Emergency Change
An Emergency Change is an urgent modification to IT systems or infrastructure that must be implemented immediately to resolve a critical incident or prevent significant business impact.
What Is Emergency Change
An Emergency Change is an urgent modification to IT systems or infrastructure that must be implemented immediately to resolve a critical incident or prevent significant business impact. Unlike standard changes, emergency changes bypass normal approval processes to address high-priority issues that cannot wait for regular change management procedures.
Example Of Emergency Change
A production database server experiences a critical security vulnerability that hackers are actively exploiting. The security team implements an emergency patch outside normal change windows to protect sensitive customer data and prevent a potential breach.
How To Implement Emergency Change
- Create a streamlined approval process for emergency situations
- Define clear criteria for what qualifies as an emergency change
- Document the change thoroughly, even if done retrospectively
- Implement the change with minimal but necessary testing
- Conduct a post-implementation review to evaluate the change and process
Best Practices
- Limit emergency change authority to specific senior roles
- Maintain an audit trail of all emergency changes for compliance
- Review emergency changes regularly to identify recurring issues that need permanent solutions