All projects are sensitive to change and must learn to adapt to the dynamic internal and external factors that affect them. But here’s the tricky part – how exactly do project teams track and manage changes in a project while still making sure they align with its overall scope & goals?
Whether you go for advanced web-based tools or record your changes in a simple spreadsheet – a change log is just a way of tracking a project’s progressive development over time. It not only shows how each change affects your project’s schedule, timeline, and risk plans – but also allows team members to stay abreast of developments as to what changed, when, and why – and how that change affects their own roles, responsibilities, and deadlines. A change log also generates data that can be helpful during the auditing and project review process by providing valuable insights into the efficiency of internal decision-making processes in specific, and a project’s overall performance in general.
With those goals in mind, we have designed a simple spreadsheet to help you track and document any updates or revisions to a project, and by doing so, ensure transparency, accountability, and the effective management of changes.
In our Change Log template, each change is categorized, described, and assigned a unique Change ID. We use drop-down menus to help you prioritize a change and track its status. We also use separate columns to identify the person(s) requesting and implementing a change as a way to ensure team accountability. Another crucial part of our template is the ‘Impact Assessment’, where project teams are expected to highlight how each change affects a project’s scope, timeline, and budget.
Now, let’s explore these elements of our template in more detail:
Date
We start by entering the exact date when the process to make a change is initiated. This is usually the date when a particular request for change ( shorthanded to RFC) is submitted by a member of the project team. It is advised to always submit a formal request for change as soon as it is clear that modifying a part or aspect of the project is necessary for the successful execution and development of the overall project.
Change ID, Type, and Description
To easily track changes when scanning project documentation, assign each change a unique number, or a Change ID to avoid confusion later on when, say, you want to assess the impact of different alterations on a project’s scope, schedule, budget, or resources.
In the next column, you must identify what type of change you are dealing with. For example, is there a specific domain undergoing a change, such as a product, system, or team? Another common way of categorizing changes is into three main types: scope changes, schedule changes, or budget changes – each dealing with modifications or revisions to a different aspect of the project.
Once you have identified this generic category of each change, it’s time to get down to the specifics. Add a brief and clear description of the requested or desired change – for example, a 10-day extension in the deadline for a specific task, or a 10% decrease in the funds available for marketing.
Requestor
In this column, you need to identify the person or team requesting the change, preferably alongside their contact information. This may be a fieldworker who encountered a completely unforeseen ground reality that necessitates a change in the project, or it may come from a higher-up position, such as a stakeholder who wants to redirect the project in light of a new government policy.
Either way, it is important to identify where the request for a change is coming from as it allows you to identify and understand why the request for a change was necessary in the first place, and what problem it solves.
Data Identified
Unlike the first column, where you note down the date a change request is first submitted, in this column, you will specify the date when a change is formally approved and implemented by the relevant members of the project team.
This information helps establish a chronological order of changes, providing a reference point for tracking the project’s progress over time.
Impact
In this section, we assess the impact a proposed change will have on the project in terms of its scope, timeline, budget, and resources. This helps project managers evaluate the risks and benefits associated with each change, enabling them to make more informed decisions and develop the right kind of corrective action plans.
As a team document, an Impact Assessment also makes sure that all members of the project team are aware of the effect of a change on their own role in the grand scheme of things. Let’s say there is a change in the project schedule, and the deadline for Task A has to be moved up. However, Task A shares a Start to Finish dependency with Task B – which means the person performing Task B must be aware of what the preponed deadline for Task A means for their own work schedule.
To learn more about task dependencies, feel free to read up more on the Gantt Chart – one of the most popular and useful ways of visualizing a project’s timeline.
Decision
Not every change request is worth looking into. For example, some changes may be too trivial to be formally logged or have no direct substantial bearing on a project’s execution.
Remember, once a change is requested, it needs to be vetted by a project manager who might need to bring in the expertise of individual team members or external consultants to analyze the impact of the proposed change. Such an investigation is bound to take time and shift resources away from key project deliverables – so it’s always a judgment call that must be made in light of the overall project objective or industry context.
Our drop-down menu allows you to track the status of changes using three options: ‘Approved’, ‘Pending’, and ‘Rejected’ – ensuring transparency throughout your change management process.
Priority
But how do we know which changes to go through with and which ones to keep on the back burner? A simple way to do this is by assigning different priority levels to each new request for change.
In our template, you are able to assign a different priority level to each change based on its urgency and impact by selecting one of four options: Critical, High, Medium, and Low. By helping the team focus on the most critical changes first, you are able to optimize your workflow and ensure that your human and material resources are devoted to those change areas that have the highest bearing on the project’s overall success and performance.
Assignee
In this column, we identify the person(s) or team(s) responsible for undertaking the steps needed to resolve a requested change.
This ensures accountability and clear ownership of each change, facilitating effective communication and coordination among team members. For example, a construction client may request a contractor to add a new floor to the building as the project goes along. In this case, the contractor will have to assign the change to the relevant engineers and architects who must then try to incorporate the client’s demands into the existing building structure.
Who Is This Template For?
- Project managers
- Team members
- Stakeholders
- Quality assurance teams
- Technical writers
Wrap Up
Whether you are a project lead trying to ensure that changes meet project requirements and standards, or a stakeholder who needs to steer the project in a new direction in the wake of changing priorities – a change log makes your project remain flexible and agile – while still operating within its original structure.
Remember, a change log should only represent changes that have been made to the project, not instructions or other tangential notes related to those changes. While our template offers a simple yet incredibly useful document to track changes, for more complex project schemas, you might want to consider managing changes automatically through web-based tools or software.
Our editable Change Log template can be instantly accessed in .xlsx, .xltx, and .ods formats.
