Looking for suggestions on change request impact and urgency definitions

Change Management

John Bacon Project Manager /Agile Product Owner| Not Disclosed Fl, United States

I'm working to improve our change control process and part of that is revamping our project change request form. I'm trying to tailor the IMPACT and URGENCY definitions to be general enough that they could apply to changes related to scope/requirements, schedule, cost, resources. Below is what I have so far. Right now the Urgency descriptions really only cover requirements/scope related changes, I need them to be general enough to cover any type of project change. Suggestions????

Change Impact Descriptions.
Major: Significant impact resulting in project cost and or duration increases greater than 10%

Moderate: Moderate impact project cost and or duration increases between 5-10%

Minor: Minimal impact on project cost and or duration increases less than 5%

Change Urgency Descriptions
Very High: Change is needed in Represents a must have requirement or change where delivery is requested in the next 30 days

High:Represents a should have requirement and delivery is requested in the next 60 days

Medium: Represents a requirement that we could have and is requested to be delivered within 61-90 day

Low: Represents a requirement that is nice to have but is does not provide any significant system functionality or business value resulting in improved efficiency or effectiveness for supported business processes

Posted: Jul 25, 2022 6:54 PM (Updated by author: Jul 25, 2022 6:56 PM)

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Aaron Porter

Community Champion

IT Director| Blade HQ Payson, UT, United States

Urgency is helpful information, but not enough to be a primary driver for deciding whether to pursue a change. It should be used in prioritizing the work, once approved, instead. On a previous SAP implementation, I used the following guidelines to determine the impact of the change:

Minor
- Less than a week of development and testing
- Doesn't touch any critical functions (examples were provided)

Medium
- 1-2 weeks development
- Doesn't significantly change critical processes

Major
- 2 weeks development
- Significantly affects critical processes

...not that you should use these exactly - but the impact should be more explicit. Another factor to consider is value expected from making the change - why is the change important. @Mark Warner posed a great question to consider, as well - "What happens if this CR is not approved?"

In a nutshell:
- Keep it as simple as makes sense - don't overcomplicate it or oversimplify it
- Focus on Importance and Impact for approval; urgency just tells you how soon it is needed, not how important it is to do

One last thought. On larger/more critical projects, consider a sliding time-scale for change approvals - the closer you get to launch, and the more impactful the change, the higher the level of approval you need for the change. Early in the project you might only need Sponsor or Steering Committee approval for a Major change. In the days before launch, you might want their approval for Minor changes and only allow Medium and Major changes for blockers.

Posted: Jul 27, 2022 10:41 AM

Peter Rapin Subject Matter Expect; Project Delivery| Independent Consultant Ontario, Canada

Jul 26, 2022 5:28 PM

Replying to John Bacon

...

So I came up with these Urgency Ratings/Descriptions that I think could be generic enough to apply to any type of change request that could occur in a project:

Very High: Change needs to be implemented within 30 days to avoid, or reduce adverse impacts or achieve positive benefits.

High: Change needs to be implemented within 45 days to avoid, or reduce adverse impacts or achieve positive benefits.

Medium: Change needs to be implemented within 60 days to avoid, or reduce adverse impacts or achieve positive benefits.

Low: Change needs to be implemented within 90 days to avoid, or reduce adverse impacts or achieve positive benefits.

One thing missing from the various comments is a need to identify the "window of opportunity" for any proposed change. It somewhat fits in with 'Urgency Rating' but it is important for the team and/or authorities to understand why or how a Priority Rating is determined. If the 'window of opportunity' is shorter than the time required for authorization one has to either fast forward (prioritize the approval rather than the actual change) or take it off the table. Don't want to put in the approval effort if the bus has already left the station when the go-ahead is obtained.

Posted: Jul 31, 2022 8:37 PM

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Looking for suggestions on change request impact and urgency definitions

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