Drew CraigSr. Agile & Product Coach| VanguardPhiladelphia, Pa, United States
This month's theme is Change Management (CM).
Where do you feel CM belongs in the project management lifecycle? Is CM tactical or strategic? What are the most successful recommendations you could share with the community?
Stay positive and do the right thing. Things will eventually come around. Saving Changes...
Senior Projects Manager | Field & Marten AssociatesNew Westminster, British Columbia, Canada
CM could be either tactical or strategic, it depends on the nature of the change. CM could belong to any part of the lifecycle, there is no specific checkpoint to say this is where we should do change in my opinion. Saving Changes...
shreeram madangopalCorporate Trainer, Auditor, Consultant| Independent Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
The “for-profit” one’s :
CM being tactical or strategic – would solely depend on whether you are buying or selling.
If you are from the selling side – in other words, you are from the project / service / result providing side then CM has got to be your strategic weapon. The pain of change is felt by all in a Value Chain. So, if you are expected to keep changing the bits and pieces of the project frequently or as and when the need arises, then you might want to get paid for it. As such, it should be a strategic service that you could include in your catalogue.
If you are from the buying side – CM has to be tactical and would have to be closely linked to the comparison of - how much (time/money/efforts) spent V/s what is the value achieved. If I am not able to see a clear comparison, then I may very well conclude the project is going to end up burning money and is going to be behind schedule.
The “non-profit: one’s :
CM would need to be strategically aligned with the primary objective of the project and tactically aligned with external influences / obstacles / challenges. As such, this could help the performing organizations in preparing various Indicators for the project. For example, if the number of tactical changes exceed the number of strategic, then the project may not be worth completing and it may not produce the desired outcome. Saving Changes...
Drew CraigSr. Agile & Product Coach| VanguardPhiladelphia, Pa, United States
Thank you, both; Rami and shreeram. Greatly appreciate both of you chiming in with your valuable insights. Saving Changes...
Thomas WalentaGlobal Project Economy ExpertHackenheim, Germany
Change management gives you some control and with that power.
It applies to any part of a lifecycle, as long as something is fixed and agreed upon. Later parts of a lifecycle naturally have more fixed and agreed things, so change management is more important later. Also the amount at stake is higher later in the lifecycle.
You do not want to change the scope from a house to car one week before delivery.
Change management is rather strategic, in the sense that you install it early in order to reap the benefits at a later stage. It is a precaution. Saving Changes...
Are you asking about scope or organizational/people change management? I'm seeing a mix of both in the responses to your question and the articles associated with the theme. For example, Andy Jordan's article focuses more on project change control (scope).
OCM is both strategic and tactical. There are tactical activities to pursue at the project level, which can vary by project. Companies would also benefit from a change culture that helped to ensure that OCM was consistent across all projects (strategy).
Project scope change management can be looked at in a similar manner, but the names we use are different. Project scope change management looks at the scope of a project - usually a product service. What do we call this when we scale up to the organizational level? Is it project portfolio management?
Whether you are talking about scope or people change, both involve discipline, tactical activities, and strategy to achieve a company's objectives. Saving Changes...
Change management is integral to project management. If there was no managed change, there would be no projects.
We often think of changes with respect to things that already exist, like the product, or our baseline plan. It starts before that however. Going from no product or plan, to having Rev. New is still a change. Writing a charter is the initiation of a change process to go do what's in the charter.
Project management is the planning and execution of discrete changes, and there are strategic and tactical elements of how we do our jobs to promote success. Change management includes what changes we execute, how we execute, and why, so there are strategic and tactical elements there as well. Saving Changes...
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