Treat all Changes like Projects

Whether you are in a small business or large organisation, the principle of Change Management is the same - If you want to get it right every time and save heaps of money, then you must treat every Change Management exercise as rigorously as a project.

In our article on Get Change Management Right , we discussed the close alignment of Change and Project Management practices and methods. The Release Management phase of a Project is itself an exercise in Change Management. Planning, Review, Communications, Logistics, Collaboration, Documentation and Approvals are all crucial components of both a well-managed Project or a Change.

In our QH Management Information System model, we've plonked Change Management records and functions into the Project Management database, rather than create separate tables.

Whilst there some very sophisticated IT Change Management tools available, we are on a shoe-string budget at QualityHelp, and many small businesses would also struggle to justify the cost of a specialised Change Management system.  On the other hand, anyone with advanced MS Excel experienced could be upskilled to take advange of the smart database development functionality of MS Access. Our Project Database has 3 core tables that could be easily expanded to suit our needs for tracking both Projects and Changes.

In our model, we have added a Change project category which allows us to base our Change Management forms on queries that filter Project records into Change record sub-sets. The purpose of the ProjectPhases table is to manage the milestones in a Project roll-out, or alternatively the various phases in the Change life cycle.

The Tasks table provides a mechanism for breaking very complex Changes (and Projects) into separate accountable records providing greater flexibility and control.