Project Planning

• To ensure variations to the project are managed. Before being implemented they should pass through a process that will ensure the impact on time, cost and resources is understood and approved.

• Existing Change Control Processes for the organisation if it exists

1. Identify Change Control processes that may exist in the organisation.
2. Select a process.
3. Modify the process if necessary to suit the project.
4. Gain approval from the Sponsor for the process.

• Approved change control process

If your organisation has an existing Change Control process, this will probably be suitable for your project. You may need to modify some aspects of it to suit the project. For example, authority levels may need to be adjusted. One project may allow the Project Manager to approve variations up to $10k. Another project, with a more experienced Project Manager, may have a ceiling of $15k.

Approval levels should not just relate to amount of each variation. They should also include a cumulative figure so that big variations do not get approved as a series of small variations. For example for the previous example, you might put a total limit on $30k or even $15k per month.

If you need to start from scratch to put together a process, we have a document that talks about scope management including variations. It also has an example of a scope variation form that can be used.