SmartSuite for the Change and Release Manager
The Change and Release Manager governs changes to production: assessing risk, running the change advisory board, scheduling release windows and ensuring every change has a plan, a test and a rollback. They report change success rates and unplanned incidents caused by change.
What you own
- Own the change enablement and release management practices
- Assess change risk and route for the right level of approval
- Run the change advisory board and the forward schedule of change
- Coordinate release planning, testing and deployment windows
- Ensure rollback plans and post-implementation reviews
- Report change success rates and change-related incidents
Where the role sits
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Reports to
Direct reports
Works closely with
GRC processes
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Owns
accountable for the process
Touches
contributes or approves
Depends on
consumes its output
How SmartSuite helps, suite by suite
Each card is the persona record from that suite's Users tab.
How they use the Software Development Operations suite
Release planning
Coordinates timelines, approvals, and dependencies.
Risk management
Flags readiness issues before launch.
Stakeholder communication
Shares release status and outcomes.
How they use the IT Service Management suite
Change review & approval
Tracks changes from submission through CAB approval.
Change calendar management
Visualizes upcoming changes to avoid conflicts.
Risk mitigation
Evaluates impacts by linking changes to assets, services, and incident history.
Suites that serve this role
Products this role uses most
How SmartSuite supports this role
Change. Runs change requests through risk assessment, CAB approval and scheduling with every change recorded against the services it affects.
Release deploy. Plans releases with scope, test status, deployment windows and rollback steps tracked.
Incident. Links incidents to the changes that caused them for post-implementation review.
Reporting. Reports change volume, success rate and change-related incidents.
Industry reference
ITIL 4's change enablement, release management and deployment management practices define the role; ISO/IEC 20000-1 requires a change management process and COBIT 2019's BAI06 sets the control objective. Change management is an IT general control, so it is tested under SOX, SOC 2 (CC8.1) and ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A 8.32. Financial regulators go further: the FFIEC's Development and Acquisition booklet and DORA's ICT change management requirements; HIPAA and FedRAMP expect documented change control for in-scope systems.
In their words
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