Managing Changes in Construction Projects

Scope management is responsible for the majority of project failures. In construction project, scope management deals with the analysis and approval of changes. D.M. Dillts & K.R. Pence (2006) found out critical factors in project failure related to changes, as follows:

• Change in initial project expectations
• Change in overall project importance to the organization
• Change in need for the project (by the organization)
• Change in overall complexity
• Change in overall time to completion
• Change in user needs
• Change in overall project resources (people, material, funds)
• Change in technical difficulties
• Change in funding source
• Change in regulatory problems
• Internal politics (within the organization)
• External politics to the organization
• Change in commitment by project champion

Based on several researches, the main cause of construction changes are investor's requirements for higher standards in relation to those planned.  The investor usually adds additional needs for a project. The second cause is partially incomplete project documentation, followed by change of technology caused by lack availability of designed technology in the market. Lack of concrete construction material in region caused by high or low current demand and lack of financing for the timely completion of a project are next causes. The other causes are: Contractor's change requests for easier operations, higher income, within the allowable limits for the project; Project documentation alignment with new regulations adopted in the period between project design and realization. 

Scope management is one of the angles of the project management triangle (cost, time, scope), which means that together time and cost it represents one of the most significant constraints and focuses on the project. There can be no project success without a systematically and professionally appointed system for managing the scope

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Project's Scope Change

In project management concept, scope management is directly connected with managing the changes required during the execution of projects, arises from the need for efficient and effective control over projects. Several researches on scope and change management showed the common causes of project's scope change, as follows:

1. Poor scope statement - incomplete and ambiguous scope statement, inconsistent with project assumptions, deliverables does not address the customer required (missing, unnecessary or inaccurate deliverables) will cause project scope changes. 

2. Poor requirements definition - Deliverables are correct, but the project was incorrectly defined in the first place will cause the scope changes. Because the more gaps that you have in your requirements, the more scope changes you are likely to have. Please be noticed that requirements definition and requirements management play important roles on project success. There are several causes of poorly defined requirements, i.e. ineffective or wrong techniques used to gather requirements, communication breakdowns between analyst and stakeholders, requirements are not aligned with project scope, requirements do not address complete process work flow, documented requirements are not meaningful to targeted audience, requirements not reviewed for inconsistencies, requirements not verified for correctness and completeness, missing stakeholders and users sign-off without a "real" understanding of what the documented requirements mean.

3. Customer or stakeholder request - due to the dynamic nature of business world today, things can change quickly. Change in business will cause customer or stakeholder request change to the project. Example of business change that can alter a project's scope include: available budget/funding for the project, new government regulations, changing target market for the product, time-to-market pressures, new business opportunities, changing customer priorities, unexpected market or world events. In order to minimize unnecessary changes in project scope, early in the project, you should define and publish the criteria and the timeline for accepting discretionary project scope changes.

4. Value added change  - For example, a team member may find a better, faster, less expensive way to do the work and still meet the project deliverables.

5. External condition - For example changes in regulatory requirements, changes in the organization's priorities, or changes in the market or technology - are outside of the project's manager control but must still be accommodated.  For instance, there is new technology available during a project that will significantly meet the needs of the customer much better than what is currently planned.

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