Change Management

One of the greatest challenges for IT Architects involves changes in customer needs and requirements over time. Here are some tips on avoiding problems:

• Make sure that both you and the customer understand what you have agreed to do when you have signed the contract, in order to reduce the chance of changes being required purely due to misunderstanding.
• Define and agree on Change Cases with the customer up front.
• Set expectations correctly up front (contextual views are helpful here).
• Try to ensure that the contract terms protect the profitability of the engagement in the event of changes being raised by the customer.
• Be extra careful when proposing a project that will take more than two years (because, in the space of two years, a customer may have been bought or reorganized, and your project may no longer be important to the new owners). Try to make the first major deliverable within 12 months.
• Plan for changes when you create a design. The change cases you defined earlier will help.
• Deliver incrementally.
• Track and manage changes. Ensure the customer understands that if the level of changes is too high, the success of the project is put at risk.