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Chapter 17 Change Management
17.1 Basic concepts of project changes
Change management is the management of project changes in order to make the actual implementation of the project consistent with the project baseline. The possible result is to reject or adjust the baseline.
From the perspective of resource value-added, the essence of change is that during the project process, according to a certain process, the plan is updated according to the changed situation, the resource allocation method is adjusted, or the reserve resources are applied to the project to meet the needs of the relevant customers and stakeholders.
The essence of change management is to continuously adjust the direction of project efforts and resource allocation based on the increasingly rich project understanding during the project advancement process, so as to meet the needs of customers and other relevant stakeholders to the greatest extent and enhance the value of the project.
Change management is part of the overall project management and belongs to the category of overall project change control. It involves many aspects such as scope, schedule, cost, quality, human resources and contract management.
Change management is to control changes and ensure that projects are controllable; the other is change measurement analysis to help organizations provide their own development capabilities。
Project changes:
- Overview: Project changes refer to changes made to the functions, performance, architecture, technical indicators, integration methods, scope baseline, schedule baseline and cost baseline of the project product due to the project environment or other reasons during the implementation of the information system project. out changes.Project changes occur throughout the entire project process. The further the project progresses, the greater the change cost.
- Classification:
- According to the nature of the change (can be controlled through different approval authority)
- Major changes
- Important changes
- General changes
- According to the urgency of the change (can be controlled through different change processing processes)
- Emergency changes
- non-urgent changes
- By area and stage of change
- Progress changes
- Control of schedule changes includes the following topics:
- (1) Determine the current status of project progress
- (2) Influence factors that cause schedule changes
- (3) Find out whether the schedule has changed
- (4) Manage actual changes as they occur
- Control of schedule changes includes the following topics:
- cost change
- quality change
- Design changes
- Implement changes
- Changes in work (product) scope
- Progress changes
- follow source
- internal changes
- external changes
- According to the nature of the change (can be controlled through different approval authority)
- cause:
- (1) Errors or omissions in the definition of product scope (results)
- (2) Errors or omissions in the definition of project scope (work)
- (3) Customers raise new demands
- (4) Active measures or avoidance measures to deal with risks
- (5) Passive adjustments caused by inconsistencies between the project execution process and baseline requirements (such as schedule, quality, cost, etc.)
- (6) Adjustment of project team personnel
- (7) Requirements for technological innovation
- (8) External events (such as policy changes or changes in the natural environment, etc.)
- Notes on changes:
- Influence the factors causing changes to prevent unnecessary changes and unnecessary evaluations
- The change operation process should be standardized
- Confirmation of changes should be formalized
17.2 Basic principles of change management
Basic principle: first establish the project baseline, change process and change control board (also called change management board)
17.3 Roles, positions and work procedures
Role Responsibilities:
- Change applicant
- Responsibilities: Relevant personnel who submit change applications. Any project stakeholder can submit a change application.
- project manager
- Responsibilities: Responsible for the project and the entire project change management process. The project manager is responsible for impact analysis of change applications and convening change control committee meetings
- Change Control Board (CCB)
- Responsibilities: Responsible for reviewing, evaluating, approving, deferring or rejecting project changes. The CCB is composed of personnel from multiple parties involved in the project, usually including decision-makers from Party A and Party B. As a decision-making body, the CCB is responsible for reviewing submitted change applications during the change management process and approving the change applications. Otherwise, Other decisions
- Configure administrator
- Responsibilities: Relevant products of the change process should be included in the configuration management system. The configuration administrator is responsible for incorporating the changed baseline into the baseline of the entire project. Other record files during the change process should also be included in the configuration management system.
Work program:
- Change procedure
- (1) Submitting and accepting change applications
- Change application includes:
- Corrective Action: Change requests to align project work performance with the project management plan
- Preventative Action: Change requests to ensure that future performance of project work is consistent with the project management plan
- Defect Remediation: A change request to correct an inconsistent product or product component
- Update: A change request to a formally controlled project document or plan, etc., to reflect modifications or added comments or content
- Note: All change requests must be documented in writing and included in the configuration management system
- Change application includes:
- (2) Change impact analysis
- Note: Generally the project manager is responsible
- (3) Preliminary review of changes
- Purpose:
① The party proposing the change exerts influence, confirms the necessity of the change, and ensures that the change is valuable.
② Format verification and completeness verification to ensure that the information required for assessment is fully prepared.
③ Reach a consensus among stakeholders on the change information proposed for evaluation.
④ A common method for preliminary review of changes is the review and circulation of change application documents.
- Purpose:
- (4) Demonstration of change plan
- (5) CCB review and approval
- (6) Issue change notification and start implementation
- (7) Monitor the implementation of changes
- (8) Change effect evaluation
- Including aspects:
- The primary basis for evaluation is project benchmarks
- It needs to be considered based on the original intention of the change to see whether the purpose of the change has been achieved.
- Assess the gaps between the technical argumentation, economic argumentation content and implementation process in the change plan and promote resolution
- Including aspects:
- (9) Determine whether the changed project has been put on track
- (10) End changes
- (1) Submitting and accepting change applications
Project change management flow chart:
Complete process of change:
- Communicate first, and then submit a change request, which should be in writing
- Fully evaluate the impact of the change, including the impact on scope, cost, schedule, quality, etc., and notify stakeholders of the evaluation results
- According to the prescribed change process, CCB will review and approve it.
- If the change approval is not passed, the change will be canceled and included in the monitoring;
- If the change is approved, the corresponding project plan and documents will be adjusted and updated, and relevant stakeholders will be notified.
- Implement changes as required and record change implementation status 7. Verify changes, archive, etc.
Change management activities:
- Identify possible changes
- Manage each identified change
- Maintain the integrity of all baselines
- Update scope, schedule, cost, budget, quality requirements based on approved changes, and coordinate changes within the overall project
- Based on quality reports, control project quality to meet standards
- Maintain a timely and accurate repository of information about project products and their related documentation until project completion
17.4 Related matters
Key points of change management operations:
1. When the overall project pressure is high, it is more necessary to emphasize the standardization of change management. You can use batch processing, priority processing and other methods to improve efficiency. Just like a busy traffic intersection, if the traffic lights change frequently, the result will not be flexible. Efficiency, but a reduction in overall throughput.
2. The scale of the project is small and the correlation with other projects is small. The process of proposing and processing changes can be simple and efficient in operation, but the following points should still be paid attention to: (1) Influence the factors caused by the change to prevent inadvertent changes
. Necessary changes can be made to reduce unnecessary evaluations and improve the efficiency of passing necessary changes.
(2) The change operation process should be standardized.
(3) Confirmation of changes should be formalized.
The relationship between change management, overall management and configuration management:
Configuration management focuses on deliverables (including intermediate products) and process documents (matching issues between technologies), while change management focuses on identifying, recording, approving or rejecting changes to project documents, deliverables or baselines.
Some configuration management activities included in the change management process are as follows:
(1) Configuration item identification. Identification and selection of configuration items provide a basis for verifying product configurations, marking products and files, managing changes, and clarifying responsibilities. (2) Configuration status
records .In order to provide timely and accurate data about configuration items, information related to configuration items should be recorded and reported. This information includes the list of approved configuration items in change control, the status of change requests, and the implementation status of approved changes.
( 3) Configuration confirmation and audit. Through configuration confirmation and configuration audit, it can be ensured that the correct composition of each configuration item of the project and that the corresponding changes are registered, evaluated, approved, tracked and correctly implemented, thereby ensuring the functions specified in the configuration file The requirements have been fulfilled.
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