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ServiceWise Change Management

Change is inevitable. Change is constant.

Introduction
The inevitability of change is proverbial. Mergers and acquisitions, IT investments, business initiatives, globalization, advances in technology, the demands of customers, and system maintenance all require change management. And yet many business are ill-prepared to cope with the challenges presented them by change. Managed changed requires the cooperation and coordination of systems, people, and information throughout the change life cycle. Change management is defined by standardized and repeatable processes for requesting, analyzing, planning deploying, and evaluating changes to systems. These processes ensure that all stakeholders are adequately informed and contribute to the decision making process. And well-defined change management processes enable a business to take a proactive approach and push for changes that make the company more competitive and profitable.

Understanding ServiceWise Change Management

TechExcel ServiceWise is a powerful and versatile change management solution that enables businesses to define a framework for managing, tracking, and enforcing their business processes and to ensure that all stakeholders are in the loop throughout the change life cycle. Using ServiceWise, businesses may define processes for reviewing, authorizing, planning, and deploying changes in workflow. A business may define a unique set of workflow rules for managing change requests based on urgency, risk, business area, or any other criteria. Moreover, ServiceWise facilitates the automation and enforcement these processes so that businesses may reduce the complexity of changes and shorten timelines.

Knowledge and Communication Management

Successful change requires the engagement and participation of informed stakeholders. For this reason, ServiceWise places knowledge management and communication at the center of all change management processes. ServiceWise features a centralized knowledge base that enables organizations to effectively manage the information and

ServiceWise Change Management

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processes that drive change, facilitates the evaluation and approval of change requests, and ensures that latest information is always available. In ServiceWise, knowledge may be managed and distributed at the business-level, project-level, and the change request-level so that project stakeholders always have access to the most up-todate information, but also the complete history of the issue at any level of detail. And any knowledge item may be dynamically linked to any other knowledge item enabling the users to easily access related information. Because all knowledge items are stored in a secure, centralized datastore, change requests are always linked to the most up-to-date document. Moreover, effective knowledge management enables businesses to mitigate end-user frustration and increase the visibility and transparency of change management processes. The Employee Web Portal provides businesses with a centralized hub for distributing for communicating with employees. Through the Employee Web Portal employees may read appropriate news or announcements, submit change requests, access FAQs, upgrades, and patch info, product documentation; search the knowledge base, and download documents or software. At every stage of the change life cycle, the management and dissemination of information is key. Successful change management requires visibly to change management processes and access to project-level and change request-level knowledge. Project managers and executive management cannot afford to wait for periodic reports to assess the status of projects. ServiceWise features predefined, presentation-quality reports that may be dynamically generated to provide the latest data instantly. In ServiceWise, the latest information is always available immediately.

Moreover, information may be linked to each subproject in the hierarchy ensuring that all relevant documentation is always at hand. Businesses need not worry about siloed information or outdated documents. Every knowledge item stored in the knowledge base may be dynamically linked to any subproject, change request, or event. Topsight enables management and key decision makers to identify potential risks and anticipate the consequences of change, translate that knowledge into effective policies and processes, and ensure the adoption of consistent of policies and processes. Change management is critical to regulatory compliance. Using ServiceWise process management, organizations may define processes that ensure that all IT duties are properly segregated and documented. All processes may be tracked in an audit trail that brings full visibility and traceability to the IT environment.

Workflow and Automation

Well-defined workflow and automation rules enable organizations to efficiently manage change requests, incidents, and problems, facilitate the transitions between users and teams, eliminate bottlenecks, reduce the complexity of changes, and shorten project timelines. The ServiceWise workflow engine enables organizations to define and enforce standardized and repeatable processes for managing any kind of issue in workflow. In ServiceWise, all workflow, e-mail notification, change request routing, and escalation rules are fully customizable. This enables businesses to effectively identify, track, and route the data that is important to them. Using ServiceWise, a business may effectively manage a wide range of related issues including problems, incidents, and change requests according to the needs of their organization. Change managers may define custom processes that are as rigid or flexible as are needed to meet the needs of their business. Unique workflow rules may be defined for managing issues based on their type, status, priority, risk, or any other criteria enabling the business to prioritize and route information so they are placed in the hands of the right person or team at the right time. In ServiceWise, issues may be categorized based on any issue property. Change request properties may define how change requests, incidents, or problems are prioritized, who may own or edit change request, or even the authorization process itself. Custom-defined routing rules enable organizations to automate subprocessessuch approval and deployment and eliminate bottlenecks. Similarly, e-mail notification and e-mail

Visibility
One major obstacle to effective change management is a lack of topsight that makes change unduly complex and appear overwhelminginternal processes may lack transparency and decision makers may not have visibility to key information. ServiceWise enables businesses to organize change management projects so that the relationships between all affected areas are manifest. In ServiceWise, project management structures define and represent IT initiatives and projects in a hierarchical structure that shows the relationships between IT projects and initiatives. This structure, called the subproject hierarchy, provides stakeholders with topsightinsight into the big picture that enables them to identify the interdependencies that must be managed across the enterprise.

ServiceWise Change Management

TechExcel

White Paper

escalation rules enable organizations to ensure that all change requests are processed in a timely manner. And ServiceWise is fully customizable and adaptable. Change managers may easily relax or strengthen workflow rules to meet changing needs. ServiceWise workflow, routing, escalation, and e-mail notification rules are as easy to change as they are to set up.

Organizations may define rules based on categories, user-defined fields, or a combination of fields that enforce processes that support their needs. The organization must identify the possible consequences of the change on including work processes, technological requirements, and employee behavior and motivation. Throughout the process of analyzing and evaluating changes, ServiceWise enables all decision makers to remain informed and actively participate in discussions. All change requests are stored with full history of updates to the record throughout the project life cycle. Additionally, each record may have documents, schematics, knowledge-topics, e-mail threads and more associated for a detailed view of each change request. Even employees may stay involved by tracking the status of their change request throughout change management process through the Employee Web Portal. Employees may view the status of their change requests and related change requests, view knowledge items, and communicate with the IT personnel responsible for their request by e-mail or web conversations.

Managing the Change Life Cycle in ServiceWise

ServiceWise enables businesses to better manage the activities that define the change life cycle. From the initial identification and submission of change requests, to their analysis, evaluation, and approval, the planning, management, and deployment of change, and the review of changes. At each stage, ServiceWise and TechExcel tools enables all stakeholders and project members internal customers, project manager, the change committees, and the change builderto manage and track all areas and facilitate the exchange of information between groups. Identification of Potential Changes The first objective of change management is to establish well-defined and repeatable processes for identifying and submitting change requests for review. Requests for changes may originate from many different sources including: bug reports submitted by users, enhancement requests submitted by users, change requests resulting from other changes, and business initiatives from senior management. Although most changes begin with bug reports submitted by customers, management frequently initiates the change to meet business needs globalization, acquisitions and mergers, advances in technology. Information management begins with managements ability track trends in the services offered to its customers. Management must be capable of identifying needed changes and initiating the programs that enable IT to support company initiatives.

Evaluation and Approval of Change Requests

At the inception of the initiative the viewpoints of all stakeholders are aired and weighed. A multiple disciplinary teamusers with many different backgrounds and expertise review and offer their perspective on the proposed change. In ServiceWise the change request approval process is frequently managed using events. Events represent the to do items that project members must perform on a daily basis. As with change requests, organizations may define rules for automating the approval of change requests including the automatic routing of events, e-mail notification, and event escalation. Custom-defined workflow rules enable the business to define their own process for reviewing the technical or economical feasibility of implementing a proposed change and their own approval process. Events are very useful for managing work tasks across multiple teams that relate to a single change request. Change managers may create and assign review tasks, meeting tasks, and approval tasks throughout the life cycle of a change request. Events may be required at defined intervals, or can be used to schedule additional work tasks on-the-fly.

Analysis of Change Requests

ServiceWise workflow and routing enable organizations to ensure that all change requests are routed to the appropriate manager, workflow state, or team group. All workflow and routing rules are fully customizable.

Project Planning
TechExcel ProjectPlan is a powerful and intuitive project management and

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planning tool that enables businesses to define a framework for planning and managing IT initiatives, projects, and services. Using ProjectPlan, decision makers may identify and track the key metrics that measure the success of the project and adjust project timelines, resource allocations, and critical paths to meet project goals. TechExcel ProjectPlan accesses and displays in real timeproject data that is managed, and tracked in TechExcel ServiceWise a leading tool for managing and tracking business services and change management. Using ServiceWise, an IT organization may define and implement standardized methods and procedures that support their business initiatives. All ServiceWise projects may be integrated with ProjectPlan so that project managers and decision makers may always access the most recent data, schedules, and documentation ensuring that they have a true understanding of the status of IT initiatives.

Events for approval and task scheduling

Create review tasks, testing tasks, approval tasks throughout the lifetime of any change request. Events may be required at defined intervals, or can be used to schedule additional work tasks on-thefly. Events are very useful for managing work tasks across multiple teams that relate to a single change request.

Notification: alerts and reminders

Define notification rules to ensure efficient communication throughout the process. Numerous notification rules may be configured based on categories, fields, time, data changes or a combination of the previous factors. A complete record of all e-mail communication is stored.

TechExcel FormWise
Create paperless surveys and approval process forms. Web-based forms are easily defined and may be included as part of the change approval process. Satisfaction surveys may also be used to gauge the end-user acceptance of a change.

TechExcel ServiceWise Suite Features

Change request tracking
All change requests are stored with full history of changes to the record throughout the project life cycle. Additionally, each record may have documents, schematics, knowledge-topics, E-mail threads and more associated for a detailed view of each change record.

Knowledge management
Detailed documents of any type may be stored along with a change record. In addition, documents may be created from standard document templates to create a uniform style for test cases, design, back-up procedures, or any other necessary documentation required in the change process.

Powerful workflow engine

Define, visualize, and create suitable change processes using the powerful, easy to use, TechExcel ServiceWise workflow editor. Define transitions, business logic and field-level data privileges using a simple graphical tool.

Reporting and analysis

Complete, out-of-the-box, reporting engine for detail, list, trend and distribution reports. Each report is easily customizable on a per-user basis using a simple report configuration page.

Definable Fields and Field-Level Security

All fields and pages are customizable using a simple GUI tool to ensure organizations tracking and analyzing relevant information. TechExcel provides an out-of-the-box solution template that can be completely modified or extended. Permissions may be defined for each field to control user access throughout the entire process.

Integrated solution
TechExcel Servicewise provides an integrated framework for change management, change request management, service level management, IT service, and asset management.

Change request routing

Automatically route change requests to the appropriate manager, workflow state or group. Routing rules may be configured on categories, user-defined fields, or a combination of fields.

ServiceWise Change Management

TechExcel

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ServiceWise Change Management