About Change

There are some constants in life, e.g. speed of light, gravity, taxes and death. Change is also a constant. Hang on a minute, I hear you say. How can change be a constant? Isn't that a contradiction in terms? Maybe there is a linguistic contradiction, but let's look at it from a project or business perspective.

A new product or an improved service is proposed and defined. This will require some changes to processes and systems to implement. A project brief and scope is agreed, followed by requirements and design. The project is now planned, funded, resourced, and under change control. Each step has involved some degree of change, from different people working together to new vendors being introduced.

Project execution starts and there shouldn't be any changes as this could impact the holy project management triangle of scope, time and quality. What happens next? Person A returns from leave and wants his requirements added. Design has to be tweaked because of a misinterpreted requirement. The cost goes up because our software code has to be redeveloped to work with the latest version of an Off-The-Shelf product.The hosting server is out of capacity and we have to pay for a new server. The test manager relocate to Australia to become a surf pro! The list goes on.

As you can see, businesses and projects alike are exposed to an endless stream of changes. All these changes result in a great deal of variance in the least and uncertainty at worst. What can business and project leaders do to eliminate avoidable changes and reduce the impact of inevitable changes?

When we say that change is a constant, this is over a period of time. Just like death and taxes, these are unavoidable and inevitable over a long enough period of time. We like to say: time equals change. To reduce the amount of change and minimize the impact of changes on a project, you must reduce the project duration. This means breaking a large project into several shorter projects.

Some of you may think it inefficient to run a number of smaller projects when you can do them all as one big project. If the world stood still whilst you completed your one large project, then it should be more efficient that way. However, experience tells us that not only does the world continue to revolve around its own axis, so too will every project be exposed to stream of changes.

Our advice is therefore to organize projects to be shorter in duration to minimize the impact of changes. Contact us now to find out how you can increase certainty in project outcomes whilst at the same time compounding the business benefits and shortening time-to-market.