I Hate Change

I Hate Change

Every weekday morning for as long as I can remember, I’ve gotten up in the morning, made coffee, toasted a bagel, put peanut butter and jelly on it, and placed it in a plastic container so I can eat breakfast while driving to the office.  Some of the variables have changed over the years (e.g., the peanut butter is now reduced fat, the jelly is now fruit-only spread, and the coffee is now cold-brewed, low acid decaf), but the overall scope of the “Weekday Breakfast Project” hasn’t changed.

Then I embark on the “Commuting Project”. While driving my car to work, I listen to books on tape. I don’t have to speak to or even smile at anyone, but I can laugh out loud at the funny parts without eliciting strange looks. I tried public transportation at one point, but like I said, I hate change (not to mention having my wallet stolen while waiting for a train; watching the subway door shut on my bag and speed away to Riverside Station without me; and witnessing a woman with a stroller push her way through a crowd of passengers during rush hour because the driver refused to open the back door for her).

I’m the same way once I get to work. As a project manager, defining project scope is paramount. To prevent going over our budget or schedule parameters, I want to be sure the team is doing only the work required and nothing more. But project management isn’t like breakfast. Someone will inevitably want to add something, and my natural impulse is to resist. People like me need a really good change control process.

So one of the first things I do when starting a project is to establish a change control process. The PMO provides a template for that. Templates are a wonderful way to keep things consistent on a project. The change control document specifies who can submit change requests, how they should do it, who has the authority to approve change requests, and how we will handle urgent requests.

This not only protects the project from “scope creep” (a compilation of scope changes that continue to inflate the budget and stretch out the timeline); it also protects the project stakeholders against my inclination to resist change at any cost.

I even keep a log of all the change requests made during the life of the project, just in case someone asks why the project ran late, went over budget, or just looks different than it did when it started. A good project manager doesn’t resist change but anticipates it and plans for how s/he will handle it when it does happen. Change control helps me to be a better project manager.

That doesn’t mean you’ll be seeing me on the train any time soon.