Policy
Effective Date
March 19, 2007
Date of Last Revision
October 7, 2014
Chapter Name
Information Management
Chapter Number
Title
4.4
Change Management for IT Managed Systems
1.0 Purpose
The purpose of this policy is to document change management expectations for all IT managed production systems.
2.0 Scope
This policy applies to IT employees planning changes affecting any IT managed production system. Nonproduction systems are beyond the scope of this policy.
3.0 Policy
All changes to IT managed systems shall adhere to defined procedures for change management. Procedures shall
assure appropriate change planning, change documentation and change execution to minimize service disruption and
unplanned outages. The procedures shall define change documentation requirements as well as requirements for
technical and management review.
Changes shall be categorized as application development changes, infrastructure and operations changes, or
emergency changes. Approvals shall be obtained as defined in the associated procedures except that the CIO or
her/his designee must also approve emergency changes.
4.0 Responsibility for Implementation
The responsibility for implementation of this policy resides with the Chief Information Officer and/or designee(s).
5.0 Enforcement
Any employee found to violate federal or State of Michigan laws, EMU policies, procedures or standards of
conduct, will be subject to disciplinary action under University policy. Any student found to violate federal or State
of Michigan laws, EMU policies, procedures or standards of conduct, will be subject to disciplinary action under
EMU’s Student Code of Conduct. Any suspected violation of State or Federal laws will be reported to the
appropriate legal authority for investigation.
The University reserves the right to protect its electronic resources from threats of immediate harm. This may
include activities such as disconnecting an offending computer system from the campus network, terminating a
running job on a computer system, or taking other action.
6.0 Definitions
Term
Application Development
Change
Change Documentation
Definition
Changes made to application technical objects including changes that are
generally managed by the Director of Enterprise Applications.
The addition, removal, or modification of any component of a production system.
Changes may include software, operating systems, hardware, or other
components of a production system.
Auditable documentation that demonstrates adherence to change management
policy and procedures including, but not limited to, change logs, written change
approval documents, and archival copies of change related artifacts.
IT Policy 4.4 – Change Management for IT Managed Systems
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Change Execution
Emergency Change
Infrastructure and Operations
Changes
Non-Production System
Production system
An approved plan for implementing a change that minimizes risk of service
disruption and unplanned outage.
Changes that Division of Information Technology management determine to be
extremely urgent such as those changes that management believes would increase
risk to the institution if normal change processes are followed.
Changes made to servers, operating systems and other components, generally
managed by the Division of Information Technology.
Systems managed by the Division of Information Technology that are used to test
or validate system changes.
Systems managed by the Division of Information Technology that are in active
use by the University Community supporting the routine business operations of
the institution.
7.0 Revision History
Description
Revised by L Rose
Approved by CIO
IT Policy 4.4 – Change Management for IT Managed Systems
Approval Date
October 9, 2014
October 9, 2014
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