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Lab 19 — Evaluating a Change Request

At a glance

Learning objectives

By the end of this lab you should be able to:

  1. Perform an impact analysis across scope, schedule, cost, quality, and risk.
  2. Decide at the correct authority level using pre-agreed tolerances.
  3. Detect when a change conflicts with a baseline exclusion, and why that matters.
  4. Write a change log entry and a decision with options that the sponsor can act on.

Scenario

This lab uses the Learning Management System from Lab 13, now in delivery.

Baseline, as approved:

Item Value
Approved budget PKR 2,715,000 (including contingency and management reserve)
Baseline schedule 12 weeks
Current position End of week 5
Team capacity 2 staff at 40% each — 4 person-days per week
Blended rate PKR 25,000 per paid person-day
Agreed tolerances Cost ±5% of the approved budget; schedule ±3 days on any milestone
Baselined exclusions Mobile application; video hosting; integration with the timetabling system

Earned value at the end of week 5:

Measure Value
Planned value (PV) 1,150,000
Earned value (EV) 1,035,000
Actual cost (AC) 1,120,000

The change request, submitted by the head of department in writing:

CR-07 — Offline viewing of course content. Lecturers want students to be able to download lecture notes and view them without an internet connection, including on a mobile device. The department believes this is important for students with unreliable connectivity.

The delivery team's assessment of the work:

Task Effort (person-days)
Offline storage layer and synchronisation 9
Mobile client shell and download manager 6
Cache invalidation and content-version handling 3
Testing (including offline and conflict scenarios) 6
Total 24

Further technical and legal facts:

  • Offline synchronisation requires a new local data store on the device, which the current architecture does not have.
  • Cached marks could become stale. Whether grades may be cached on a device at all is a question for the university's records office, and is currently unanswered.
  • The work touches the submission and gradebook components, which are on the critical path.
  • The mobile client is not part of the current architecture; there is no mobile codebase.

Your role

You are the project manager. The head of department has authority to request a change; the approval authority depends on the size of the change. You must produce the analysis that lets the right person decide, and you must not decide it yourself.

Project information and assumptions

The scenario is part of the example-project library — read the full description there if you want the wider context.

  • Use the tolerances as given. If the impact exceeds them, the decision escalates.
  • Convert effort to cost using the blended rate, and state whether you applied the productivity factor and why you did or did not.
  • Assume the team's capacity is fully committed to the baseline; additional work consumes capacity that baseline work would otherwise have used.
  • Assume the current CPI is representative of the remaining work.

Tasks

Task 1 — Log the request

Write the change log entry before analysing anything: reference, date, requester, description, and status. Then state, in one sentence, why logging before analysing matters.

Task 2 — Establish the current position

Using the earned value data:

  1. Calculate SV, CV, SPI, and CPI for week 5. Show the arithmetic.
  2. Calculate the forecast final cost using EAC = BAC ÷ CPI.
  3. State the current variance against the approved budget, in currency and as a percentage.
  4. State whether that variance already breaches the ±5% cost tolerance, and what follows.

Task 3 — Cost the change

  1. Convert the 24 person-days into cost at the blended rate. Show the arithmetic.
  2. State how many weeks of team capacity the change consumes, using the 4 person-days per week figure.
  3. Calculate the change's cost as a percentage of the approved budget.
  4. Calculate the new forecast total if the change is approved, and the resulting variance against the approved budget.

Task 4 — Assess the schedule impact

The affected components are on the critical path, and the baseline is 12 weeks.

  1. State the schedule impact in weeks, and justify the figure from your capacity calculation.
  2. State the impact on the baseline finish date as a percentage of the original duration.
  3. State whether this breaches the ±3-day milestone tolerance, and what follows.
  4. Identify one way the schedule impact could be reduced, and state what it would cost.

Task 5 — Assess quality and risk

  1. Describe the quality consequence of caching marks on a device, in terms of correctness and of who is harmed if it goes wrong.
  2. Record the unanswered data-protection question as a risk, in cause–event–impact form, with a probability and an impact in currency, and an owner.
  3. Identify two secondary risks created by approving the change.
  4. State which of your findings would survive a decision to proceed and which would not.

Task 6 — Detect the conflict

Compare the change against the baselined exclusions.

  1. State which exclusion or exclusions CR-07 conflicts with.
  2. Explain why a change that removes a baseline exclusion is treated differently from a change that adds work, even if the cost is identical.
  3. State what must happen procedurally before this change can be approved, given that conflict.

Task 7 — Present options at the right authority level

Using the tolerances, state who must decide this change and why the project manager cannot approve it.

Then present four options, each with its consequence:

Option What happens Cost Schedule Scope and quality consequence
Approve as requested
Approve with a trade
Defer to phase 2
Reject

For "approve with a trade", name the specific baseline item you would remove, and justify the substitution.

Then state your recommendation in one sentence, and write two sentences on what you would need to change your mind.

Task 8 — Write the change log entry

Complete the entry: decision, decision date, decision authority, reason, and the documents updated.

Then write the sentence you would put in the next status report, so that the decision is visible to everyone affected.

Deliverable

  1. The change log entry (pre-decision).
  2. The current position: SV, CV, SPI, CPI, EAC, variance in currency and percent, and the tolerance verdict.
  3. The cost analysis with capacity in weeks, percentage of budget, and new forecast total.
  4. The schedule impact in weeks, percentage, and tolerance verdict, plus the reduction option.
  5. The quality and risk assessment, including one risk in three-part form and two secondary risks.
  6. The exclusion conflict identified and its procedural consequence.
  7. The four options table, your recommendation, and what would change your mind.
  8. The completed change log entry and the status report sentence.

Hints and guidance

  • Impact analysis covers five things, not one. Effort is the easiest and least interesting.
  • Use the tolerances to route the decision. The threshold is the mechanism; without it, escalation becomes a personality question.
  • A conflict with a baseline exclusion is a governance event. It means the change is not merely larger than the plan — it is a different project.
  • An unanswered data-protection question is a risk, not a blocker. Record it, price it, and name an owner; do not use it as a reason to refuse to analyse.
  • "Approve with a trade" is usually the answer worth arguing for, because it keeps the budget and the date intact while acknowledging the request is legitimate.

Self-check criteria

Check How to verify it
Log entry precedes analysis Reference, date, requester, description, and status all present
Indices correct SPI 0.90, CPI 0.92 (1,035,000 ÷ 1,120,000)
EAC arithmetic shown 2,715,000 ÷ 0.92 ≈ 2,951,000
Tolerance verdicts are explicit Cost variance already breaches ±5%; say so
Change cost correct 24 × 25,000 = 600,000, which is 22% of the approved budget
Capacity in weeks computed 24 ÷ 4 = 6 weeks of team capacity
New forecast total computed ≈ 2,951,000 + 600,000 = 3,551,000
Exclusion conflict identified Mobile application is baselined out of scope
Options have consequences, not labels Each row states cost, schedule, and scope effect
Recommendation is one sentence With a stated condition that would change it

Reflection

  1. The exclusion conflict is arguably more significant than the 600,000. Why?
  2. Two of the four options leave the budget intact. What do they cost instead?
  3. If the head of department says "the students' connectivity problem is real, so the cost does not matter", how do you respond without appearing to dismiss the problem?
  4. Suppose the change were 8 person-days instead of 24 — inside tolerance, and not touching the critical path. Would you still run the same process? What would you change, and what would you refuse to skip?
Check your numbers

Current position (week 5)

Indicator Calculation Value
SV 1,035,000 − 1,150,000 −115,000
CV 1,035,000 − 1,120,000 −85,000
SPI 1,035,000 ÷ 1,150,000 0.90
CPI 1,035,000 ÷ 1,120,000 0.92
EAC 2,715,000 ÷ 0.92 ≈ 2,951,000
VAC 2,715,000 − 2,951,000 ≈ −236,000

The projected overrun is already about 8.7%, which breaches the ±5% tolerance before the change is considered at all. That is a finding the sponsor needs independently of CR-07.

Cost of the change: 24 person-days × PKR 25,000 = PKR 600,000, which is 22.1% of the approved budget.

Capacity: 24 ÷ 4 = 6 weeks of the team's entire capacity.

New forecast if approved: ≈ 2,951,000 + 600,000 = PKR 3,551,000, a variance of −836,000, or about 31% over the approved budget.

Schedule: up to 6 weeks on a 12-week baseline — a 50% extension, far outside the ±3-day milestone tolerance.

Full working is in the Advanced labs answer key.

Extension challenge

CR-07 is deferred. Six weeks later the head of department returns with the same request, now framed as "essential for equity of access", and offers to fund it from a different budget line. Re-run the analysis in full, and this time produce the business case for a phase 2 project rather than a change request: scope, a first-pass estimate, the data-protection question resolved or explicitly listed as a phase-2 entry condition, and the benefits with a measurement date. Then state why a change that is impossible inside a project can be entirely reasonable as a project of its own.