakeholders from across the business
  • Ensure that Emergency Changes are correctly classified, convene and chair ECAB, and ensure appropriate RFCs are logged (either in advance or immediately following implementation)
  • Conduct post-implementation review of all changes to validate the success of implementation, and to establish general process compliance
  • Perform root cause analysis into failed changes and institute corrective action plans to reduce the occurrence and impact of future failed changes
  • Monitor & Manage the integration of the Change Management service with other Service Management processes/services, ensuring;
  • Knowledge base articles are created or updated, as required, to enable support of new or changed services
  • Incident workflows are created or updated to reflect the support requirements of new or changed services
  • Key contacts and escalation points are updated in the relevant service documentation
  • CIs and asset records and relationships are updated to reflect the changes in the environment
  • Service catalog items and associated workflows are created to enable engagement & management of new or changed services
  • Liaise with the SIAM Team to enable a coordinated approach to vendor management.
  • Deliver regular and relevant service reporting that communicates the success of the service and identifies service issues along with planned mitigation activities;
  • Provide a weekly Forward Schedule of Change, and ensure the Change Calendar is updated to reflect an ongoing up-to-date view of all planned and completed changes
  • Provide reporting against service KPIs
  • Provide regular metrics that demonstrate service health/performance and trending, including successfully completed changes, failed changes and associated root cause analyses, Standard Change volume and percentage of overall change volume, Emergency Change volume, details, and root cause analyses
  • Engage in a continuous cycle of process review & improvement, with the aim of ensuring that changes cause minimal disruption to IT services;
  • Identify, define and implement opportunities to improve processes, tools and operational practices
  • Seek to enhance process efficiency through an automation first principle
  • Promote and facilitate the creation of standard changes wherever possible
  • Manage the ‘onboarding’ of new products/services into Change Management, and the removal of retiring products/services;
  • Promote and facilitate the creation of standard changes, where appropriate, in advance of the transition of new products/services into support
  • Remove redundant standard changes from the system as products/services are retired from the environment
  • Support the overall ITSM vision and work with other process managers to deliver consistent and predictable service management.

2. IT Change Manager Skills, Experience, Qualifications

  • Experience in an ITIL-aligned service management environment.
  • Experience managing a Change Management process as well as overseeing the Change Advisory Board activities, acting as Chair.
  • ITSM toolset knowledge & experience, ideally with ServiceNow
  • Experience facilitating meetings of cross-functional skill sets with specific agendas and timelines.
  • Clear, concise communication skills in both oral and written format.  Experience and comfort with public speaking.
  • Ability to determine criticality and priority based on facts at hand.
  • Proven ability to manage, track and report on process outcomes.
  • Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
  • Flexible – the ability to adapt to changes in demands, priority and timelines.
  • ITIL Foundation certified
  • High level of IT literacy, including MS Office products
  • ITIL Practitioner qualified (Service Transition)
  • Experience in delivery of other ITIL Service Management processes