Change Control in the Project Management

‘Hand is Assignment for next week'

By Raul Bernardino

Introduction:

In the early 1950 up to 1980 the change control was focusing on the project that has been planned within time and budget. There are issues that involving in the projects and project teams were often can’t meet project goals. In other word the project teams were rarely meeting the project original goals. Therefore, in early 1990 almost all project managers and companies top managements are realizing that, project managements are a process of fitting the needs along the project life cycle. Therefore it is in need of having the constant communication and negotiation along the project life time to adjust the objectives and goals in order to meet the expectation.

The administrative of the changing controls are important part in project management, because it will be transparent or clearly stated in the procedure on how and why it would be changed including who is the authorization person or body for changing. “The changing control system often involves the change control board, configuration management, and process of communication of the change”. (Schwalbe, K.,2010)

The changing to the procedures or contract may impact to the services of the delivery and qualities of the services, to the cost and time of the project, and to the other related resources (people, technology, and business). Therefore it has to be clear instruction in the contract on how and when we need to adapt the changing. For instances allocation person who is responsible for requesting a change or assessing the impact of the changing, who can makes a priorities and authorize the changes; who will be making the agreement with contractors; who is controlling the implementation of the changes, and who is documenting the changes.

My first suggestion is outsourcing the developers especially on software application and hardware technology. Because basically companies or organizations have not have enough human resource or even they have, the person may need specific course or trainings to perform the task. And it may not lead cost effectives and on time delivery as well. Therefore in the contract with developer have to have a clear picture. For example software application, we do need to explain or state in the contract or in the separate assessment document that current existing operation systems is X OS or so, other applications that are also up and running, and including what application that is planning  to develop and integrating into the current system. These are also involving security, scalabilities, availabilities, reliabilities, and change management. This situation is same as for deploying new hardware technologies.

Far before outsourcing the third parties, company or organization has to have a internal procurement procedure, whereas to help the organization or company in selecting the third parties to become a vendor, service delivery, and application developer.

My second suggestion is outsourcing the business continuity plan for the organization or company. Most organization or company has limited recourses to build similar office and system in case of the main office is burn down or defected by natural disaster or the system itself is down. Therefore organization or company has to have a contract with the third parties to establish essential system functionality in the third party data center or office. In the contract agreement has to clearly stated, what are those functionalities, the reliabilities of data and functionality, data integrity or confidentiality, including the availabilities, and security.

Conclusion: organization and Company internal change configuration management procedure have to be in place. This is to help the organization or company to know why and when need to change.

In the project contracts have to be flexible in the changing of the objectives or goals in order to meet the expectation, however it should be creating a clear control change management in the contracts.

References list:

·        Schwalbe, K. Information Technology Project Management, Revised 6th edition, Ch 4. P.162-164 and Ch 12.P.462-473

·        Lecture note, PM_WK2_seminar

·        Principle for service contract, Contract Management guidance [online]. Available from: http://www.ogc.gov.uk/documents/Contract_Management.pdf   (Accessed Date: May 14, 2011)

·        Institute of configuration management [online]. Available from: http://www.icmhq.com/ (Accessed Date: May 14, 2011)