Change Management( Comptia Objective 4.2)

Question 1

What is Change control and why is it so important?

Answer 1

• The Formal process for managing change.
  Helps avoid downtime, confusion and mistakes.
• Nothing changes without the process. Need to determine the scope of the change.
• Analyze the risk associated with the change
• Create a plan
• Get end-user approval
• Present the proposal to change control board
• Have a backup plan if the change doesn’t work.

Question 2

When it comes to the scope of a change what must be considered?

Answer 2

• Determine the effect of the change( May be limited to a single server or an entire site.
• One single change can be far reaching( Multiple applications, internet connectivity, Remote site access and also affect external customer access.
• Also need to understand how long will this change take? Will it have any impact? Hours of downtime?

Question 3

When it comes to Risk Analysis of a potential change what should be considered?

Answer 3

• Determine a risk value( high, medium, low) etc
• The risks can be minor or far-reaching. The “fix” doesn’t actually fix anything
• The fix breaks something else
• Operating system failures
• Data corruption.
• What’s the risk with NOT making the change?
• Security vulnerability?
• Application unavailability?
• Unexpected downtime to other services?

Question 4

What is incorporated into a plan for change?

Answer 4

• What’s it take to make the change?
• Detailed information
• Describe a technical process to other technical people
• Others may be able to help identify unforeseen risk( Provide a complete picture)
• Scheduling : time of day, day of week, include completion timeframes.

Question 5

What is an important step involving users that must happen before implementing a change?

Answer 5

• End-user acceptance. Nothing happens without a sign off. The end users of the application/ network.
• One of your jobs is to make them successful. The end user ultimately decides if the change is worth it to them.
• Ideally this is a formality. Of course the end user have been involved throughout this entire process. There’s constant communication before and after.

Question 6

After getting end user approval for a change what’s the next step in change control?

Answer 6

• Go to the Change board and seek approval
  Go or no go. Lots of discussion.
• All important parts of the organization are represented. Potential changes can affect the entire company.
• Some changes have priority. The change board makes the schedule( Some changes happen quickly, some take time)
• This is the last step( The actual work comes next)

Question 7

In the event that a change doesn’t go according to plan what is an extremely important thing to have?

Answer 7

• Backout plan. The change will work perfectly and nothing will ever go bad( Of course it will)
• You should always have a good way to revert your changes. Always prepare for the worst and hope for the best.
• This isn’t as easy as it sounds( Some changes are difficult to revert).
• Always have backups.

Question 8

What is an important thing to do once a change has been applied?

Answer 8

• Document changes. Something changed everyone needs to know about it.
• Helpdesk documentation( Version numbers, network diagram, new server names etc)
• Track changes over time( Cross reference against help desk tickets)
• Track before and after statistics such as for performance is it better or worse?