ITIL-driven companies use the Change Advisory Board as part of the risk-mitigating strategy. What’s in it for you?
The time we live in demands action, not complacency. Economic downturns and big companies’ major investments in tech like AI have made everyone more alert. “Being prepared for change” is practically a mantra for many businesses today.
However, the wind of change isn’t always as smooth as the song suggests, especially when altering your IT infrastructure. Questions like “Will this new SaaS pose security risks?” or “Is now the right time for a day-long website downtime?” weigh heavily on the minds of countless Change Managers.
Many ITIL-driven companies turn to the Change Advisory Board to empower their teams in managing the pains of change. Let’s delve deeper into this tool and understand how it can significantly contribute to your business’s ability to handle changes seamlessly.
Table of contents:
A Change Advisory Board (CAB) is a group of professionals that assesses and approves changes to the IT environment.
The CAB is a concept with roots in ITIL—the IT Infrastructure Library, the main industry framework for managing IT services within an organization.
ITIL defines change as any modification to the IT infrastructure that could influence IT services. The change management process, with the CAB at its core, aims to bring changes to life while avoiding possible service disruptions that typically accompany changes.
For example, suppose a company is migrating to a new CRM. In that case, it’s good for the sales team because they will enjoy faster access to client information, new features, broader analytical reports, and whatnot.
However, this change is a challenge for the IT team. For the new application to start working seamlessly, coordinated effort is needed. Is this change worth the effort, or do the potential migration risks outweigh the benefits to the sales team? That’s a question for the CAB to answer.
The change advisory board gathers in a change advisory board meeting to discuss and evaluate proposed changes. In simple words, the purpose of a CAB meeting is to make sure that the proposed change is justified: i. e. it doesn’t represent a threat to any part of the company’s IT infrastructure.
A request for change (RfC), a document summarizing the change and its potential effects on the IT infrastructure, is a starting point for discussion in a CAB meeting.
The possible change request forms are:
Whether a person can or cannot initiate a new change is defined through role permissions.
In Alloy Navigator, for example, you can define roles and access permissions very granularly. Not only can you tie the authorization to request a change to a particular person’s record. But you can also change these permissions conditionally, when a certain parameter in the person record is altered, for example, when the person joins a certain group, or when their status is changed. Such approach allows for a more secure permission system.
Connect to our sales team if you want to learn more about our flexible role customization.
Change Advisory Boards (CABs) can have various forms depending on the organization’s size, culture, and specific needs. Here are some common types:
To learn more about the types of changes in change management, check out our other articles:
Typically, CAB members are relevant stakeholders, i.e., people from the teams the discussed change has a direct impact on or those who oversee implementing the change.
Consider a multinational financial corporation reliant on secure remote access via VPNs for global operations. When vulnerabilities in these VPNs are discovered, prompt action by the company’s IT and cybersecurity teams, in consultation with the Change Advisory Board, is vital to mitigate risks.
Who from the team might participate in such a CAB meeting?
The host of a CAB (Change Advisory Board) meeting is typically the Change Manager or someone designated by the Change Manager.
In some organizations, the Change Manager is a dedicated full-time position responsible for overseeing all aspects of the change management process. In other companies, particularly smaller ones or those with less complex IT environments, the role of Change Manager may be combined with other responsibilities, such as general ITSM or project management.
Running a CAB meeting is much like running any other meeting. If you want it to be effective, try to:
Change approval process in Alloy Navigator
In Alloy Navigator, you can customize the change approval process to meet the business logic of any complexity.
If this sounds interesting, connect with us and get access to a product demo.
Other recommendations for CAB meetings include:
Let’s consider the benefits of an established Change Advisory Board practice:
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ITSM, short for IT Service Management, is a collection of processes and policies that enable organizations to design, implement, manage, and improve IT services offered to customers. It is an organized approach to delivering IT services in an organization.
By providing a structured approach to assessing and authorizing changes to IT services and systems, the CAB helps mitigate risks and minimize disruptions to the business.
ITIL, or Information Technology Infrastructure Library, is the most widely adopted framework for IT service management. Axelos maintains ITIL ideation, training, and certification. ITIL defines key IT service management processes, focusing on the ITIL lifecycle, and provides guidance on how to manage them efficiently.
One of ITIL processes is change management.
In ITIL v3, the CAB is defined as a group responsible for assessing, prioritizing, authorizing, and reviewing changes to the IT environment. The CAB acts as a governance body that evaluates change requests based on their potential impact on service quality, availability, and performance.
ITIL 4, the latest iteration of the ITIL framework, maintains the concept of the CAB but introduces a more flexible and adaptive approach to change management. The CAB in ITIL 4 plays a similar role to its predecessor but emphasizes collaboration, communication, and continuous improvement.
The Change Advisory Board (CAB) is a group of professionals responsible for assessing and approving changes to an organization’s IT environment. It is rooted in ITIL (IT Infrastructure Library), the main industry framework for managing IT services.
The role of the CAB is to evaluate proposed changes to the IT infrastructure, ensuring they are justified and do not pose threats to any part of the company’s IT environment. This involves discussing and assessing change requests during CAB meetings, which focus on risk management and making informed decisions to minimize disruptions and maximize the benefits of changes.
