Release Management and Change Request

[Tommaso2]

Hi all,

Which is the relationship between Release Management (I mean the "old" feature, not DPR) and Change Management?

A change request can be considered as the last step of the release?

A change is only used to assess the risk and track implementations that have to be released to prod/non prod environments?

Can you please provide an easy and clear example?

Many thanks,
Tommaso

[Mark Manders · Accepted solution]

A release contains everything that is going to be implemented on the target system (so the actual functionality). Most often this contains stories/issues, but it is the 'what'.

The change is the process to get that release approved to be released on the requested date/time, including the risks behind it. 

Example: you are updating your Customer communication from ServiceNow with new triggers, new templates and new layout to the notifications. Your release tells you what has been done, shows the test results, contains documentation, etc.

The change is created to approve you moving this to production on Tuesday evening, after it has been checked that there are no other changes being done to customer facing applications that could cause disruptions and communications should not be affected when that happens. It will check on roll back plans and if communication is done/needed to the customers to inform them that they will no longer see a boring email, but branded communication popping from their screen.