10 - Project Change Management System
10 - Project Change Management System
10 - Project Change Management System
ABSTRACT: Changes in projects are common and may be deleterious or beneficial—whether you see a
change as a conflict or a valuable lesson depends only on your prospective. Project changes affect the cost,
the scheduling, and the duration of projects, both directly and indirectly. Despite many articles and much
discussion in practice and academic literature, there is a lack of information about systematic approaches
to manage project change. This paper introduces a comprehensive project change management system that
is founded on five principles: (1) promote a balanced change culture; (2) recognize change; (3) evaluate
change; (4) implement change; and (5) continuously improve from lessons learned. By applying this project
change management system, project participants can minimize deleterious change and promote beneficial
change.
fying areas where changes are likely to occur is important, to manage change better and earlier in the project life
since the team can anticipate changes and prepare reac- cycle.
tions to these changes proactively. Of course, the timing After potential changes have been recognized, the team
of a change often determines if the change is beneficial members should determine whether these changes are ‘‘re-
or detrimental. A suggestion in the early states of a project quired’’ or ‘‘elective.’’ A required change, such as a var-
may be helpful, but that same suggestion later in the iation needed to bring the project design into compliance
project may actually increase project costs and schedule. with a building code, is mandatory and should be re-
Although it is unlikely that improvements on the change viewed and processed differently than an elective change.
might not benefit the change a whole lot, the suggestion Whether it is an elective change or a required change,
may protect the remaining portion of the project from the change itself has effects on the project. These effects can
unexpected losses. impact cost, schedule, and organization, as reflected in our
CMS process model. The project team should determine
RECOGNIZE CHANGE the potential impacts on the project, whether positive or
negative, and take action to minimize negative change.
The second principle of effective change management
is to recognize change (Fig. 3). Similar to the first prin- EVALUATE CHANGE
ciple, communications within the team is very important.
In this principle, team members are encouraged to open The third principle of the change management system
discussion and to identify potential changes. Identifying is to evaluate change (Fig. 4). As a continuation of the
changes prior to their actual occurrence can help the team previous principle, the purpose of evaluating change is to
determine whether the management team should accept change because of unforeseeable impact costs associated
and implement the proposed change. with late changes. Fig. 5 presents the conceptual benefit-
If the change is a high priority, the management team to-cost ratio graph. However, if the changes are prevented
should determine the funding source for interim approval or cleverly converted to a beneficial change, the B/C ratio
immediately, because any delay to the change will prob- would be much higher, because the time and cost impact
ably add to its cost. However, if the change is not that of those changes are not allowed to grow consecutively
time sensitive, management should consider the proposal and constantly throughout the project.
more deliberately to see whether the change is necessary. One key point for project team members to understand
The reason for this reconsideration is that the function of is that decisions (and projects) evolve. Team members
the team is to maximize the profit of the project and to should understand that change decisions could effectively
minimize the negative effects of change. In order to max- serve as a checkpoint within the project. These check-
imize the profit, the team has to screen any unnecessary points are necessary to minimize any mistake or any un-
changes or changes that do not contribute to the stated necessary change, and to maximize the profit or to achieve
project goal and return on the investment. the defined scope of the project. Moreover, these check-
An elective change means that management has an op- points are important to the team, as the team has to decide
tion to modify the original project goals, budget, or sched- whether they should continue to invest in the project. Any
ule. Such an elective change should be approved only if mistake that happens here will jeopardize the whole in-
the benefits of that change substantially outweigh its vestment.
costs. Some companies use an increasing benefit-to-cost
(B/C) ratio scale as a guideline for approving such elective IMPLEMENT CHANGE
change. A change that is assessed later in a project should Implementing change is the next principle of the project
have a higher benefit-to-cost ratio threshold than an earlier change management system (Fig. 6). It is a very important
step in the change project management, since this is the tation requires substantial documentation of a change so
main reason to have the system. Despite its obvious need, that disputed impacts can be resolved later or so lessons
the CII research team consistently found instances where can be learned from the change.
there was no formal process to insure that the change was
in fact implemented! The acceptance or rejection or CONTINUOUSLY IMPROVE FROM LESSONS
change decisions are still not finished, of course, when the LEARNED
upper management has decided to accept the changes. In-
stead, the most important step is usually implementation. The fifth and last principle of the change management
In this principle, the approval of the changes is an au- system is to learn continuously from the mistakes that
thorization made by the upper management, and it should cause changes (Fig. 7). The main idea of this principle is
be high priority. This authorization should be granted after to perform root causes and to evaluate the mistakes made
all parties—affected directly or indirectly—have been in- so that errors can be systematically corrected. Such anal-
formed of the pending change. In many instances, changes yses should be openly discussed between the team mem-
will lead to other problems and additional changes, be- bers so that everyone will have a chance to understand
cause management has failed to anticipate and contact the root causes of the changes.
other parties about such pending changes. Having the team members understand the root causes
Monitoring implementation of changes not only re- of change is important, since the experience of managing
quires monitoring the process of the implementation of a the change helps them prevent similar mistakes in the fu-
change, but also should be seen as an opportunity for the ture. Project team members should take advantage of les-
project team to resolve other difficulties that might be en- sons learned in the past so that they also learn to think,
countered to date on the project. Monitoring implemen- approach, and manage problems in a proactive fashion.
CONCLUSION