When deploying an identity management solutions, you will come to know that the development lifecycle will be tightly coupled to your identity processes . Even if development might not produce actual source code and deal strictly with metadata and configuration of tools, it's still a development activity in most IT shops. Just like loose lips sink ships, loose process management is liable to scatter the enterprise ocean floor with debris of all kinds. Caveat emptor.

I strongly feel that sound change management practices have to form a foundation of any identity management implementation. Since the very nature of identity management requires the interaction of tools with business policies, processes, and applications, the ability to evolve is essential to the quality of implementation. Some analysts might label processes that can evolve quicker than the rest as agile. I am introducing a new metric, an Agility Index. The Agility Index ranges from 0 to 29., 29 being super-agile, liquid processes. (Why 29? It's a nice prime number). In an implementation with inadequate change management, deployment (among other activities!) quickly becomes chaos. The Agility Index of such an implementation is close to zero.

Homework: consumtpion of Adaptation as a moral fiber for implementing a change management process