Question

What is the rationale behind making a scope change once the project has started? What needs to be considered before making changes to the project? What steps should be taken to determine if these changes should be made?

Answer 1

No one wants a change in scope of the project but there are certain circumstances in which the change is required in the scope of the project. Such as change in laws regulations, poorly defined requirements at the beginning of the project, if there is technological upgradation that makes old technology irrelevant, if stakeholders comes up with new and innovative ideas then the change in the scope of project is required.

Before making any change in the scope of the project it is important to consider the following things such as

Communicate the change

It is important to communicate the change to the team who is working on the project. The team should have knowledge of the change that is going to happen.

Documentation

There should be an updation in the old plan by documenting it. If the change is not documented than the team will work according to the old assumption that will create issues.

Update the schedule

The change in the scope may change the schedule. There may be change in the resources and the tasks to be performed so that's why is is important to update the schedule.

Steps to determine that the change should be made or not

Step 1 If the project manager receive any request to change the scope of the project than the manager should try to solve the issue by corrective actions.

Step 2 If the corrective actions are not sufficient than the project manager should document the required items and analyze the impact of the change, budget required and time duration.

Step 3 forward the request to the sponsor of the project.

Step 4 the sponsor of the project may approve or reject the request.

Step 5 If the change is approved than the project manager should implement the change by adjusting the budget for the project, resources and schedule.

Step 6 document all the supporting documents for future reference and future requests.