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Change Evaluation

I often get asked where change evaluation takes place.  Isn’t it part of change management?  It is a separate process however it is driven by change management and is triggered by the receipt of a request for evaluation from Change Management. Inputs come from several processes including the SDP and SAC from Design Coordination, change proposal from SPM, RFCs, change records and detailed change documentation from Change Management.  It holds discussions with stakeholders through SLM and BRM, testing results from service validation and testing to ensure that its members have a full understanding of the impact of any issues identified and that the proper risk assessments can be carried out against the overall changes and in particular the predicted performance, intended affects, unintended affects and actual performance once the service change has been implemented.  

The purpose of change evaluation is to provide a uniform and structured means of determining the performance of a change relating to the likely impact on the business, on any existing or proposed services, the current and future IT infrastructure.  

Every Change must be authorized and therefore must be evaluated to provide the change authority with accurate and up to date advice and guidance at each stage of the change process, but only significant changes will use the formal change evaluation process. Criteria must be defined and agreed to ascertain which changes fall within scope of this process and which do not.  Each organization is unique and consequently will define a unique set of criteria that meets their specific requirements.

The objectives for Change Evaluation are as follows:
  • Set stakeholder expectations correctly and provide effective and accurate information to Change Management to make sure that changes which adversely affect service capability and introduce risk are not transitioned unchecked.
  • Evaluate the intended effects of a service change and as much of the unintended effects as is reasonably practical given capacity, resource and organizational constraints.
  • Provide good-quality outputs so that Change Management can expedite an effective decision about whether or not a service change is to be authorized.
  • Change Evaluation occurs both pre and post implementation.
The value of all this evaluation is to establish that effective and efficient use has been made of your resources in terms of benefit delivered.  The proper capturing of this information and knowledge will create the wisdom to allow a more accurate emphasis on value in future service development and change management.

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