Change Management Plan for IT Projects: Best Practices & Template

Change is an ongoing process in agile product development. Whether it’s adapting to new technology, updating project requirements, or managing unexpected issues, they all persist in making the product better and more effective. 

However, sometimes, some change requests can lie outside the scope of the project, which needs to be carefully evaluated. This is where a change management plan can become handy in determining the feasibility of the change and its impact on the project.

These change requests must be catered to with a structured change management plan for its projects that will allow the necessary team members to review, prioritize, and approve the changes. 

Not doing so can lead to rollovers, technical debt, and sometimes even last-minute scope variations, which are detrimental to the project’s quality.

So, what’s the best way to incorporate these changes in agile development? 

We’ll let you know some of the best practices and provide a practical template along with examples to help you build an effective change management plan for IT projects. 

Also, you’ll get to know how to use tools like PaceAI’s project management solutions; you’ll have the support needed to track progress, manage team responsibilities, and communicate effectively. 

Let’s understand how to incorporate changes within the development process and keep the development process organized and change-ready!

What Is A Change Management Plan?

A change refers to anything that impacts tasks within the projects, processes, structures, or even functionalities. In project management, changes are documented in a structured document that prepares, supports, and guides your team through each phase of change. 

This document includes the necessary procedures and strategy to guide the team in dealing with changes with minimal disruptions, and the project should move forward in alignment with the business objectives. 

The change management process often involves a project manager or a change management team who will solely look at and successfully incorporate changes within the processes and achieve overall project success. 

The key is to make transitions smoother and more predictable by laying out clear roles, communication strategies, timelines, and approval processes. 

But why is change management important in IT projects?

Why Is A Change Management Plan Essential For An It Project?

Agile development has become a prominent approach that fosters flexibility and responsiveness. It emphasizes iterative development cycles that facilitate continuous improvement, making sure the project is delivered with complete alignment to the client’s requirements. 

Frameworks like Scrum and Kanban rely on iterative cycles, continuous improvement, and frequent stakeholder feedback. These principles ensure that teams can adapt to new information or changing priorities effectively.

However, although Agile methodically embraces change, effective structuring of a change management plan is needed to guarantee that such changes take place in a planned and strategic way.

On the contrary, the lack of such a framework can result in inefficiency, poor communication, and even within Agile development. When change projects are not efficiently documented or controlled, “scope creep” can take effect.

This is the term for the uncontrolled expansion of a project’s scope when it is underway, which typically leads to budget overruns and ongoing expansion of the project timetable.

Goals and Benefits of Change Management

Change management contributes to the likelihood of successful project delivery and people management:

Minimizing Disruption

Even a small change in a project can produce disturbances, which ultimately result in failure and several other problems. Change management helps prevent this risk and facilitates continuous successful operation of ongoing projects and the enterprise even throughout and after the change.

Promoting Acceptance and Adoption

Change management addresses stakeholders’ initial resistance to change. It is particularly relevant for projects concerning changes in workflow, process, and technology, projects which are only successful if the people who will be affected buy into them.

Enhancing Team Performance

The performance of employees would deteriorate in both the individual projects and the organizations if change management is not followed. Successful change management guarantees the improvement of performance and the maintenance of performance because the people working are supported during the change.

Creating a Culture Of Adaptability

Change management creates a culture of improvement and adaptability. This contributes to organizational longevity by ensuring the company stays open to new ways of working and has processes and capabilities in place to adapt to change without breaking down.

What are the Key Elements Of A Change Management Plan?

The key elements of a change management plan are mentioned below:

1. Identifying a Change

The first and foremost thing to do is to identify a change within the project. You can identify it or even get suggestions from the client as feedback. If you get feedback, try to know whether it is within the scope or exceeding the scope requirements. 

It is important to understand why the change has arisen and in what way it is helpful for product development. Once you have identified the need for change and it fits within the scope, then you create a space for it in the product backlog and prioritize it as per its urgency. 

2. Defining Clear Goals and Objectives

The changes that the clients propose must be defined, clear, and specific. The best way is to make sure the change follows the acronym SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound). 

This helps everyone in the team to be involved and understand what the change is about and what the expected outcome of these changes is. This will help us understand change impact and change readiness within the team

3. Communication Plan With Stakeholders

A change management plan should have a proper communication plan that will keep multiple stakeholders, like team members and clients, updated on the change statuses. Regular communication is important in order to mitigate any negative effects and engage them in the change process. 

This can involve creating a stakeholder communication plan to see who will be impacted by the change, how they will be impacted, and what their level of influence is. 

4. Implementation Plan 

There needs to be a proper implementation plan to make sure the changes are executed efficiently with minimum disruptions and aligned with project goals and objectives. 

This can only happen when you have proper communication with the team and get everyone’s perspective on how to deliver the change requests accordingly. This will help the change management team to outline the training needs and methods and schedule the change management deliverables. 

5. Monitoring and Evaluation

The final element of a change management plan is monitoring and evaluating the change management process, whether it is successful or not. Constant assessments of the process are required to see whether the project is going in the right direction or not. 

How Do You Create A Change Management Plan?

Creating a change management process is relatively simple. Just follow these steps:

1. Define the scope of the change.
2. Identify the stakeholders.
3. Assign responsibility for making each change.
4. Develop a timeline for implementing each change.
5. Create a budget.
6. Determine how you will measure the success of each change.
7. Document everything clearly and concisely.
8. Review and update your change management plan regularly.

Let’s go into each of these in a little more detail.

1. Define The Scope Of The Change

The first step is to identify the scope of the change, whether it is within the planned scope or exceeding it. You can do this by reviewing the scope management plan that’s created during the planning phase of the project and then proceeding with documenting the change if it’s not affecting the constraints of the project. However, if the change is out of scope and still necessary to improve the quality of the project, then you can bill it by having a clear conversation with the stakeholders. 

2. Identify The Stakeholders

Next, you need to define who is going to be impacted by the change; you need to characterize it. This is called a stakeholder analysis, which should encompass all stakeholders, from top management to low-level workers.

3. Assign Responsibility 

Once the change requests are accepted and stakeholders are identified, you need to start estimating the user stories for these change request tasks. 

As a project manager, it’s your responsibility to keep the team updated and aware of the changes happening and what is expected of them. Depending on the priority and capacity of the team members, you can assign the task to the person or team. 

4. Develop A Timeline

Once you’ve identified the scope and responsibilities, the next step is to develop a timeline for implementing each change. This will cover deliverables and project milestones and serve as the pulse of the project to keep you moving forward.

8. Review And Validate

As the change request management plan is set up and running, now see whether the tasks are functional, testable, and as per the client’s requirements. Review, validate, and perform integration testing to see whether the changes are incorporated into the final product and are fully functional before pushing it into the production environment. 

Once the changes are developed, approved, and integrated into the production, you can mark them as one in the change management log. 

Which Documents Should Your Change Management Plan Include? 

If you’re new to change management in IT projects, then here’s a comprehensive list of documents that you need to transition your changes smoothly into working features or functionalities. These documents are : 

• The list of the changes in a change request document. 
• A responsibility assignment matrix, including stakeholders 
• A change roadmap with a timeline for implementing each change
• A budget for each change
• A communication plan

Alongside these formal documents, your change management plan should include/address:

• The reasons and scope of the change
• A list of stakeholders, which may include a change control board
• A detailed description of the expected benefits

Change Management Template And Example

Here’s a template that offers a basic structure to build a custom change management plan:

1. Brief Overview

Firstly, start by briefly describing the change, its objectives, and the expected impact on the project.

2. Scope of Change

Once you have briefly outlined what the changes are, outline the scopes of these change requests, which includes the impacts and the level of impact they can have on the project and its processes. 

3. Roles and Responsibilities

Then, enlist the different team members who will be working on the project, their responsibilities, and how many hours will be spent in order to deliver the change requests. 

4. Communication Plan

A key element of the change management plan is a communication plan, which includes all the necessary stakeholders and the communication timeline and methods with them through the change management plan. It is extremely important to seek approvals or validations from the stakeholders to keep the change management process moving. 

5. Ticking off the change management log

Once the change requests are being worked on and developed, you can evaluate them by gathering feedback from the clients and then measuring the success of the change.

This is the template you can follow to create a change management plan and run it effectively. You can also use various project management tools to help you with documentation for project planning. 

For example, tools like PaceAI have emerged to make the project lifecycle a hassle-free and streamlined task. It has AI tools to help you generate documentation within 10 minutes, saving both time and effort and adding more effectiveness. 

Conclusion

So, overall changes are an inevitable part of every industry, and they can be due to both internal and external factors. We cannot escape or ignore these changes, but we can adapt to these changes and create a top-notch, effective software product. This can only happen when you have a structured and organized framework in place. 

Our guide includes all important phases and elements for creating a successful change management plan for IT projects, which can help you to a great extent if you’re new to the change management process. 

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