Once the change is developed and tested, the Change Manager must determine if an additional step of approval is required before implementing and deploying the change in the production environment. In certain cases, if the change needs to be implemented to a highly critical or volatile production environment, such approvals may be needed. The Change Manager must identify the additional approvers from the business. Once all required approvers are identified, the change is submitted to them, for implementation approval. Information like the outcome of the change build and test activity, along with the implementation plans, back out plans, additional resource requirements, etc. must be provided to the approvers. The approvers should evaluate and validate if the change is ready as agreed and take further decision.

It is the responsibility of the Change Manager to verify if the change is accepted or rejected by approvers for implementation. Once the change is approved by all assigned approvers or CAB, the Change Manager should process the change further for implementation.

If the change is rejected at the approval stage, the Change Manager, with the support of the approvers, must determines whether the change should be deferred or cancelled. Once it is decided that the change is deferred or cancelled, the Change Record should be updated with the appropriate information (reason for the deferral or cancellation) and relevant stakeholders, including the Change Requester, must be informed.