Task: Obtain Internal And Business Approval
Once the change is assessed, the assessment results must be produced to the Change Approvers, who must approve or reject the change.
Relationships
RolesPrimary Performer: Additional Performers:
Outputs
    Process Usage
    Main Description

    After the detailed assessment of the change, the Assessment Report must be first presented to internal stakeholders, impacted by the change, to review and approve the change.

    Once the internal approval is obtained, the Change Manager must invite the Change Advisory Board to review, evaluate and approve the change. The change is presented to Change Advisory Board (CAB) with details including change justification, impact analysis, risk assessment, implementation or back-out plans, resource requirement, cost of implementation and possible benefits etc. The change is reviewed and validated based on details provided.

    Relevant information about the change should be circulated in advance to allow CAB members (and others who are required) to conduct impact analysis and resource assessments, prior to the meetings. All CAB members must have relevant technical/delivery experience to assess the change in order to analyse the likely impact in their respective areas and must be empowered to make decisions. Each member of the CAB should evaluate the change and indicate whether they support approval or not and provide justification for the decision.

    There can be three possible outcomes from the approvals process:

    • A change can be approved if there are no objections from any of the approver, and the information provided is complete and appropriate to initiate developing and testing of change.
    • The change may be rejected. This could be due to any one of the following reasons:
      • The change is unnecessary
      • The change poses an unacceptable level of risk to the business
      • Cost of change is too high
      • Estimated time to build and implement the change is too long, etc.

    If the change is rejected, the Change Record should be updated to indicate the ‘rejected’ status, along with the reason for the rejection. The Change Manager should ensure that the Change Coordinator and Change Requester are informed on the decision of the Change Approver.

    • The change may be deferred. Changes deferred should be re-presented to the Change Approvers with the necessary additional information or the re-scheduled implementation dates. The Change Record should be updated with relevant comments whenever cancelled or deferred.

    The change approval process and scope of involvement should be defined within Change Management Procedure. This would ensure that all activities, participation, exceptions and approvals occur as planned. All CAB decisions should be updated and noted within the Change Record.