Automating the change management process with electronic contracts

Electronic contracts play a key role in the automation of information technology (IT) processes by establishing a common context and a formal set of mutual agreements and expectations between the various parties involved in today's enterprise applications. We describe a novel approach for applying different types of electronic contracts to a complex IT management scenario with a specific focus on change management. Our implementation of a change management system and its quantitative evaluation shows that the use of electronic contracts helps in breaking down a complex change management problem into tractable parts and improves the quality of the accomplished solution. © 2005 IEEE.