Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1475004
maltatoday | SUNDAY • 31 JULY 2022 10 COMMERICAL Evolving change management IN service management, the process dimension is often thought of as a rigid, inflexible set of activities that dictate the exact "how" of doing things. Probably, the origin of this perception stands from early IT Service Management practic- es which heavily relied on pro- cess-based approaches and thus, broadly put, on the linear exe- cution of work to create outputs for consumption, potentially disregarding the service aspect. One process which is largely considered a tough gatekeeper or watchtower within Service Management is Change Man- agement. It is often seen as add- ing unnecessary overhead to the agility in value co-creation as required by interested parties, whether internal or external. This may have some valid weight. Yet, comparing the ear- lier years of Service Manage- ment approaches with today's methodologies, we observe con- siderable evolution. Change Management has evolved, from a top-down ap- proach to one which promotes organizational-wide involve- ment and contribution thus committing more value through the right levels of control. Since its inception, the Mal- ta Information Technology Agency (MITA) has embraced Change Management as one of its core practices. It has since then iterated through innumer- able improvements, adopting to the evolving needs of the busi- ness as the years go by. This is also because Change Manage- ment is considered as a critical practice supporting the stability of the Government infrastruc- ture, enabling changes while balancing between delivering the required value at the re- quired velocity, and safeguard- ing the current baseline. In the earlier process-based years, capabilities such as Change Management were ticked as completed once a doc- ument outlining the steps was created and circulated for ad- herence. Yet, it is now clear that it takes more than just a process to create value. In fact, the right balance of focus and improvement is con- stantly considered within MI- TA, across all elements that form the whole Change Man- agement picture. Apart from the process aspect itself, which is consistently evolving, also aiming to embrace the needs of high-velocity IT, the Ser- vice Management Department is also continually balancing the evolution of, the people in- volved as well as the related technology. The people whose primary role is managing or enabling changes, are supported by im- proving their knowledge as well as their competence, while cre- ating the right culture for their ideas and contributions to flour- ish. These are the people within the Service Management De- partment who evaluate change requests, seek more detail and clarifications, set up meetings to discuss implementation plans, report on progress, and perform post implementation reviews amongst other activities and re- sponsibilities. With a (constantly evolving) process and competent people in place, another pillar is tech- nology. MITA ensures that the right tools permitting commu- nication, evaluation, tracking of change requests, approvals, and other, are in place to permit the right value, at the right level, at the right time. Without the right technology, it would not matter how competent the people are, or how agile the process is. This practice is also not im- mune to the needs accommo- dated via automation, and the Change Management team within MITA is constantly mapping the respective value streams to optimizing them, eliminating waste, and of course increase effectiveness and effi- ciency where applicable. This thoroughly contributes to our vision of agile Service Man- agement especially in the era where infrastructure has turned to software and thus process- es, or practices, should not just align to the fast needs of the business, but rather shall enable and anticipate them. By Matthew Catania