Key Elements of a Change Request

As information technology (IT) organizations strive to implement or improve their change management processes, they are often met with cries of dismay from software developers and engineers. The common grievance is that paperwork consumes too much time and is an unnecessary administrative burden. Whether the change request form is online or a paper document, the verbiage is the same: “I’ve tested my change and it’s harmless. Why do I have to do all this detailed documentation?”

Project managers often hear the same complaints: “Do we have to document everything? What’s the point? We all understand what’s going on.”

In his article in the PMI Virtual Library, Ten Change Management Tips for Information Technology Project Managers, David Norman provides strategies to help project managers control change within a project. Two of his ten tips are particularly relevant to change documentation:

Tip #1. Leverage your organizational assets

• Look at internal forms if you have a change management system.
• If using a vendor, look at its forms and use them

Tip #9. Document everything!

“Document everything?” That sounds like a daunting task, but, as Mr. Norman states: “As a rule, whatever you leave undocumented will come back to haunt you later” (p. 5).

This …