One is not enough: A hybrid approach for IT change planning

Abstract

We propose a novel hybrid planning approach for the automated generation of IT change plans. The algorithm addresses an abstraction mismatch between refinement of tasks and reasoning about the lifecycle and state-constraints of domain objects. To the best of our knowledge, it is the first approach to address this abstraction mismatch for IT Change Management and to be based on Artificial Intelligence planning techniques. This has several advantages over previously existing research including increased readability, expressiveness, and maintainability of the descriptions. We developed the foundations of the approach and successfully validated it by applying it to change request planning for TikiWiki, a Content Management System. © 2009 Springer-Verlag.