What is a Change Advisory Board (CAB) and Why Do You Need One?
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What Is a Change Advisory Board (CAB)?
A Change Advisory Board (CAB) is a committee group of stakeholders that review all software, application, or cloud infrastructure change requests that interact with your company system, in a documented and structured way and usually on a set schedule, unless an emergency change advisory board (eCAB) meeting becomes necessary.
Why do you need a Change Advisory Board (CAB)?
A CAB is more than just oversight of changes and provides several benefits to both vendors and the company establishing the CAB. A CAB process provides a forum for collaborative innovation, enhances management awareness of service management problems, and provides a consistent request process that carefully analyzes each system change.
In addition, a well-defined and prominently published CAB process makes it easy for all stakeholders to follow the review process and adhere to their CAB roles. An established CAB process also provides a regular, transparent forum to document advisory decisions and recommendations that can ultimately be utilized for service management system improvement. Continuous improvement practices are involved in the review and closure phase of the CAB change process – through RCA and reporting upon incidents; and regular review of CAB activities and approvals, in one concise report, to the c-suite managers.
Example of Change Management for large-scale systems
For large-scale parking lot system managers, such as the Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA) parking complex that is professionally managed by ABM, managing vendor relationships and the service infrastructure can be very complicated, especially when a change in software infrastructure is needed that may interact with several interlocking parts to the system.
When a system change goes wrong, it can be detrimental to a business such as ABM’s LAWA parking complex. Any system downtime directly affects customers and their experience in a negative way and may even impact the company’s bottom line.
Implementing a Change Advisory Board (CAB) is one strategic key to enhancing an infrastructure change process. The CAB process provides a step-by-step predictable process that guides vendors from start to end, beginning with the submission of a change request, through the advisory review process, and ending with the implementation impact review.
Example of CAB implementation
In light of these best practices surrounding CABs, EIT Consulting has established ABM’s first Change Advisory Board to improve the management of the LAWA infrastructure’s requested service changes by the many vendors they partner with at the Los Angeles airport parking complex.
As a brand new CAB implementation, EIT has started from the ground floor to build a customized process for the effective management of vendor changes for this large system. This customized process includes templates for the CAB meeting agendas, a well-vetted online request for change form, and a monthly reporting structure that will empower ABM management to make more accurate service management decisions.
Conclusion
Failed implementations are not always the fault of the vendor – but a managed change process surrounding any infrastructure change will ensure greater accountability and fewer overall failed or downtime-incident-causing changes. Simply the process of reviewing the change requests by multiple stakeholders creates a platform for further improvement, an alignment of goals between teams, an increase of regulatory and contract compliance, and fosters an opportunity to enhance the ultimate bottom line: customer experience.
Establishing a CAB is a strategic key to enhancing an infrastructure change process and improving your overall service management system. By implementing a CAB, organizations can ensure a smoother change management process, leading to improved service delivery and customer satisfaction.
