Change Management

Don’t blame anyone or your planning if you encounter a change during your project.  It is bound to happen and that is why Change Management Plan is an integral part of your Project management Plan.

Changes may come-up at any level and from anywhere-

• You may receive a change request from client for making some changes in deliverable. Or
• Your quality department may come up with some observation and ask for a change. Or
• Analysis of work performance information may reveal the need of change or
• You may come to know that some of the process which is already defined but team is not following that and you need some corrective action and so on…

 The important thing is to have clear plan for handling these changes.  Whenever a change comes, it is definitely going to have some impact on your constraints. For example-

If a bug is identified at the later stage of the project, it may lead to more cost to fix that.  It may also lead to time overrun.

What if you are halfway done and there is a scope change?  These are very crucial and lack of proper planning and process for handling changes may derail the entire project.

Some way or other, change requests arise when you or other stakeholders are monitoring of the Project work.

Below is the normal flow for handling a change request-

As soon as a change requirement is identified, a change request is raised.  The change request clearly mentions what change is exactly required.

At second step, this change is sent to Change Control board (CCB).  CCB analyzes the change requirement on the basis of multiple criteria like-

• Cost of implementing the change
• Cost and benefit analysis
• Time and resources needed for the change and their availability.
• Business impact etc..

There may be many other factors on basis of which, CCB takes the decision on the change.  After discussion in CCB, the change may get approved or rejected.  In case of approval, stakeholders are informed and change is sent for implementation.  If change is rejected, stakeholders are informed.  You might have observed, informing stakeholders is important whether the change is approved or rejected.

Preventive Action and Corrective Action : 

There are two very important terms called as corrective action and preventive action collectively called CAPA understanding which is very important.

1. When you identify a problem and implement changes to resolve that problem, it is a corrective action.
2. If identify a problem that may occur in future and take action (change) to ensure that the problem doesn’t occur, it is preventive action.