Change management procedures in software projects are the domain of project managers. The goal of these procedures are to administer how alterations are incorporated into existing running projects. In this article I’ll show you what the standard process is.

All alterations to projects need to be explicitly requested and written down in a change request form. This is sent to the project manager for evaluation. They start by establishing if the change is contradictory to their project’s innovation strategy plans. If not then they evaluate the impact on their existing time line, project costs, software quality, etc.

In some circumstances, the project manager may be able to approve more minor changes. This is especially the case if they have some contingency in the project to implement change. The majority of time however all changes need to be reviewed in a steering meeting.

The change management steering meeting is normally run on a weekly basis to review the list of requested changes. The original requester of the change can constitute their input into why this alteration is beneficial. After debating the pros and cons of the change a decision needs to be made as to whether or not to approve or reject the change.

Even approved changes can have slight variations. For example they could be approved pending specific modifications that have been requested or approved but deferred until later stages in your release cycles.

This change management meeting should be fully documented by the PM and any approvals should be merged into the project plan and change log. The final stage in the change management process is that the PM informs the team what alterations are to be implemented according to what time lines. They may need to justify some of these changes as the team members will not have been involved in any of the decision-making process.

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