How to best bring potential projects into our IT Integration and Development Funnel?

We use the ServiceDesk Plus Enterprise (on-prem) product.

This was put into place with focus being on the help desk folks first, but now I have been pulled in to see how it can be used to feed requests, problems or changes into our IT Development and Integration funnel and become projects.

Some examples of what becomes a project:

The Business has a need for a new system (legal tracking, time card entry, equipment usage entry or whatever). Maybe we have an existing system needing replacement or maybe it is completely new.
The business may need new features (new report, alter report, change in functionality, etc) for an existing product.
The business needs a software upgrade to a new version for new functionality.
The business has something that is inefficient and wants help streamlining an existing process or even replacing it.
Maybe the business can't get something to work due to changing requirements and now we have to find a solution requiring change to existing system / process or creating something entirely new.
and so on...

Here is sort of a flow of how things from our previous system:

A request comes in to the helpdesk and they determine if it is something for our team or not.

This could be any of the above 1 - 6 items and more.

If this is simply something development has to fix and not really a project we use the service desk software as a request and resolve the issue. Basically a simple request resolution.
If this is something we knew would be project oriented we had them fill out a "Request for IT Resources" form (described below) and submit the form to be examined. If we needed higher approval then we would have a committee look at possible projects and determine what had priority.
If this was not a large scale project, but something smaller not requiring the committee then we determined priority among those smaller projects.
We then created the project in our old system based on what was submitted and follow up meetings. Mostly manual process.

The "Request for IT Resources" form I mentioned above (still in initial design) required the user to answer the following things and / or provide this information:

Request Subject
The company (we have multiple)
Requester Name
Management Sponsor
Detailed Description and / or supporting documentation
Deliverable / high level scope of need.
Justification and details
How it aligned with corporate strategy and details.

So what I am trying to figure out is the best way to get these into our system. A workflow of sorts.

I know servicedesk has Changes which have workflows from what i can see in the webinar. BUT is every potential project considered a change? Is that the best way to initiate the workflow for starting something like the "Request for IT Resources".

Should we use the change module as the way to get any potential projects into our funnel?

What if it initiated as a request... if we realize this will become a potential project and need the data we get from the "Request for IT Resources" form do we push it to change module?

What if something is not a change... but completely new? Should we still use change as the way to get these into the funnel before they become and official project?

I would like to completely workflow this and automate the steps as best we can.

Ultimately whether it is a request or a problem or a change that we know will head to project status we need a way to workflow this so they start populating the form (via template?) and push it down the funnel until it is approved to become a project or not.

I am just in the learning stages so I apologize up front for not knowing what may be second nature to many of you already.

Thanks,

Greg