InvGate Blog

Much was written about the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on IT service management (ITSM) and IT support, and rightly so. Now, as we return to some semblance of normality - what many are calling the “new normal” - there’s still a need to consider what else either has or will need to change to reflect new ways of working and new expectations of IT organizations and the technology-enabled services they provide.

Topics: change management, Change Enablement

Change enablement (or change management if you’re using ITIL v3 best practice) is the ITIL 4 management practice that introduces changes into the live environment in an orderly and safe way. Successfully balancing value and risk. Used effectively, change enablement can facilitate everything from essential maintenance to full-on transformation projects. To help, here are ten tips for running your organization’s change enablement practice like the IT service management (ITSM) pro you are. 

Topics: change management, Change Enablement

Change advisory boards (CABs) exist to ensure that all business-affecting changes are tested, reviewed, and approved such that change activity delivers value without crippling the rest of the business. If you want to know how best to operate your change advisory board, here are our ten top tips for getting the most out of your CAB.

Topics: change management, Change Advisory Board

The change advisory board (CAB) can be one of the most important and useful meetings a service-oriented IT organization holds. It sets out a view of what’s happening to key services over the next week (or longer depending on its frequency and timeframe), confirms the impact to the business, reviews previous change activity, and looks at continual service improvement (CSI).

Topics: ITIL, ITSM, change management, IT Service Desk, CAB

There will be a number of times throughout the year when it’s in the best interest of your business to invoke a change freeze, i.e. a period when changes are minimized, ideally ceased, to protect business operations. This might relate to busy/critical business periods, times such as seasonal holidays when fewer IT staff will be at work, times when major infrastructure changes are already planned, or similar.

Topics: change management

On the surface, determining the status of your service desk historical backlog seems easy. But the scenario becomes more complex when looking at historical data for the week, month, or year. InvGate defines a backlog as “an accumulation of jobs waiting to be solved or completed at any given time”, i.e., pending incidents and requests.

Topics: Reporting, ticketing system, Help Desk Software, Incident Management, change management, data analytics