PSTaRT - Hail the CAB!
By Jim Daugherty

You can depend on the OIT Change Advisory Board (CAB) to arrive at swift, reliable decisions on any requested changes in IT systems. That’s why PSTaRT recommended to Dr. Green that a CAB be formed. How it works: any requested change affecting IT systems goes through CAB’s evaluation before getting the green light (and it doesn’t take very long). Why? Because the CAB, meets every Monday and asks a series of who, what, when, how and what if questions before a proposed change gets either the thumbs up or the thumbs down. They ask-- how will this change affect business goals and what are the operational and technical risks if we say, yes or no? (will a computer freeze somewhere?) If there are questions that don’t have good answers the requestor is asked to provide better ones. The CAB’s goal is to ensure that changes are 100% successful with as few hoops to jump through as possible

The team who meets over a cup of coffee (bring your own) every Monday morning consists of the major stakeholders of the IT system:

• Greg Rogers, VP of IT, who gives ultimate accountability for availability and has final authority on change approval.
• KC Hundere, Director of Network Operations, who reviews priorities and, impacts on resources.
• Steve Smith, Security Lead, who reviews changes for security implications.
• Isaiah Washington, Ops Systems Engineering Lead, who reviews changes for pre-production implications.
• Roger Bontrager, Service Desk Manager, who reviews changes for customer-facing implications.
• Jim Daugherty, functioning as Internal IT Auditor, who may attend to better understand how changes are approved.

You are welcome to stop by a CAB’s meeting every Monday which starts at 10:00 a.m. over at HT1, Network Operations Center, if you are driven to make that IT change! Don’t be late, because these meetings are scheduled for only half an hour!

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