Question

Describe the ins and outs of Change Management. Address the following issues:

• What factors should be taking into consideration by software developers when developing large-scale systems?
• What problems can arise when multiple people are working on a single project at the same time?
• What difficulties can arise when developers are located at different sites?
• What documents should be used to facilitate Change Management and why?

Answer 1

Change management is a systematic approach to dealing with the transition or transformation of an organization's goals, processes or technologies. The purpose of change management is to implement strategies for effecting change, controlling change and helping people to adapt to change. Such strategies include having a structured procedure for requesting a change, as well as mechanisms for responding to requests and following them up.

factors should be taking into consideration by software developers when developing large-scale systems:-

a)Load balancing is the most important factor.
b)Availability of system & resources.
c) Maintenability and availability should be balanced. Often increasing availability increases the maintenance execercise.

d)Thorough understanding of company culture.
e)An accurate accounting of the systems, applications and employees.
f) Backing up important resources.

problems can arise when multiple people are working on a single project at the same time

a) People working together are often dispersed geographically, possibly in different time zones
b) Low engagement
c) Sometime work of individual people gets isolated and ifone person leaves, others do not have proper information to take over his job
d) Poor change management.

e) Difficulty in getting started, to divide work anonymously.
f) Lack of communication & documentation.

difficulties can arise when developers are located at different sites

a) Lack of trust
b) Dial down dominance
c) Unstructured time

d) Communication can rapidly deteriorate
e) Lack of teamness. Good relations at higher levels but developers meet very often

Documents

Change proposal: A high level description of a potential service introduction or significant change. this should also contain corresponding business case and implementation schedule.

Change Record: Every change should have a corresponding change record and each Change Record documents the Lifecycle of a single Change.

Change Schedule: A document that lists all changes and planned implementation dates.

Service Catalog: It documents information about all Live IT Services