OVERCOMING CHALLENGES FACING CHANGE CONTROL BOARD (CCB) BY MAXWELL OWOLADE

A change control board (CCB) is a group of people in a company that have the responsibility of examining, reviewing and prioritizing change requests pertaining to a project. It can be a small group consisting of just the project manager and the sponsor the project, or as large as a committee of representatives from various relevant segments of the organization. Any change agreed upon by the committee is communicated to the project team and the client.

The authority conferred on the CCB can vary depending on the nature of the project, but any decision reached by the board is often regarded as final and binding. The decision to accept a change is also dependent on the phase or stage of the project. The main objective of CCB however, is to ensure that the deliverable meet the scope requirements, meets quality standards and is accepted by the client.

Change Control Board and Members

Typically, a change control board can consist of the development manager, the test lead and a product manager. In some cases, a representative of the client may be included to ensure that the deliverables are accepted by the client. A small CCB is sometimes stronger. This is because it facilitates the taking of quick decisions.

The function of a CCB will include some or all of the following: review and approval of request for change, prioritization of change activities, resource allocation to change projects, establishment of unified reporting of change activities, identifying and removal of needed change activity roadblocks.

In many organizations, review and approval of change request is the primary activity of the CCB. The membership of the board will actually depend on the organization’s functional make-up and may consist of representatives from areas such as Project or Program Management, Quality Assurance, Engineering, Manufacturing, Marketing, Regulatory Affairs, Documentation, Operations, Research and Development. Other roles may be added to the board depending on need, as the change affects the particular area. The membership of a CCB is unique to every organization.

Documents relating to the change are created at all stages of the change process. The documents may be pertaining to qualification and test requests, risks analysis matters, data on customer feedback, audit report of suppliers, records on training, revised operating procedures, etc.

All these records are made available to the CCB for review. Furthermore, all the data generated in change process become historical records which will be filed and kept for reference within the organization as organizational process assets (OPA). These records will be useful for presentation to third party auditors for certification on quality or regulatory requirements compliance. In addition, the records also serve to maintain a history of change, which will be subject to review in the future, when there is need to plan for any new changes change.

The Need for CCB

The need for CCB cannot be overemphasized. It doesn’t matter that your projects are small; it is always productive to institute a semblance of a CCB than not having any in place.

A CCB will assist you in managing a lot of changes that will manifest in the course of the project. Despite the fact that your stakeholders, sponsors and project delivery team may have agreed on cost, scope and schedule of a project, something is bound to change before the expiration of the project. Such changes will come in various forms, which will affect your project positively and/or negatively.

The CCB helps you determine which changes to accept and undertake, which are to be rejected, and which may be shelved. This enables you to always take a rational decision, instead of neglecting necessary change, or on the other hand, executing changes before closely examining them.

The CCB’s responsibility includes listening to all ideas, justifications behind each and considering the merits. This will be followed by explaining to the project team, the stakeholder or sponsor why an idea was accepted and approved, rejected or shelved for a more conducive situation for implementation.

All these are challenges that the CCB confronts. Other challenges include the need for more money to finance the change, as well as more resources and time to complete the project. The issue of quality and increase in risk are also pertinent.

The Project Manger must handle risk issues by administering the risk register, as a component of a risk management plan. The risk register helps to keep track of issues and attend to them promptly. Input must be sought from stakeholders, team members, and end users. So tomorrow, when CCB is requesting you to submit change request, don’t see them as group monsters waiting to defeat you, see them as partner in progress. Remember several CCB good heads are better than one project manager!