While many exciting changes are occurring right now in Simmons Technology, we also want to give some insight into a less glamorous but very important aspect of what we do. It’s called change management and it’s at the heart of everything that happens behind the scenes.

At its core, change management is a set of practices that determines how we go about making changes to our services and assessing the risks inherent in those changes. Changes can cause big problems if they’re not managed effectively. In 2008, a study by the consulting firm Gartner found that 80% of technology downtime is caused by problems with changes to services.

Conversely, change is inevitable. We know that you want new products and access to the most up-to-date versions of products you already use. This is why we have a process for managing change and creating an environment where downtime is minimized or, when possible, avoided all together.

The first step in managing change is working with our customers (that’s you!) to determine what your needs are and how changes will impact business decisions and your day-to-day work and scholarship. For example, we have been working with faculty, staff, and students while planning and testing Simmons Connection. We need to know that the changes we plan will benefit you and improve service without negatively impacting existing services.

Next, we test changes by implementing them in a development environment. This allows us to discuss and provide feedback on a potential change before deploying it to everyone.

After that, we seek approval for the change, both internally and from customers, and schedule the change to occur during a time when there will be minimal impact (for example, early in the morning or over a weekend).

In the end, all of this planning pays great dividends. On average, we make 50-75 changes per month and we have fewer service interruptions than other comparable institutions.

So, the next time you see a change, whether it’s logging into Simmons Connection for the first time or noticing a new printer in the library, you’ll know that it was the result of a process that seeks to provide the best possible service to you with the fewest interruptions.