The Art of Managing Change Requests

Change is a natural part of the working process and can occur across an organisation, a working structure, teams and projects. Change management is important in the role of a Project Manager, ensuring that as requirements for change occur within a project lifecycle, they are dealt with in an effective and non-disruptive way.

As projects evolve, change may occur as better solutions become evident over time, specifications are altered or as business owners identify new requirements – the Project Manager is in charge of overseeing and managing this change. With responsibility for delivering a project on time and within budget, it is crucial that you are able to successfully manage this change in a structured, logical and transparent way, and with the involvement of all affected parties in order to prevent scope creep.

What questions should I ask myself throughout the change management process?
Effective change management calls for careful and thorough consideration of each issue or request by the Project Manager. Key questions to raise include:

• Why is this change being made – who will it benefit, and is it necessary?
• Will the change add value to the end product?
• Does this change alter the scope of the project, and therefore will it have time and cost implications?
• Who will this change impact, and what are their opinions? This may include technical teams, business owners, and key stakeholders

A decision to make a change cannot be made in isolation by the Project Manager – good communication is key. Once a change has been agreed upon by all teams and stakeholders, it is then the responsibility of the Project Manager to integrate this change in the most effective and efficient way.

What are the common challenges presented by change requests?

The change management process requires careful oversight, and will often highlight areas of contention either within your own team, or with the client.

For example, if you are project managing a web build, an amendment to the way a particular online form works may result in the rebuild of more than one area of code, in order to accommodate for this change in logic. This will only come to light through discussion with your development team; following which you will need to explain the impact of this change to the client, allowing them to make an enlightened decision of whether to continue with the change.

Some change requests may be out of project scope, although the client may argue otherwise. To avoid issue, it is important that your original specification document is detailed and robust enough to indicate when a change is in fact an addition to the project, and needs to be paid for by the client.

The change management process does of course differ depending on your approach to project management, be it PRINCE2, PRiSM, Agile project management or any other framework. Regardless, it is always important to take a transparent, open and honest approach, promoting communication between teams to ensure that any change is for the good of the project as a whole.