A change request (aka Change Control Request, or CCR) is a
document
A document is a written, drawn, presented, or memorialized representation of thought, often the manifestation of non-fictional, as well as fictional, content. The word originates from the Latin ''Documentum'', which denotes a "teaching" or ...
containing a call for an adjustment of a
system
A system is a group of Interaction, interacting or interrelated elements that act according to a set of rules to form a unified whole. A system, surrounded and influenced by its environment (systems), environment, is described by its boundaries, ...
; it is of great importance in the
change management process.
Purpose and elements
A change request is declarative, i.e. it states what needs to be accomplished, but leaves out how the change should be carried out. Important elements of a change request are an ID, the customer (ID), the
deadline
Deadline(s) or The Deadline(s) may refer to:
* Time limit, a narrow field of time by which an objective must be accomplished
Arts, entertainment, and media Comics
* Deadline (DC Comics), a fictional villain
* ''Deadline'' (magazine), a British ...
(if applicable), an indication whether the change is required or optional, the change type (often chosen from a domain-specific
ontology
In metaphysics, ontology is the philosophical study of being, as well as related concepts such as existence, becoming, and reality.
Ontology addresses questions like how entities are grouped into categories and which of these entities exis ...
) and a change
abstract, which is a piece of narrative (Keller, 2005). An example of a change request can be found in Figure 1 on the right.
Sources
Change requests typically originate from one of five sources:
# problem reports that identify
bugs that must be fixed, which forms the most common source
# system enhancement requests from
users
Ancient Egyptian roles
* User (ancient Egyptian official), an ancient Egyptian nomarch (governor) of the Eighth Dynasty
* Useramen, an ancient Egyptian vizier also called "User"
Other uses
* User (computing), a person (or software) using an ...
# events in the development of other systems
# changes in underlying structure and or standards (e.g. in software development this could be a new operating system)
# demands from senior management (Dennis, Wixom & Tegarden, 2002).
Additionally, in
Project Management
Project management is the process of leading the work of a team to achieve all project goals within the given constraints. This information is usually described in project documentation, created at the beginning of the development process. Th ...
, change requests may also originate from an unclear understanding of the goals and the objectives of the project.
[Nielsen, Dave]
"How to Control Change Requests"
''PM Hut'', November 15, 2009. Retrieved on March 2, 2010.
Synonyms
Change requests have many different names, which essentially describe the same concept:
* Request For Change (RFC) by Rajlich (1999); RFC is also a common term in
ITIL
The Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is a set of detailed practices for IT activities such as IT service management (ITSM) and IT asset management (ITAM) that focus on aligning IT services with the needs of business.
ITIL de ...
(Keller, 2005) and
PRINCE2
PRINCE2 (PRojects IN Controlled Environments) is a structured project management method and practitioner certification programme. PRINCE2 emphasises dividing projects into manageable and controllable stages.
It is adopted in many countries wor ...
(Onna & Koning, 2003).
* Engineering Change (EC) by Huang and Mak (1999);
* Engineering Change Request (ECR) at Aero (Helms, 2002);
* Engineering Change Order (ECO) by Loch and Terwiesch (1999) and Pikosz and Malmqvist (1998). Engineering Change Order is a separate step after ECR. After ECR is approved by Engineering Department then an ECO is made for making the change;
* Change Notice at Chemical (Helms, 2002);
* Action Request (AR) at ABB Robotics AB (Kajko-Mattson, 1999);
* Change Request (CR) is, among others, used by Lam (1998), Mäkäräinen (2000), Dennis, et al. (2002), Crnkovic, Asklund and Persson-Dahlqvist (2003) and at ABB Automation Products AB (Kajko-Mattsson, 1999).
* Operational Change Request (OCR).
* Enterprise Change Request (ECR).
See also
*
Change management (engineering) The change request management process in systems engineering is the process of requesting, determining attainability, planning, implementing, and evaluating of changes to a system. Its main goals are to support the processing and traceability of c ...
*
Change control
Within quality management systems (QMS) and information technology (IT) systems, change control is a process—either formal or informal—used to ensure that changes to a product or system are introduced in a controlled and coordinated manner. It ...
*
Change order
Change or Changing may refer to:
Alteration
* Impermanence, a difference in a state of affairs at different points in time
* Menopause, also referred to as "the change", the permanent cessation of the menstrual period
* Metamorphosis, or change, ...
*
Engineering Change Order
An engineering change order (ECO), also called an engineering change notice (ECN), engineering change (EC), or engineering release notice(ERN), is an artifact used to implement changes to components or end products. The ECO is utilized to contro ...
References
Further reading
*Crnkovic I., Asklund, U. & Persson-Dahlqvist, A. (2003). ''Implementing and Integrating Product Data Management and Software Configuration Management''. London: Artech House.
*Dennis, A., Wixom, B.H. & Tegarden, D. (2002). ''System Analysis & Design: An Object-Oriented Approach with UML''. Hoboken, New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
*Helms, R.W. (2002). ''Product Data Management as enabler for Concurrent Engineering''. PhD dissertation. Eindhoven: Eindhoven University of Technology press. Available online: http://alexandria.tue.nl/extra2/200211339.pdf.
*Huang, G.H. & Mak, K.L. (1999). Current practices of engineering change management in UK manufacturing industries. ''International Journal of Operations & Production Management'', 19(1), 21–37.
*Kajko-Mattsson, M. (1999). Maintenance at ABB (II): Change Execution Processes (The State of Practice). ''Proceedings of the International Conference on Software Maintenance'', 307–315.
*Keller, A. (2005). Automating the Change Management Process with Electronic Contracts. ''Proceedings of the 2005 Seventh IEEE International Conference on E-Commerce Technology Workshops'', 99-108.
*Lam, W. (1998). Change Analysis and Management in a Reuse-Oriented Software Development Setting. In Pernici, B. & Thanos, C. (Eds.) ''Proceedings of the Tenth International Conference on Advanced Information Systems Engineering'', 219–236.
*Loch, C.H. & Terwiesch, C. (1999). Accelerating the Process of Engineering Change Orders: Capacity and Congestion Effects. ''Journal of Product Innovation Management, 16''(2), 145–159.
*Mäkäräinen, M. (2000). ''Software change management processes in the development of embedded software''. PhD dissertation. Espoo: VTT Publications. Available online: http://www.vtt.fi/inf/pdf/publications/2000/P416.pdf.
*Onna, M. van & Koning, A. (2003). ''The Little Prince 2: A Practical Guide to Project Management'', Pink Roccade Educational Services/Ten Hagen Stam.
*Pikosz, P. & Malmqvist, J. (1998). A comparative study of engineering change management in three Swedish engineering companies. ''Proceedings of the DETC98 ASME Design Engineering Technical Conference'', 78–85.
*Rajlich, V. (1999). Software Change and Evolution. In Pavelka, J., Tel, G. & Bartošek, M. (Eds.), ''SOFSEM'99, Lecture Notes in Computer Science 1725'', 189–202.
*DiDonato, P. (2001). Oakley Inc, Developing XML systems with (CRF).
{{DEFAULTSORT:Change Request
Systems engineering
Business terms