Change Management tasks

Service Manager lists the change tasks necessary to complete a particular phase. Workflow cannot proceed to the next phase until all the associated tasks of the current phase are completed. Tasks can be either sequential or parallel. For example, suppose you are in the Deployment phase of a normal change, to replace a hard drive. The change tasks listed may be to take a backup of the old hard drive, remove the old drive, install a new hard drive, test the new hard drive, and restore the data on to the new hard drive. In this example, the tasks are sequential because you cannot restore data onto a new drive until you take a backup of the data and install the new hard drive. Parallel tasks might include determining the backup software to be used, the hard drive vendor to purchase from, and the effort and risk the hard drive change might bring forth. Each phase can optionally have one task / multiple tasks / no tasks. Tasks include a description, the urgency and priority of the task, task scheduling, and assignment information.

Change Management tasks include:

• Opening, assigning, and associating a task with a change.
• Searching for a task.
• Managing task categories, environments, and phases.
• Using the task queue.

Change Task phases

This section describes the flow of a change task as it progresses from the ‘Waiting’ phase to the ‘Closed’ phase in the Generic Task workflow. This workflow is required to implement task dependencies.

The following figure shows the Generic Task workflow in Process Desinger.

To change the phases of a change task in the Generic Task workflow:

1. Log on as a Change Coordinator, and then search for an open change request.

2. Click More > Open New Task from the menu to create a new change task.

   Or

   Click the task number in the Tasks section to open an existing change task.

3. When a task is opened, it is in the ‘Waiting’ phase. When the task is being executed, it is in the ‘Active’ phase. The Change Implementer (assignee) changes the status of task from ‘Ready’ to ‘Assigned’ and then to ‘In Progress’. Task status is changed to ‘Completed’ when the task is accomplished.
4. If the Change task is not planned to be implemented or if it is not successful, select the task status ‘Cancelled’ and the task will be moved to ‘Cancelled’ phase.

5. Change task can be closed directly from ‘Active’ phase bypassing the ‘Review’ Phase.

   • If the Risk Assessment value of the change task is less than or equal to 2, then the Review phase is bypassed.
   • If the Risk Assessment value of the change task is more than 2 (for example 3 or more), task enters the Review phase.
6. Log on as Change Reviewer, retrieve the task, and review it. Type your comments in the Review Comments field.
7. If the task completed is acceptable, close the task by selecting Successful from the Closure Code dropdown list and add closure comments, the task is now in the ‘Closed’ phase. If the task is not completed and needs to be reworked, click Reopen after adding review comments. The task moves back to the previous ‘Active’ phase and to the ‘Assigned’ status.
8. Repeat the same steps from 2 to 7 if you want to create, implement and close the tasks at any phase of the change request.
9. A notification is sent to Change Owner on the successful completion of task.

Change Task Status value and display list mapping is as follows: