change management. Hate it.

[carl carlson]

I am decommisioning a bunch of old servers and removing them from the rack. In order to do this I need to raise a change management record. PITA but a necessary evil I guess. Raise my change only to get it kicked back for not putting in what would deem it succesfull. Apparently an empty rack is not sufficent. < insert cool story bro jpeg>

Does anyone else suffer from change management stress and stupidity?

[Burrow01]

Was chasing around trying to get a change approved before the window expired ( it had been sitting on the system a week) Got to the last group that needed to approve it, and they refused as the change window was about to expire....

[tonyvid]

carl carlson said:

I am decommisioning a bunch of old servers and removing them from the rack.

I assume you are talking about kit and not staff with a lot of years....

[zac510]

You should just do the job and if anybody notices (unlikely) apologise, say you didn't think it needed approval, within your job description, etc. It's easier to beg forgiveness afterwards.

[AyBee]

carl carlson said:

I am decommisioning a bunch of old servers and removing them from the rack. In order to do this I need to raise a change management record. PITA but a necessary evil I guess. Raise my change only to get it kicked back for not putting in what would deem it succesfull. Apparently an empty rack is not sufficent. < insert cool story bro jpeg>

Does anyone else suffer from change management stress and stupidity?

I'm sorry, but at whoever sent it back. What response do they want in there? Maybe a rack full of air?

[rxtx]

Excellent, how stupid can they be? Maybe saying that the IP addresses being unrecahable and available for reuse is the success part.

[carl carlson]

Oh and there is more. These servers have to have their disks crushed due to the data thats on them. So we pull the server out, pull the disk out and hand it over to the disk mincing guy, this is in the implementation plan. Once this happens there is no way back. I have been asked what can we do if it goes wrong and we have to back it out.

[CommanderJameson]

zac510 said:

You should just do the job and if anybody notices (unlikely) apologise, say you didn't think it needed approval, within your job description, etc. It's easier to beg forgiveness afterwards.

My mantra is "It's easier to seek forgiveness, than permission".

[Bikerjon]

Yep, change management...where do I begin on that gem of a subject! A couple of years ago I was on a project that turned out to be 60% change control, 30% documentation and the rest being loosely related to the technical skills that they grilled me on at the interview. The place was mired in near lethal levels of change management and you would spend so much time following the process that your real IT skills were barely used! Needless to say I was quite relieved to finish that one!

In my opinion change management has become a bit too important for it's own good in many places. Rather than provide a commonsense framework for change it has turned into this monster of a process that just demotivates staff. (sorry to any change managers out there!)

[rhinochopig]

I have zero sympathy to be honest as the IT community is probably the biggest group of tinkerers going - more so than clankies. Having seen the mess that companies have gotten themselves into with respect to software version control because some well meaning programmer has 'fixed' something without telling anyone, I can only say you brought it upon yourselves.

[mr_spock]

carl carlson said:

Oh and there is more. These servers have to have their disks crushed due to the data thats on them. So we pull the server out, pull the disk out and hand it over to the disk mincing guy, this is in the implementation plan. Once this happens there is no way back. I have been asked what can we do if it goes wrong and we have to back it out.

Image the volume and restore it to a VM?

[CommanderJameson]

rhinochopig said:

I have zero sympathy to be honest as the IT community is probably the biggest group of tinkerers going - more so than clankies. Having seen the mess that companies have gotten themselves into with respect to software version control because some well meaning programmer has 'fixed' something without telling anyone, I can only say you brought it upon yourselves.

Harsh.







But fair.

[Kudos]

Having sat on the other side of fence for a long time, heres the reason why it is necessary.

Govt dept, outsourced IT, IT bod says needs to remove pair of load balancers as new ones have been added. Removal team go and remove the ones he said remove, except he made a ballsup and removed the live units. 140,000 people disconnected, outsourced company hit with c£1m service credit...

[Burrow01]

Kudos said:

Having sat on the other side of fence for a long time, heres the reason why it is necessary.

Govt dept, outsourced IT, IT bod says needs to remove pair of load balancers as new ones have been added. Removal team go and remove the ones he said remove, except he made a ballsup and removed the live units. 140,000 people disconnected, outsourced company hit with c£1m service credit...

I don't disagree with any of the requirement for a Change Management process, but its become almost something to do for its own sake

I've never had anyone pull up any technical argument to a change that I've requested, they always just approved

Also in your example, I cannot believe that there would not have been an approved change for it (Govt Dept + Outsourced IT = Full ITIL normally..)so it was an approved cock up....

[BMWBen]

zac510 said:

You should just do the job and if anybody notices (unlikely) apologise, say you didn't think it needed approval, within your job description, etc. It's easier to beg forgiveness afterwards.

Round here a man in a hard wearing suit would appear, ask you to put your things in the box, and then escort you off the premises.

I see where you're coming from though - we do change management pretty badly, but it's a necessary evil. Doesn't mean we shouldn't be doing it well however

[Podie]

Burrow01 said:

Kudos said:

Having sat on the other side of fence for a long time, heres the reason why it is necessary.

Govt dept, outsourced IT, IT bod says needs to remove pair of load balancers as new ones have been added. Removal team go and remove the ones he said remove, except he made a ballsup and removed the live units. 140,000 people disconnected, outsourced company hit with c£1m service credit...

I don't disagree with any of the requirement for a Change Management process, but its become almost something to do for its own sake

I've never had anyone pull up any technical argument to a change that I've requested, they always just approved

Also in your example, I cannot believe that there would not have been an approved change for it (Govt Dept + Outsourced IT = Full ITIL normally..)so it was an approved cock up....

Sounds like the change management process doesn't work...

[CobolMan]

The big problem with change management at our place is that the folks who are responsible for the process have never actually raised a change following their process. It's a box ticking exercise on the whole and very few people who approve the changes fully understand them.
I'm all for making people responsible for what they're implementing and for it to be done in a controlled manner but change management seems to be something that's constantly being tinkered with, all without a change record of course.

[DJRC]

Its process control and the majority of time most ppl are pretty useless at both process control and process implementation.

The IT world is by far the worst culprit for mongs in the IT dept fking things up, not following the process "because they know better" and taking shortcuts cos Bob on the phone asked em for a favour, or Mike the PM said he needed it done ASAP, etc, etc.

Been on both sides of the divide on this one and Ive been as guilty as most at ignoring the process when I felt it didnt suit me, including on some processes where not only did I write the damn things but I was responsible for ensuring their implementation And in theory Im supposed to be a guru!

[dustybottoms]

BMWBen said:

zac510 said:

You should just do the job and if anybody notices (unlikely) apologise, say you didn't think it needed approval, within your job description, etc. It's easier to beg forgiveness afterwards.

Round here a man in a hard wearing suit would appear, ask you to put your things in the box, and then escort you off the premises.

Same at my place, you would do a prod change without a change record only the once. As difficult as a change process can be, you just cannot defend a live environment change outside of a major incident without a valid CR.