Change Management
Purpose and types
Change Management controls modifications to services and configuration items so that risk is understood before work proceeds. Three types dominate exam questions. Standard changes are pre-approved, low-risk, repeatable, and defined by a change model or template - often exposed as catalog items. Normal changes require assessment and approval and are planned. Emergency changes are expedited, typically approved after implementation.
Lifecycle
New, Assess, Authorize, Scheduled, Implement, Review, Closed, plus Canceled. Each transition has entry requirements: Authorize needs approvals recorded, Scheduled needs planned start and end dates, Review needs implementation notes, and closure confirms the outcome.
Approvals and risk
Approvals are records generated by approval policies or flows, frequently routed through the change advisory board (CAB) and the CAB workbench. Risk and impact fields drive how much scrutiny a change receives. Approval rules vary by change model, so a question about why one change needed three approvals and another needed none usually resolves to the model rather than the record.
Scheduling and conflicts
Change schedules surface planned changes against CIs. Conflict detection compares a change against CI maintenance schedules and other changes; blackout windows block changes during protected periods. Unauthorized change detection flags changes that were implemented without proper approval or scheduling.
Traps
Assuming emergency means no approval - it usually means post-implementation approval. Assuming standard means unrecorded - standard changes must still be defined by a model and are audited. Assuming you can move to Scheduled without dates. Assuming change tasks replace approvals; they are separate objects.
Worked example
A monthly OS patch applied by the same scripted procedure is a standard change, pre-approved through its model. A database schema change affecting a critical service is normal: assess, CAB approve, schedule with dates, implement, review, close. Rule of thumb: if the procedure is not pre-approved and repeatable, it is not standard.