The Change Advisory Board… it is a both revered and despised.  The committee is intended to provide cross-functional oversight to the change/release management process to prevent change collisions and reduce errors in the production environment.  But many see it as a hindrance to getting things done or, at worst, wasted time and energy with no business benefit.

I came across this article on the Tedder Consulting blog called “The CAB is Dead. Long Live the CAB.”  In the article, the Doug Tedder argues that the negative view of the CAB (and, in many cases, change management) do not originate from the CAB but rather how the Change Management process itself.  Change Management is not an IT specific activity.  Rather, it is an activity that requires IT to effectively partner with the business to ensure the right tasks are being completed at the right time to maximize business value.

There are many emerging frameworks like SCRUM and AGILE that some argue eliminate the need for the CAB.  While this may appear to be the case, Tedder highlights how many of these frameworks have concepts that are similar to the CAB and its forward schedule of change.

The article is a great read and helps you put Change Management and the CAB into a new perspective.

Click here to read the full article.