Assembling the A-Team: Creating an Efficient and Effective Change & Configuration Management Process

Introduction

IpX (The Institute for Process Excellence) knows that having an efficient and effective change and configuration management process is paramount for sustainable organizational success. Let's consider some ideas on how this can be accomplished.

Enabling an Effective C&CM Process

Which procedure is often met with the most resistance from team members in technical organizations? 

1. Product design reviews
2. Product change management
3. Product validation planning

Often, engineers favor dedicating their time to development or troubleshooting tasks, and delay engaging in the processes until it becomes unavoidable. Then, they utilize process after the fact because it is a necessary evil (often requiring plentiful prodding and reminders). Once they understand the critical role of these supporting processes, they slowly adjust, but they tend to concentrate on honing their fundamental expertise.

Back to our question, what is the answer? Undoubtedly, Change Management is the one process from the aforementioned list that most engineers would prefer to avoid. Engineers often have a complex relationship with process. While they appreciate structure and order, which are inherent to engineering work, they may dislike process for several reasons including the following:

• Inflexibility: Engineers often value the ability to be agile where they can adapt and make decisions based on the situation at hand. Processes that are too rigid can be frustrating, especially if they are viewed as impeding their innovation or efficiency.
• Enforcement: When processes are defined and enforced without robust communication and training, or without considering the impact on contributors' daily tasks and workload, it can lead to resistance. Engineers may feel that the focus is more on following the process than on the end result.
• Misalignment with Roles & Responsibilities: If the process does not align with the engineers core competency, it can be a source of frustration. Engineers often want to feel that their time is spent primarily on technical tasks such as design, analysis or test. When their precious time is spent on tasks they deem as "administrative" they can become frustrated especially when overallocated.

Engineers often form the backbone of product change management due to their pivotal role in initiating design iterations. Because of this, the overhead burden of monitoring and shepherding changes through the process can fall in engineering hands. This is where the problem lies.

Absence of Clear Accountability

When employees are tasked with work that falls outside their perceived job responsibilities, it can lead to negative consequences, including:

• Lower morale & job dissatisfaction: Morale can decline when employees feel their core competencies are not being utilized. Taking on additional responsibilities can lead to stress and burnout.
• Reduced performance: The quality of work may suffer if employees are not skilled or interested in the tasks assigned, or these tasks are deprioritized and avoided. 
• Business KPIs suffer: Without clear roles and responsibilities, the accountability for specific tasks is lacking, leading to a sluggish process with unmonitored bottlenecks. 

To mitigate these issues, it's crucial to establish clear roles and responsibilities, ensuring that each team member knows what is expected of them and how they contribute to the overall process. This clarity can enhance team productivity, efficiency, and morale. In addition, appropriate resource allocation for process ownership and oversight is required for an efficient and effective process.

Establishing an Effective Product Change Management Framework

Organizations are often not confident in their approach to establishing a product change management process during its evaluation or creation. Many struggle with the belief that the change process may be too rigid or cumbersome. The process might also face opposition from team members who are convinced that their current methods suffice, stemming from a "we have always done it this way" mindset or from the belief that they can relay product changes to affected stakeholders without adhering to a formalized procedure.

There are individuals who believe that "I will release new software to the manufacturing floor when I have it ready." On the flip side, what does that change entail, how do we know all those who have a true need to know have been informed, have all the right due diligence steps been followed, how was it tested, what manufacturing controls are required, is there traceability involved, is it backwards compatible, what was communicated to the customer, and does our part number change meaning we have commercial steps to follow? 

A product change can occur within a high-risk moment in a product's lifecycle and many well-respected companies have experienced dramatic and costly failures from product changes that are poorly managed and do not meet the original requirements despite best intentions from an experienced team. Often subject matter experts know the steps to be taken and in an ideal state they can help guide a change through. However, given the multitude of factors at play, it is crucial to establish a consistent and clearly delineated "fit for purpose" process, supported by clear unbiased accountability to facilitate the progression of change and ensure product and process requirements are satisfied and robust business decisions are made. Determining the involvement and quantity of team members at various steps of the product change management process is a critical topic of conversation among teams. Organizational structure and size, team member composition and locations, experience, costs, number of changes, and complexity are a few of the many considerations. 

Define Roles & Responsibilities with Confidence

The CM2-500 standard has been implemented across the globe for almost 40 years. Everyone knows that a process or a workflow does not facilitate itself well on its own. A robust process needs ownership, and clear accountability to manage, monitor and continually improve. The CM2 closed loop change process roles and responsibilities are critical to implementing an efficient and effective process much like a project or program manager is essential to a well-executed project or program.

In an ideal state, the Institute for Process Excellence (IpX) advocates that a Change Leader (CL) and a Change Implementation Leader (CIL)be accountable to the change process as the unbiased subject matter experts for managing the critical phases of change. When you have a small organization, very simple changes, or very few changes, it may be difficult to justify the roles as full-time employees, but there are pros and cons in the decision-making process to set up "fit for purpose" and unbiased staffing for these important positions.  

A Change Leader manages IRs and CRs through the front half, or analysis phase of the closed loop CM2 change process, while ensuring proper planning, assessment and decision making to minimize total cost. The CL is responsible for facilitating a robust business decision making process in order to authorize resources to do work at the right time serving current business objectives. This role ensures incoming change documentation is clear, concise and valid prior to being implemented to reduce rework, intervention and scope creep.

The Change Leader escalates changes that exceed certain thresholds set by the Change Review Board for visibility. These escalated changes are often the most impactful and complex changes that have the largest impact to the business financially, technically or strategically.

A Change Implementation Leader uses the Change Notices to manage the implementation or execution phase of all approved Change Requests. The CIL is responsible for the integrated downstream activities that drive outputs to the organizations' customers by leading the Change Implementation Board (CIB). This role is optimally located within each plant or manufacturing site and ensures changes are worked in priority fashion as designated by the CRB and all tasks are implemented on time, on cost and to the specified requirements.

These two roles are not simply clerical, they demand business and technical acumen and are empowered by the business to deliver business critical initiatives on time, on cost and on spec. Change control consumes a large amount of resources across an organization. These roles assure leaders that their valuable resources are allocated to the right projects at the right time for the optimal benefit to the business bottom line. 

Having experienced change process personnel ensures that the quality of the change as well as the change process documentation is managed by all applicable stakeholders and that appropriate plans and approvals are gathered. When an inexperienced team member submits a change request, unbiased change experts can ensure the process is effective, engage the impacted personnel and ensure proper business approvals are accomplished to authorize work before resources are expended.

For those situations where there are no change management professionals available or assigned, the change initiator (or sometimes the project manager or technical lead for the product), ends up having to ensure the change is well managed. This may appear to be a more cost-effective approach, but it adds the risk of the change not being efficiently executed, impacted datasets/documents left unidentified, impacted stakeholders not notified and other misses that result in corrective action, rework and firefighting. Ultimately, key stakeholders are burdened with activities outside of their core competency.

An Audit Release Analyst (ARA) is a third role that audits change implementation packages and verifies continuity between superseded and superseding data is retained. The ARA is strategically located in the change process workflow to be responsible for authorizing the release of qualified datasets. Tasks include verifying change documentation is correct, highlighting deficiencies in change packages and return for corrections, identifying recurring issues for process improvement and ensuring that proper approvals are achieved prior to dataset/document release.

Teams can be successful with both of the above models with proper risk mitigation and due diligence. While there is potential to strategically deploy or share employees due to cost, it's important to acknowledge that mistakes in quality can have severe consequences. This suggests that, when feasible, prioritizing the employment of certified change management experts is the advisable strategy. Once these roles are operational, organizations find they are unable to survive without them.

Summary

The allocation of dedicated roles in critical delivery processes such as change and configuration management is paramount for achieving optimal results in speed and first time yield. Specialized positions such as the CL and CIL roles ensure that tasks are executed with business best practices, minimizing risks to the business. By investing in trained CM2 certified professionals who are focused solely on these crucial skills, organizations can foster a culture of excellence and reliability that is essential for long-term success and continual improvement that is scalable as the business changes.

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