Past Chapter Events - 2005

Breakfast Roundtable, May 26, 2005

Topic:

In the Controlling Process under Time Management AOK we will review Schedule Control. Discuss techniques to manage change requests and monitor performance to the schedule.

 

Location:

Manhattanville College - Brownson Room 130, Purchase, NY

 

Highlights:

Change control takes on many different forms across organizations but importance of documenting, assessing and managing change requests are critical to a project’s success. Changes need to be managed from both a risk and financial perspective.

Because the PM, who is ultimately responsible for the project, does not always have the expertise to make decisions required to approve or properly assess the impact of a change requests,  it is important that a change control process be established.  The change control process should include subject matter experts (SME’s) as resources to any change management process.

 Since scope changes can, have an impact on such things as business rules, compliance with government laws, etc. a change management team was recommended.  This team would oversee the impact and make the determination if the change can/should be approved.  A change management team would have jurisdiction over many projects.   The change control team should have members that can represent, analyze, and speak to the impact of any change requests.

 The PM should be aware that change requests can sometimes be an embarrassment to team members or project sponsors.   Because of this, team members may want to try and avoid issues, or avoid any formal change control process while still attempting to implement the change.

 Some additional points that were made regarding change management were:

  • Project change tends to get kicked around because no one takes ownership of change management
  • The PM needs to track and justifying change.
  • Criteria for accepting change should be established.
  • Project change takes on different forms in different companies.
  • The key to change management is to have a good scope of work that is discussed and approved at the project start up followed by a well documented schedule.
  • All change request need to be documented and tracked regardless of the impact.

·         Leadership/sponsorship at a high level typically needs to be involved in change control because business/money decisions need to be made.