The basics of change control and its importance

What is change control? 

“The process through which all requests to change the approved baseline of a project, programme or portfolio are captured, evaluated and then approved, rejected or deferred.”  APM Body of Knowledge, 7th edition

Change control is a process and shouldn’t occur in isolation, or without consultation. It’s important to note that it’s distinct from change management, which can include wide-ranging strategic change within an organisation. However, both are common, inter-related features of many projects. At a minimum, the change control process should include a discussion between the project manager and sponsor. As part of the planning stage of the project, you’ll need to get approval for the project baseline. Change control helps to manage any changes to this baseline.  

Change control is about ensuring that any change to the baseline of your project doesn’t adversely affect other parts of your project. A project is made up of various moving parts and you’ll need to consider the effect that making a change in one area will have on the others. To do this, you need to establish your change control process and ensure there is an ongoing audit of significant changes.  

The change control process 

1. Log change request

The first step in a change control process is to log the request. Keeping a change log is important, as it gives you oversight of requested changes. It should include a description of the requested change, when the change was requested and who it was requested by.

 

2. Initial evaluation

The initial evaluation stage is where we first determine the viability of the change. This stage gives us the opportunity to assess change requests quickly and not invest lots of time into evaluating unrealistic changes. For example, if you were to build a car and receive a request to change it from a four-wheeled to a three-wheeled car, this change would be rejected outright due to the excessive rework required. Initial evaluation is not about saying yes or no to the change happening, it’s about saying yes or no to investigating the change further. The outcomes of this stage will either be reject or proceed.

 

3. Detailed evaluation

Once you’ve determined that a change is not immediately non-viable, you can do a more detailed evaluation. Detailed evaluation is where we dig into the detail of the change. Some of the questions you might ask are: 

• What impact will the change have on the overall project outcomes?  
• Does this impact other areas of the project?  
• Will the knock-on effects of the change be too severe for us to handle?  

A particular focus needs to be on how this change will impact other areas of the project. There will almost certainly be effects on other project elements even if we only make a change in one area. For example, we are building a car and receive a request to make it a five-door car rather than a three-door car. We need to re-evaluate our design, our budget and our materials and consider our resources and timeline. We need to determine if this change is feasible within our project.  

Our detailed evaluation should produce some kind of report on the impact of the change. It should: 

• Break down the advantages and disadvantages 
• Explain the impact on budgets and timelines  
• List potential benefits or risks that would come as a result of the change 

As part of the detailed evaluation, the project manager and sponsor may consult the person who requested the change to understand why they requested it. They might also seek advice from subject-matter experts who can advise on the viability and necessity of the change. 

 

4. Recommendation

The detailed evaluation leads to a recommendation. The recommendation will provide a decision on the change. There are generally three recommendation options:  

• Approve: the project accepts the change. 
• Reject: the project rejects the change. After assessing all of the evidence, the project manager and sponsor are not satisfied that the change can be made without derailing the project. An explanation for the rejection is given to the person who requested the change.  
• Defer: the project manager postpones a decision. This can happen for a number of reasons, such as the project manager not yet having enough information. There might also be critical factors to consider that are yet to come into play. An explanation is given to the person who requested the change and a timeline set for when the change will be reviewed. 

 

5. Update plans

The project manager updates the plans. This includes setting out how to introduce the change and updating plans for other areas of the project, budgets and timelines as required.

 

6. Implement change

Finally, we can actually implement our change. We have updated our plans and can move forward with the project with the change incorporated.  

 

Summary

Change control is an essential part of project management. It ensures that any changes that you make to the established project baseline are undertaken in a managed way. Following a change control process, making good use of the two-stage evaluation process and ensuring your plans are clearly updated will enable you to effectively control changes within your project. Ultimately, utilising change control will enable greater project success. 

 

You may also be interested in:

• APM Enabling Change SIG podcast series, interview with Freddie Stephenson
• How do project managers control the decision to make a change?
• What is change control?