Change, Change and more Change

Posted By Pankaj on December 16, 2007
Filed Under Project Management

I started project management early in my career and as a young project manager; I used to get greatly perturbed whenever there was a request for a change from any of the stakeholders. That point in time, any change meant more rework, more effort, more time and primarily more confusion. All the hard work gone gone for a toss at the blink of an eye. I used to think, … why is it so difficult to decide beforehand what needs to be done. But this is story of that time.

Over the time, as I have gained experience and knowledge, I have realized that changes, in general, are inevitable. You can not avoid it. No matter how hard you try, you can not simply avoid it. That’s the way it works and now I think that’s the way it is meant to be working. Why? Because, everything else around us is changing, isn’t? Think about it for a minute. Businesses and the way it is being done is changing, hence stakeholders needs are which calls for changes in requirements. Product or Service would definitely not be of any use if it doesn’t meet the stakeholders business objectives.

Everyone wants to get their product / service as perfect as possible and competitive but that is simply not possible in the first shot. One needs to keep working and changing it is that perfect thing you want.

That’s why PMBOK, stresses so much on the change management that almost every knowledge area has one change control process. Various agile methodologies are developed around change because some of the plan driven development methodologies don’t handle change very well.

So don’t get bogged down when your customer asks for a change, instead plan for those changes and move on. To make it a even better, be proactive and look for various possibilities of changes and be the first one to suggest if it makes life easier for the various stakeholders. Because sooner or later, they will come your way (it always happens at least with me).

Remember, changes are inevitable. We, as project mangers, are there to help our customers achieve their goal and if that requires implementing many changes, so let it be.

I know its easier said than done, but remember the oxymoron the only thing constant is change .

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