As part of any business, change is inevitable and business needs to maintain, patch, launch new services and products. In this article, we will share some ITIL change management interview questions and answers which can help both interviewer and the candidates. So if you are looking for roles like change manager, change advisory board, emergency change advisory board then these change management interview questions are a perfect fit for you.
Table of Contents
Basic Change Management Interview Questions
What is a “change”?
When there is addition, modification, or removal of any component/ anything which can lead to having a direct and indirect effect on the services is known as change. In other words, any change to IT infrastructure which can affect business or operations is to be considered as IT change.
Are you familiar with the change management process?
To answer this question you can share your experience working with any change process and how you have handled it or how previous organization was following best practices.
Sample Answer
A change management process differs from organization to organization but each organization makes sure to follow best practices to ensure unwanted disruption in services. The basic change management process is as follows
- Request for a change
- Analyse/ Asses/ Review
- Approve or Reject
- Implement
- Monitor
Is there a need for change management in an organization?
Change Management is necessary to keep services and operations running. The process makes sure to reduce an adverse impact on the quality of services and SLA’s. It increases the productivity of end-users due to less disruption and also bridges the gap between the business and technical support staff. Improve other processes like Problem and Availability management. In short change management facilitate and protect both business and customer without complicated controls.
Objectives of change management?
The objective is to control the lifecycles of all the changes to be made and follow best practices to implement beneficial changes with minimum disruption to IT service.
Roles in change management?
- Change Requester
- Change Management Team
- Change Assignee/ Tester/ Implementor
- Change Manager
- Change Approver
- Change Advisory Board
- Emergency Change Advisory Board
Tools that you have used?
You can share the tools you have worked on
Some Change Management Tools
- ServiceNow
- Freshservice
- JIRA Service Management
- SolarWinds Service Desk
- Salesforce Service Cloud
- Cherwell Service Management
Types of change? As per ITIL
As per ITIL, there are three types of changes
- Standard
- Emergency
- Normal
Name a few processes that come under Service Transition?
- Project Management
- Change Management
- Release and Deployment Management
- Knowledge Management
- Service Asset and Configuration Management
Incident Management Interview Questions
Intermediate Change Management Interview Questions
What are the risks of poor change management?
There are various risks when following a poor change management process.
Unplanned Changes
Unauthorized changes
The high number of emergency changes
The low success rate of Change
Project Level Risks
- Delayed project implementations
- Missed deadlines
- Exhaust project budget
Organization Level Risks
- Reduce Service Quality
- Less Productivity
- Customer Dissatisfaction
- Low employee morale
What is the difference between Service requests and Change Requests?
Service Request is a work order/request that initiates a fulfillment process that is agreed upon as part of service delivery which routes to fulfillment groups. Example User Account unlock, Access a new service.
Change Request is for the modification, addition, or removal of components from the IT service or related systems. Example – System Upgrade to the new version, Fix Known Issue.
In some of the infrastructure-related requests are fulfilled through a change process and it can be standard change or normal change. Example – Request for new server deployment.
Service Request Interview Questions
What is the freeze period?
The freeze period is when there is no change or development work is permitted to be executed. In change management, it is a period where no critical changes or project deployment are to be scheduled.
What is the server maintenance period?
It is a period that is required for any server to be up and running to ensure IT operations are smoothly operating.
Basically, it is a routine check-up period that includes activities like
- assessing hard disk space.
- examining folder permissions.
- checking server log files.
- monitoring network temperature applications.
- ensuring adequate redundancy of systems.
- examining security features.
- installing security software patches.
Problem Management Interview Questions
What is CAB? How do you typically identify the stakeholders who need to approve a change?
Change advisory board in short known as CAB is a group of people who assess, authorize, prioritize the changes and control the process. The owner, manager, architects, project managers of the service or infrastructure should approve the changes with an agreement with business users.
Who all participate in the CAB? Can there be a CAB meeting daily?
CAB should include at least one representative who is affected by the change, CAB includes business users, support engineers, server support, and managers of service. Usually, CAB meetings are either monthly or weekly but under different circumstances, they can be planned daily also.
Advanced Change Management Interview Questions
What skills are required for change management?
- Communication
- Leadership
- Risk management
- Collaborate
- Project Management
- Strategic Analysis and Planning
- Knowing change management techniques
- Education and Training skills
- Working as a Team
- External Perspective
- Implementation
What is CI conflict? How can be CI conflict avoided?
In the change management process CI conflict happens when more than one change is affecting a CI or related CI at the same implementation time.
Example
- The change is already scheduled for CI at that given date and time.
- The parent or child of the CI is already scheduled for a change at a given date and time.
- The CI is in the blackout window.
What is CI? What is the difference between a CI and Asset?
CI is a component that is needed to be managed to deliver a service. CI includes hardware IT Services, hardware, software, buildings, etc.
All configuration items qualify as assets but not all assets qualify as CI, Asset can be in inventory and can be used in the future but CI is always in use to support delivering a service.
What are the 7 R’s of change management?
- RAISED
- REASON
- RETURN
- RISK
- RESOURCES
- RESPONSIBLE
- RELATIONSHIP
Describe Kotter’s Change Management Model?
Describe Lewin’s Change Management Model?
Describe McKinsey 7-S Change Management Model?
What metrics would you use to assess risk?
What is RACI Model? RACI Model for Change Management
What will you do when comes to know that a change has been implemented without a change record?
What is CMDB? How does CMDB help in Change Management?
Is incident number mandatory in an Emergency Change Record? if yes, why?
Challenges of Change Management?
Is human resource a CI?
How do you analyze the impact of a change?
What do you do if someone violates a process?
Please let us know if you have any other questions which need to be added to the ITIL change management interview questions.
What we have to do if customer do not approve change in CAB while its an important change i.e. security patches updating, customer saying to implement the change after 10 days
Hi Jitendra,
If a customer does not approve a change in the Change Advisory Board (CAB) while it is deemed important, it is important to understand the reasons for their refusal. If the customer is requesting a delay of 10 days, it is crucial to consider the impact of the delay on the security and stability of the system.
If the security patch update is critical and must be implemented immediately to maintain the security of the system, it is important to communicate this urgency to the customer and highlight the risks of delaying the change. If the customer still insists on delaying the change, it is important to document their decision and the potential risks and impact associated with the delay.
It is also important to involve senior management or other stakeholders in the decision-making process to ensure that the risks and potential impact of the delay are fully understood and considered.
Ultimately, the decision to delay the change or proceed with it despite the customer’s objection will depend on the specific circumstances of the situation and the level of risk that is acceptable to the organization. The important thing is to communicate clearly with all stakeholders and make an informed decision based on the available information.
Please let me know any other way I can help you.
Thank you Guru for your answer
How do we design and implement the change management process in any organization from scratch for the very first time?