Not to be confused with business change management, project change management is defined as a change within the project. For example, the scope can be increased or decreased and can affect the schedule and/or budget. When a change to the project is requested the Project Manager is faced with a magnitude of decisions to make. Areas such as resourcing, schedule, risk, quality, and issues all need to be reassessed to determine the impact of the change. These are the principle methods used to effectively manage a project change:
ASSESS THE REQUESTED CHANGE
Obtain as much information as possible from the requester. Find out why they are requesting the change and gather all supporting documentation they may have. For example, the request for change could have come from another project or a meeting and meeting minutes may be available. It is always helpful to understand how the decision for change came about.
ANALYZE THE PRIORITY
Determine if the change is nice to have, important, or critical. This will help you determine the importance of a quick decision. Your own experience will help greatly with determining the criticality of a change, research and the client’s guidance can also aide in your decision.
DOCUMENT THE CHANGE IN PREPARATION FOR REVIEW AND POTENTIAL APPROVAL
Create a change document to submit to the stakeholders for approval. The change document can vary in length but should be concise and to the point. It should include all areas of impact such as cost, schedule, scope, quality, risk, and resourcing. If the magnitude of the proposed change is extremely large your change document should hold more detail regarding the project impacts.
UPDATE THE CHANGE LOG
Update the change log to include the change, the date it was submitted, the reason for the change, and the impacts. This is an important step so you have history of the changes proposed and can verify the reasons for your recommendations in the future.
UPDATE THE PROJECT DOCUMENTATION
Once the change is accepted, you will need to update the project documents to reflect the new change. You may need to adjust the project plan, schedule, budget, and resourcing. You will need to communicate the accepted change to all of the impacted/involved parties and include the reasons as to why the change has been accepted. People are more responsive to change and the addition of tasks when they are aware of the decision making and understand why the change is being implemented.
ENSURE PROCESS IS FOLLOWED
The process for project change can verify from client to client. Ensure you are aware of the process that your current client has in place and always follow it appropriately. If the client doesn’t have a firm process in place use your experience and research to find a process template that follows the best practices and implement that process into your project, you could even include it in your project plan.
By following these steps, you will be in a better able to adequately manage change when it is introduced to your project. The disciplined approach of having processes and documents in place is key to effective project change management. Always be prepared, always know change is inevitable, and always be flexible and open minded when analyzing change.
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