The Reality Behind Project Changes
Projects come in all shapes and sizes and almost every project regardless of the amount of planning and attention to detail will inevitably undergo a change in scope during some point of the project lifecycle. According to Meredith, Mantel, and Shafer, there are three basic causes that force changes to a project and these causes include planners erring in the initial assessment phase of the project by underestimating what is necessary to achieve the project goals. Secondly, clients or end users learn more about the project deliverables and decide that changes are required to achieve the intended outcome. The third cause of changes to projects is the mandate and this revolves around changes to the environment such as new laws or policies that have gone into effect that require the project to be changed in order for the project to meet these new laws or policies (2014).
When planners’ error in the initial assessment of a project by leaving out critical information or underestimating necessary components to complete a project it creates issues downstream. In some instances, planning does not realize that errors were made in the project scope until some …show more content…
The biggest hurdle would be keeping a client on board with project changes that were not initiated by the client. Clients might not be willing to accept additional costs and increases to the schedule if the errors were made by planners. On the flipside, if the client is the one requesting the changes it would only be logical to think that they would be aware that these changes could result in increases to the budget and timetable and no one could be blamed for these increases except themselves. In short the client is the customer and it is up to the project managers and everyone involved to try to keep the customer happy no matter how much negotiation and communication is
Projects come in all shapes and sizes and almost every project regardless of the amount of planning and attention to detail will inevitably undergo a change in scope during some point of the project lifecycle. According to Meredith, Mantel, and Shafer, there are three basic causes that force changes to a project and these causes include planners erring in the initial assessment phase of the project by underestimating what is necessary to achieve the project goals. Secondly, clients or end users learn more about the project deliverables and decide that changes are required to achieve the intended outcome. The third cause of changes to projects is the mandate and this revolves around changes to the environment such as new laws or policies that have gone into effect that require the project to be changed in order for the project to meet these new laws or policies (2014).
When planners’ error in the initial assessment of a project by leaving out critical information or underestimating necessary components to complete a project it creates issues downstream. In some instances, planning does not realize that errors were made in the project scope until some …show more content…
The biggest hurdle would be keeping a client on board with project changes that were not initiated by the client. Clients might not be willing to accept additional costs and increases to the schedule if the errors were made by planners. On the flipside, if the client is the one requesting the changes it would only be logical to think that they would be aware that these changes could result in increases to the budget and timetable and no one could be blamed for these increases except themselves. In short the client is the customer and it is up to the project managers and everyone involved to try to keep the customer happy no matter how much negotiation and communication is