PRINCE2 Change Control

PRINCE2 Change Control

The PRINCE2 Manual uses the Change Theme to describe how change control should be executed.

In PRINCE2, ALL changes are dealt with as a type of project issue. Put simply, they are:

1. General issues

2. Request For Change

3. Off Specifications.

General issues.

First of all, any general issue could be dealt with 'face-to-face' if appropriate - logging it as a 'formal' project issue would be done if that were the best and only option. As an example, 'general' issues could include:

• a question/query
• a good idea
• an observation
• a concern

There are also general issues:

• an unavoidable risk occuring
• advice of a new risk

Remember, a risk is something that has yest to happen, and MAY happen at some point in the future, whereas an issue has already happened. The last two items in the above list are issues "the risk HAS occured", and "we hadn't thought of this new risk - now what is to happen?"

The "advice of a new risk" issue, would be logged, and the action would be to transfer it to the Risk Log and carry out first a Risk Analysis, and then, as part of Risk Management, building into appropriate Plans/Workpackages, the relevant activities and resources to manage the risk.

Request For Change. This is a change requested from the Customer/User side, and would, if implemented, cause a change to what had been originally agreed, to the Acceptance Criteria, Specifications/Scope.

It might be a request to add or subtract to the original agreement. If you were having a house built, two examples might be you requesting an extra bathroom, or asking for a dividing wall to be removed. As such, any extra costs relating to this change should be paid for by the Customer/Users.

Off Specification.

This covers errors or omissions either in work already carried out, or planned for the future. This will result in NOT being able to meet the originally agreed Acceptance Criteria, Specification/Scope.

An example similar to above, would be if the builder of your new house advises that they can't include your patio area within the price. As such, any extra costs (either in re-work to fix the off-specification, or reducing the price to you), should be met by the builder.

Suppose that (possibly in order to meet your timescale...) you agreed to accept what the builder COULD give you ( that is, house without the patio), then in PRINCE2 terms, this is called a CONCESSION.

Request For Change/Off Specification management.

If either an RFC or Off Specification would cause forecasted Tolerance to be exceeded - then the Project Manager MUST bring this to the Project Board's attention by raising an Exception Report. If the change is an Off Specification, the project manager would try to fix the problem using any available Tolerance (although optionally it may be prudent to seek advice from the Project Board...)

But if the change is a Request For Change, the Project Manager MUST bring this to the attention of the Project Board - whether or not the change can be done within Tolerance. If the RFC can be done within Tolerance, the Project Manager would use the Directing a Project activity "Give Ad-Hoc Direction, as the means of communicating this.

The Project Board are usually senior people, and they may consider that having to authorise (or not), all changes, that they should not be involved. In such a case, they may delegate their responsibilities to a "Change Authority". This authority will act on the boards behalf.

Another possibility is that the Change Authority only handle lower priority/impact issues - say for example, under a certain cost, and the Project Board deal with all the rest. Another option (to be discussed during the Initiation Stage, and included in the Project Plan), is to include a Change Budget in addition to the Project Budget. This has the added advantage of ensuring that changes do not "eat" into cost Tolerance.

If such a budget is not made available, then any changes beyond budget or ProjectTolerance would require the Board to seek agreement from Corporate (or Programme) Management - since it was they that set Project Tolerance. PRINCE2 states quite rightly, that Project Issues should not be considered in isolation. This will greatly enhance decision-making.

Each issue should be considered in the light of any impact to the Business Case, Risks, Cost, Time - and should be carefully weighed against any such benefit, advantage or saving. Remember also, that if a product is to be changed, its Product Description should be checked to see if that too, needs changing.

All issues when raised, should be entered into the Issue Log and categorised. All issues should be given a priority rating (ie. Must Have, Nice to have, ect). After Imapct Analysis the Priority may have to be reconsidered by the Project Manager or Project Board. Any issues that are simple misunderstandings should be dealt with directly and the Issue Log updated to reflect this. For all other types, an Impact Analysis must be carried out.

The Impact Analysis covers:

• What would have to change and what work effort it would take
• What the impact would be on all plans (Team, Stage, Project), and whether this would cause deviation beyond Tolerance
• What the impact would be on the Business Case and risks

Remember that the impact may be positive or negative (the Business Case might be improved as a result of the issue!)

One final point.

Whenever considering issue action, the Project Board (or their delegated Change Authority), have the following options:

1. Agree to the change

2. Agree to the change being implemented (possibly by approving an Exception Plan if the
  change would have caused the original Plan to exceed Tolerance)

3. Reject the change

4. For Request for Changes, decide not to implement - but keep it "live" by placing it in "pending"
  on the Issue Log. This might be implemented later or not at all.

5. They may remove the cause of the issue - thus remedying the need to resolve the issue itself

6. They may decide to prematurely close the project

Okay, so let's summarize:

No matter how many projects you will work on in your professional life, every single one of them will be subject to some form of change, whether it’s your customer changing their mind or specification problems, or the outside world changing, change is inevitable.

 

It therefore makes good sense to embed a process for managing change at the start of each project, and this must include a systematic approach that covers the identification, assessment and control of any changes that arise.  

 

In PRINCE2 all changes are treated as a type of project issue.  Any issues that the potential to impact the project’s performance targets of time, cost, quality, scope, risk and benefits.

 

It is often misunderstood, but be objective of issue and change control procedures are not to prevent changes, but rather, to ensure that every change is first agreed by the relevant authority before it is implemented.  

 

The first important aspect to consider is the answer to the question “how will we know when a change is requested to what we currently have?”. 

 

The answer is to record the version details of each product, both management and specialist, once they had been signed off, and these are called a Baseline.  

 

Therefore, a pre-requisite of affected issue and change control is the establishment of an appropriate configuration and management system which records baselines for the project products and ensures that the correct versions are delivered to the customer. 

 

There is therefore a very close relationship between change control and configuration management, for this reason the change control administration normally takes place within your configuration management group.  Within PRINCE2, configuration management is normally supplied from within Project Support.

 

It is therefore important that all issues and changes that may affect the projects baselines, first identified, then assess, and either approve, rejected or deferred.

 

Configuration management is the technical and administrative activity concerned with the creation, maintenance and controlled change of configuration throughout the life of a product (or item).

A configuration item is an entity that is subject to configuration management. The entity may be a component of a product, a product or a set of products that form a release. 

 

A release is a complete and consistent set of products that are managed, tested and deployed as a single entity to be handed over to the user(s). Issue and change control procedures need to be integrated with the configuration management system used by the project.

 

PRINCE2 uses the term ’issue’ to cover any relevant event that has happened, was not planned, and requires management action. It can be a concern, query, request for change, suggestion or off-specification raised during a project. Project issues can be about anything to do with the project.

 

Issues may be raised at any time during the project, by anyone with an interest in the project or its outcome. The different types of issue are:

 

• Request for change.  A proposal for a change to a baseline. For example, the Senior User would like to upgrade the processor speed for an IT system to comply with the latest software release.

 

• Off-specification. This is something that should be provided by the project, but currently is not (or is forecast not to be) provided. An example here, is a piece of functionality is missing, or a product that is missing.

 

• Problem/concern.  Any other issue that the Project Manager needs to resolve or escalate. For example, advice from a supplier that they can no longer deliver one of the products specified by the customer.

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