The client's information technology department was having difficulty delivering technology in rapid fashion and within Sarbanes-Oxley controls. Their audit time lines were long, customers were unhappy and the list of audit violations kept growing. The information technology department needed a software change management process that was stringent enough to satisfy audit and control requirements and flexible enough to meet client and market demands. 

The client needed a proven process framework already recognized as a best practice process to meet the needs of the organization. The management team selected the United Kingdom, Office of Government Commerce Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) change management process. The audit team was engaged throughout the process as a sounding board for ideas that were considered and implemented. It was further determined that the process improvements were to be compared to the Software Engineering Institute's Capability Maturity Model for configuration management as a measurement of the level of maturity that would be achieved at the completion of the process changes.

Optimize! oversaw significant changes made to the existing information technology change management process to align it with ITIL. A change advisory board was formed for change review, risk assessment and approval. The change approval structure for each change type, classification and impact was changed to ensure proper due diligence. Release build time requirements were lengthened for software change types affecting critical business systems. The grouping and deployment sequence planning activities were changed to ensure technical review and approval was received on the deployment plan.

The implementation of the information technology change management process improvements resulted in reducing unplanned changes by 32% and dwindling post implementation incidents by 24%, which increased client satisfaction. The audit team signed off on the process modifications which also resulted in a shorter audit cycle, increasing employee productivity.