Project Integration Management - Perform Integrated Change Control

This process reviews all the change requests or modifications to project documents and approves or rejects the changes. Within this process we also review configuration control which is a collection of formal documented procedures to help document changes the way the organization requires. This helps us manage what changes are made during the project as we can document and track back the reasons why things changed or who requested the change. Managing this helps the project manager control time, cost and scope. Some of these configuration management actives include the following:

• Configuration Identification - 
• where you label configuration items with unique identifiers
• identify the documentation for each configuration item
• group related items into baselines
• labeling changes to configuration items and baselines
• Configuration status accounting - information recorded and reported which includes information about:
• listing of approved configuration identification
• status of proposed changes to the configuration
• implementation status of approved changes
• Configuration verification and audit - ensure that the composition of the items are correct and that the changes are registered, assessed, approved, tracked and correctly implemented. 

Lets look at the Inputs, Tools and Techniques and Outputs of this process in more detail. 

1) Project management plan

• Scope management plan
• Scope baseline
• Change management plan

2) Work performance reports

• resource availability
• schedule and cost data
• earned value management (EVM) reports
• burnup or burndown charts - burnup charts shows how much work has been completed and the  total amount of work and a burndown chart shows how much work is remaining in the project

3) Change requests

• If any changes are determined to be made while doing this process you would submit a formal change request proposal. The changes could be requested due to the need for the following:
• Corrective action - realign an activity tot he project management plan
• Preventive action - make sure that future performance is aligned
• Defect repair - modify a nonconforming product
• Updates - changes to project documents, plans etc.

4) Enterprise environmental factors

• The factors outside of anyone's control that would affect the way you perform integrated change control would be:
• Scheduling software tool
• configuration management system
• information collection and distribution system
• web interfaces to other online automated systems

5) Organizational process assets

• The business organization will have many assets that will influence how you perform integrated change control that may include the following:
• Change control procedures
• Procedures for approving and issuing change authorizations
• Process measurement database 
• Project documents
• Configuration management knowledge base containing all the versions and baselines of the organization

6) Expert judgement

• Stakeholders maybe asked to sit on the change control board (CCB) 

7) Meetings

• These meetings are usually the change control board (CCB) meetings where they are responsible for reviewing the change requests and approving, rejecting or other disposition of those changes. They may also review any configuration management activities. All discussions are documented and reviewed with the stakeholders. 

8) Change control tools

• Manual or automated tools are selected based on the needs of the project stakeholders. These tools are used to manage the change requests and the resulting decisions. 

9) Approved change requests

• Any change requested to the project plan are processed through the Perform Integrated Change Control process and approved by the change control board (CCB) first.
• They will be implemented through the Direct and Manage Project work process.  
• Changes can be a corrective action, preventative action, or a defect repair. 
• They can affect policies, project management plan, procedures, costs or schedule and all documentation should be updated with the new changes to keep documentation up to date. 

10) Change log

• Any changes approved or rejected are documented during the project. These changes are communicated to the stakeholders as they could impact time, cost and risk. 

11) Project management plan updates

• Any subsidiary plans
• Baselines that are subject to the formal change control process (shows the current time forward only as you can't change the past) 

15) Project document updates

• All documents specified as being subject to the project's formal change control process

Source: PMBOK 5th ed.