What is a recommended practice before submitting a change request?

The practice of defining planned and actual start/end dates before submitting a change request plays a crucial role in effective change management. Establishing these dates provides a clear framework for scheduling the change, ensuring that all stakeholders are aware of the timeframe involved. This clarity aids in resource allocation and helps mitigate conflicts with other scheduled activities.

Moreover, defined timelines serve as benchmarks for monitoring and evaluating the progress of the change implementation. This contributes to a structured change process and aligns expectations among team members, ensuring that the change is executed efficiently and within the desired timeframe.

While identifying stakeholders, documenting potential benefits, and assessing the overall impact of the change are all important practices in the change management process, they address different aspects of change readiness and stakeholder engagement. However, having a clear timeline helps facilitate these activities by providing a scheduled context for stakeholder meetings, benefit analysis, and impact assessment.