Changes

A change record describes the planned work, the affected service and its risk. It also keeps the scheduled start and end and a rollback plan. The Service Owner prepares the change for review. A Change Approver decides whether the risk, window and rollback plan are acceptable before implementation begins. That decision belongs at the transition from review to approved or rejected.

After approval, the implementing team moves the record into implementation. Verification marks a completed change. If the team reverses the work, the rolled-back outcome stays visible. The status separates a plan under review from a change approved for execution and from the actual outcome. Use the service reference to read the change in the context of incidents or problems affecting the same operation.

• Preparation. The summary, risk, schedule and rollback plan are reviewed together.
• Decision. The approver authorizes or rejects the reviewed change.
• Outcome. Implementation, verification and rollback each have a distinct status.

The changes awaiting review screen gives the approver the fields needed for a decision. The change schedule shows approved and implementing work against its planned window. A Service Owner should check whether a nearby incident or known error changes the risk before asking for approval.

Decide who may submit a draft for review and what must be present before the approver acts. Agree how risk labels are interpreted and how far in advance the schedule should be set. A rollback plan should tell the executor what would trigger reversal and what outcome to record. The approver needs a clear way to send an unsuitable plan back through the team’s operating practice; the record has a rejected status for a negative decision.

Set the responsibility for verification. The person who implements the change may know that a task finished, while the service owner needs to confirm the service result. Agree how to use the verified status after checking the affected service. Rehearse a rolled-back case so the team recognizes that status as a real outcome, not a pending approval.

Suppose a service owner plans to adjust a log source during an incident investigation. They record the service, risk, scheduled window and rollback plan, then send the change for review. The Change Approver reads the plan and approves it. The team begins in the scheduled window, marks the change implementing and verifies that the expected service behavior returns. If the change worsens the incident, they execute the rollback plan and record rolled back instead. The incident retains its own response status and resolution time.

• Changes awaiting review — Read risk, planned window and rollback plan before deciding.
• Change schedule — See approved and implementing work across the planned interval.
• Incident queue — Check active service incidents near the change.

Use change review to verification to rehearse approval and the recorded outcome.