How should I deal with changes to my project?

Changes to projects are something that always happen and we can't help from feeling them. It's normal to deal with changes during a project because during the project work progress you make new discoveries, you encounter problems which you must fix and you have new ideas that can improve the progress.

Generally speaking, there are 3 main categories of changes:

• changes that regard the time (the deadline of the project),
• changes that regard the resources available (people and money needed)
• and changes that regard the output (the form of the deliverables.)

You must keep in mind that any of these categories of changes can affect the end of your project and it depend of you to control it.

Generally changes occur step by step during one project and they are not so significant. But there are also situations when changes can be major and they can have a serious impact on the project.

In order to protect yourself and your project from big changes that can damage it, you should be ready for them and when they appear analyze them very well. To do this, you must consider the following questions and ideas:

• who needs the change,
• what is supposed to be changed and why,
• how important is that change for the project
• and what will happen to the project if you make the change.

It's important to know how to deal with important changes. Because those can really cause damage to your project and you should know very well their results before actually doing them. So if you are not sure that a change will affect in a good way your project, then better don't do it or do it very carefully.

Another thing that you should consider before changing something to a project is the authority that you have or don't have to do this. Because you wouldn't want to change something that will end up bad without being authorized to do it. If you are sure your change will be a good one, ask for permission first and then act. Don't rush into taking decisions or making changes because you might be wrong.

While you make a change you have to be very careful and to pay a lot of attention to it because it can have unexpected repercussions. For example when you change one of the team's member because he's more qualified for that job you can seriously affect team spirit.

The most important thing to remember about changes is that they simply occur. Sometimes because they are needed and sometimes by mistake. But If you pay enough attention to them the situation of your project can improve or at least remain the same, without being damaged.