This is a reflection report on change management as a part of project management which aims to understand by exploring a project how changes are assessed and used to bring continuous improvement in project management practices. The report has been made considering a project that involves designing and development of a software application as the project. The report explores the change requirements of the project and identifies the possibility of integration of the change control practices in the project management practices for effective implementation and management of changes on a project.
Change requirement analysis is done with an aim to identify how desired changes would affect the project across the project life cycle. The impact of the changes on the project can be studied with respect to project scope, schedule, and cost. A positive result of the evaluation would lead to the approval of the changes (Stare, 2010).
Changes on a project can have several impacts on the project that can be positive or negative. With increasing number of changes needed on the project, the costs increase, delays are introduced and productivity can suffer. Thus, it is essential that only the changes that make a positive difference to the project bringing improvement in the project or processes to bring innovation (Schoonwinkel, Fourie, & Conradie, 2016).
The changes that were needed on the software designing and development project were identified as:
Parallel development of modules: Parallel development of software modules that were not dependent on each other would lower the risk of possible delays in the final delivery of the project in case anyone module suffers from a delay because of some reason (Tiwari, 2011).
Power User Training: Instead of random selection of the users for the software testing, the project manager can identify the power users who would be the ideal users of the software and would be actually using it most extensively when delivered. These users can be trained on what features are being developed, how to use them so that they can aid at the later stage of the project during testing. This would ensure that all the user requirements are well taken care of and if any changes are needed, they are made before the final delivery of the software (Williams, 2017)
Transition guidance: The client and users of the software application can be prided with the training on how to smoothly adapt to the changes that would result from the software implementation so that they can adapt well. While this addition would not directly affect the efficiency of the project, it would affect the post implementation and would make the project a success which would only be visible after the closing stage of the project.
Change management begins with the exploration of structures, culture, values and behaviours of an organization or the project. Certain diagnostic tools can be used for this such as identifying the managerial style, recognizing controls, establishing efficiency in the structure of the organization, determining resource shortfalls, and identifying commitment as well as resistance to change from the available resources. Based on this diagnostic, a scope for change can be defined for the project (Collinson Grant, 2011).
The focus of change requirement analysis and change management should remain on the reduction of risks resulting from changes required. Taking the example of a software design and development project, a change may target improvement in the project constraints such as schedule. If a certain work package of development of one module of the application is put in the critical path of a project, it can result into the delay of the complete project if it is not finished on time (Ayal, 2002).
Thus, an improvement can be made by running the work package parallelly with other modules. This would change the critical path. This would ensure that in case the module to be developed does not face any major issues, the project would not be delayed significantly and the work package would become low risk. This resolves the problem but does not take care of the fact that it can occur again and thus, corrective action may be required even in future. This corrective action would involve analysis of the root cause behind the delay and taking of action that can prevent delays in future (Byatt, Hamilton, Hodgkinson, & Okes, 2012).
Change management can help do this planning involving identification of the root causes of the problems and defining correction actions or solutions to resolve them in future to achieve continuous improvement in project management. Thus, the steps for change management can be described to follow throughout the project. These can include problem identification, understanding of processes, identification of root causes, collection of data for diagnostics, analysis of collected data, identification of solutions, selection of the most appropriate solution, solution implementation, evaluation of their effects on the project, and updating of the project management guidelines as per the evaluation.
However, project managers can face barriers in implementation of such a change management process. The project manager as an individual may not have all the required knowledge about project processes and thus, may not be able to evaluate the processes most efficiently. Moreover, because of delivery pressures, the project manager may be pushed to take decisions fast and end up doing mistake in the understanding of the cause in absence of adequate information. If such thing happens then it can later cause more problems on the project in subsequent stages of the project life cycle (Knipe & Waldt, 2000).
Another major challenge arises due to the presence of multiple organizations working on the same project such that if a mistake happens from one of the teams then the members may try to keep themselves protected and hide the causes and instead blame the others (Parker, 2004).
When corrective actions are planned, most people on the project only take into consideration the current project requirement. However, the corrective actions are most useful when they can bring continuous improvement by also bringing innovation and making corrections for future projects unless the organization is program management driven. Actual evaluation of the results of project changes on the project in terms of their effectiveness is difficult as they may be observed only at the end of the project such that their real impact is understood only after project completion. Such corrective actions may prove out to be more useful when the lessons are applied for future projects (Hajsleiman, 2018).
Prosci has introduced Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, and Reinforcement (ADKAR) model of change for project change management which could be used as a process improvement tool. It defines the phases of change management and maps the strategy that a project team must follow to go through a process of change management. This model can be used to give structure to the change management and control process (Curtis, 2017).
As per this model, the first phase of change management is awareness in which change requirements are assessed and communicated. In the next stage which is desire, project organization is assessed to see if the change can help in achieving business objectives of the organization. In this stage, questions may be asked if change is going to bring a solution or increase the risk. Once a change is assessed and decided to be made, the change has to be sponsored and risks have to be assessed. Project team may be provided with the training on how change is going to affect the project and how they can adapt to the changes while keeping the project deliverables intact. Last comes the stage of actually implementation of change. The team can be provided with appreciation or incentives to encourage them to adapt to change so the project manager has their buy-in (Ms., 2010).
Integrated change control can be established by integration the processes of change management as defined by the above discussed model into the project planning process. Change management on a project need people to be prepared to deal with it as well process have to be modified accordingly. Change management can be integrated to each stage of the project management. As per the PMBOK guide, there are five stages any project would go through and these include initiation, planning, execution, monitoring and control, and closing. Integration can be achieved by embedding change management processes in each of these stages which can be made possible in following ways (Schoonwinkel, Fourie, & Conradie, 2016):
Initiation: Appropriate schedule may be assigned to the process of change management in this stage. Also, various stakeholders who would have a say on the change would be identified and analysed. People would be selected to give the responsibility and authority to for managing the changes identified. Integration of the change management processes in the project schedule is required at this stage. When considering the case of the design and development of software application, specific processes that may be added in the project schedule to integrate change management would be identification of key change agents, conducting review of selected individuals, determination of commitment needed from them and influence they have on the project, and validation of communication practices to be followed on the project (Serova, 2015) . For the current project, key agents identified included project sponsor, designer, developer, and end users. Each of these individuals could be interviewed to understand their needs, expectations, influence and commitment on the project. For validation of communication practices, each of them was asked how they would prefer to be contacted for the project management purpose. This process can help in identifying how any changes to project processes can affect the project schedule as well as the level of commitment and type of engagement it would need with these stakeholders to enable the change smoothly without affecting the schedule much (PMI, 2012).
Planning: In this stage, the impact of the change on the project can be assessed and creation of value the change would bring would be focused on. The response to risks of making changes could be made according to the value the change brings to the project. In this stage, the changes identified have to be assessed so that they can be accepted or rejected and accordingly the project plan can be updated (Makarainen, 2000). In the case of the software designing and development project, the project team and the project organization could be assessed on their readiness to adapt to the change. Suggested changes in the project management processes on the software project were identification of power users and provision of training to them for software testing and development of the transition plan for the workforce of the project organization to adapt to the changes that new software application would bring (Srinivasan, 2011). Power user training would help project manager ensure that all needed functionalities of the project are tested properly and the final deliverables of the project are as desired and are thus, accepted positively by the project stakeholders (Welsh & Black, 2010).s Development of the transition plan for the organization would need training schedule to be added on the project which would add to the project schedule but at the same time ensure, smooth adoption of the software in the client organization. The result of this strategy would be more visible at the end of the project and thus, the lessons learned could be recorded and can be used for the upcoming projects (Trivedi & Turner, 2015).
Executing: In this stage, project is executed and thus, changes can occur on ground and thus, the management needs to lead the process by aligning goals and managing project stakeholder. Subject management expert as well as the change agents would play a big role in bringing the change in the project while keeping the stakeholders satisfied (Jainendrakumar, 2016). For the software design and development project, the power users served as the change agents who brought about suggestions for making changes on the project. Their involvement ensured that the software developed had all features needed for development and thus, testing results could be made more acceptable with only few changes needed further (Apostolopoulos, 2012).
Monitoring & Control: Expectations of project stakeholders are reviewed and if there are any gaps from actual then it may need the project manager to adapt the plan and bring change to meet stakeholder needs and expectations. At this stage, metrics can be used to measure the changes and their impacts on the project so that a fair assessment can be made on the potential of the change to bring value to the project. Standard metrices such as cost variance index and schedule variance index can help project manager know how the change would or have affected the cost and schedule of the project and if this variation is justified to accept or reject a change. With this measure, the project manager can ensure that only the changes that do not risk the project constraints to a high degree are accepted (Patel, 2016).
Closing: This is the last stage of the project in which the value that is created by the change is recorded in the lessons learned and accepted before the final project can be signed of by the project owner. This can become an anchor for the next project that may be planned with changes made in the project management practices as per the lessons learned in the current project (Owyoung & Mohrland, 2013).
Conclusion
The report explored the possibility of integrated change control practices in project management practices. For this a case of software designing and development project was taken and change requirements were identified. These included development of multiple modules parallelly, development of power users, and embedding of transition related training in the project outcome. Each of the suggested change is expected to bring positive results to the project and thus, are recommended to adopt. For an effective change management, it was suggested that the change management processes are integrated with the project management which is possible through addition of change management and control processes in each of the five key stages of the project including initiation, planning, execution, control, and closure.
References
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