It also makes other people aware of changes that are being made so that
they can recognize the potential source of problems. The people who approve,
refuse, or reschedule proposed changes should be drawn from across the
company, so that representatives from each area that might be affected can
alert everyone as to how it will affect their groups and prepare their groups
for the changes that will be made. The attendees of such a meeting are called
stakeholders.
These meetings give the stakeholders an overall view of what is happening
at the site. It provides an opportunity for senior SAs or managers to
spot a change that will cause problems before it happens and prevent it from
happening. It reduces entropy and leads to a more stable environment. Typically,
a change-management meeting occurs once a week or once a month,
as appropriate for the rate of change at the site.
Having all stakeholders sign off on each change not only improves stability
of the system but also provides a cover-your-butt opportunity for the
SA staff. We don’t mean this to be cynical. If customer groups are complaining
that things are out of control and outages happen at bad times, a good
solution is to create a change-review board to increase their involvement and
get their approval for changes.