Discussion: Managing Changes to the Project Scope and Schedule

Consider what would happen on your project if your sponsor or key stakeholder was so pleased with the work of the project team that mid-way through the project, that they wanted to expand the project scope to include some additional deliverables. How should you, as the project manager, address this type of request?

The one thing we can be certain about in managing a project is that we will have to address some changes. It is critical to assess how we plan to monitor and control changes during the planning process - before we must address any specific change requests.

Sometimes changes are minor and are unrelated to the scope of the project. For example, we may have to assign a new resource to a work package after the original resource left the organization.

For this discussion, we will focus on the importance of monitoring and controlling changes to the project scope and schedule.

Post your response to the following:

Based on the unique characteristics of your project, develop a change control process for addressing changes to the project scope and the project schedule, by describing:

The process and necessary documents for a stakeholder to request a scope change

The process the project team will use to assess the impact of the change to the scope and schedule

The process and the necessary documents the project manager will use to communicate the results of the team's assessment of the impact to the sponsor and stakeholder

The process the project manager will use to record the outcome of the analysis and whether the requested change was accepted or rejected

Include a sentence or two for each of the above processes that explain your rationale for proceeding in this manner.