Change request

{{Short description|Declaration document}} {{more footnotes needed|date=October 2014}} right|350px|'''Figure 1''': Example change request for the car industry|alt=A '''change request''', sometimes called '''change control request''' ('''CCR'''), is a document containing a call for an adjustment of a system; it is of great importance in the change management process.

==Purpose and elements== A change request is declarative, i.e. it states what needs to be accomplished, but leaves out how the change should be carried out. Important elements of a change request are an ID, the customer (ID), the deadline (if applicable), an indication whether the change is required or optional, the change type (often chosen from a domain-specific ontology) and a change abstract, which is a piece of narrative (Keller, 2005). An example of a change request can be found in Figure 1 on the right.

==Sources== Change requests typically originate from one of five sources: # problem reports that identify bugs that must be fixed, which forms the most common source # system enhancement requests from users # events in the development of other systems # changes in underlying structure and or standards (e.g. in software development this could be a new operating system) # demands from senior management (Dennis, Wixom & Tegarden, 2002). Additionally, in Project Management, change requests may also originate from an unclear understanding of the goals and the objectives of the project.<ref>Nielsen, Dave. [http://www.pmhut.com/how-to-control-change-requests "How to Control Change Requests"], ''PM Hut'', November 15, 2009. Retrieved on March 2, 2010.</ref>

==Synonyms== Change requests have many different names, which essentially describe the same concept: * Request For Change (RFC) by Rajlich (1999); RFC is also a common term in ITIL (Keller, 2005) and PRINCE2 (Onna & Koning, 2003). * Engineering Change (EC) by Huang and Mak (1999); * Engineering Change Request (ECR) at Aero;<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Helms |first=Remko W. |url=http://alexandria.tue.nl/extra2/200211339.pdf |title=Product Data Management as enabler for Concurrent Engineering |date=2002 |publisher=Eindhoven University of Technology Press |location=Eindhoven}}</ref> * Engineering Change Order (ECO) by Loch and Terwiesch (1999)<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Loch |first=C. H. |last2=Terwiesch |first2=C. |date=1999 |title=Accelerating the Process of Engineering Change Orders: Capacity and Congestion Effects |journal=Journal of Product Innovation Management |volume=16 |issue=2 |pages=145-159}}</ref> and Pikosz and Malmqvist (1998).<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Pikosz |first=P. |last2=Malmqvist |first2=J. |date=1998 |title=A comparative study of engineering change management in three Swedish engineering companies |journal=Proceedings of the DETC98 ASME Design Engineering Technical Conference |pages=78-85}}</ref> Engineering Change Order is a separate step after ECR. After ECR is approved by Engineering Department then an ECO is made for making the change; * Change Notice at Chemical;<ref name=":0" /> * Action Request (AR) at ABB Robotics AB (Kajko-Mattson, 1999); * Change Request (CR) is, among others, used by Lam (1998), Mäkäräinen (2000), Dennis, et al. (2002), Crnkovic, Asklund and Persson-Dahlqvist (2003) and at ABB Automation Products AB (Kajko-Mattsson, 1999). * Operational Change Request (OCR). * Enterprise Change Request (ECR).

== References == {{reflist}}

== Further reading == *Crnkovic I., Asklund, U. & Persson-Dahlqvist, A. (2003). ''Implementing and Integrating Product Data Management and Software Configuration Management''. London: Artech House. *Dennis, A., Wixom, B.H. & Tegarden, D. (2002). ''System Analysis & Design: An Object-Oriented Approach with UML''. Hoboken, New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. *Huang, G.H. & Mak, K.L. (1999). Current practices of engineering change management in UK manufacturing industries. ''International Journal of Operations & Production Management'', 19(1), 21–37. *Kajko-Mattsson, M. (1999). Maintenance at ABB (II): Change Execution Processes (The State of Practice). ''Proceedings of the International Conference on Software Maintenance'', 307–315. *Keller, A. (2005). Automating the Change Management Process with Electronic Contracts. ''Proceedings of the 2005 Seventh IEEE International Conference on E-Commerce Technology Workshops'', 99–108. *Lam, W. (1998). Change Analysis and Management in a Reuse-Oriented Software Development Setting. In Pernici, B. & Thanos, C. (Eds.) ''Proceedings of the Tenth International Conference on Advanced Information Systems Engineering'', 219–236. *Mäkäräinen, M. (2000). ''Software change management processes in the development of embedded software''. PhD dissertation. Espoo: VTT Publications. Available online: http://www.vtt.fi/inf/pdf/publications/2000/P416.pdf. *Onna, M. van & Koning, A. (2003). ''The Little Prince 2: A Practical Guide to Project Management'', Pink Roccade Educational Services/Ten Hagen Stam. *Rajlich, V. (1999). Software Change and Evolution. In Pavelka, J., Tel, G. & Bartošek, M. (Eds.), ''SOFSEM'99, Lecture Notes in Computer Science 1725'', 189–202. *DiDonato, P. (2001). Oakley Inc, Developing XML systems with (CRF).

Category:Systems engineering Category:Business terms