Manage changes in your project

Perform Integrated change control is the process of reviewing all change requests, approving changes, managing the changes to the deliverables, organizational process assets (OPA), project management and project management plan.

The below picture explains the case study of cost increase due to the change:

Any time you need to make a change to your plan, you need to start with a change request. This is a document that either you or the person making the change needs to create. Any change to your project needs to be documented so you can figure out what needs to be done. Once you have a change request, that then kicks off your project’s set of change control procedures.

Change control is how you deal with changes to your project management plan.

A Change Control System is the set of procedures that let you make those changes in an organized way.

The below pictures the flow of change controls system:

Usually there’s a change control board (CCB) that approves changes. That’s a group of people, most often including the stakeholders and sponsor, who look at the benefits of a change and figure out if it’s worth the cost. If there’s a CCB, your change control system will include a procedure that mentions it.

Preventing or correcting problems:

In both corrective and preventive action, you always need to submit your proposed change and put it through the Integrated Change Control process—and only if it is approved will you implement it. If your recommended action makes it through, you need to change the plan and any of your baselines to include it.

Corrective Action:

·         Locate and document the root cause of the problem.

·         Scan the entire system to ensure no other similar problem could occur.

·         Analyze the effect such problem may have had on a product or service produced before the problem was discovered, and take action appropriate to the severity of the situation by either recalling the product, notifying the customer, downgrading or scrapping product.

·         Establish thorough follow-up to ensure the correction is effective and recurrence has been prevented.

Preventive Action:

·         Take proactive steps to ensure a potential problem does not occur.

·         Determine how to build in safeguards and process changes to prevent non-conformance. For example, use a failure mode and effects analysis to identify risks and potential deficiencies and to set priorities for improvement.

Corrective/Preventive tools are:

·         Cause and Effect Diagram (Ishikawa)

·         5 Why’s

·         Pareto Chart

·         Histogram

·         Frequency Plot

·         Flow Diagram