Needed ASAP

–Change Management Plan

1. Executive Summary

The team was tasked with expanding the dental practice of Marley Dental Clinic, an established dentist in a non-computerized office into a digitized, computer centric office with a management system where they will be able to view appointment schedule, x-ray, face images and other imaging applications as well as videos and scanned images, intraoral cameras and web technologies. It is important to consider how changes will be handled as they occur.

Changes within the project are probable, and the goal of this change management plan is to manage them in a way that creates the smallest ripple effect possible while still meeting project goals. Change procedures will be performed through Microsoft Project Server. In general, requests will be submitted by the individual teams based on incidents, assigned work, or special request, as dictated by the situation, and annotated in the ticket.

Each team manager will then review and approve or reject the change request. If approved, the request will be allocated hours and funding from the team’s core budget, and afforded a special budget if necessary. Once complete and implemented, the change will be closed, and the totals for man hours and budget will be quantified and listed for review by the higher management teams.

2. Change Management Plan

Methodology and Strategy

Changes within the project are probable, and the goal of this change management plan is to manage them in a way that creates the smallest ripple effect possible while still meeting project goals. The first course of action when changes occur will be to make attempts at leaving each tasks start date and duration as-is. This will help avoid changes to schedule, durations, and cost. The second course of action is to find solutions that will have no effect on the budget, if feasible. If these two goals can be met, the project can continue on unhindered, with minor notifications provided to the team and stakeholders.

If significant changes are required to the cost, schedule, or durations, these changes will be well planned and documented. Communication will include efforts that were made to minimize cost and schedule changes. With these efforts in place, everybody involved can be assured that the most effective solutions have been presented. There should always be multiple options, if possible, to allow the stakeholders to govern the overall effects of the change.

Tools

This document is the go-to resource for required changes. Before making any additional changes to the WBS or any other project related documents, ensure the change management plan (CMP) was utilized to its fullest potential. After using the CMP, apply changes to the WBS and inform all stakeholders and required personnel.

Roles and Responsibilities

· Laborers – communicate with their manager any items of consideration regarding required changes. If proposed changes conflict with a task, the laborer should be the first one to notice and report the conflict in most cases.

· Managers – Receive input from laborers and subordinates and prepare a detailed report on proposed changes and requirements. This report should include all known information regarding budget, schedule, and personnel.

· Subject Matter Experts – Provide counsel to management regarding area of expertise. Main items of consideration should be details requiring in-depth knowledge regarding the affected system or software.

· Project Manager – Ensure reports from Managers are delivered when requested. Consolidate reports into one master document relaying all required information to the team and stakeholders. Garner a signature from the project’s sponsor approving proposed changes. If the changes are not approved, schedule a meeting to revise proposed changes. Once proposed changes have been approved, update the WBS to include changes.

· Stakeholders – Attend meeting where proposed changes will be presented. Communicate questions and concerns, and request changes if necessary. Provide direction if significant changes will be required.

· Sponsor - Attend meeting where proposed changes will be presented. Communicate questions and concerns, and request changes if necessary. Provide direction if significant changes will be required. Provide approval signature to project manager.

Change Control Board (CCB)

The project manager will lead the change control board. The project manager will present the changes, their cost and cost categories, decision factors for proposed changes, technical details, schedule and task duration changes, and deferral recommendations (Snipes, Robinson, Guo, Seaman, 2012). These details will be discussed in detail via written documentation, followed by a CCB meeting and a finalized document. This finalized document will receive the signature approval from the sponsor. The CCB will also include all stakeholders and managers. When desired, other personnel (i.e. subject matter experts or laborers) may be added as a member of the CCB.

Change Process

The change process begins with identification, usually provided by personnel closest to the source of the needed change. Suggested changes will be communicated to a superior, who will provide written documentation regarding the suggested change. This documentation will be presented to the project manager, initially, to garner approval internally. After the change has received approval from the project manager, the change will be brought to the CCB. The CCB will review the change documentation, followed by a meeting of the CCB to determine modifications, if needed. Once the change has been agreed upon by the CCB, it will receive its final approval from the sponsor before action is taken. The following flowchart explains the change management process in detail.

Change Management Flowchart

Change Process Budget

“CM is the process, tools, and techniques to manage the people-side of change to achieve the required business outcome. CM incorporates the organizational tools that can be utilized to help individuals make successful personal transitions resulting in the adoption and realization of change” (Ziemba and Obłąk, 2015) The change management process consists mainly of the extra time needed for identification, research, and communication. This time can be directly translated into wages. The change process budget should also consider funds for possible delays in project timeline, and ramifications of those delays, as a result the change management process. Finally, the budget should account for any need of training or consultation for the change assessment.

References

Snipes, W., Robinson, B., Guo, Y., Seaman, C. (Jan 2012) Defining the decision factors for managing defects: A technical debt perspective. Third International Workshop on Managing Technical Debt, p54-60, 7p.

Ziemba, E., & Obłąk, I. (2015). Change Management in Information Systems Projects for Public Organizations in Poland. Interdisciplinary Journal of Information, Knowledge & Management, 1047-62.

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