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Change Plans and Change Tasks

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In this lesson, you will learn:

  • The three change plans
  • What makes a good backout plan
  • How change tasks split the work
  • How to build them for CHG0030045

🔁 Quick look back: Last time: Emergency Changes. You learned how an emergency change gets a fast approval from the emergency CAB during a major incident.

1 “What if it doesn’t work?”

It’s 2 AM on Sunday. Ravi installs the new certificate.

  • The VPN won’t start.
  • There’s no written way back.
  • Ravi guesses, and it takes three hours.

🎯 The problem: A change without a plan and a way back turns a small risk into a big outage.

👉 The fix: write three plans on every change, and split the work into clear tasks.

2 The three plans

Plan Answers, and CHG0030045’s plan
Implementation plan How will we do it?
Install the new certificate on snwr-vpn-gw-01 and restart the VPN service.
Backout plan How do we undo it?
Restore the old certificate from backup and restart. About 15 minutes.
Test plan How do we know it worked?
Three test users connect for 30 minutes with no drops.

⚠️ Heads up: A backout plan must be tested, or at least possible. “We’ll figure it out” isn’t a plan.

3 Change tasks

Key term: Change task

One step of the work in a change, assigned to a team or person.

Change tasks for CHG0030045. 1 Pre-check: back up the old certificate and confirm the maintenance window, SNWR Network Support. 2 Implement: install the new certificate and restart the VPN service, Ravi Iyer. 3 Post-check: three test users connect for 30 minutes, SNWR Service Desk. 4 Review: confirm VPN drops have stopped, Grace, linked to PRB0040012.
Figure 1. Four tasks, each with an owner.

💡 Good to know: Tasks let each team see exactly its part, and the change can’t close until they’re done.

4 Let’s try it: write the plans and tasks

  1. Open a normal change: Replace VPN gateway certificate.
  2. Open the Planning section. Fill in the implementation, backout and test plans.
  3. In the Change Tasks related list, create a Pre-check task for SNWR Network Support.
  4. Create Implement and Post-check tasks, with owners.
  5. Check the tasks show on the change, in order.

5 Quick recap

  • Every change has an implementation, backout and test plan
  • The backout plan must really be possible
  • Change tasks split the work into owned steps
  • CHG0030045: pre-check, implement, post-check, review
  • The change can’t close until its tasks are done

6 Check yourself

Think of your answer first. Then tap to check.

1 Which plan says how to undo the change? Show answer

The backout plan.

2 How does SNWR know the certificate change worked? Show answer

The test plan: three users connect for 30 minutes with no drops.

3 What’s a change task? Show answer

One step of the work, assigned to a team or person.

4 Is “we’ll figure it out” a backout plan? Show answer

No. It must be a real, possible way back.

Nice work! CHG0030045 is well planned. 🎉
Next up: Legacy Change Workflows

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