What are the risks and mitigation strategies for implementing major changes to IT systems?

Identifying maintenance windows that will have the least impact on business operations is critical. Secondly clear communication around expected downtimes are as important to manage user expectations. Also factor in time to roll-back should there be a need to. Change control is essential to any system changes. Accurate maintenance windows and managing expectations are critical in forging a lasting trust relationship.

Changes should be done on off peak or maintainence windows only when a disruption is unavoidable. Otherwise all changes should be 'good enough'(meaning tested, piloted) to be implemented during business. Of course how matured the organisation is in its change management matters.

One of the biggest risk is extended change windows due to unexpected issues arising and tame gone on troubleshooting. Taking additional approval for downtime is time consuming and some times not possible resulting in role back and replan of activities.

Planning ahead is most important. It should involve the timeframe for the change, impact on the system, rollback plan, team availability and risks involved and mitigation plan. Creating well defined runbooks and running it in testing environments would give confidence to stakeholders. One of the most important thing is to test the Rollback plans in non-prod environment, I have seen this has been overlooked in many organizations, which caused panic when rollback plan was invoked.

IT changes hold risks: Downtime: Plan off-peak, test, rollback. Data: Backups, validate, careful migration. Security: Assess, update, test. Compatibility: Test, integrate, prepare. Users: Involve, train, support. Budget: Detailed, contingency, review. Delays: Realistic time, adapt, monitor. Communication: Clear, update, document. Performance: Test, monitor, optimize. Rollback: Prepared plan, practice. Stakeholders: Engage, manage, feedback. Compliance: Audit, experts, adhere. Balanced strategies ensure smooth transitions.

I see nothing in here about monitoring/observability and understanding the change in performance. You need good indicators of health to monitor during development, testing, deployment, and production to gauge "the thing" and make data-supported decisions. If you're doing this from the outset, then errors will be minimized and more recoverable in a shorter timeframe.

Always you have to expect the errors that can come up while implementing your changes at least the obvious ones so you will be ready to take action once is there

1 or 2 days after the change create a meeting and discuss what went well and what not. Document this so that senior management or the stakeholders van see which improvements are needed the next time.

I do believe DRP&DRS will always be a great help when data loss occur, it highly recommended to use both of those measurements.

I believe we have to know what kind of data and try to categorize it and for each kind of data we will have to function in case of any data loss

The responsibility of safeguarding data during IT system changes cannot be overstated. With the right strategy in place, we not only mitigate data loss risk but also bolster our organization's resilience in the face of potential disruptions. As an IT consultant, your role in guiding the organization through these critical steps is pivotal. Our expertise ensures that data remains secure, accessible, and compliant with regulatory standards, ultimately supporting the continuity of business operations and data integrity.

I disagree - This discussion is about the risk and mitigation of "implementing" major changes to IT systems. Why are we discussing compatibility? This should have been tested and validated before we ever moved to "implementing." If we have a well-documented system with a reference architecture, which includes the logic, then we should have validated this in dev and test, before moving to implementation. If this "somehow" made its way to production, then our answer is to roll back, restore service, and investigate where we went wrong, so we can do better next time.

A test & virtual environments are important to overcome this issues always, as you can't apply any change without testing it first to avoid conflicts.

Major changes could for sure reflect on the security but if it is well studied i believe we should have zero risk so we don't have the company or client at any risk

That's why a BRM or a partner job is important to make the business accepts the changes smoothly, the importance of a this party who can speak both IT & Business languages is crucial. And it always make the communication more easier and effective.

It's essential that stakeholder management includes representatives who actually use the systems on a day to day basis, rather than just senior managers from the department. Have them go through common tasks on both the current and new systems, and note where each could be improved. The feedback you get from this will help determine if the pain of change will be seen as worth it by the people who will have to use it; and in an Agile process, help to guide the development team to where to prioritize their efforts to deliver the best outcomes.

I recommend "Leading Bold Change." Any major change to "normal" will always have a level of resistance and require collaboration, training, and multiple stages of awareness to be successful. Start small, celebrate the wins, and build to a state of continual change in bite-sized chunks. If you have no choice but to cause major disruption to people and processes, then you need a strong and supported strategy for deployment that includes significant support and influence at all levels; where the desire to achieve the change is shared and anticipated, instead of feared.

Users is very important if it is not the most important part of this process since it is going to be reflected at their side at the end so we have always to see and study how it will look from user prespective

Implementing major changes in any organization or system comes with inherent risks. These risks can impact various aspects such as operations, employees, finances, and more. Mitigation strategies are proactive steps taken to minimize the negative impact of these risks. Here are some common risks and mitigation strategies: ?Resistance to Change: Risk: Employees or stakeholders may resist the changes due to fear of the unknown, comfort with the current system, or concerns about job security.

In my opinion: 1. I think every critical change to be tested on a test environment and confirm everything is going well before the prod change is executed. For those people who do not have a testing environment, make sure that your roll back is properly configured. 2.Also be sure to have backup resource for the change execution, so that you don’t suffer if the primary resource became absent due to sickness etc. yes, you can always cancel change; but doing so adds more overheads to team. 3. Last but not the least; change should be approved by business, so relevant stakeholders are aware what will be going on.