- What is Change Management in Construction?
- Why is Change Management Critical in Construction?
- Common Types of Changes in Construction Projects
- Steps in the Change Management Process for Construction
- Challenges in Construction Change Management
- Best Practices for Effective Change Management in Construction
- Conclusion
What is Change Management in Construction?
Every construction project is subject to a reasonable amount of change. There are often circumstances that present themselves during the development that simply cannot be predicted in the initial project scope.
Change management in construction imposes a responsible process for preparing and managing changes to a construction project. Some change requests are in the best interest of the project, which must be incorporated in a prudent and timely manner. Other changes create unnecessary scope creep, costing more time and money and reducing client satisfaction rates.
Why is Change Management Critical in Construction?
Minimizing project delays and disruptions
Unwarranted changes create project delays and disruptions to the agreed-upon work schedule. These delays have the potential to escalate into full-blown disputes with clients. Combative arguments negatively impact your reputation as an independent construction project manager.
Controlling costs associated with change orders
Unnecessary changes can dramatically escalate construction costs. In 2018, research found that time spent correcting mistakes and resolving contract disputes as a result of changes or delays cost the construction industry over $177 billion. On any individual project, changes can add direct financial costs, extend project timelines, and increase waste in your materials.
Enhancing project transparency and accountability
Change management in construction allows you to directly raise important concerns with your project stakeholders. By proactively managing requests for changes, you can open a forum for discussion and create greater transparency about how proposed changes will impact the project.
To enable real-time transparency and accountability, you should learn more about construction management software apps that facilitate these discussions directly on your phone.
Improving stakeholder communication and satisfaction
Ultimately, by practicing change management in construction and creating a platform for transparent communications, you build trust and credibility with other project stakeholders. When clients trust that your pushback against requested changes is in the best interests of the project, they’ll feel far more satisfied with the relationship and the quality of your work.
Common Types of Changes in Construction Projects
Organizational changes
If you’ve been contracted by a large firm to develop a new building, there’s always the potential that senior management at that company can change. New leaders may offer their ideas related to the project, and your job as a construction change manager is to control the inflow of those requests.
Project-level changes
Changes that are requested from on high will have direct impact on the project itself. Common project-level changes fall into one of three categories:
- Scope. If you’ve already mapped out the scope of the project and built a detailed work schedule, change requests will almost always impact the initial scope. You’ll need to set up a new consultation with the clients—possibly involving new RFIs—and build a new project scope.
- Budget. Almost every change will affect the pre-approved budget for the project. Some changes may actually save you money and worth implementing without any pushback. It’s the changes that will increase costs that must be carefully considered before approval.
- Schedule. In your initial project scope, you should have included a work schedule and project timeline. Any changes to the agreed-upon work order will most likely impact the initial timeline. As you conduct your change management duties, evaluate the impact these changes will have on your work schedule.
Unplanned or remedial changes
Some clients will request changes in an ad-hoc manner. They either saw something in a social feed or read an article about a new development and automatically want to emulate those ideas. These can be the most frustrating of change requests, and change management in construction is primarily designed to control these unplanned or remedial requests.
Transformational changes
Suppose your client is undergoing a merger or acquisition, while they’ve contracted you to build a new development. New business leaders may demand input on the construction project, requiring a fresh mandate to implement new changes to the initial work schedule.
Steps in the Change Management Process for Construction
Step 1: Identify the change
If requests to change your ongoing construction project are overwhelming your crew, stop and take a deep breath. The first thing you’ll need to do as a responsible change manager is to identify the requested changes so that you can begin evaluating their merit.
Step 2: Evaluate the situation
As you begin evaluating the requests, consider the scope and impact of the proposed changes. Will they cost more money or impact the project timeline? Is there a possibility the requested changes may improve project performance? All these variables must be considered when conducting responsible change management in construction.
Step 3: Seek approval and authorization
Once you evaluate the potential impact of the changes, you can decide how to proceed. You may require approval or authorization to implement the proposed changes, possibly from the client or even third-party vendors. Always seek the appropriate approval before implementing any changes you’re not authorized to make on your own. Don’t risk assuming unnecessary liabilities when a simple consultation can avoid it.
Step 4: Develop a detailed plan
After evaluating change requests and receiving approval to implement them, you’ll want to build a detailed plan. Use this plan to highlight how the changes will impact the project and the cost-benefit analysis of proceeding with the changes.
Step 5: Communicate with stakeholders
Your cost-benefit analysis is meant to align project stakeholders around the best course of action with the proposed changes. Be as clear and transparent with your analysis as possible. Show other stakeholders why the changes should or shouldn’t be implemented to reach a consensus that satisfies everyone.
Step 6: Implement the change
If all parties agree that the requested changes will add more value to the project, this is the stage where you’re ready to implement those changes. Update your previous work schedules, budgets, and timelines to incorporate the changes and let your work crew do their job.
Step 7: Monitor and adjust as needed
Even after all your efforts to implement changes in a prudent, measured and responsible manner, problems may arise that derail the updated work plan. Monitor the impact of the changes and make any additional adjustments as needed.
Step 8: Conduct a post-change review
Once the project is complete, you’ll want to conduct a full project evaluation. Include a post-change review assessment in your report, and prove to your other stakeholders what worked and didn’t work about the change implementation plan.
Challenges in Construction Change Management
Inadequate documentation and tracking
Where change management can derail is when there’s an inadequate documentation process. Without connecting how proposed changes impact the project, it’s next to impossible to evaluate whether they were an asset or a liability in the end.
That’s why change managers in construction use construction management software as a central repository for all project documents. You can store all your schedules, timelines, drawings, designs and, yes, change requests directly within your construction management platform. This makes it much easier to document and track how any changes impact the project.
Communication gaps among stakeholders
Without proper documentation and tracking, it’s challenging to monitor where changes originated. You need a digital paper trail that connects the source of a change to the rest of the project stakeholders so that there is always clear and transparent communication.
Using construction management software, you can solve this problem by creating a controlled team chat within the platform. All conversations about the project—as well as the proposed changes—are stored, organized, and archived. This reduces the risk of any communication gaps among your project stakeholders.
Resistance to change within teams
Resistance to change is inevitable because there will always be someone in your stakeholder group against any proposed changes. That’s why you should maintain a documented group chat in your construction management software. The biggest objections can be addressed with documented evidence supporting the proposed changes, rallying enough stakeholders to support the updated work schedule.
Financial and timeline pressures
The biggest reasons that stakeholders will object to changes boil down to impacts on project costs or timelines. By maintaining that documentation and creating alignment around how the changes will be implemented, you can reduce those objections and confidently do what’s in the best interests of the project.
Best Practices for Effective Change Management in Construction
Establish clear standard operating procedures for changes
Simplify the challenges of change management in construction by following the steps of building a responsible change management process. Combine those sequences with the guided recommendations to overcome challenges against proposed changes. Together, you’ll build a clear standard operating manual for all your suggested changes.
Use pre-built templates for consistency
If you’ve invested in construction management software, one of the perks of the platform is that it comes with pre-built templates. You can use checklist templates as intake forms for change requests and conduct your evaluation process within the platform. This makes the change management workflow more structured, more sequenced, and more organized.
Maintain proactive and transparent communication
Relying on your templates centralizes all change requests in your construction management platform. This makes it much easier to maintain clarity, transparency, and accountability among your project stakeholders.
Train teams on change management protocols
Centralizing all your change requests and documents makes it easier to train your work crew on how best to implement those changes. Training and onboarding becomes much more efficient and effective with documented change management policies.
Leverage technology to streamline the process
Construction management software makes all elements of construction project management easier. By investing in a reliable construction project management platform, you can bring more structure and organization to your construction projects and ensure any proposed changes improve rather than hamper productivity.
Conclusion
Change management in construction doesn’t have to be a cumbersome process. Follow the best practices of responsible change management and leverage the right tools to streamline how changes are evaluated and implemented. Sign up for a free trial of Contractor Foreman and start organizing your change management workflow into a more productive formula.
