Change Enablement: About Change Advisory Board (CAB) and CAB Meetings

Overview

Audience: Technicians involved in the Change Enablement process

The Change Advisory Board (CAB) is a group of IT leaders, technical experts, and stakeholders who review changes to help ensure they are appropriately planned, coordinated, and approved before implementation.

CAB provides cross-functional visibility into changes that may affect university systems, services, security, infrastructure, or users. The review process helps identify risks, dependencies, scheduling conflicts, and other considerations before a change is implemented.

The Change Manager facilitates CAB meetings and the overall review process. Subject matter experts and business representatives may also participate when their expertise is needed for a particular change.

What Does CAB Review?

CAB reviews Normal Changes as part of the Change Enablement approval process. Standard/Pre-Approved Changes do not require CAB approval, while Emergency Changes follow an expedited approval process.

Changes reviewed through the Change Enablement process may include:

  • Infrastructure changes: Server security updates, migrations, configuration changes, DNS updates, and system upgrades.

  • Network and security changes: Firewall policy changes, authentication changes, permissions, gateways, and network configuration.

  • Application and system changes: Integrations, application upgrades, configuration changes, and modifications that affect users.

  • Endpoint and device changes: Device upgrades, deployments, firmware changes, and other changes that could affect university technology.

  • Emergency changes: Urgent changes are handled through an expedited workflow but remain part of the Change Enablement process.

Examples of changes used within the CAB process include firewall policy changes, MFA policy changes, server migrations and upgrades, network changes, software changes affecting end users, and integrations or upgrades to systems such as Blackboard and TeamDynamix.

What Happens Before a CAB Meeting?

Before a Normal Change reaches CAB, the Change Manager reviews the Change Request for completeness and determines the appropriate classification and approval path.

A complete Change Request should provide CAB members with enough information to understand the proposed change and evaluate its readiness. This includes:

  • What is changing and why

  • Proposed implementation date and time

  • Systems, services, and users affected

  • Impact and risk assessments

  • Testing and testing results

  • Implementation plan

  • Necessity for the change

  • Rollback plan

  • Communication plan

These details allow reviewers to evaluate the change before implementation.

CAB members may review assigned Change Requests in TeamDynamix before the meeting and provide their approval there. Changes requiring discussion can then be addressed during the CAB meeting.

Tip: Complete your Change Request as thoroughly as possible before CAB review. If reviewers have the information they need and required approvals are completed beforehand, less meeting time may be needed to discuss the change.

What Happens During a CAB Meeting?

CAB meetings provide an opportunity to review the overall change environment and discuss changes requiring additional coordination or clarification.

During a meeting, CAB may:

  • Review recently completed changes and their results.

  • Discuss changes that experienced minor issues, were deferred, or were rolled back.

  • Review pending and upcoming changes.

  • Identify conflicts, dependencies, or coordination needs.

  • Discuss the scope, timing, risk, and potential impact of proposed changes.

  • Ask the Technician or subject matter experts for additional information.

  • Complete outstanding approvals needed for a Normal Change to proceed.

  • Coordinate scheduling and other activities needed before implementation.

The CAB process is intended to provide the appropriate expertise and perspectives needed to evaluate significant changes and their potential technical, operational, security, and business impacts.

What Should I Expect if My Change Is Discussed?

If your Change Request requires discussion, be prepared to briefly explain:

What are you changing?
Describe the system, service, configuration, or component being modified.

Why is the change needed?
Explain the reason for the change and what could happen if the change is not implemented.

Who or what could be affected?
Identify affected users, services, systems, and upstream or downstream dependencies.

How have you prepared?
Be ready to discuss testing, implementation steps, communications, and coordination with other teams.

What happens if something goes wrong?
Explain the risks and how the change can be rolled back or otherwise addressed.

CAB members may ask questions or request clarification before providing approval.

What Happens After CAB Review?

For a Normal Change, all assigned CAB groups must approve the request before it can advance. Once the required approvals are complete, the Change Manager finalizes the schedule and the Technician receives the implementation task.

Depending on the review, a change may:

Proceed — Required approvals are complete, and the change can move forward to scheduling and implementation.

Be deferred — More information, testing, coordination, or a different implementation window may be needed before the change proceeds.

Be rejected or canceled — The change does not proceed through the current request.

Be rolled back after implementation — If implementation is unsuccessful, the results are documented and the change can be reassessed before another attempt.

Approved changes are added to the Change Calendar. The calendar provides visibility into scheduled changes and can help teams identify potential conflicts and dependencies.

When Does CAB Meet?

The Change Advisory Board meets every Thursday at 9:00 a.m.

To be considered for discussion at that week's CAB meeting, submit your Change Request by 11:59 p.m. on the preceding Monday.

Submitting before the deadline does not replace the need for a complete Change Request. Before submitting, make sure you have identified affected systems and users and prepared your implementation, risk, rollback, communication, and testing information.

Why Does CAB Matter?

CAB is more than an approval meeting. It provides a shared view of upcoming technology changes and gives teams an opportunity to identify concerns before those changes reach production.

The CAB process helps:

  • Reduce the risk of service disruptions.

  • Identify dependencies and scheduling conflicts.

  • Bring the appropriate technical and business expertise into change decisions.

  • Coordinate changes across IT teams.

  • Improve visibility into upcoming technology work.

  • Maintain a record of approvals, implementation results, and outcomes.

  • Support accountability, reporting, auditing, and continuous improvement.

The overall goal of Change Enablement is to maintain service quality and availability by assessing risk, obtaining appropriate authorization, coordinating changes, and documenting their results.

Need Help?

Need more information? Check the Related Articles or Related Services sections on this page (side or at the bottom) for additional resources that might help. 

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