The carrot and the stick – the stick.
The goal of the first phase of Visible Ops is to get control of the change process. A key success factor for this non-trivial goal is thoughtful application of the carrot and the stick. If you don’t take intentional steps to encourage those with production access to follow the change process, you will get continue to experience unauthorized changes that skirt your carefully designed controls.
Lets split up this topic - and talk about the stick.
I often hear people discuss this topic and go for the biggest stick “you may have to fire someone to set an example”.
Visible Ops gives kinder gentler example of using public shaming to identify and chastise cowboy behavior. “ …when service was restored, this person was so embarrassed that the he uploaded his own picture onto a company intranet page, publicly apologizing for the mishap and labeling himself as a "cowboy." That ritual of uploading your own photo to this web page if you change without going through the change management process exists to this day. “
Other top performers I have studied trigger a root cause analysis investigation on each unauthorized change detected. Not to identify root cause of a system failure, but rather to identify the reason for the process exception. Every unauthorized change is taken to root cause and the summary is reviewed at the monthly executive team meeting. That certainly sets a “tone at the top” regarding following the change process.
Click on "comments" and share your thoughts on the types of “sticks” have you seen work?