# IT change management

> IT change management is the process for requesting, assessing, approving and recording changes to systems so they do not cause avoidable outages.

IT change management (also called change control or change enablement) is the process for proposing, assessing, approving, scheduling and recording changes to IT systems: software updates, configuration changes, new integrations, network and permission changes.

A change request usually captures what will change and why, the systems affected, the risk, the planned window, how it will be tested, and how it will be rolled back if it fails. After the change, the implementer records the result.

Frameworks such as ITIL group changes into three types:

- **Standard**: low-risk, repeatable and pre-approved, such as adding a user to a known group.
- **Normal**: assessed and approved case by case.
- **Emergency**: done quickly to fix or prevent an outage, and reviewed afterward.

It is different from organizational change management, which is about helping people adopt a new way of working.

### Example

An IT administrator needs to update firewall rules (illustrative). She submits a change for Thursday at 8 pm with the risk, the test plan and the rollback steps. The IT manager approves it, she applies it, confirms remote access still works, and closes the request with the result.

### Common pitfalls

- **Everything is an emergency**, so nothing is really reviewed.
- **No rollback plan** until the change fails.
- **A process so heavy for small changes** that people go around it.
- **Approvers who do not understand the change** and approve by default.
- **Records not updated**, so after an outage nobody knows what changed.

Page: https://easy.wf/glossary/change-management