What are firewall change management best practices?

As an Administrator, when you open up a port for testing, don't forget to close it!!!lol.
Any change must be documented in a ticketing system before it is applied to the appliance or application based firewall.

#1 - Every change needs a ticket
#2 - if possible give 2 weeks notice of change. I guarantee the person who knows the negative impact of the change is on vacation this week
#3 - Know your peak, minimum and average use/throughput days and times and do the change when staff is available to test impacts and reverse change. - example 2am Sunday night is not a good time if average usage is very low and traffic impacted by changing isn’t typically flowing until 10am… better to make the change when some impacted traffic is flowing but lower volumes
#4- Ensure your Service Desk is aware of change and possible symptoms of the change that might not be easily tied to the change
#5 - cross your fingers…. Sometimes things just go wrong. ;). Offsite storage of resume is always a good backup step