Changing the Change – PMO and Change Control

Delivery is going well, the team are clear on what needs to be done and are getting on with doing it. But then, rumblings start. Somethings shifting. It might be a re-alignment in strategic priorities, updates to regulatory demands, or re-visited estimates. Any alteration has the potential to divert the team and disrupt your delivery.

Uncertainty is often unsettling, clouding decisions or action. Delivering transformation at pace relies on clarity. If the team become unclear or uncertain on where the change is going, inaction and a loss of change momentum follow swiftly behind. No one wants to spend time working in the wrong direction or investing effort into something which will be abandoned shortly. But during the delivery lifecycle the need for changes to the delivery are common. Resisting alteration and re-alignment risks the delivery progressing in the wrong direction or even worse being irrelevant altogether.

To manage potential shifts in your delivery, you need Change Control, and your PMO is there to help. By effectively assessing and responding to potential changes and shifts you’ll be able to:

• Protect your change from disruption
• Maintain the team’s focus on the right things
• Keep your change relevant and appropriate for the business

Already delivering change, what type of change are we talking about?

When you set out on a journey delivering change to your business, it could be to replace IT systems, transform business processes or almost anything else to create a step change in the organisation. A vision for the change will have been created, a business case developed, and commitments made to the organisation. As time moves on the needs of the organisation may alter, so the transformation you started with is no longer the right thing.

Whenever there are  proposed material modification to your approved business case or the transformation which has been formally agreed and baselined, it needs to be managed through Change Control which PMO should support you in.

Change Control isn’t there to block or slow responding to these alterations, and in this context, it’s not about managing the delivery of the transformation. Effective PMO led Change Control is there to:

• Protect the business from altering the transformation without the ramification being considered properly
• Ensure the implications of the proposed alteration to the transformation are understood and accepted before any shift in delivery is begun
• Allow for planning and preparation to enact any alteration to the delivery without destabilising the transformation
• Provide a mechanism for rejecting inappropriate or undesirable changes
• Provide an audit trail of decisions taken which alter the transformation
• Protect the team from trying to deliver to a moving target
• Keep the team and the business focused on the transformation’s goals.

The main types of change which can occur once a delivery is in-flight and has been baselined include:

Scope – This could involve extending or reducing the scope of the delivery.

Scope change can be a result of successful delivery being recognised and others trying to get in on the act – scope creep risks stretching the planned delivery to the point of failure. Asks of ‘couldn’t we just… as well’ without consideration of extra funding being required or time needed risk taking a successful delivery over budget and late.

Reducing Scope can be the result of work being recognised as no longer needed e.g. why transform a system which will be decommissioned shortly? Removing items from scope might impact the delivery, returning transformation funding or resource to the business may allow them to be re-deployed elsewhere to drive greater value for the business.

Requirements/solution – Changes to the agreed requirements or the solution to meet those requirements.

What could be a small change for the business to a requirement could have significant technical implications for the solution team. The Change Control process provides a mechanism to discuss the businesses changing needs without uncontrolled shifts in the asks of delivery. By allowing the team to properly assess, understand the impacts changes to the requirements they are best able to support the business in delivering the new requirements, or not if the value isn’t there in an open and collaborative way.

Budget – Where there is a forecast overspend (or even underspend) beyond tolerance should be subject to Change Control.

Financial pressures are always present in delivery. If you’re doing well and transformation is coming in under budget, you can give yourself a pat on the back, but you should also consider Change Control to manage release of some of your budget back to the business. Those funds could be used elsewhere to deliver further value. Don’t hoard the money until the end.

Unfortunately it’s more common that transformation ends up needing more funding rather than less. The need for more financial support might be the result of changes to scope or requirement which need funding, or other delivery issues and under-estimation. If this is the case, change control should be used to recognise and capture the funding needed, the reasons why and implications of the change.

Time and Resource – If the resources needed to deliver shift, or the timescales previously committed to for delivery alter beyond tolerance, you will need Change Control to re-assess and re-set.

Things shift and change within the delivery, one activity may take slightly longer to complete than planned, while another may complete quicker. Small alterations within agreed tolerances can be managed within the team, but larger shifts – say the impact of a missed dependency moving the implementation date a month need to be carefully managed and controlled. This allows the delivery team to move to recover whenever possible, new state in a controlled way, and communicate the changes with impacted stakeholders.

Benefits – Through the business case, the change Sponsor has committed to delivering value in terms of business benefits for the provided investment. If these benefits are going to be reduced or are no longer achievable the alteration needs to be managed through Change Control.

The purpose of the transformation is to deliver the committed benefits to the business. If these aren’t going to be delivered, the whole reason for undertaking the change is at risk. It may be that it becomes the best course of action to halt the change and not continue to spend. It could be that more support is needed from leadership, or a mandate given to the transformation team to alter something else in the business to allow the benefits to be delivered.

Establishing Change Control

For effective Change Control the delivery team needs a Baseline – A ‘line in the sand’ from which the change can be measured against. For schedule this would include the committed dates for key milestones, for finances the agreed budget, for requirements the signed off requirements document. Only when the transformation has a baseline signed off can it enter formal Change Control. The first baseline the change will have will likely be its business case. Before this point, during the shaping stage the scope, requirements and timelines will be emerging and evolving.

With a Baseline in hand, when a potential change emerges it can be quickly assessed against a set of agreed Tolerances. Change Tolerances describe to the delivery team the acceptable level of deviation from the baseline before a formal change is required. Small variations such as a slight underspend or small delay to low level milestones may be acceptable for the delivery team to manage internally and recover from during the change lifecycle. It’s important for the PMO to establish clear Tolerances to prevent unnecessary changes being raised and pushed through Change Control. The team needs to be able to make day to day delivery decisions, the PMO and Change Control is about governing the material shifts.

Change Control also needs established levels of delegated Authority. Who is empowered to make what level of decision about any change. Some changes may be approved by the Project Board, others may need to go up to a Programme committee. The delivery’s highest authority is normally the Steering Committee, but decisions on changes may need to go even higher with the organisation potentially to the Executive or Board. Being clear where a change needs to go for approval enables decisions to be taken quickly and the delivery moving at pace.

With a Baseline, agreed Tolerances and clear levels of Authority in place, effective Change Control can be operated by the PMO. Whenever a change is forecast or proposed the Change Requestor, supported by the PMO will capture and document the change – a ‘Request For Change’ or RFC is usually produced. The RFC should clearly capture the change being considered, the reason why the change is needed, specific timelines needed by the change, and the impact of the change not being progressed. At this stage, understanding the full impact of the change isn’t needed. When completed the RFC should be reviewed by the delivery forum charged with managing change. This could be a formal Change Board, or part of an existing meeting. If the RFC clearly articulates the ask the change can be progressed for Impact Assessment.

Impact Assessment allows the delivery team and affected stakeholders to input to the decision-making process. The Impact Assessment must be completed by those impacted, not by the change requestor or delivery lead in isolation. PMO should support this process. The Impact Assessment should consider the impact of the change on costs, timelines, and benefits. Where additional resources or funding is needed this should clearly be called out, and the impact on the wider delivery plan assessed. The Impact assessment should also identify alternative options to meet the needs of the change requestor.

Once all the Impact Assessments have been completed, the Delivery Lead should review and make a Recommendation on whether the change should be accepted to the Change Board or other decision-making group.

Once the Change Request includes the RFC, Impact Assessment and Recommendation it can be sent for review and decision by the Change Board. The Requestor, Delivery Lead and key impacted stakeholders may  need to present the change and the rational for the recommendation. The Change Board will make a clear decision or request further information. The Change may need to be taken through several layers to receive the required approval based on the agreed Authority levels.

When a decision has been reached by the Change Board, only then the delivery should start to enact the change. This may include adding additional scope to the plans, shifting dates and obtaining additional funding. Once the Change is included in the delivery’s controls a new Baseline should be established, so the team has a new clear level to assess progress against.

Change is a good thing, and an inescapable one. You need to respond to change to keep delivery under control, appropriate and managed against a clear agreed baseline. With the right PMO Change Control processes, procedures and support capturing, assessing and enacting a change will be a smooth process. We’ve seen deliveries where managing a change is so onerous and laborious the control is ignored or avoided. Changes against baselines or additional scope are either ignored, or accepted without any consideration placing the entire delivery and the benefits the business is expecting at risk.

PMO should support your Change Control keeping delivery effective and appropriate while maintaining the team’s keep focus on the agreed delivery and pace. You will be able to adapt to the changing world around you with Change Control, and your PMO.

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