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Also known as: Change Management Process, Change Control Process
A formalized procedure to propose, assess, approve, and implement changes to systems or data assets.
DESCRIPTION
The Change Request Process governs how modifications are proposed, analyzed for risk and impact, authorized, and implemented. It ensures traceability, accountability, and alignment with SLAs and policies. In data and ML, it covers schema changes, pipeline updates, access policies, and model deployments. Risk-based workflows and automation reduce delays while protecting reliability. Clear templates, ownership, and rollback plans are essential.
ALTERNATIVE DEFINITIONS
Wikipedia
In systems engineering, a change request is a formal proposal for an alteration to some product or system.
Defines the core artifact that the process manages: the change request.
AXELOS (ITIL)
The purpose of the change enablement practice is to maximize the number of successful product and service changes by ensuring that risks have been properly assessed, authorizing changes, and managing the change schedule.
Positions change management as enabling safe, frequent change through risk-based authorization.
RELATED TERMS
Approval Gates CAB SLA Impact Analysis Rollback Plan Version Control Releasing Incident Management Problem Management Configuration Management
COMPETING TERMS
RELATIONS
- Broader: Approval Process
KNOWLEDGE AREAS
Collaboration Software Engineering Data Management MLOps
TARGET AUDIENCE
DevOps Engineer MLOps Engineer Data Engineer Cloud Architect Data Governance Manager Chief Information Officer Enterprise Architect
EXTERNAL SOURCES
- Wikipedia - Change request
- Google SRE - Change management in SRE
- ITIL Docs - Change management overview
- Microsoft - Track change requests
TOP QUESTIONS
Why use a Change Request Process for data pipelines?
It reduces outages and data incidents by enforcing impact analysis, testing, and approvals before changes reach production.
Category: Relevancy
What information belongs in a change request?
Description, rationale, scope, risk/impact, testing evidence, rollback plan, scheduling, and affected services or datasets.
Category: Requirements
How do you keep the Change Request Process agile?
Use risk-based paths, automate checks, template evidence, and pre-approve standard, low-risk changes.
Category: BestPractice
Who approves a change request?
Depending on risk: service owners, CAB members, SREs, security/privacy officers, or product owners.
Category: Governance
What is a common mistake in change requests?
Lack of rollback plan and insufficient testing evidence, which increases time-to-recover if issues arise.
Category: Mistakes
How do SLAs influence change scheduling?
SLAs and maintenance windows constrain when changes can occur to minimize customer impact and meet reliability commitments.
Category: Integration
What metrics indicate an effective Change Request Process?
Change failure rate, lead time, mean time to restore, and throughput of standard changes without compromising reliability.
Category: Metrics
How does version control support the Change Request Process?
Pull requests, code reviews, and tagged releases provide traceability, peer checks, and controlled deployments.
Category: Tooling
What triggers an emergency change path?
Critical incidents or security issues requiring immediate mitigation, followed by retrospective review and documentation.
Category: Operation