Change Management Process for GALILEO
Introduction: Change Management and GALILEO
During 2002-2003, the GALILEO project developed and implemented a change management process in order to ensure that changes to GALILEO systems occur in a planned and systematic fashion. The aim is to more effectively balance requested changes with the resources, technology, and time that are required to implement them, and to prioritize these requests along with other projects. The major benefit is ensuring that the most valued goals are given priority and accomplished within reasonable timeframes.
A change management process is a typical part of the life-cycle of software development and includes methods for gathering change requests for modifications and enhancements, evaluating the requests for feasibility, prioritizing based on feedback, time, and available resources, and scheduling or deferring the requests for implementation. Change requests for GALILEO can include, but are not limited to:
- change requests for the home page or presentation of menus
- enhancements of the user interface
- the development of customization features
- enhancements to the administrative interface
- integration of software solutions for linking or other services
- revision of system software
- any other modification, enhancement, or development effort
The current GALILEO change management process reviews requests to determine the development priorities for the upcoming sixth month cycle. The development cycles are July-December and January-June. Requests received from librarians, users, the GALILEO Reference Committee, and other groups are reviewed for impact, feasibility, and resource requirements, and prioritized and ranked for implementation in the pending cycle. As development occurs, feedback on prototypes is solicited from the GALILEO Reference Committee and GALILEO users. As much as possible, development is scheduled to be rolled-out to users at the end of the sixth month cycle.