Project Change Management Plan, a real example and template

Creating a Project Change Management Plan is a step in project management planning practices when planning all project initiatives.

This article presents the most real-world example of a Project Change Management Plan you can use in your professional practice, or for educational purposes and the composition of academic materials.

Below you will also find a form to request a change.

Project Change Management Plan

The purpose of this document is to ensure that all the changes to the project are reviewed, evaluated, and approved as per requirements, track changes through to completion, bring the appropriate parties into the discussion, negotiate changes and communicate them to all affected parties. All the stakeholders must be notified of approving any change to the project scope.

Roles and responsibilities

Project manager

The project manager will serve as the change manager and lead change evaluator. Responsibilities include: 

• receive and log change requests
• perform the timely and adequate evaluation of changes in terms of their impacts on project deliverables and constraints
• outline options and recommend courses of action and priorities for changes
• track and facilitate timely decisions on changes
• incorporate changes into the appropriate project documents 
• communicate changes to the project team and others

Project sponsor

The project sponsors will serve as change evaluators and change decision-makers. Responsibilities include: 

• evaluate options and recommended courses of action for these changes
• approve or reject changes
• Ensuring that adequate resources and funding are available to support the execution of the change management plan, ensuring the approved changed are implemented.

Change requester

The change requester, who is any stakeholder, may submit project change requests following the submittal process indicated below.

The Change Approval Process

Change requests will be going through a whole series of analyzing and evaluation processes, from the requester to the project manager, then to the executive committee. Eventually, the project sponsors will make the final decision. The below process will be strictly followed:

Planning and Evaluation

After a change request has been submitted, it will be analyzed by technical teams, marketing teams, or any other relevant team related to the change request, which cannot be responded in an hour or day. Due to the fact of receiving the request, the teams will initiate the process of performing a change request analysis, making a plan of the estimated time, materials, resources, funds, technology, and anything else related to the extra work.

After the planning and evaluation, the requester will receive the proposed parameters for additional time and resources and send a response to the decision accordingly. Once the terms have been accepted, the new plan will begin to implement.

 Change Request Form Instruction

Any project change request must be submitted in written form using the Change Request Form, which is added as an annex to this document. Consider the following aspects before filling the information:

The type of change

Define the type of the change: project/production plan, strategic direction, policy, process /procedure, product design, technical specification, organizational structure, stakeholders, supplier, contract/orders, regulatory requirements, or others.

Description of the change

Describe the expected nature of the change management project. What are the main elements of the change plan? (e.g. people/culture, systems/technology, documentation, positions/roles, process, skills). Each of these elements may require a particular focus in the change plan. 

The priority of the request

The scale and the impact of a change decide the priority of the request, a change that has to be done urgently before the next stage is considered as critical, or it involves the change of the major technical functionalities. Any change request should be well-timed, indicate if the change is urgent, or it can hold based on the benefits and the damage to the project.

The reasons for the change

Describe the situation and the problem. Define the context and challenges surrounding your initiative. 

The impact of the change

Specify the impact of the change, such as how much a change will damage (delay, cost, demote teams, create inconvenience to outsiders), or improve. Explain the details of what the project will achieve, what the future state will be. Determine whether this will affect job roles, process changes, policy changes, and/or structural organization. List the departments, workgroups, systems, or other components that may change.

The alternatives for the change

Are there any other workarounds to the proposed change? List if there is an alternative that can lead to the same outcome.

Technical change 

Describe what technical changes and technologies are required to apply the change.

Risk Assessment

What are the possible risks of the change process? What risks may occur upfront during implementation, and after implementation? What tactics will you put in place to minimize these risks?

Estimated cost and resources

What would be an estimate of the total cost and the resources for the activities required to carry out the change initiative? Where will the funds come from? Has this been negotiated with the customer and sponsor?

Outcomes of the project:

Describe how will the change to be proven as effective and what will be the end result after the change to the whole project.

Change Request Form