Most of your change board's time may not be spent on change

In the same assessment, well over half of the requests entering the formal change process were not changes. They were service requests, incidents or requests too vague to classify.

Each still went through the full review by two boards. The effect is a large amount of senior time spent on work that never needed it, and little time left for the changes that carry real risk.

The fix is rarely a new tool. Most of it is configuration of functionality the organisation already pays for: structured fields at intake, a qualification step before acceptance, and risk calculated rather than typed in.

The order matters. Fix intake first, build control on it second, and only then lighten the path. A lighter path is defensible only once you can evidence why it is safe.