Introduction on PRINCE2 Change Theme

Change:

Change is inevitable during the life of a project and every project needs a systematic approach to the identify assessment and control issues that may result in change. The change may arise from various sources. You could have a project team member with a really good idea which might improve the cost effectiveness or timeliness of the project and you may want to change an aspect in order to take advantage of this. You can have a request from the stakeholder, this could be as simple as something like a request for an additional reports but it could be quite a fundamental change the requirements of the project.

PRINCE2 provides a common approach to issue and change control and in fact it is a systematic approach which ensures/insures the issues that might affect the project's performance targets and time, cost, quality scope risk and benefits are managed in an appropriate way.

The purpose of the change theme in PRINCE2

The purpose of the change theme is to identify, assess and control any potential and approve changes to the baseline.

Responsibilities relevant to the change theme:

No other the project manager is responsible for

• Managing the issue in change control procedure assisted by project support where possible.

• Creating and maintaining the issue register.

• The game assisted by project spot where possible and implementing corrective actions

Issue Report:

An issue report is a report containing the description impact assessment and recommendations for request a change of specification or a problem concern.

Issue:

PRINCE2 uses the term issue to cover any relevant event that has happened. This is the difference between issues and risks and issue is something that has happened. It was not planned and requires management action. It can be:

• A concern that somebody has raised,

• A query that somebody has raised,

• A request for change,

• A suggestion or an off specification

• A situation where something is of the way that it was intended to be

Project issues can be about anything to do with the project. Issue and change control is a continual activity performed throughout the life of the project. Without an ongoing and affected issue in change control procedure a project will either become totally unresponsive to its stake holders or quickly get out of control. This is really the key point you can't stop changing you can't stop arising issues, but what you need to do is to manage both situations so that the project stays clearly under control throughout.

The aim of issue in change control procedures is not to prevent changes it is to ensure that every change is agreed by the relevant authority before it takes place. Changes need to be considered in relation to an established status what we call in PRINCE2 a baseline. Effective issue in change control requires an appropriate configuration management system to recall baselines for the projects products and to ensure that the correct versions are delivered to the customer.

Types of issues:

Issues may be raised any time during the project by anyone with an interest in the project or its outcome. So first of all we have

1. Requests for Change

So the definition of this is a proposal for a change to a baseline. The aim of issue in change control procedures is not to prevent changes it is to ensure that every change is agreed by the relevant authority before it takes place. Changes need to be considered in relation to an established status what we call in PRINCE2 a baseline. Effective issue in change control requires an appropriate configuration management system to recall baselines for the projects products and to ensure that the correct versions are delivered to the customer.

2. Off Specification

• Something that should be provided by the project that currently is not or is full cost not to be provided.

• This might be a missing products or a product not meeting its specification .

As an example of that when they get advice from a supplier that they can no longer deliver one of the products specified by the customer. Now again we need to investigate how we might deal with that could be a simple as finding another supplier but that may then have consequences in terms of time or cost.

3. Problem or concern

Any other issue that the project manager needs to resolve or escalate.

PRINCE2 approach to change:

The projects controls for issues, changes and configuration management will be defined and established by initiating a project process and then review and if necessary it is updated towards the end of each management stage by the managing a stage boundary process. The following management products are used to establish and maintain the project's controls for issues, changes and configuration management. So the products we need would be:

• A Configuration management strategy,Configuration item records

• Product status accounts

• Daily log

• Issue register and Issue reports