Business continuity plan audits

Change Management Audit

While technology and information systems are there in order to make management much more efficient, these systems may also expose an organizations to various risks which might often be serious in nature. These risks increase when changes are brought about in an existing system. In order to minimize such risks it is important that organizations have a change management plan, which is duly audited and tested for compliance before change is implemented.

With the advent and progress in the field of Information Technology, the corporate sector across the globe has increased the incorporation of technology in business practices greatly over the years. Besides assisting in communication and production related tasks, Management Information Systems and knowledge managements are important and integral part of organizational management that play a vital role in ensuring efficiency and quality management. That said, the rapid progressions in technology mean that the preceding technologies become obsolete over a period of time and therefore organizations should be ready to adapt to change. However, there is a room for possible risk factors associated with implementation for such changes and therefore it is important that organizations have a change management plan and change management auditing system in place.

In simple terms, a change management auditing is concerned with minimizing or preventing risks associated with bringing about changes in an organizations usually pertaining to technology. The auditing revolves around assessing risks such as security violation and leakage of information to unauthorized parties, presence of errors or malware in the system, efficiency of information management, designation of duties and authorities and protection of system against third party penetration.

Scope of Audit

The scope of change management audits cover analysis, monitoring and reviewing of procedures within an organization pertaining to change management. It reviews the policies and mechanisms that an organization has in place for testing, monitoring, authorizing, initiation and modification of application and information and recovery and backups of information. Moreover, it also reviews the security systems that an organization has in place for the protection of the information system (Kanter & Pitman, 1995). Audit timelines are important to make sure that the deliverables and set objectives are met as per requirement and in time, and all security procedures and change management plans pass the required standard. Failure to do so might increase the risks such as production of low quality service, third party access to sensitive data or malware or harmful codes being distributed to unauthorized parties.

Risks and Risk Management Strategies

As stated earlier, incorporation of change increases exposure to various risks which can often be sensitive in nature. It could often result in unauthorized accession of sensitive internal data which can be fatal for the organization in the long-term besides other risks. In order to mitigate the occurrence of such risks, it is essential that the organization has a change management plan and audit system in place and ensures that all changes and application authorization and modifications and information accesses are well documented and recorded. Besides that, it is also important that the organization has a reliable and trusted owner at a system level. Regular testing, reviewing and audits must be a part of change management plans and an emergency change management plan must be in pace to deal in an event if an unanticipated contingency arises.

Test Plans

Testing is an important part of change management audit plans as it ensures that the change management system meets all the required standards before it is finally implemented. Negligence on testing level may result in erroneous application and information being transmitted to the production area. A test plan, besides other thing must include details about the procedures of carrying out tests, the person responsible to carry out tests, the extent of user participation in the tests and the criteria of the acceptance of tests results.

Training Plans

Adequate training plans for the first hand stakeholders and workforce must be in place to make the environment more adaptable to change in order to avoid situations such as reluctance to change and change inertia.