Oct 13, 2011 9:46 AM
Should you abolish your Change Advisory Board?
Earlier today, I delivered a BrightTalk webcast on Five Key Considerations For Cloud Service Management. The crux of the presentation is that cloud computing demands service management excellence despite the outcry from many that service management is an impediment to cloud computing services. I won't go into all the points here. Watch the webcast for the details.
In this webcast, I made a bold statement that I hope will generate some heated debate. That statement was, "Abolish the CAB!"
Change management is one of the most fundamental processes in IT Service Management. Without good change management, services are unreliable and the IT organization suffers a lousy reputation with the business stakeholders. Does this sound familiar?
Change management has been around for years, indeed since the beginning of IT, but that doesn't mean it's effective. As with all good things, some people take it too far. We see a polarization of positions, with sloppy change on one extreme and rigid, draconian change enforcement on the other. Like the political landscape, both extremes are wrong. We need to find a balance, what I like to call the Goldilocks Point where it's not to little and not too much, but just right.
A major criticism of IT's inability to serve the demands of cloud computing is the extreme of being too rigid. It takes too long to implement the changes needed to be adaptive. Such criticism is warranted because change management is indeed too slow. Does this sound familiar? In an interesting and disturbing paradox, we see far too many organizations that are on BOTH extremes simultaneously!
The main culprit of inflexible change - in my opinion - is the Change Advisory Board (CAB). The CAB is an anachronism. It has become a speed bump in the journey to cloud flexibility. Those on the CAB are often power-hungry narcissists who merely want to impose their control over the process instead of serving the needs of the business. Regardless of the makeup of the CAB, they are also clueless about the realities involved. The world has gotten far too complex for this panel to make any trustworthy judgement calls. Even the best and brightest technologists are losing grasp of this complexity. The CAB rarely includes such people, thus even further diminishing the CAB's insight to reality.
The CAB has become more a liability than an asset, adding little or no value and slowing progress. What do you think? In less than an hour since finishing the webcast, I've already had people both applaude and criticize my position. Let the firestorm begin! 
Thank you!
-- Glenn --
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