As ITIL has evolved over the years it has become apparent that certain activities that are undertaken do not benefit from following the well documented ITIL Change Management process every time. In fact if this was the case then ITIL would simply be dismissed as bureaucratic.
Request Fulfilment is the process for managing Service Requests, which more often than not are small, low risk changes initially processed via the Service Desk, using a process similar to that of Incident Management.
To qualify as a Service Requests it is normal for some pre-requisites to be met, for example
- Needs to be proven - it has been performed successfully before and has been reviewed and approved via Change Management
- Repeatable
- Preapproved
- Proceduralized
In order to resolve one or more incidents, problems or Known Errors, some form of change may be necessary. Smaller, often standard, changes can be handed through a Request Fulfilment process, but larger, higher-risk or infrequent changes must follow the formal Change Management process.