Scope Change

A scope change alters the agreed boundary of a project: the question, population, period, deliverable, or intended use included in the work. A request for “one more chart” may be a scope change if it introduces a new comparison or decision that the agreed evidence cannot support.

Suppose an analyst agreed to summarize completion for one training cohort. Adding manager rankings requires more than grouping existing rows: manager assignments, comparable groups, permitted use, and the meaning of the comparison need examination. A descriptive ranking would still not establish each manager’s causal effect.

Change control makes that request visible and evaluates its consequences before revising the agreement. Record the proposed change, why it is needed, effects on evidence and validation, resource and schedule dependencies, and who may approve it. The decision can be to accept, decline, defer, or replace part of the original delivery. Update the plan and acceptance criteria when a change is accepted.

An agreed change is not automatically a failure. Uncontrolled expansion becomes a problem when work grows while the old deadline and expectations remain untouched. Keep the process proportional: a short written decision can be sufficient for a small analysis. Correcting an error in the agreed calculation is different from taking on a new question, though the correction may still require notifying users and revising the schedule.

Reference: APM: Change control. The training example is illustrative.