COEPD – Center of Excellence for Professional Development Happy Learning
How to manage the change request?
There are few steps which has to be followed to handle the change request appropriately. They are as mentioned below:
Step 1 – Understand the Scope of the Change
As a Business Analyst one should consider what exactly is the scope of the change request. A change request may be related to the business, stake holders and/or the functionality changes in the proposed application. The Business Analyst assigned for the project should involve almost all the stake holders to understand the change and the impact that this change is going to create to the application. By doing this the change approval team will determine whether the change has to be incorporated or not and if, incorporated what benefits does the change request bring to the business.
Step 2 – Determine the Scope of Incorporating the Change
Once the scope of the change is understood and why it is important then, incorporating this change or not is decided by the project team based on the whether the change impacts the project budged, schedule and its scope. By determining the impacts of the project budged, schedule and its scope the change may be incorporated by extending the project schedule alone with increased budget but keeping the scope intact or trade-off the change for a lower priority requirement and continue without impacting the actual schedule/scope.
Step 3 – Proceed with Approval or Rejection of the Change
Based on the benefits and impacts of the change, a change request form will be send for approval to the approval team. Usually organizations will have various levels of approvals based on the time taken in implementing the change request. If the change is approved, then the implantation plan will be prepared and communicated to the project team. If the change request is rejected, then the same will also be communicated to the project team.
Step 4 – Communicate and Implement an Approved Change Request
Say if the change request is approved and communicated to the project team. Often these updates are done sending a formal change notification process. The project manager or business analyst notifies the project team of the change and each document owner makes appropriate changes into their deliverables.
Note: Well no person an organization likes to accept the change request as it involves lots of rework and causes delay in the project schedule. However, if the business requirement is to implement the change request as it is creating value to the business, then as a Business analyst it is our responsibility to handle the stake holders and manage the change request efficiently without deviating from the actual scope of the project and business.
