RFC Change Generator

An RFC (Request for Change) is a formal request to implement a change in an IT environment following ITIL best practices. It documents what will be changed, why, the impact, associated risks, implementation plan, and rollback plan. It is the central element of the change management process, allowing changes to be evaluated, approved, and tracked in a controlled manner.

A complete RFC should include: unique change ID, descriptive title, detailed change description, business justification, scope (affected systems), impact on existing services, risk level (low/medium/high/critical), step-by-step implementation plan, rollback plan, success criteria, and approval signatures.

A standard RFC follows the full evaluation and approval process, ideal for planned changes like software updates or migrations. An emergency RFC is used for urgent changes requiring immediate implementation to resolve critical incidents, with an accelerated approval process but equally rigorous documentation.

A rollback plan should detail: exact commands to revert the change, estimated reversion time, conditions triggering the rollback, who executes it, and how to verify the system has returned to its previous state. A good rollback plan is specific and executable step-by-step by any team member.

Typical levels: Low (no user impact), Medium (minimal impact), High (affects services with planned downtime), Critical (modifies core infrastructure with outage risk). The level determines who must approve: the technical team for low, tech lead for medium, change committee for high, and management for critical.

In DevOps environments, RFCs can integrate with Jira, ServiceNow, or Git. The RFC is created as a ticket or pull request, linked to commits and deployments, and used as an audit artifact. Many organizations implement virtual CABs where approvals are managed directly in the tool.