I have recently been told by legal that there is a distinction between a "change request" and a "revised estimate". I would just categorize both as changes, however, the legal guy told me that change request is ONLY used if the customer requires change to the agreed scope whereas if you during project planning (after contract is signed) identify e.g. added complexity that is not a change but a revised estimate. Saving Changes...
What exactly is your question? Is the legal guy correct or not? As far as i see it - this may be just some specific definition in your organisaction, so he might as well be perfectly right in his own domain.
In my case (as per our internal PMO methodology) - Change request process is used to document and define amendment of the requirements, scope and/or deliverables, for example.
The revised estimations on the cost/effort may or may not be result of th Scope change request, and are handled by different process related to Budgeting. Saving Changes...
I agree with Kirill that the person from legal may be using terms from his own department.
Using more industry standard terminology, a change request is used to initiate a change whether that is customer requested or an internally generated change. If you are revising any documentation/artifacts which are under configuration control, that is a "change" to formal business records.
A change request itself however is no more a change to the thing under configuration management than asking a taxi driver for a ride. You have not changed your location until after the driver agrees and takes you to your destination.
Similarly the revised estimate may or may not be the change. If all you are changing is an estimate then yes, once approved and incorporated that is the sum total of the change. If however the change request requires revisions to other formal documents which define the scope, schedule commitments, cost, etc. then the estimate is only one portion of the complete "change package". Saving Changes...
Thomas WalentaGlobal Project Economy ExpertHackenheim, Germany
Claus,
there is a difference between a change request towards the contract and change requests toward the project baseline. While theoretically both contract partners could issue a change request to the contract, your side would refrain from doing so, to keep the underlying business case/profit assumption which was once approved unchanged.
Change requests towards the baseline can come from both sides and may or may not affect the contract. Saving Changes...
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