Limited Change Period

  1. We are renaming the start of semester period to Limited Change Period, previously called Change Freeze.

 

  1. We are reducing the length of time where changes are under higher scrutiny.

 

  1. The following types of changes will be allowed during the Limited Change Period following standard Change Management procedure:
    1. Routine patches, security patches, and bug fixes for applications
    2. Low-risk application deployments with limited impact on user experience

 

  1. Essential Changes (previously called Emergency Changes) not represented in Change Management must continue to receive director approval AND be communicated to the Change Management email list just as we’ve done in the past. These are changes that cannot wait until the Limited Change Period ends and are deemed important enough to assume the risk of making the change.

 

  1. The following types of changes will generally not be allowed during the Limited Change Period (unless deemed an Essential Change by the director and communicated to the Change Management email list):
    1. Medium- and high-risk changes requiring significant changes and testing.
    2. Anything impacting the usability, functionality or availability of certain key services required for a smooth semester start-up. This includes:

                                                              i.      Tier0 and Tier1 services as defined by the Incident Management Team

                                                             ii.      CrimsonCard

                                                           iii.      Google at IU

                                                           iv.      Box

                                                             v.      IU Print (except to load allotments for the new semester) 

 

Background

Change Freeze has provided a mechanism to reduce the number of changes introduced to our systems and services, minimize risk, and generally avoid disruption during our busiest times of year during the start of semesters. There is now an emphasis on smaller, more frequent incremental changes to deliver features and functionality faster. Some services have moved to the cloud where vendors typically employ the same strategy. This necessitated a reassessment of Change Freeze and how we might evolve the process for effectiveness today.