Date: January 24, 2010 To: Professor D Errico From: Nathan W.

Lindstrom Subject: Formal Proposal #2 The purpose of this memo is to outline the need for a formal proposal that provides the strategy for implementing formal change management processes in alignment with ITIL best practices. In many organizations there is a complete lack of any oversight or review of changes that are made to the production information technology environment. This console cowboy approach leads to an extraordinarily high number of human errors, the frequent recreation of existing solutions ( reinventing the wheel ), and the loss of data critical for growing and improving the IT organization. These challenges ultimately culminate in decreased efficiency, increased costs, and frequent production outages and impairments. A planning proposal is required to remediate this challenge. The proposal will need to demonstrate the link between a lack of change management and production failures; demonstrate why any formal change management strategy should be aligned with the ITIL framework; clearly define success through delineating metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs); and provide a framework for the policies and processes needed to implement and enforce change management. The primary readers, whom are the decision makers for both the business, are likely to be sympathetic to change but unaware of the underlying causes of present poor production reliability. The secondary readers (information technology SMEs) are likely to be a combination of those both in favor of and openly hostile to change. Finally, the tertiary readers (consumers of IT services) are expected to range from disinterested in to opposed to the change. The success of the proposal will therefore chiefly rest with its ability to: y y y y Successfully link a lack of change management to substandard production reliability Resolve most concerns about the continued timeliness of IT services Provide assurances that change management will not lead to bureaucratic stalemate Highlight the significant benefits afforded to management through the new strategy

Areas of this formal proposal that are likely to require the most assistance in their development are addressing the often-conflicting concerns of the primary and secondary readers without causing the proposal to balloon in size; providing the correct depth of detail to satisfy the readers without insulting their intelligence or clogging the proposal with known information; and in mitigating the negative impact of introducing a potentially large number of unfamiliar terms and acronyms to the reader. I am eager to undertake this project and look forward to hearing any comments and suggestions that you have. If you wish to discuss this proposal, please contact me by phone, email, or through the SUNY website.