Change Control Board vs Change Advisory Board: What’s the Difference?

Technology is best described by the adage from Greek philosopher Heraclitus: The only constant thing is change. In this age of digital transformation, customers and competitors can find solutions and alternatives at the touch of a button. This speed means that service providers stay ahead only by embracing and executing change quickly, yet maintaining sufficient control to manage risk.

In change management and execution, there are two key factors to your company’s success: your technology and your decision-making processes. We’ll explore two structures, or bodies, that focus on change-related decision making—the Change Control Board and the Change Advisory Board. The biggest difference between these two bodies is their scope:

• The CCB primarily handles changes within projects
• The CAB covers all changes related to the service lifecycle, including emergency changes

Let’s explore in more detail what they do and how they differ. We’ve also included additional resources at the end of this article.

Change management and decision making

When it comes to management and control of changes to services and service components, one of the biggest challenges is determining who has the authority to make change decisions.

IT service management has long suffered from bureaucratic approaches and general risk aversion—which results in layers of approvals, development delays and confusion, and, ultimately, failure to deliver value to customers in an agile manner. This situation is exacerbated in companies with legacy systems and structures that prohibit the flexibility for change that digital transformation requires.

The Change Control Board and the Change Advisory Board are similar organizational structures play vital roles in decision making. Both are comprised of teams whose role is to collectively help the organization make the right decisions of balancing need and risk of changes to technology that supports business processes, but they’re not the same.

What is a Change Control Board?

A Change Control Board (CCB), also known as the configuration control board, is a group of individuals, mostly found in software-related projects. The group is responsible for recommending or making decisions on requested changes to baselined work. These changes may affect requirements, features, code, or infrastructure.

Poor change control can significantly impact the project in terms of scope, cost, time, risk, and benefits. Therefore, it is crucial that the CCB members are sufficiently equipped with information, experience, and support necessary to make the best decisions.