Change Manager
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Why join Harvard University Central Administration?
Harvard University's Central Administration (CADM) is a 5,000+ employee organization that supports the university's overall excellence by understanding and serving the needs of its schools, students, faculty, staff, alumni, and surrounding communities. Through dynamic and collaborative partnerships, CADM provides high-quality and efficient services to the schools to help them achieve their goals.
More About HUIT:
Our Mission: huit.harvard.edu/about
We empower the Harvard community with essential and transformative technologies to advance education, knowledge, and discovery.
HUIT’s core values are:
- Human-centered
- University-focused
- Innovation-driven
- Team-oriented
IT Academy (designed for IT Staff):
HUIT’s IT Academy aims to enable each IT staff person to grow professionally and become a trusted partner to her or his team. The IT Academy is built on the belief that every IT staff member across the University (including technology employees at each school and campus) can grow in her or his area of expertise as well as building strong people and project management skills. Learn more here: https://itacademy.harvard.edu/.
Harvard University Information Technology (HUIT) is a community of Information Technology professionals committed to delivering service and technological solutions in support of teaching, learning, research and administration. We are recruiting an IT workforce that has both breadth in their ability to collaborate and innovate across disciplines - and depth in specific areas of expertise. HUIT offers opportunities for IT professionals to learn and work in a unique technology landscape and service-focused environment. If you are a technically proficient, nimble, user-focused, and accountable IT professional who also connects with the importance of collaborating well in a team environment, we are looking for you!
The Change Manager provides dedicated, end-to-end process ownership for Harvard University Information Technology’s (HUIT) Change Management practice. Reporting to the Senior Director of IT Service Management & Operations, this role is responsible for the governance, quality, and continuous improvement of HUIT’s change management process across all service areas.
The Change Manager owns the full change lifecycle from intake through close-out, chairs the Change Advisory Board (CAB), manages Executive CAB (ECAB) escalations, and enforces documentation and risk assessment standards across HUIT’s decentralized service environment. The role partners with the ITSM team, CAB Co-Chairs, service owners, and senior leadership to mature governance practices and integrate Release Management as a subprocess of Change Management. This role provides single-point accountability for process quality, stakeholder coaching, and governance maturation.
Principal Duties and Responsibilities:
Change Governance and Process Ownership
- Own the full change management process from intake through close-out, including triage, categorization, risk assessment, scheduling, approval routing, and lifecycle management
- Chair CAB meetings; facilitate cross-team coordination, conflict prevention, and resource alignment; escalate high-impact and emergency changes to ECAB
- Develop and maintain governance policies, standards, and frameworks covering categorization, risk assessment, ECAB escalation, and change freeze periods
- Establish and enforce documentation standards for implementation plans, test plans, backout plans, and communications plans, ensuring change records are substantive and self-contained within ServiceNow
- Leverage CI relationships and CMDB data to inform risk assessment, impact analysis, and approval routing; identify where configuration data gaps limit change governance
- Manage the Standard change catalog and address patterns of change type misapplication, including periodic CAB review of templates
- Develop governance frameworks for changes affecting systems with physical security or life-safety implications, ensuring routing to qualified review bodies
- Partner with the ITSM platform team to implement automated triage, categorization, and governance controls within ServiceNow
Process Maturation and Integration
- Scale the change management process across HUIT, including transitioning legacy standard changes to the current governance model
- Mature Release Management as a subprocess of Change Management, establishing governance standards and workflows for release activity
- Partner on the maturation of Configuration Management practices and CMDB accuracy to enable CI-based impact analysis and automated risk assessment
- Coordinate with the Service Desk on post-implementation reviews; ensure change-related findings feed into Problem Management and that unauthorized changes and scope exceedances are escalated and reviewed
- Maintain alignment with Major Incident, Problem Management, Security and Vulnerability Response, and IT Crisis Management processes
- Produce executive reporting and maintain ServiceNow dashboards; analyze change data to identify trends and drive iterative process improvement
Stakeholder Engagement, Training, and Adoption
- Coach service owners and change submitters on documentation standards, governance expectations, risk assessment, and cross-service impact awareness
- Develop and deliver mandatory change management training at onboarding and as a periodic refresh
- Partner with service area senior leadership to ensure governance expectations are understood and reinforced through their teams
- Coordinate with the Impact Review and HUIT Communications teams to integrate communications plans into the CAB approval workflow
Other Duties
- Perform additional responsibilities as assigned to support the IT Service Management and Client Services mission.
Key Competencies:
- Process governance and standards enforcement
- Stakeholder coaching and influence across organizational levels
- Risk assessment and impact analysis
- Cross-functional coordination and conflict resolution
- Executive communication and reporting
- Continuous improvement and process maturation
- Data-driven decision making and analysis
- ServiceNow platform fluency
- ITSM best practices and ITIL frameworks
- Training development and delivery
Qualifications
Basic Qualifications:
Basic Qualifications are the minimum threshold a candidate must meet in order to be considered for this role.
- Minimum of five years’ post-secondary education or relevant work experience in IT Service Management, with at least 2 years in a change management or ITSM governance role.
Additional Qualifications and Skills:
The following qualifications are strongly preferred. If you meet some, but not all, you are still encouraged to apply; we value employees with a willingness to learn.
Required
- Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology, Business Administration, or related field
- ITIL v4 Foundations Certification (or equivalent)
- Experience with ServiceNow or similar ITSM platforms, including change workflows, approval engines, and reporting
- Demonstrated experience managing change advisory board operations or equivalent governance bodies
- Proven ability to enforce process standards across decentralized service teams with varied levels of process maturity
- Strong understanding of change management principles including risk assessment, categorization, and post-implementation review
- Experience producing executive-level reporting and stakeholder communications
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills with the ability to coach technical staff on governance expectations
Preferred
- 7+ years of experience in IT Service Management with 3+ years in dedicated change management process ownership
- Advanced ITIL certifications (ITIL Managing Professional, ITIL Strategic Leader, or Expert level)
- ServiceNow certifications (e.g., Certified Implementation Specialist, ITSM Professional)
- Experience implementing or maturing change management programs across multiple practice areas or organizational units
- Experience integrating change management with Problem Management and Major Incident processes
- Experience with Configuration Management, CMDB practices, and leveraging CI data to inform change governance and risk assessment
- Experience developing governance frameworks for critical infrastructure, OT systems, or systems with life-safety implications
- Experience with higher education IT environments and decentralized organizational structures
- Experience developing and delivering ITSM process training and adoption programs
- Demonstrated success driving process adoption and compliance across large, complex organizations
- Experience with ServiceNow platform configuration including workflow design, business rules, and dashboard development
- Experience with data analytics, KPI development, and performance measurement frameworks for ITSM processes
Certificates and Licenses:
- Completion of Harvard IT Academy specified foundational courses (or external equivalent) preferred
- ITIL v4 Foundations or higher required
- Advanced ITIL certifications strongly preferred
- ServiceNow certifications valued
Additional Information
- Working Conditions: Onsite work is performed in an office setting.
- Standard Hours/Schedule: 35 hours per week
Hybrid; 1-2 days onsite per week on average plus ad-hoc meetings - Visa Sponsorship Information: Harvard University is unable to provide visa sponsorship for this position
- Pre-Employment Screening: Identity
- Other Information:
Please provide a cover letter and resume as one document with your application.
This position has a 180-day orientation and review period.
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Work Format Details
This position has been determined by school or unit leaders that some of the duties and responsibilities can be effectively performed at a non-Harvard location. The work schedule and location will be set by the department at its discretion and based upon operational needs. When not working at a Harvard or Harvard-designated location, employees in hybrid positions must work in a Harvard registered state in compliance with the University’s Policy on Employment Outside of Massachusetts. Additional details will be discussed during the interview process. Certain visa types and funding sources may limit work location. Individuals must meet work location sponsorship requirements prior to employment.
Salary Grade and Ranges
This position is salary grade level 058. Please visit Harvard's Salary Ranges to view the corresponding salary range and related information.
Benefits
Harvard offers a comprehensive benefits package that is designed to support a healthy work-life balance and your physical, mental and financial wellbeing. Because here, you are what matters. Our benefits include, but are not limited to:
- Generous paid time off including parental leave
- Medical, dental, and vision health insurance coverage starting on day one
- Retirement plans with university contributions
- Wellbeing and mental health resources
- Support for families and caregivers
- Professional development opportunities including tuition assistance and reimbursement
- Commuter benefits, discounts and campus perks
Learn more about these and additional benefits on our Benefits & Wellbeing Page.
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