Use when performing change management process — template for managing infrastructure and application changes through a structured change management process. Covers change classification, risk assessment, approval workflows, implementation planning, rollback procedures, and post-implementation review aligned with ITIL best practices.
Process change request: {{ change_title }} ({{ change_type }}) targeting {{ environment }}.
CHANGE DETAILS
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[ ] Title: {{ change_title }}
[ ] Type: {{ change_type }}
[ ] Environment: {{ environment }}
[ ] Requester: ___
[ ] Date requested: ___
[ ] Proposed implementation date: ___
[ ] Business justification: ___
[ ] Description of change: ___
[ ] Systems affected: ___
[ ] Users affected: ___
RISK EVALUATION
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Impact assessment:
[ ] Service disruption expected: [ ] YES (duration: ___) [ ] NO
[ ] Data loss potential: [ ] YES [ ] NO
[ ] Security implications: [ ] YES [ ] NO
[ ] Compliance implications: [ ] YES [ ] NO
RISK MATRIX
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
| Low Impact | Medium Impact | High Impact
High Likelihood | MEDIUM | HIGH | CRITICAL
Medium Likelihood | LOW | MEDIUM | HIGH
Low Likelihood | LOW | LOW | MEDIUM
Likelihood: ___
Impact: ___
Overall risk: ___
APPROVAL REQUIREMENTS
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Risk Level | Standard Change | Normal Change | Emergency Change
LOW | Pre-approved | Team lead | Post-hoc
MEDIUM | Pre-approved | Manager + peer | Manager
HIGH | N/A | CAB review | VP + CAB post-hoc
CRITICAL | N/A | VP + CAB review | CTO + post-hoc CAB
IMPLEMENTATION STEPS
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Pre-implementation:
[ ] Change window confirmed: ___ to ___
[ ] Maintenance notification sent (if applicable)
[ ] Backup taken: [ ] YES — verified: [ ] YES
[ ] Runbook prepared and reviewed
[ ] Team members assigned:
- Implementer: ___
- Reviewer: ___
- On-call backup: ___
Implementation:
[ ] Step 1: ___ (estimated: ___ min)
[ ] Step 2: ___ (estimated: ___ min)
[ ] Step 3: ___ (estimated: ___ min)
[ ] Step 4: ___ (estimated: ___ min)
Total estimated duration: ___
Verification:
[ ] Smoke tests pass
[ ] Monitoring confirms normal operation
[ ] No new errors in logs
[ ] Stakeholders notified of completion
ROLLBACK PROCEDURE
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Rollback trigger: ___
Rollback decision owner: ___
Rollback deadline: ___
[ ] Step 1: ___
[ ] Step 2: ___
[ ] Step 3: ___
Estimated rollback duration: ___
Rollback tested: [ ] YES [ ] NO
POST-CHANGE REVIEW
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ ] Change completed successfully: [ ] YES [ ] PARTIAL [ ] ROLLED BACK
[ ] Actual implementation time: ___ (estimated: ___)
[ ] Issues encountered:
- ___
- ___
[ ] Unplanned changes required: [ ] YES [ ] NO
[ ] Customer impact: [ ] NONE [ ] MINOR [ ] MAJOR
[ ] Lessons learned:
- ___
- ___
[ ] Process improvements identified:
- ___
[ ] Change record closed: [ ] YES
| Shortcut | Counter | Why |
|---|---|---|
| "We can skip some steps for this case" | Adapt the workflow steps, don't skip them | Skipped steps are where incidents and oversights originate |
| "The user seems to already know what to do" | Complete all workflow phases with the user | The workflow catches blind spots that experience alone misses |
| "This is a minor case, full process is overkill" | Scale the process down, don't turn it off | Minor cases become major when unstructured; the process scales, not disappears |
| "I'll fill in the details later" | Complete each section before moving on | Deferred details are forgotten; real-time capture is more accurate |
| "The template output isn't necessary" | Always produce the structured output format | Structured output enables comparison, audit trails, and handoff to other teams |
Produce a change management record with: