On why change management is a good thing

I'm firmly of the belief that change managers (in the ITIL sense, not the MBA fellatio that gets thrown around to mean "someone who changes everything while waiting for the music to stop and their promotion to be posted") are the unsung heroes of the IT world.

See, I cut my teeth in Big Operations under a draconian system called "Permit To Work". It was as close to the Spanish Inquisition as I hope to ever come, and involved tests of willpower, documentation, and in many cases, nerves, to get permission to touch something in a datacenter.

What that did for me was appreciate what Change Management really does. What the Change process really does is force you to examine yourself, your motives, your plans, and your willingness to accept risk based on those plans before you alter a configuration item in your data center. For people who are used to doing this off the cuff (or the wrist, in certain cases, but it might make you go blind), it seems like useless drudgery and paperwork that only adds to the pain of your existence and may or may not steal your soul.

I don't see it that way. I relish the prospect of sitting down and thinking through what I'm trying to achieve, how I'm going to go about it, how I would test to make sure I was successful, and what I would do with the balloon goes up and things start to go pear shaped, and fast. That's value add, but only if you see the change process in the correct light.

My advice to you is: the next time your Change Manager hands you your plums on a platter for not filling out the right paperwork, instead of getting mad and planning revenge, thank them for the valuable criticism and promise to do better next time. And then do better next time! You'll save yourself a whole bunch of time, you'll be better prepared, and I think a better person all around.