Ways to Plan a Change Control Process
What is Change Control?
By definition, change control involves the process of managing, analyzing, accepting, and making necessary changes to a project such that the final outcome is beneficial and optimized. In technical terms, change control is a methodology that captures every change throughout the project cycle and manages change requests that can impact a project’s foundation.
Project managers use a change control process to submit requests to the stakeholders for review. This is much more essential for larger projects that involve multiple segments.
When there are a lot of projects handled simultaneously, it is easier to miss crucial points and potential bottlenecks can be overlooked. With strong change control management, requesting and making changes becomes a walk in the park.
Table of Contents
Change is imperative for any growing business. Making necessary changes is significant for any project to be successful. However, not all changes in a project are the same. Some changes can be due to employee absenteeism while others may be requested. Regardless of the nature of the changes it should be managed, analyzed then approved or rejected.
To handle all these variables you will need a change control process in place. Let’s get into detail about why a change control process is essential for your business.
Change control in project management is a critical process and each potential change has to be evaluated in relation to its impact on:
- Project’s scope
- Project schedules and milestones
- Labor cost and resource requirements
- Completed project’s quality
- Additional skilled human resources
- Risks – financial, logistical, and security risks
- Procurement of resources, labor, and other additional resources for the project completion
- Stakeholders and investors
How Change Control Process Differs from Change Control Management?
Change control process and change control management are two distinct concepts. One is responsible for the technical aspects of a project while the other is responsible for organizational change.
The change control process is responsible for inspecting and managing the technical aspects of the project. The changes that arise in a project are managed efficiently to bring out maximum efficiency. The change control process is like a traffic cop – it ensures that the resources are allocated properly, changes are aligned with the project’s scope, and quality standards are maintained throughout the change implementation. The main objective here is to adhere the project’s outcomes to the guidelines.
On the other hand, change management is responsible for dealing with the human and organizational aspects. A change management helps the team to navigate easily through the multitude of changes that are happening around them and acts as a guiding force. Rather than the technical aspects, change management focuses on the goals, vision, strategy, and organizational culture. Change management deals with organizational transformation.
Benefits of a Change Control Process
Effective communication
When there is effective change communication it is easier to overcome any friction and address project barriers. Transparency is important in project management as it helps team members to be aware of impending changes. On-time communication about the project changes helps stakeholders and team members to work towards achieving the project milestones effectively.
Improved change capability
Having a change control process streamlines the process of documenting every change implemented in the project in detail. This ensures that the team is provided with clear instructions. Also, this will keep all the changes made in the project in a centralized location. It provides conceptual scaffolding for people and implementing the change becomes much simpler.
Competitive advantage
The main reason for making any changes in a project is to gain a competitive edge in the marketplace and improve the product’s strategic position. Successful change programs result in a positive outcome for your business.
Collaborative teamwork
Better teamwork is possible with proper change management and implementation. A small change has the power to change the structure of an entire organization. Having a good change control process will improve your team’s cohesiveness and help them stay on the same page. Furthermore, it is important to keep your project managers, team members, and stakeholders in the loop. When you have a standard change process plan in place your organization can quickly adapt to any changes. Also when changes are communicated on time your team members can focus on the creative work better resulting in increased efficiency.
Cost and planning
When the changes are managed properly it gives you better control over cost and procurement. Cost savings comes with a strong change control management. You can restructure your business models, software, and business processes based on the changes to ensure maximum efficiency.
Improved productivity
Project delivery can be delayed when change requests are overlooked and they are poorly managed and executed. You must eliminate this to improve productivity and on time completion of the project. This is why you will need a robust process management tool like Cflow which can automate request approvals and manage all change requests in a centralized location. Using such tools will make it easier for employees to adapt to the new changes.
Effective future project planning
Each change request is unique and has a different objective. When you have a standardized procedure it benefits your project manager and stakeholders. When the changes are managed properly during the planning stage it gives a better experience on how to handle the changes that arise in the future. This experience will help them plan projects more effectively.
Risk mitigation
Having a change control plan mitigates risk associated with the project. It helps adopt a streamlined approach to optimize resources and minimize project expenses. You will plan better ahead to identify any risks that might arise as the project progresses which will help in successfully achieving project goals.
Develop a change management strategy
Holistic organizational growth can be achieved through a strong change control process. When the changes are implemented rightly the organization aligns itself to its goals resulting in achieving the set targets easily.
To achieve this you will need an effective change control strategy. A change control process generally involves several business components. The strategy that you create will act as an outline or a plan for addressing the challenges that arise with the implementation of the new project’s outcomes.
Elements of a Change Control Process
As said before, the change control process is not a simple task. When managed inefficiently it can disrupt the whole project. Therefore it is essential to consider the following elements.
- Change request starting and control – when requests are initiated, they should be standardized and subjected to review by the management team. The requests should be categorized based on urgency and relevant team members should be kept informed at all times.
- Impact assessment report – a standard procedure should be devised in place to assess all necessary situations and provide a structured report that can be understood by the team and stakeholders effectively.
- Documentation – changes to the project should be made only by authorized people in a controlled manner and if needed the project should be able to regain its previous version. All the changes should be logged with a functional description of the changes, date of implementation, requesters, approvers, and other people involved in the process, and any other technical elements involved.
- Authorization – only authorized users should be able to access the change requests and their assignments should be constantly monitored.
- Standard test suite – developing a standard test suite is important as it provides a controlled environment for implementing the changes and checking its performance. It will include all the core elements of the project and the newly developed version of the application. The results from this test environment will help identify any missed elements, disruptions, and inefficiencies that can be corrected here before applying the changes in the actual project. This is the best way to receive feedback from a small test group and review them to optimize the project further.
- Version control – control should be placed on version control of the project to avoid data loss and other side effects.
Steps in the Change Control Process
Like project management phases the change control process comprises steps that include the important elements. From starting to implementation each one of these steps is significant in making effective change in a project.
If the steps are presented in the form of a flowchart it makes visualization easier and your team members will easily understand the flow of the change control process. Regardless of the presentation, the final outcome lies in the final decision of whether the particular change is approved or rejected.
Proposal and Initiation
The first step is the initiating of a change request which begins with creating a proposal to make a change in the project. To do this, you will need to identify the change and this can come from any member of your team – project head, members, stakeholders, and even customers. The change proposal contains relevant information on how the change would benefit the organization and improve the project’s outcomes.
Now the change request is initiated through a dedicated channel exclusively created for managing and implementing changes. The change requests are logged to have a streamlined process and store all the information in a centralized location.
Using a process management tool like Cflow you can create a customized change request form that includes fields such as:
- Project name
- Items requiring change and their number
- Requester’s details
- Date of change request and date of approval needed
- Description and reason for change
- Impact of implementing / not implementing the change
- Deadline
- Cost evaluation
- Details of approvers
- Comments
The fields can change depending on how you want to log your changes and this change request template can be created and used as a standard template by all the members involved in the project. You can also automate the emails and reminders to further simplify the process.
Assessment
This is the assessment stage. Upon receiving the change request the approver will assess the changes on how they impact the project and the risks involved in implementing them. They will check in a larger context – if the change would involve more money or save them resources; if there would be any legal constraints; if the changes would impact the proposed schedule and deadlines; will the changes bring new risks or it would save the business. Once the approvers conduct a thorough analysis they come up with an impact assessment report explaining if the changes are approved or rejected and reason out.
Decision Making
Now recommendations are made based on the assessment results. It is presented to the team and brought up for discussion on whether it is better to implement the changes or not. Generally, the project managers present the recommendations but they don’t have the ultimate authority to make the final decision.
The requester and approvers will arrange a meeting and discuss the reasons based on the report. The authorized people will either accept the changes and proceed with the implementation or reject the changes to implement at a later date. All these decisions will be solely based on the level of optimization.
Implementation
If the changes are not made then that means that represents how things stand at that stage of the project. However, if the changes are made then it has moved to the implementation phase where you will need a plan of action. Here the team members and the stakeholders will work towards implementing the changes. The plan of action that is developed should include start and end dates of implementation, regression testing, and other important elements. This is done to mitigate risks and help the project to rivet back to its original state in case the changes become problematic. Furthermore when the changes have been successfully implemented you will receive a review from the people involved in the project.
Closure
Now that the change has been logged, dispersed, and executed it’s time for closure. This is the final step in your change control plan. Sometimes teams skip this step as they don’t have a proper change control process in place. But, closure is important as it helps the requester to oversee the final changes in the project and sign off any outstanding paperwork. Also, the complete process will be documented which can be logged and stored for future reference.
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Change Control Example
Let’s see how an organization uses a change control process to implement a new software feature based on their customer feedback.
Scenario: Software feature enhancement
- First, the project manager identifies the change which enhances the UI of one of their software products based on customer feedback. The project manager makes a proposal and submits it for approval. He/she submits a formal request using the change control template detailing the changes needed, its impact on the product and the expected deadline.
- After submitting the request, it goes for assessment. The relevant approvers assess the change request based on user satisfaction, developmental capabilities, resource availability, and potential risks. They further create an impact assessment report to explain how changing UI will impact the existing codebase, how it affects the timelines, and how users will adapt to it.
- Now the change in enhancing the UI has been approved which is based on the fact that it should not delay the proposed deadline.
- Upon receiving the approval, the developing team will work towards implementing the UI changes in the product.
- Following this, the change request will come to a closure after the development team checks if the UI changes have been implemented correctly. The entire process is then documented for future reference.
This is one scenario that insists on the significance of having a standard change control plan in place. You can also process management tools like Cflow to automate the process for maximum efficiency.
When to Use a Change Control Process?
Do all the scenarios need a change control process? Well, there are certain criteria based on which you will need one. Such situations include:
- When you need to change the project’s scope by modifying what will be included in a project – like adding a new feature, changing the interface, changing the coding database etc.
- When you need to adjust the project’s timeline whether to speed up the project or delay the outcome.
- When you need to allocate resources such as time, money and manpower to other tasks.
- When the changes might impact the quality of the project.
- When the changes bring more harm and risk to the project then it should be thoroughly assessed and the team should come up with a strong mitigation plan.
- When the project doesn’t meet the regulatory compliance requirements. The changes must adhere to the industry standards.
- When the stakeholders and clients raise some changes which can alter the project’s outcome.
Tools and Templates
Change control is not a simple task. When you have standard templates you can ensure that all areas are covered in a control process. Also, change control management becomes simpler and more efficient. Cflow is the one-stop solution for project management templates as well as change control process templates which provides a comprehensive aspect in managing all your work effectively.
Cflow is a no-code automation tool with tons of functionality and the best part is – Cflow is completely customizable. You can either use the predefined templates or create one from scratch in minutes.
Change request template
The change request template in Cflow is a powerful tool that can be combined with third-party tools of your choice to document change requests, store information, provide access control, create impact assessment reports, and much more.
Change form template
You can also create a change order form template in Cflow which can be used to identify the changes in the project and provide a detailed description of it. This information will help in pursuing the changes easily. For instance, using this template you can see what kind of changes are requested, why they need to be implemented, how they will impact the project’s outcome and how long it will take to implement them and get used to it.
Dashboard template
Cflow lets you create a dashboard template for presenting your changes to the interested stakeholders and the client. They want to ensure that the changes should not negatively impact the project in any way. With this template, you can show graphs to explain visually how long will the changes take to implement, and how they will impact the project, and also tons of other metrics to measure its success.
The answer to the question of whether the templates alone will help in managing the change control process, is a NO. You need efficient software like Cflow that offers so much more. The change control process is really a small part of your overall project but managing it effectively is important for the overall success of your project’s outcome.
Interested? Check out Cflow for more information and signup for a free demo today!
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