Change Management Terms

Glossary

Change – The addition of, modification to, or removal of systems and/or services managed by Information Technology.

Change Advisory Board (CAB) – A selected group of representatives from different areas within or involving Information Technology that exists to support the authorization and approval of changes, assists with the assessment and review of Change Requests, and provides guidance to the Change Manager.

CAB Change Request Workflow – When a change request is submitted using this workflow, it must wait for approval by the CAB before work can begin.

Change Manager – The owner of the change management process who is responsible for documenting normal change approvals and leading Change Advisory Board meetings.

Change Owner – The individual responsible for implementing and completing the change.

Continual Improvement – The process of reviewing and analyzing changes to make informed recommendations on improvement opportunities in the future.

Emergency Change – These changes are approved by the ECAB outside of the normal flow of the CAB. Additionally, since emergency changes must be implemented as quickly as possible, these changes typically involve greater risk.

Emergency Change Advisory Board (ECAB) – A group of representatives comprised of IT directors selected to provide approval on Emergency Changes.

ECAB Change Request Workflow – When a change request is submitted using this workflow, it must wait for approval by the change area's ECAB member before work can begin.

Informational Change - An change not being implemented by Elon University IT and used only to inform CAB members of times and possible impacts. These changes have no approval since Elon can’t impact timing or scope (eg. vendor maintenance).

Normal Change – A change that is non-trivial and involves changes to services, processes, or infrastructure. These types of changes may be outside of a normal maintenance window, require a service outage, etc. and for that reason are higher risk than Pre-Authorized changes but not as mission critical or time-sensitive as Emergency Changes.

Pre-Authorized Change – A change to a service or infrastructure for which the approach is pre-authorized by the CAB, with an accepted and established procedure to provide a specific change requirement. Pre-authorized changes: have a defined trigger to initiate the request for change; well-known, documented, and proven; low-risk.

Request for Change – A broadly-defined term that describes the overall process of requesting a change. The Request for Change contains different components dependent on the nature and type of change discussed. Alternative terms are: change request or change form.

TeamDynamix – An IT Service Management tool utilized and administered by Information Technology for change requests.

Change Types

The Change Type indicates the process the change follows as it goes through its lifecycle. There are four types of changes used in the Change module.