5.4 Change Control Flashcards
Definition and features of change
- Something that will affect the key success criteria of a project (time, cost, quality, risk, benefits)
- External influences
- New technology
- Efficiencies, continuous improvement
- Improvement to the benefits model or loss of markets
- Evolving designs, new information
- Contractual changes
Definition of change curve
Ability to influence goes down, and cost goes up the more is committed over time
Stages in change control process
- Change request
- Initial evaluation
- Detailed evaluation
- Recommendation
- Update & implement plans
Considerations during the change request stage of the change control process
- Identify, document, and describe the change
- ID, project context, description, reason, impacts, source, owner, date, status, decision
- Capture change details in a formal way
- Ensure clear identification of change, assessment, and decisions
Considerations during the initial evaluation stage of the change control process
- Is it viable change for the project?
- Filter changes to ensure only viable changes are progressed to detailed stages
- Manages the number of change requests to be considered
- Avoids analysis of impossible changes
Considerations during the detailed evaluation stage of the change control process
- Impact analysis on Time, Cost, Quality, Risk and Benefits
- Mini business case
- Include stakeholders
- Consider resources impact and configuration management
- Thoroughly evaluate changes and consider impact
- Record the detail of the evaluation to be carried forward to recommendation stage
What happens during the recommendation stage of the change control process
- Sponsor chooses to approve, reject, or defer change
- Provide a decision to continue or not
- Record and inform the change requester of the decision
Considerations of the update & implement plans stage of the change control process
- Create and roll out modified integrated PMP
- Impacted areas updated and changes communicated to stakeholders
- Document and carry out project in accordance with changes
- Avoid issues with change management where benefits may not be realised due to lack of clarity
Considerations when deciding on the justification in change management
- Clear evidence based reasoning for the decision to approve, reject, or defer the change
- Based on the expected impact and anticipated benefits
- Overall impact - can the project handle the change
- Budget constraints - is the change within the original budget or does it need a new business case
- Resource limitations - is the change within the capacity of the existing or available resources
- Timeline - is the change within the expected timeline
- Benefits - will expected benefits be maintained / improved
- Risk - assessment of the risk profile and if it is still within the risk appetite
Definition and features of configuration management
- Totality of the products to be produced by the project
- Changing one product may have significant impacts on others
- Leading to mismatches in performance / failures
- Uncontrolled changes could lead to incorrect versions in use
Definition of change freeze
- Specified point in time
- Usually driven by the critical path to a deadline
- Occurs when changes can no longer be considered to ensure products are implemented with current specification
Change control in a linear lifecycle
- Clear vision of the overall structure allows clear picture of the impact of change
- Change control process can be linked to phase gates or any point in the project in structured manner
- Change management is preventative to avoid disruptions
- Change control process can be implemented retrospectively with updates to existing documentation
Change control in an iterative lifecycle
- Change control is baked into the development process when activities are defined
- Less rigorous and structured change control process
- More dynamic and adaptable
- Changes could be integrated directly into iterations
- More difficult to consider the impact on the overall project timelines, cost, quality, risk and benefits
Change impact analysis methods
- Comprehensive understanding of the impact of proposed change to ensure decisions made with objectives in mind
- Cost benefit analysis
- Scenario analysis
- Expert judgement
- Stakeholder analysis
- Risk assessment
- Dependencies
- Review alignment with business case and objectives
- Change Control Board to review change
- Feedback from stakeholders
- Quantitative methods - decision trees, Monte Carlo, sensitivity analysis