Change Management
Two related but distinct uses of the term:
- Project change management — a formal process for requesting, evaluating, and approving changes to a project’s scope, schedule, or budget once work has begun.
- Organizational change management — the process of getting people to adopt a new product, process, or value system (e.g., adopting Agile across an org).
Project change management
Change — anything that alters or impacts the tasks, structures, or processes within a project.
Types of changes:
- New or changing dependencies
- Changing priorities
- Capacity and people shifts
- Limitations on budget or resources
- Scope creep
- Force majeure
Referenced documents during changes
- Statement of Work
- RACI chart
- Any new documentation
Change request form
Change requests typically include:
- Project name
- Discussion owner (leader)
- Discussion type (risk, opportunity, other)
- Teams involved (stakeholders, team members)
- Expected outcome: priority call, technical help, schedule change awareness/approval, open discussion with stakeholders, other resources
- Target date for discussion
- Impacted milestones / goals
- Short description
- In-depth proposal with proposed trade-offs against the current plan
Communicating changes
- Small change affecting one person → email
- Big change affecting many (budget, deadline, or scope impact) → team meeting
- Timeout — stepping away from the project to regroup when changes pile up
Organizational change management
Change management (org-level) — getting people to adopt new ways of working. Requires patient persistence.
Creating a sense of ownership
- Find an executive sponsor who feels ownership for the change
- Buy-in from the top increases success odds
Creating a sense of urgency
Ask diagnostic questions:
- What’s preventing us from providing the best product to customers?
- What allows competitors to outperform us in this market?
- How can we help our teams become more productive and supported?
The Influencer Change Framework
Three keys to lasting change (vs short-term persuasion):
- Clarify measurable results — clear, specific, visible goals so everyone understands what change is needed and why
- Find vital behaviors — key actions people must take at critical moments
- Use the six sources of influence:
- Personal motivation
- Personal ability
- Social motivation
- Social ability
- Structural motivation
- Structural ability
Support the change through motivation, ability, social support, incentives, and environmental/structural changes.
Agile: Responding to Change
Agile treats change as normal. Three steps:
- Identify the need for change — evaluate impact on triple-constraint (scope, time, cost/resources)
- Decide on the change — assign a clear decision-maker (often the Product Owner), gather data, define criteria, evaluate pros/cons/risks, document
- Implement the change — update artifacts (roadmap, backlog, plans), communicate, track impact
Application
Every project needs a change control process defined at the end of planning. The PM maintains the change log as part of course-4-project-execution. For organizational transitions — e.g., introducing Agile — use the Influencer framework plus an exec sponsor.
Connections
- triple-constraint — changes are evaluated against it
- procurement-process raci-chart
- conger-influencing-steps — feeds the Influencer framework
- course-4-project-execution course-5-agile-project-management