Three types of change
Change enablement recognises three types: standard (pre-authorised, low risk, procedural — no approval needed each time), normal (assessed and authorised through the usual path), and emergency (expedited, with a separate authority and often documentation completed afterwards).
Why it is like this
Routing every change through one authority is both a bottleneck and a rubber stamp. Separating the three lets scrutiny concentrate where risk actually is.
Not to be confused with
A severity scale. Standard changes are a class authorised once in advance, not small changes approved quickly — and ITIL 4 renamed the practice *change enablement* because its job is to maximise successful changes, not to slow them down.
In practice
A password reset is standard. A schema migration is normal. Patching an actively exploited vulnerability at 02:00 is emergency.
Source: ITIL 4 Foundation (AXELOS / PeopleCert), 2019 edition — change enablement practice. Read on .
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Odd one out Check yourself
Three of these are true of a standard change. Which is not?
Show the answer
It is approved individually by the change authority before each execution
Pre-authorisation is the whole point — per-instance approval would make it a normal change with extra paperwork.