Running Head: SOURCES OF CHANGE 1

Sources of Change
William Pittman
PJM 310-2 Introduction to Project Management
Colorado State University Global Campus
Professor Ken Wallin
February 3, 2014









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Sources of Change
No plan should ever be concrete in its execution, and if treated as such, it becomes
impossible to cope with change. In projects, changes can arise from a variety of sources. For the
purposes of this examination of change; the natures of client changes, contractor wrought
change, and the external variable of weather will be under examination.
Working for an oil and natural gas pipeline construction contractor provides me with the
opportunity to be exposed to negation resulting from change. The most typical source of change
that I experience with projects are requests for change submitted by the client in the form of
change orders or alteration to the scope of work. During a project, in my experience, completion
is never achieved without change. These change orders typically address issues that arise during-
project and are implemented on-the-fly. This implementation of new work to be performed
causes another change, this one, within the contractor. The contractor must be able to adapt to
these changes and have flexibility in their resource allocation. These changes, if planned for
correctly, can prove to be profitable for the contractor as well as add value to the client.
Ideally, a project planned and phased with complete accuracy would provide a
framework for turnkey execution of a project. However, No matter how carefully a project is
planned, it is almost certain to be changed before completion (Project Management: A
Manegerial Approach p.159) Not every variable can be anticipated correctly however and
sometimes one must plan for potential changes in project work to be performed. This means that
in essence, some project are actually anticipated or planned to experience change by the
contractor. Most often, changes made by the contractor to the original project plan address
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unforeseeable issues and resolve mistakes in planning the project. For instance, finding rock
where you thought only soil existed would require the contractor to allocate more hours or more
equipment to digging. With scarce resources, this does not only affect the budget, but also can
affect things such as completion date.
The last source of change examined consists of the variable nature of the weather.
Weather can play a role in many aspects of a projects development when it is susceptible to
natures dealings. In pipeline construction, for example, multiple aspects of the weather can
prove detrimental to progress. Laying pipe most often requires two things from nature:
acceptable precipitation amounts and ground temperature. If heavy rains exists, equipment
becomes more difficult to use in muddy conditions, labor efficiency goes down, and trench for
pipe to be laid fills with water causing an obvious problem. Ground temperature is important
when temperatures fall around freezing. This makes is much more difficult to dig through the
potentially semi-frozen to frozen ground. These variables must be considered by those planning
the project and if ignored, can become cumbersome to overcome.
If flexibility is not implemented in a project plan, it becomes more difficult to deal with
changes. A project must be planned with cushioning both for budgeting and time allocation in
areas that can be affected down process. Change in a projects life cycle is common and must be
anticipated and prepared for.




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References
Meredith J.R. & Mantel Jr. S.J. (2012) Project Management: A Managerial Approach.
Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.