I was recently asked this question... "Say an RFC is submitted between Mon - Fri and the CAB is on a Tuesday the following week. We are finding the following issues. 1. The approvals within the ServiceNow workflow have not been approved by individuals within the RFC workflow, for example, the architecture or security team. 2. Due to a delay in approvals not being actioned by individuals by the time of the weekly CAB the change implementation dates need to be postponed and rescheduled until all approvals have been completed and change Comms sent out. How can the above 2 issues be addressed?" Addressing the issues related to the approval delays in the change management process could involve several strategies: Improving Approval Turnaround Time Automated Reminders and Escalations Automated Reminders : Configure ServiceNow to send automated reminders to approvers at set intervals. These reminders should escalate in urgency the closer it gets to the CAB meeting. Es...

By Donna Knapp   At one point in my career, I was a change manager. I ran my company’s change advisory board (CAB), and I spent endless hours trying to convince project managers to submit requests for change (RFCs). Despite my best efforts, I invariably had to explain, fairly often, that ‘poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency change on mine.’ At that time, the change manager role was one of the many hats that I wore. My ‘real’ job was service desk manager. We called it a ‘hotline’ then and so yes… it was many, many years ago. In that role, I and my team saw the impact of poorly executed and failed changes. We dealt every Monday morning with the chaos that came out of the massive changes made over the weekend. That was then. Since then, much has changed. But it was through that lens that, more than 10 years ago, I first started researching a movement in the IT industry called DevOps. At the time, it was early days for DevOps and individuals and organizations we...