Three main reasons for the change in project scope

When you first become a project manager, talk about risk and change of color; do management, with the team for a long time.

Because change and risk, is to do project management around the two topics, but also the most let the project manager one of the headaches, two. no matter how you avoid it, it will happen more or less. alliance of project managers

In the case of a change in the scope of the project, it refers to the final product of the project or the final scope of service to increase, change, delete, the reason comes from all aspects, and in the implementation of the project will inevitably occur. project management forum

How do i handle project changes? project change management capabilities also reflect the management level of a project manager. alliance of project managers

Typically, the scope of the project can be changed after an established approval process, but when the project is in its late stages, changes to the scope of the project must be frozen and not allowed to be changed. alliance of project managers

Because the scope change impact will not be very large early in the project, but the later, the greater the impact, so later in the project, there can be no changes. project manager blog

Specifically, there are three main factors that can cause a change in the scope of a project when the project is in its early stages: transfer from the project managers alliance

1. errors in the project design or plan alliance of project managers

These errors include errors in the product or project scope. for example, in the original project design, the project's product lacked a required feature, or an unattainable feature, or the user said it did not require a feature. alliance of project managers

2, the occurrence of recent external events project managers alliance

Project managers should also keep an eye on market conditions and developments while managing projects, as some changes in the industry will directly affect our interests 

for example, the company is developing new products, as a project manager, you understand that the product of the competition company has just come on the market, then you must and timely changes to the new products being developed, otherwise the company's new products will no longer be competitive in the market. alliance of project managers

For example, the relevant departments have just issued a new, more stringent regulations for the XXX industry/field just related to the project you bring, in order to comply with the requirements of the regulations, it is necessary to make timely adjustments to the relevant technical parameters of the project under construction. Alliance of Project Managers

3, in order to add value project managers alliance

for example, new technologies, materials and processes are used in the project products to improve the cost-effectiveness of the project products. alliance of project managers

in fact, whether it is a change caused by a mistake or a change caused by an external environment, the need for change should be carefully studied in scope control. alliance of project managers

if the scope change is not part of any of these reasons, it is likely to be unnecessary, and blind changes will only lengthen delivery times, delay duration, and have a very significant impact on the project. alliance of project managers

The project manager manages the change, not by making a plan, or by not allowing it after the plan, but by managing it when the change is about to occur or is taking place. alliance of project managers

Avoid unnecessary changes and promote the approval of project-friendly changes. whether avoided or driven, the goal is to get changes evaluated, approved, and tracked. alliance of project managers

If the project inevitably changes, the project scope plan as a reference and basis for project implementation will also change, so that the project time, cost, quality, procurement, etc. will change. the project manager circle

So scope changes can have a series of knock-on effects that disrupt early planning and deployment and inconvenience the implementation of the project. alliance of project managers

Especially those scope plans would not have done well enough projects, once there is a change, it will lead to the subsequent implementation process of loopholes, resulting in project cost overruns, project overruns, quality decline and other serious consequences. alliance of project managers

In addition, scope changes may result in additional project scope, which means additional project risk. alliance of project managers

For example, you do a project to build a section of road for the customer, the customer wants you to use excavators next to the site to dig a hole to bury the garbage. although this is only a side-by-side job, you do not understand the situation underground, the result of digging up the gas pipeline, the risk is naturally for you to bear.

Thus, project scope changes can not be arbitrarily carried out, should develop a guideline to distinguish between each scope change is mandatory, or non-mandatory, for non-mandatory scope changes, to avoid. project managers alliance article
 

In practice, different companies, different projects, changes will have different versions of the change process, in the face of scope changes, the project manager to find the root cause of the change, according to local conditions.