Simply put, a standard change is a routine change. Any procedure or work instruction for standard changes are pre-approved by a change authority. Templates for standard changes are encouraged to be developed.  All templates require pre-approval by a change authority.  

Examples for classifying a Request for Change (RFC) as standard:

• There is evidence that this type of change has been done successfully in the past.
• Documented test, backout & recovery, and communication plans exist.
• There is no user noticeable downtime.
• Low-risk maintenance/administration work.
• There is no potential for a security vulnerability.
• The change does not require significant people resources either within one group or multiple groups. One team can perform the bulk of the change.
• The change does not affect multiple Services.
• The change can be implemented outside maintenance windows.

A communication to stakeholders is required.

Please refer to the Standard Change Templates knowledge article for step by step instructions on creating a template.

The Standard Change process flow skips the Assess and Authorize states. 

Note: if a Standard change can no longer be considered routine or execution is unsuccessful, then the standard change template will become inactive (not available) and subsequent change requests will be considered Normal and follow the normal change process.