Dealing with Integrated Change Control

How to handle situations at ground and questions in PMP® Exam related to integrated change control process.

Project Change Management is one of the main challenges for project managers on the ground and for the same reason, many people find it difficult to answer questions in PMP® Exam related to project change management process. In PMBOK® Guide it is explained as Integrated Change Control under Project Integration Management:

Part – 1

Basic Principles:

Let’s start with some fundamentals. Fundamentals are the foundation of good understanding of any subject and same applies to integrated change control. We must understand some basic principles of change management first before we start dealing with it:

1. We should have a well-defined scope duly signed with customer or stakeholders
2. We should have a well-defined project change management process for integrated change control.
3. We should discuss and explain the change management process to customer/stakeholders in the beginning of the project.
4. Do incorporate suggestions of customer and other stakeholders in defining the process. However once finalized, stick to it.
5. All changes in the scope either suggested by customer/stakeholders or by project team must go through change management process irrespective of their size and impact on the project.
6. Any change to change management process is also a change and must go through existing project change management process.
7. Team members should not be allowed to work on anything beyond the scope of the project.
8. Team members should be aware of project scope very well so that they can recognize the change.
9. Team members should be explained the change management process, how to recognize a change and how to follow project change management process.
10. The world is changing and therefore changes are inevitable.
11. Project managers should welcome all value-add changes and deny all non-value-add changes.
12. We must create a Change Control Board (CCB). We will define CCB further in Change Management Process.
13. Team should work on a change only after it is approved by change control board
14. Project team being expert and in-charge of project is the only stakeholder to analyze the impact of changes and prepare impact analysis.
15. If any other stakeholder has done the analysis, we should thank him/her for his/her help but it is not sufficient. Project team must do impact analysis to understand the real impact.

Other parts of Dealing with Integrated Change Control

1. Part – 1: Basic Principles (This post)
2. Part – 2: The Integrated Change Control Process
3. Part – 3: How to deal with change management
4. Part – 4: How to handle questions related to change management in PMP® Exam

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