The Missing Element in Change Management Complexity Change Assessment
Bob McGannon, PMP

Successful project management involves the use of a fully utilized change management process. The vast majority of project managers know this, regardless if they work in an advanced or barely mature project management environment. Despite this understanding about change management, most change management processes are missing a critical element that is required to manage change in their project environments – assessing how a change will alter the complexity profile of the project and project deliverables.

Complexity is introduced to projects in many ways. Often, complexity is part of the original scope of the endeavor, and is considered as a component of the project and included in the risk evaluation process (hopefully!). In many instances however, scope and project direction changes will change the complexity profile of a project – and it is not appropriately foreseen, or managed. It is not as if these changes to the project weren’t introduced through a formal process – most are managed through a formal change management exercise – but complexity change was not amongst the review criteria considered in the change approval process. Therefore, the problem is the project team has to deal with a much “larger” scope from an effort standpoint, and that effort increase was not sufficiently evaluated and estimated in the change management exercise. This is primarily because there is no consideration for complexity change in most change management processes. The following are a few complexity items – and metrics for measuring it – that should be considered for your project change management process. At the end of this discussion, an overall complexity assessment “point scale” will be presented as an example of how to incorporate a “complexity factor” into your change assessment process.

Changes in technology

A project change that involves a change in technology adds elements of complexity – even in instances where the overall technology is “simpler.” When a change involves introducing technology that is new to the environment and the support staff a myriad of unanticipated problems can result. Add to this a support learning curve, the need for training and sufficient experiences to effectively support the platform in your particular technology environment and the project can become much more broad-reaching than expected.

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