Dealing with Integrated Change Control – Part 4
How to handle situations at ground and questions in PMP® Exam related to integrated change control process.
Part – 4 – How to handle questions related to Integrated Change Control in PMP® Exam?
So far we have understood basic principles of Integrated Change Control, the Integrated Change Control Process and how to deal with them at work. Now let’s see how to handle questions on PMP® Exam. We will take some examples to understand how basic principles and change management process is applied on PMP® Question to tick the right answer:
Question 1:
You have just received a change from customer. Customer has analysed that it does not impact the schedule and easy to implement. What should you do first?
A. Request permission from project sponsor
B. Send the change to change control board for approval
C. Implement the change as soon as possible
D. Evaluate the impact on the project
Analysis of question 1:
Look at the basic principles and change management process to analyze the question. Basic principles says it is only project team that should do impact analysis. Customer analysis is not required and not sufficient. Irrespective of customer has done the analysis or not, project team must do impact analysis. Let’s analyze the options:
A- Request permission from project sponsor: You need permission from change control board to implement a change and not from sponsor.
B- Send the change to change control board for approval: If you look at the change management process, you can send the change request to change control board only after impact analysis. Customer impact analysis is neither valid not sufficient.
C- Implement the change as soon as possible: If you follow the process, you can implement a change request only after CCB approval.
D-Evaluate the impact on the project: You should evaluate the impact i.e. do impact analysis. So the answer is D. A question may arise how we can do impact analysis when a formal change request is not created and not gone through qualification test yet as per process. The answer is, these two steps are not available in the options. If either of them was available, I would have chosen it. We have to choose best out of available options.
So the answer is D.
Let’s take another question.
Question 2:
You are developing an application. In the last week, you have made the first delivery to your customer. Looking at the delivery, your customer has requested a change in the application and wants you to deliver it immediately. What is the BEST way for you to handle it?
A. Analyze the impact of the change on the project
B. Immediately ask your team to start work on the change and meanwhile you will do the impact analysis and take the approval from change control board
C. Create a formal change request
D. Call a team meeting to decide next step
Answer to question 2:
What do you do when customer ask you to urgently respond on the change? You should definitely try to fast track to address urgency but not at the cost of change management process. Tell to your customer that you and customer have agreed on a change management process and you cannot bypass it. You will try to expedite within the process.
Let’s analyze options:
A- Analyze the impact of the change on the project: You should analyze the impact of the change on the project but let us see if there is any option in B, C or D that comes before this step.
B- Immediately ask your team to start work on the change and meanwhile you will do the impact analysis and take the approval from change control board: Asking your team to immediately start working on the change will be a total violation of change management process and also dangerous for you as you do not know the impact. By start working without understanding impact, you probably delay it instead of delivering it early.
C- Create a formal change request: Yes, you should first create a formal change request. This should be preferred over A as it comes first in the Integrated Change Control Process.
D- Call a team meeting to decide next step: Calling a team meeting to decide next step shows that you either do not have a change management process or you do not have inclination to follow it or you are unaware of it. If you have a change management process, next step is defined there, just follow it, there is no need to call a meeting.
So the answer is C as it is preferred over A.
Let’s take another examples
Question 3
Your project is half way. It is running on time and within budget. A team member comes to you and informs that he has added an extra features to the project that customer would like and there is no impact on time and cost. What should be your NEXT step after hearing this information?
A. Send this information to change control board to take a decision
B. Issue a change request and get it approved as soon as possible
C. Instruct the team member to remove the extra functionality
D. Present it to the customer as a value add
Answer to question 3:
Adding an extra feature which is not in the scope is called gold platting and not required at all. Team members should know that he/she is not expected to work on anything which is not part of the scope. It is a waste of time and energy. If you have time, apply energy to enhance quality of features within the scope. Often such things are done assuming customer will be delighted however we must understand that the extra feature was implemented without customer’s consent and therefore customer may or may not like it.
Let’s analyze options:
A- Send this information to change control board to take a decision: It is not right as this is not correct change control process. You should send the change request to CCB only when we have completed impact analysis.
B- Issue a change request and get it approved as soon as possible: Change request is to be issued before implementation of change and not after its implementation. It is violation of the process.
C- Instruct the team member to remove the extra functionality: You can instruct the team member to remove it as it is not in the scope.
D- Present it to the customer as a value add: Presenting it as value add is not only violation of Integrated Change Control Process but also risky as it was implemented without the knowledge of customer.
So the answer is C. Explain to your team member that he/she is not expected to work on features out of scope and ask him/her to remove it. Sometime it appears too hard on the team members but if you give such concession, you set an example and invite more such incidences. That may be difficult to control and you become selective in implementing the process. Better to stick to the process. Make team members aware of the process and sensitize them at regular interval instead of giving such concessions.
I hope this series on project change management will be of help to you. Should you have any question or suggestion or any comment to share, please click here and leave your question/suggestion/comment in the comment section. I look forward to hear from you.
Other parts of Dealing with Integrated Change Control
- Part – 1: Basic Principles
- Part – 2: The Integrated Change Control Process
- Part – 3: How to deal with change management
- Part – 4: How to handle questions related to change management in PMP® Exam (This post)
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