Changes are categorised into the following change types:
• Normal: A change that goes through the full assessment, authorisation and implementation stages.
• Standard: A pre-approved change that is low risk, relatively common and follows a procedure or work instruction (e.g. a password reset or the provision of a standard PC to a new employee). RFCs are not always required to implement a standard change and they may be logged and tracked using a different
mechanism (e.g. through the request fulfilment process). Often operational maintenance changes are treated as standard changes.
• Emergency: Reserved only for highly critical changes that must be introduced as soon as possible (e.g. changes needed to restore failed high-availability services or widespread service failure, or changes that will prevent such a failure from imminently occurring). The change management process normally has a specific procedure for handling emergency changes.