5 Reasons For Project Change Management

As understood while preparing for the project management certification, change management is crucial to the project’s success, and I’ve compiled a list of my own top five.

1. Eliminate expensive gold plating.

For those unfamiliar with the term “gold plating” in the context of project management and software development, it refers to the practise of working on a project or job past the point where the additional effort is worth the increased value. It’s continuing to work on a task after the agreed-upon — and paid-for — work has been completed. Additional testing, paperwork, prices, timeframes, and other hazards associated with gold plating can be included into the initial strategy.The project manager and development team can eliminate gold plating any portion of the end solution by making change management a top priority and closely monitoring scope management. If such enhancements are truly needed, they can then be discussed in detail with the client and turned into revenue-generating change orders.

2. Increase revenue.

Change orders almost always result in an increase in income. The alert project manager — and project team members — keep an eye out for and listen to requests or needs to adjust the project’s scope. Anything that requires more labour and money to implement, such as a new feature, functionality, report, or training, can and should result in a change order being sent to the client. Typically, they arise from a client request or necessity, but they can also be items that are judged required based on the project’s objectives but were not included in the initial scope since both the delivery team and the customer were ignorant of the need during the early planning phase. Hopefully, the process of establishing and implementing the change order is painless and does not cause customer displeasure, but if it is absolutely necessary and falls outside of the project’s initial scope of work, it must be done, and the client should quickly sign off.

3. Increase project profitability.

As understood while preparing for the project management certification- increased sales can lead to higher profit margins. The project manager and team will almost certainly be able to retain project profitability as high as feasible by paying strict attention to scope on the project. It’s vital to ensure that every work done is either part of the original job (and so costed and paid for by the customer) or part of a new modification order (and thus paid for by the customer). Without a change order in place, you’re merely adding expense with no accompanying income, which means you’re losing money. Tight change management means the delivery team isn’t doing any free work, which means there aren’t any additional costs that aren’t generating revenue…keeping profitability at or above (ideally) budgeted levels. Your CFO will be delighted.

4. Keep the project on time.

Keeping a close eye on and controlling scope helps keep the project on track in terms of timetable, job completion dates, and delivery dates and milestones, as well as reducing costs and increasing income if change orders are required. When change orders are applied, the project may take longer, but that is approved work and approved timetable extensions that are part of the extra effort…so it’s fine to deliver a little later…already it’s in the amended plan.

5. Keep the project on budget.

I may be repeating myself here, but keeping any project on schedule with effective scope management should also help keep it on budget. As previously said, if scope is handled correctly, the project will stay loyal to the criteria already established, just the scheduled work will be completed, and staying on time — and on budget — should be considerably simpler.Having said that, I have never managed a project without at least one change order. By closely monitoring change, those necessary change orders are produced — that is, they are well-documented alterations to the original scope, priced appropriately, and signed off by the project client, resulting in new income and a new budget objective to meet and manage against.

Want to learn more about Project Change Management? Take on a project manager or business analyst course today!