Change Control Process in Project Management : Detailed Steps and Types

Change Control Process

The change control process is a necessity that involves changes in the project. No project is perfectly planned or goes according to the plans. Some items may require changes in the project such as time, scope, issues, resources, quality, requirements, and other items. 

Project management in itself is a complex task and involves a lot of parameters such as Project planning, Project implementation, Project monitoring and control, and project closure. The project manager is in charge of the projects. 

The change control process is a critical and important part of project management. The project scope and the project deliverables or the requirements are dynamic in a way that they require changes as and when there are issues or the customer expectations changes. 

Many companies prefer certified project managers rather than having non-certified project managers. To learn and for aspiring project managers can take up PMP certification training course. 

The project manager does the following tasks such as control, planning, designing, scheduling, task management, quality management, resources management, time management, scope management, change management, issue management, budgeting, reporting, communication, team management, and risk management. With all these project managers’ job is difficult, complex and critical.

What is the Change Control Process?

Change control processes are the steps taken to incorporate changes in the manageable project and in a controlled way. 

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What are the steps for the Change Control Processes?

1. Identifying the changes
2. Evaluating the changes
3. Documenting or Logging the changes
4. Getting the approval
5. Testing the changes
6. Incorporating the rollback process
7. Implementing the changes
8. Communicating the changes

Types of change control processes

There are two types of Change Control process 

1. The normal Change Control Process

In this change control process, the changes are incorporated with the normal approval process and each step is followed in sequence and there are no escalations and require regular time.  There is very little hurry to complete the changes. The changes are not critical and do not stand in the way of completing other tasks in the projects.

2. Emergency Change control process in the project management

In this change control process, the changes are made in a short period, need escalations, are critical changes, and need emergency approvals. The steps for the emergency changes are as follows,

1. Identifying the changes
2. Escalating the changes
3. Getting verbal approvals from the emergency change management team
4. Evaluating changes
5. Having a rollback procedure
6. Implementing changes
7. Documenting the changes
8. Communicating changes

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Detailed steps in the Change Control Project Management Process

1. Identifying the changes

The changes are identified by examining various parameters in the projects such as time, quality, requirements, cost, scope, issues, resources, deliverables, and customer inputs. 

2. Evaluating the changes

These identified changes are then evaluated in such a way that whether these changes are required, does it produce any value addition in terms of any of the required parameters such as cost, issues, scope, deliverables, time, resources, requirements, quality, and customer inputs, etc. Register for the PMP training to know more on this subject and in project management.

3. Documenting or Logging the changes

The changes are logged or documented in the change register or the changelogs. Documenting the changes helps in revisiting the changes in the next projects as a part of the learning process. It builds the experience of the teams in solving the issues if similar types of changes are required in the future.

4. Getting the approval

The most important part of the change control process is to get the necessary approval from the change management team which consists of the project owner, project manager, and subject matter experts. However, the emergency changes are done with verbal approvals and need not follow all the steps outlined in this normal change control process. Enroll in the PMP certification training to have in-depth knowledge in project management.

5. Testing the changes

The best practices to incorporating the chances are that they need to be tested in the production-like environment or the testing environment. Testing helps in eliminating the failures of the change control process and helps to know whether this type of change can solve the issues that are required.

6. Incorporating the rollback process

The changes may also result in instability of the systems such as applications, databases, security, systems, or other infrastructures. Whenever the changes in the systems do not behave as expected the rollback procedure helps to roll back the changes and bring back the state that was before the implementation of the changes. You can learn more on this topic by taking up the PMP certification course online at a reputed institute.

7. Implementing the changes

Now we have come to the end of the change control process that is to implement the changes. The changes are implemented gradually and steadily so that it solves the issues on why the changes are required in the first place. Normally in the software development life cycle, the changes are incorporated in the production environment for the applications or database or systems or servers, or any other infrastructure.

8. Communicating the changes

The changes thus done are communicated to the entire team by email or through sharing the changelogs or by using automated project management software. The change control process should be communicated to the various stakeholders and even to the top management so that everyone knows about the changes and learn from them.

Final Thoughts

Now that you know what project change control is? Change control process is the important criteria or stage of project management. You can learn the change control process from the real example by taking up the PMP certification training course conducted by StarAgile institute. StarAgile is the partner institute to Project Management Institute (PMI) for conducting the PMP online training course for aspiring professionals.