Essential Questions
- How do you know when something needs to be replaced or repaired?
- How will you manage changes to the devices, software, and other IT assets in your organization?
- What’s the best way to manage changes to IT assets so you get more use and a greater return on investment for them?
Big Ideas
IT assets, like a laptop, camera, or a printer, are first deployed to people, which means the asset is assigned to someone. Most things that are deployed will eventually need some kind of support, whether that is upgrading its capacity or repairing something that went wrong. If you don’t have a way to track what changes have been applied to IT assets, those assets can quickly become useless and cost your organization a great deal of money to replace. Maintaining assets, and documenting the changes made through maintenance, is just as important as repairing them when there is a problem.
There are change management best practices that IT support specialists can follow to be more productive and increase the usability and length of service of the devices, software, and network assets they work with. Sometimes these change management practices include how you interact with others, like when an employee is hired or leaves an organization.
You have been using a knowledge base and considering ways to best document your work. Change management best practices simply make that work more efficient.
Connection to Student Lives
When was the last time you upgraded software on your computer, smartwatch, or tablet? Have you ever upgraded software, like the OS on your laptop, and then thought, “I wish I hadn’t done that…”? Trying to keep track of a few personal devices and ensuring they are running at maximum efficiency can be a little bit of a challenge, but is nowhere as complicated as keeping dozens if not thousands of devices updated and running smoothly. Even a small school with a one-to-one laptop program can have hundreds of laptops, a few dozen desktops/workstations for faculty and staff, printers, scanners, cameras, projectors, and many other devices. If you don’t have a good way to keep track of which devices are up-to-date in terms of maintenance, cleaning, and repair, the devices can become useless well before their expected life expectancy and end up costing you, or your organization, a good bit of money.
Framing Problem
How do you know what the status of a device is? How can you manage anywhere from a few devices to a few hundred devices and keep track of what has been done to each?
Cornerstone Assessment
Students should develop or follow a change management process that will allow them to record the relevant information about an asset (baseline information) and capture changes to the asset through some kind of log or Configuration Management Database (CMDB). If a database is not available, students could develop a system to support documenting changes to hardware, software, and networking assets.
DPI Standards
- NCCTE.2020.II22.04.01 - Compare best practices associated with types of documentation.
- NCCTE.2020.II22.04.02 - Implement basic change management best practices.
- NCCTE.2020.II22.04.04 - Explain common safety procedures.
- NCCTE.2020.II22.04.07 - Use proper communication techniques and professionalism.
HDI Standards
- 2.2.2 Explain the purpose of organizational policies.
- 2.2.3 List the importance of adhering to organizational policies.
- 5.7.1 Describe the purpose of a Change Management practice.
- 5.7.2 Define a change.
- 5.7.3 List the value of change management.
- 5.7.4 Describe the responsibilities of a desktop advanced support technician in change management.
- 5.8.1 Describe the purpose of the Service Asset and Configuration Management practice.
- 5.8.2 List the value of service asset and configuration management.
- 5.8.3 Describe responsibilities of a desktop advanced support technician in service asset and configuration management.
- 5.8.4 Define configuration item (CI).
- 5.8.5 Define Configuration Management Database (CMDB).
A+ Standards
TOPIC 18 B: Create and Maintain Documentation
TOPIC 18C: Use Basic Change Management Best Practices
TOPIC 18F: Professionalism and Communication
TOPIC 2A: Use Appropriate Safety Procedures
Knowledge
- The purpose of documentation in terms of change and configuration management
- What information might be in documented business processes
- The type of information that may be contained in a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) and a work instruction.
- Examples of change management best practices
- A change is the addition, modification or elimination of an authorized, planned or supporting service (component) and its related documentation.
- The purpose of a Change Management practice is to respond to business requests (changes) in a timely and cost-effective manner. Change management needs to ensure that all changes are recorded, assessed, prioritized, planned, tested, implemented and documented in a controlled manner.
- The value of change management is:
- Understanding why changes have been authorized and how they impact the business and the service provider
- Timely implementation of changes related to business deadlines
- Fewer failed changes, thereby reducing the number and duration of service interruptions
- In change management, a desktop advanced support technician is responsible for:
- Implementing standard, pre-approved changes as authorized by change management
- Participating in the Change Advisory Board (CAB) meetings
- Participating in the building and testing of planned changes
- Participating in deployment of approved changes to desktop Configuration Items (CIs)
Skills
- Explain how documentation can be recorded to indicate how Configuration Items have been deployed and changed, either through a job log or an update to the Configuration Management Database.
- Follow standard operating procedures for implementing a Request for Change to items, including conducting a risk analysis and creating a backout plan
- Employ change management best practices
Vocabulary
Use Basic Change Management Best Practices
Configuration management
Change management
IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL®)
- Service asset
- Configuration Item (CI)
- Configuration Management Database (CMDB)
- Baseline
- Configuration Management System (CMS)
- Moves, Adds, and Changes (MACs)
Standard Operating Procedure (SOP)
Work Instruction
Request for Change (RFC) document
- Backout plan
Change Advisory Board (CAB)
Weekly Map
Monday
Introduction to problem: Change Management Best Practices
Team meetings to develop project plan and goals
Tuesday
Review content resources with whole group
Review Professionalism and Communication, as necessary
Wednesday
Hands-on exploration with IT professionals: preferably exploring a Configuration Management Database or Configuration Management System
Review safety procedures, as necessary
Thursday
Hands-on exploration with IT professionals: preferably exploring a Configuration Management Database or Configuration Management System
Review current documentation procedures, as necessary
Friday
Activity 18-3: Discussion of Change Management Best Practices. Consider impact of change management on documentation and standard operational procedures
Lesson Ideas
The topics of professionalism, communication, safety, and documentation are a review. The only new topic in this unit is the implementation of change management best practices, and you may be limited as to what resources you have to support change management. If your students are not actively collaborating with your IT staff in performing Help Desk Support, they may not have access to resources such as a Configuration Management Database (CMDB) or Configuration Management System (CMS). Some small IT departments may not use these types of supports, but many IT support organizations will have some kind of means for tracking and managing changes to their assets.
Change management is addressed in the Desktop Advanced Service Technician Standards developed by HDI. HDI defines a change as “the addition, modification or elimination of an authorized, planned or supporting service (component) and its related documentation.” The HDI standards noted that the purpose of a change management practice is to respond to any changes in a timely and cost-efficient manner. To do this, HDI recommends that “all changes are recorded, assessed, prioritized, planned, tested, implemented and documented in a controlled manner.” If your students have been contributing to the Help Desk knowledge base throughout these courses, they have had a chance to follow these guidelines and those from CompTIA. This week is a good time to touch base with all students and determine which knowledge base strategies are working and which may need to be improved.
HDI reports the following value of change management and the responsibilities of desktop support technicians in change management:
The value of change management is:
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In change management, a desktop advanced support technician is responsible for:
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Students should consider ways that changes to IT assets can be documented, from initial deployment/assignment to an individual, ongoing maintenance and upgrades, and any repairs. Students can review the best practices listed in TOPIC 18C: Use Basic Change Management Best Practices and consider how they might apply them to their work on a Help Desk program.
Reviewing professionalism, communication, and safety can be merited, especially if you have new students who are making up your teams. For a lengthy list of vocabulary, lesson ideas, and resources, access materials in Week 1 of the IT Fundamentals+ course or Week 1 of the Computer Engineering I course (Regrouping-Team Building Unit).
Potential Resources
The Official CompTIA A+ Core 1 & Core 2 Instructor Guide for Exams 220-1001 and 220-1002
- Topic 18C: Use Basic Change Management Best Practices (pp. 1015-1018)
- Activity 18-3: Discussing Change Management Best Practices (p. 1019)
Professor Messer at ProfessorMesser.com and YouTube offers numerous free videos of various lengths for many of the topics for the CompTIA 220-1001 A+ Exam. They are easy to understand, narrated videos with visuals. If you are teaching a CompTIA course, the site notes “You’re welcome to use them as much as you’d like, provided you embed the videos with the associated YouTube link or link directly to my site. Please click the “Contact Us” link at the top of our web page and let me know how you’re using them.”
- Professor Messer’s 220-1001 Core 2 CompTIA A+ Training Course videos on ProfessorMesser.com. Search or scroll to find the topics you’re interested in.
Entry Level I.T. Training from Technology Gee
Articles and Other Resources:
Mike Meyers video on change management (5:50)
The Goals of Change Management: What Outcomes Are We Trying to Achieve by Greg Sanker for HDI (contains link to book for purchase)