Make change requests simple for simple changes
A lot of time and effort can be put in to producing a change request. A good change request form will encorage the submitter to question why they are doing the change and it will make them think about the consequences of their actions and what they'll do if things go wrong.
However, many changes are low risk and inconsequential, or they've been done many times before and the IT department as a whole has little concern about the change being made. These changes need to be recorded but they need to flow through the change management meat grinder quickly and effortlessly. They still need to be authorised - this could be by a line manager instead of the change manager - and certain changes could be covered by one umbrella approval minuted at Change Approval Board. But the amount of information logged is less and there are fewer fields to fill in and hence the change can be rolled out quicker.
The benefit is that you still have a record of approved changes which will be of benefit for problem management in the future - if it ever comes to that. Any changes that have gone through the quicker process and subsequently caused an issue would have to be returned to the normal change management process until an improvement had been made.
More importantly, you'll be able to spend more time assessing the changes that really matter, and change requesters will spend more time on raising decent change requests because they won't have change-request-raising fatigue - although this trade off should be pointed out in your change policy.
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