Jane, the Director of Sales, contacts you and demands that you add a new feature to the software
your project team is creating for the organization. In the meeting she tells you how important the
scope change would be. You explain to her that the software is almost finished and adding a
change now could cause the deliverable to be late, cost additional funds, and would probably
introduce new risks to the project. Jane stands up and says to you, “I am the Director of Sales and
this change will happen in the project.” And then she leaves the room. What should you do with
this verbal demand for a change in the project?
A.
Include the change in the project scope immediately.
B.
Direct your project team to include the change if they have time.
C.
Do not implement the verbal change request.
D.
Report Jane to your project sponsor and then include the change.
Explanation:
This is a verbal change request, and verbal change requests are never implemented. They
introduce risk and cannot be tracked in the project scope. Change requests are requests to
expand or reduce the project scope, modify policies, processes, plans, or procedures, modify
costs or budgets or revise schedules. These requests for a change can be direct or indirect,
externally or internally initiated, and legally or contractually imposed or optional. A Project
Manager needs to ensure that only formally documented requested changes are processed and
only approved change requests are implemented.
Answer A is incorrect. Including the verbal change request circumvents the project’s change
control system.
Answer D is incorrect. You may want to report Jane to the project sponsor, but you are not
obligated to include the verbal change request.
Answer B is incorrect. Directing the project team to include the change request if they have time is
not a valid option. The project manager and the project team will have all of the project team
already accounted for so there is no extra time for undocumented, unapproved change requests.