Change & Release Management: Key Roles & Best Practices

Change and release management are closely related but distinct processes. While change management ensures that a change is justified, evaluated, and approved, release management handles the logistics of deploying that change safely. Because they’re so closely connected, the differences between them aren’t always obvious. 

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Low-code platforms are reshaping both processes. They standardize development and deployment, reducing the complexity of change approvals and accelerating safe releases.

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In this article, we’ll break it all down:

• Key differences between change management and release management.
• How ITIL helps structure these processes.
• Best practices for IT teams to reduce risks and improve efficiency.

Let’s start with change management and how it lays the groundwork for successful releases.

What is change management in IT?

Think of change management as a decision-making pipeline. It’s a structured process that evaluates change requests, prioritizes them, and ensures the right people approve them before anything moves forward.

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While it’s mostly about approvals and governance, it’s more than just a signoff process. It also ensures that IT changes align with business goals and have a clear execution plan. 

Key goals of change management

Done right, change management prevents chaos, reduces risk, and keeps everyone from IT teams to business leaders on the same page. Here’s what a solid change management process aims to achieve:

• Minimize service disruptions: A structured change management process ensures that every change is properly assessed for risk before being approved.
• Reduce risks associated with deploying changes: Not all changes are equal — some have a minor impact, while others can affect critical business operations. Change management enforces impact assessments, rollback plans, and staged deployments to minimize risk.
• Ensure compliance with business and security policies: Change management maintains audit logs, approval workflows, and risk assessments to meet compliance requirements.
• Improve communication between IT teams and business stakeholders: It enforces documentation, notifications, and CAB (Change Advisory Board) which is a group of IT and business leaders reviews to align IT with business needs.

Types of changes in IT change management

Different changes require different levels of assessment and approval. IT change management classifies changes into three main types:

1. Standard changes 

These are routine, low-risk changes that follow a documented and automated process. Standard changes are pre-approved by the organization, which minimizes the need for manual reviews each time.

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Some examples include applying routine security patches to servers or updating firewall rules for pre-approved use cases.

2. Normal changes 

Normal changes carry varying levels of risk. They require comprehensive assessment which may include CAB approval, risk analysis, and a testing phase before deployment.

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Examples include migrating an on-premises database to a cloud provider or upgrading a company-wide CRM (e.g., Salesforce, HubSpot) depending on scope and impact.

3. Emergency changes 

Emergency changes are unplanned, urgent changes made to resolve critical system failures, security vulnerabilities, or service outages. These changes often require expedited approval from key personnel and fast implementation to get things back to normal as soon as possible.

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Examples include fixing a production outage caused by a failed software deployment or restoring database access after corruption.

What is the change management process?

In this section, we’ll walk through each phase of change management step by step.

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Short on time? Here’s a quick rundown of the key phases:

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To gain a better understanding of the process, we will reference a real-world example of an e-commerce company planning to upgrade its CRM system. 

Step 1: Request for Change (RFC) 

Any IT change, whether it’s a software update, infrastructure upgrade, or security patch starts with a request. This can come from:

• Engineers who need to roll out a new feature
• Security teams after identifying vulnerabilities
• Customers who raise issues or submit feature requests

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The request is formally documented as an RFC document. It details:

• What’s changing and why
• What could go wrong
• Resources and teams involved

For the e-commerce company, the current CRM may be slowing down sales and support operations, so an upgrade is proposed.

Step 2: Assessment & approval 

Not all changes carry the same level of impact. Low-risk, routine changes (like security patches) might be pre-approved and fast-tracked. 

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Major, high-impact changes (like migrating databases or launching a new product feature) require risk analysis, compliance checks, and sign-offs from stakeholders.

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The risk assessment phase helps answer critical questions such as:

• What happens if customer data is corrupted during migration?
• Can sales and support teams continue working without disruption?
• Will existing integrations with email, inventory, and marketing systems break?
• Does the new CRM meet compliance standards like PCI-DSS or GDPR?

Based on the assessment, the change is either approved, rejected, or sent back for more info. High-risk changes may require senior management or CAB approval, while low-risk ones could be handled through automated workflows or change managers.

Step 3: Planning

Once approved, the change is scheduled according to a plan. The plan details tasks, responsible parties, timelines, and rollback procedures in case something goes wrong​. 

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At this stage, change management ensures that the release team has a structured plan before moving forward.

Step 4: Validation and review

After implementation, a post-implementation review (PIR) assesses whether the change achieved its objectives and if any issues occurred​.

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Did the new CRM improve efficiency as expected? Were there any unexpected incidents or failures? Could the process be smoother?

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The change record is updated with results and any variances or incidents are analyzed.

Step 5: Closure and documentation

The change is formally closed if successful (or rolled back if not). Documentation (including the CMDB) is updated to reflect the new state.

What is release management in IT?

Release management is about execution. It is a technical delivery process that manages how an approved change is built, tested, deployed, and monitored. This differs from change management, which defines what should change and why

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Change management provides the input (approved change), while release management provides the output (a deployed, stable system update).

In a well-structured IT organization, change management doesn’t happen in isolation. It’s closely integrated with release management.

Key goals of release management

A successful release ensures:

• Multiple changes are coordinated into structured releases: Rather than deploying updates in isolation, teams group related changes into well-tested release cycles.
• Changes are deployed with minimal risk: Techniques like blue-green deployments and canary releases help reduce the chance of system-wide failure.
• Changes are integrated with existing CI/CD pipelines: Automating testing, approvals, and rollback mechanisms accelerate releases.
• Post-release monitoring and feedback loops are in-place: Tracking performance after deployment ensures stability and helps teams refine future releases.

Types in IT release management

Some releases introduce groundbreaking new features, while others are small refinements or urgent security fixes. 

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Here’s how major releases, minor releases, and patch releases differ in scope, impact, and planning:

The release management process 

Now that we’ve covered why release management matters, let’s look at how it actually works in practice.

Here’s a breakdown of each step in the process. 

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Let’s now see how this process applies to the e-commerce company’s CRM migration.

Step 1: Release planning

Before deployment, the release team (SREs, DevOps, and platform engineers) define the scope of the release (which change(s) or features are included) and plan the release schedule​.

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This involves aligning with change management approvals to ensure each release is authorized and meets business needs. Risk assessment and rollback strategies are also established at this stage.

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Since replacing a CRM is a high-impact change, the release team may decide to deploy the CRM in phases. For example, starting with internal teams before expanding to customer-facing operations. 

Step 2: Build & configuration 

In this stage, the team develops or assembles the components of the release in a controlled environment. This could mean compiling code, configuring hardware, or preparing scripts. They also maintain version control and document all components in the CMDB to track what is changing​.

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In our e-commerce example, the IT team may use multiple environments, e.g. development, test, and staging, with configuration consistency across them.

Step 3: Testing & quality assurance

Rigorously test the release package to catch issues before deployment. This includes unit and integration testing, quality assurance (QA), user acceptance testing (UAT), and compliance/security checks​. The goal is to ensure the release meets requirements and won’t introduce regressions or incidents in production.

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In our e-commerce company, for example, QA teams may simulate a Black Friday-level traffic spike to test if the CRM can handle transaction surges.

Step 4: Deployment

 Deploy the release to the live environment according to the plan. Different deployment strategies can be used based on risk. For example:

• Big bang (all users at once)
• Phased rollout (incremental)
• Blue-green (deploy to parallel environment then switch over)
• Canary releases (release to a small user subset first)​

In our e-commerce CRM migration, the team doesn’t push the CRM update to everyone at once. Instead, they start small, rolling it out to marketing first. As users interact with the system, IT closely monitors error rates, response times, and data retrieval speeds. 

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During deployment, teams closely monitor for issues and have rollback procedures ready in case of failure.

Step 5: Monitoring & feedback

Once the release is live, IT teams track latency, transaction success rates, and error thresholds to catch issues early.

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Tools like Datadog, Logstash, and Prometheus help monitor logs, metrics, and system performance. If response times slow down or errors increase, the team can apply a fix, or pause the release.

Change management vs release management: How do they work together?

In many organizations, an approved change is a prerequisite for a release. Change management provides the authorization and context for release management to execute. Once a change involving software is approved, release management plans and deploys it.

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In this way, change management feeds into release management by specifying what to release and that it’s okay to do so.

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These two processes intersect at key points:

• Common goal: Both processes aim to deliver improvements to IT services with minimal disruption. Change management does this through careful evaluation and scheduling; release management does this through thorough testing and controlled deployment.
• Risk assessment: Both teams evaluate risks. Change management looks at business risks, while release management focuses on technical risks.
• Tracking and visibility: There’s often cross-referencing between change records and release plans. For example, a single release may implement multiple approved changes and each change record notes which release deployed it. 
• Rollback planning: Change management ensures the business is prepared for possible failures, while release management has technical rollback mechanisms in place.
• Post-implementation review: Change managers assess whether the change delivered business value, while release teams analyze system performance and error rates.

Why are change and release management vital in IT? 

Strong change and release management keep an organization's software ecosystem stable.

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Here’s why these processes matter:

• Reduces risks: Uncontrolled changes can bring down entire systems. Think back to our e-commerce CRM migration. Without proper change and release controls, the company could face data corruption, broken integrations, or authentication failures, leading to lost revenue and frustrated customers.
• Improves efficiency: When approvals are automated, deployments are standardized, and rollback plans are in place, IT teams can ship updates faster with minimal disruptions.
• Boosts collaboration: Change management brings stakeholders into the process early, while release management ensures teams stay aligned during execution. This coordination prevents miscommunication, reduces resistance, and ensures IT changes actually support business goals.

What are the biggest risks of poor change and release management?

We’ve covered why change and release management matter, but what happens when these processes fail? 

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Below, we will explore the biggest risks of poor change and release management:

System downtime & service disruptions

What seems stable in staging doesn’t always hold up in production. A database schema change might work perfectly in testing, but it could crash live systems if overlooked dependencies aren’t accounted for. Similarly, a misconfigured release could take down customer-facing applications.

Security vulnerabilities & data breaches

If you don’t have proper visibility into change history, teams might miss critical security patches or accidentally roll back vital compliance fixes. Worse, security teams might not even know a critical update was released until after an attack has already happened.

Deployment failures leading to lost revenue

If release management isn’t structured, changes can break dependencies between applications, APIs, or third-party services. A CRM migration might seem successful in isolation but break entirely when it interacts with payment processing, email automation, or inventory systems. 

Lack of visibility and accountability

Without structured change tracking, teams lose visibility into what’s being deployed, making it difficult to spot potential risks. When something breaks, there’s no clear record of what changed, turning troubleshooting into a guessing game. Instead of quickly resolving the issue, teams end up wasting time assigning blame rather than fixing the problem.

Best practices for change & release management

The best way to avoid the above risks is by following best practices for change and release management. 

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These practices include:

Follow ITIL guidelines for structured change control

A framework like ITIL helps manage IT changes in a consistent, predictable way. It ensures that every change follows a clear approval process, reducing risks before implementation.

Automate wherever possible

Manual deployments lead to errors and inconsistencies. Automating with CI/CD pipelines, testing suites, and infrastructure as code (Terraform, Ansible) ensures releases are repeatable, reliable, and faster. Automation also helps enforce compliance and detect issues before they hit production.

Use a CMDB to track dependencies

A Configuration Management Database (CMDB) tracks all IT assets, software, and dependencies to prevent changes from breaking critical systems. It maps relationships between servers, applications, databases, and network components, making it easier to assess how a change will impact an environment.

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When integrated with ITSM like ServiceNow or Jira, a CMDB provides full visibility across the organization. This visibility helps teams detect configuration drifts faster.

Use controlled deployment strategies

Instead of pushing changes to all users at once, progressive delivery methods help catch issues early and reduce risk. Feature flags, for example, allow you to ship code to production but enable features only for specific users. 

If a bug surfaces, you can flip a feature toggle or automatically roll it back through CI/CD pipelines without redeploying. 

Conduct post-implementation reviews

After every major change or release, teams should review what worked, what failed, and how to improve for the next deployment. Analyzing incident reports helps identify the root causes of failures, while stakeholder feedback provides insight into business impact. 

Enhance collaboration between IT & business teams

Changes impact more than just IT. They ripple across the entire org including operations, sales, support, and customers. That’s why involving stakeholders early is critical. 

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If customer support knows an update is coming, they can prepare for user questions instead of being caught off guard. If sales teams understand how the change affects their tools, they can adapt without downtime. Clear documentation makes sure every department knows what’s changing and why.

Frequently asked questions

What is a Configuration Management Database (CMDB)?

A CMDB is a centralized database that tracks IT assets, software configurations, and system dependencies. It helps IT teams identify dependencies before making changes to prevent system failures.

How can automation improve release management?

Automation makes release management faster, safer, and more reliable. CI/CD pipelines ensure consistent deployments, automated testing catches bugs early, and infrastructure as code eliminates manual errors. With automated rollbacks, teams can quickly revert bad releases before users notice. 

What role do DevOps and CI/CD play in release management?

DevOps and CI/CD make release management faster, more reliable, and less risky. CI/CD pipelines automate testing, integration, and deployment, ensuring that every release is validated before going live. 

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DevOps practices, like infrastructure as code, monitoring, and automated rollbacks, help teams deploy frequently without breaking production. Together, they enable continuous delivery, faster feedback loops, and safer rollouts.

What tools are commonly used for IT change and release management?

IT teams use ITSM, automation, and monitoring tools to streamline change and release processes. Popular options include:

• ITSM platforms: ServiceNow, Jira Service Management, BMC Helix
• CI/CD tools: Jenkins, GitHub Actions, GitLab CI/CD
• Infrastructure automation: Terraform, Ansible, Kubernetes
• Monitoring & logging: Datadog, Splunk, New Relic

Manage change in internal tools with Superblocks 

If you’re building internal tools and want to manage change effectively, Superblocks can help. 

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Our platform provides you with the features to not only build your apps and workflows but also the tools to govern them. Once you start consolidating your tooling ecosystem, you can approve, deploy, and monitor changes from one place either using our built-in DevOps features or integrating with your existing tools

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This is thanks to our comprehensive set of features:

• Git-based source control: Develop and collaborate confidently with a Git-based workflow. Build on feature branches, review changes in GitHub or GitLab, and deploy with one click.

• Automated tests: Use the testing APIs to write and run automated tests for your APIs locally and within CI/CD pipelines.
• Automatic deployments: Integrate with your CI/CD services and tools like GitHub Actions, CircleCI, Jenkins, and more to streamline release workflows.
• RBAC & centralized governance: Easily manage permissions from one place. Control who can build, access, and deploy changes.
• Audit logs: Gain full visibility into any app edits, workflow runs, or account modifications from a single dashboard.
• Observability: Receive metrics, traces, and logs from all your internal tools directly in Datadog, New Relic, Splunk, or any other observability platform.

With these features, you can manage changes safely, deploy continuously, and maintain full control over your internal tooling. Want to see them in action? Explore our Quickstart Guide or try it for free.‍