SDLC and Change Management Policy
The following outlines a set of policies and procedures designed to provide an orderly process in which changes to Felician University’s IT infrastructure are requested and approved prior to the installation or implementation of a change.
Prepared By: _____________________________________
Approved By: _____________________________________
Revision Date: _____________________________________
Effective Date: _____________________________________
PURPOSE:
The purpose of this policy is to promote a controlled environment around change management procedures for Felician University’s IT systems and applications. The Change Management Procedures are designed to provide an orderly process in which changes to
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In the event that minor customizations (i.e. report development) are required, the process will mirror the vendor upgrade process. All applications are supported by either a VAR or the software vendor directly. • Vendor Upgrades
The majority of the Felician University’s future recurring application changes will be minor version upgrades to the applications. Version upgrades, issues, and bug fixes are handled directly by the software vendors. Felician University does not have access to the source code and therefore does not have the ability to modify these proprietary packages. All issues, bug fixes, and modifications are completed by the software vendors. Version upgrades are included as part of vendor maintenance agreements. The IT Manager and/or business system owner are notified via email when version upgrades are available, then a CD is mailed or a download link is sent to the client upon request. Release notes come with each upgrade and/or service pack.
Projects
Projects arise in a number of ways, from a phone call or e-mail, to a formal functional specification. The initiation phase focuses on authorizing the project. It includes understanding of the request, assessing the project category, and communicating an early project scope to Felician University’s management. This is a starting point for discussions with interested parties. During this phase, the priority of the request is determined relative to other outstanding requests and a go/no-go
Options A, B, and C. This chapter has three options depending upon your previous experience with a manual version systems project called the Systems Understanding Aid, written by the same authors as this computerized project. Option A is for students who have not used the Systems Understanding Aid before. Option B is for students who have completed the Systems Understanding Aid before using Transactions List A (Document No. 1). Option C is for students who have completed the Systems Understanding Aid before using Transactions List B (Document No. 1).
b) Software programs combined with extensive customized programming updates / additions. The software and software customization industries both have numerous suppliers. However, given the complexity and uniqueness of such an information network, there are probably only a limited number of software and customization companies that can provide a carrier with a high quality system that is capable of smoothly integrating all the operation and customer service divisions. Furthermore, the switching costs have the potential to be extremely high because such a transfer could disrupt communication between the divisions, leading to poor quality service. In addition, the company would
Limoncell, T. A., Hogan, C. J., & Chalup, S. R. (2007). The Practice of System and Network Administration, Second Edition. Addison-Wesley Professional.
This process will ensure standard service desk methods, processes and procedures are used for all changes. This will assure efficient and quick handling of all service desk changes and maintain a balance between the need for a change and the potential impact that change will have. Change management is responsible for controlling change to all CI’s (Configuration Items) and CMD (Configuration Management Database) within the production environment. The benefits of having effective change management are improved service desk efficiency, reduced downtime and outages and creates a paper trail for compliance auditing.
Change management has been defined in several ways, but according to Hayes (2005) change management is the systematic approach and application of knowledge, tools, and
By understanding the importance of effective change management we can facilitate our commitment to the development of a successful change management program. By gaining insight into the different factors that can contribute to successful change management, we can guide the design of an appropriate change management program. In the following pages, it
In order to survive and prosper in a rapid changing environment of business world, organization is often required to generate fast response to changes (French, Bell & Zawacki, 2005). Change management means to plan, initiate, realize, control, and finally stabilize change processes on both, corporate and personal level. Change may cover such diverse problems as for example strategic direction or personal development programs for staffs. In this
Configuration identification allows, "…IT establish a baseline from which system changes are made" (Fournier, 1999, p. a10). The initial step in developing a sound configuration-management plan is to account for the products under IT’s authority. Next, configuration control records and evaluates any system changes. "The third step in this four-phase process is configuration auditing, which verifies that the set of configuration items that defines the structure or bill of material of a product is complete" (Fournier, 1999, p. a11). Configuration audits are done randomly to verify that associates, who are participating in the configuration process, follow the written configuration-and change-management procedures. Additionally configuration auditing validates the effectiveness of configuration-and-change management policies over a period of time. If changes need to be made, processes are modified to meet "…evolving development and maintenance best practices" (Fournier, 1999, p. a11). Lastly, status accounting entails documenting and maintaining a continuous record "…of all baseline configuration components, along with all the proposed changes with their dispositions" (Fournier, 1999, p. a11). In summary, "…higher levels of application availability and performance" are the primary benefits of configuration management (Fournier, 1999, p. a12).
Getting users to update to the lasted version of the application has been a long lasting issue with Open Source Software. The main reason for this was attributed to the lack of awareness about the security update. All the security patches to the application are pushed to consumers through such updates.
During the project initiation phase, I can work collaboratively with the project sponsor in the development of project charter and lead up to the formal authorisation of the project/ new phase. From the sponsor’s project SOW (Business need, product scope), Business case etc., I can identify measurable project objectives, high level requirements, risks, summary milestones and budget and approval authorities. The key deliverables in this phase are project charter and stakeholder lists.
Week 3, the lecture on Managing Change describes organizational changes that occur when a company makes a shift from its current state to some preferred future state. Managing organizational change is the process of planning and implementing change in organizations in such a way as to decrease employee resistance and cost to the organization while concurrently expanding the effectiveness of the change effort. Today's business environment requires companies to undergo changes almost constantly if they are to remain competitive. Students of organizational change identify areas of change in order to analyze them. A manager trying to implement a change, no matter how small, should expect to encounter some resistance from within the organization.
Finally the final feature should be that of updating the database file of this software tool to check for updates of any software package that are currently available. Let’s name this software tool Version Manager. The first thing to do is to create a spreadsheet listed for all 20 software programs that are required for the library computers and make note of all the required dependencies for that piece of software.
The implementation phase is where all relevant steps and processes are carried out in order to put a planned system into action. Once installed software is tested and reviewed to make sure the selected solutions are addressing the organisations requirements. Implementation is affected by multiple factors like the context of the organisation; its size, the roll out plan and current structures just to name a
Alongside this final report, we also have to produce maintenance documentation for the application and user manual on how to use the application.
Change within the policy process could also be responsive to triggers of change within the system. Managing the change that may happen during the policy process from policy initiation to its implementation help ensure that the policy succeed. The implementation is particularly more important as it is the aspect that “gets the job done”.