PMP Exam Flashcards: Change Management, Configuration Control, Lessons Learned

Integrated change control is the process of reviewing all change requests, approving or rejecting changes, and managing changes to deliverables, project documents, and the project management plan. All change requests must be formally documented and evaluated for their impact on scope, schedule, cost, quality, and risk before approval. The Change Control Board, or CCB, is the group authorized to approve or reject changes. The project manager facilitates the change control process but does not unilaterally approve changes that affect baselines.

A change request is a formal proposal to modify any document, deliverable, or baseline. It can be corrective action to realign performance with the plan, preventive action to reduce the probability of negative consequences, defect repair to fix a nonconforming deliverable, or a scope change adding or removing work. When submitted, the change request is logged, the project manager assesses its impact across all knowledge areas, the Change Control Board reviews and approves or rejects it, and if approved, the project management plan and baselines are updated accordingly.

Configuration management is the system for tracking and controlling changes to project deliverables and documentation, ensuring that only approved changes are implemented and that the current version of any item is always identifiable. It includes configuration identification, which labels and describes each item; configuration status accounting, which records the current state and history of each item; and configuration verification and audit, which ensures items match their documentation.

Lessons learned are the knowledge gained during a project about what went well, what went poorly, and what should be done differently in the future. They should be captured throughout the project at the end of each phase, after significant events, and during the closing process group, not only at the very end. Lessons learned sessions involve the project team reviewing successes, failures, and improvement opportunities. The documented lessons are stored in the organizational process assets or lessons learned repository so future projects can benefit from past experience.

Corrective action is taken to bring future project performance back in line with the project management plan after a deviation has been detected. It addresses a problem that has already occurred, such as adding resources to recover a schedule delay. Preventive action is taken proactively to reduce the probability or impact of a potential future deviation before it occurs, such as adding testing checkpoints to prevent defects. Both are types of change requests that go through integrated change control.

Organizational process assets, or OPAs, are the plans, processes, policies, procedures, knowledge bases, and historical information owned by the organization that influence the project, such as templates, lessons learned databases, standardized processes, and past project files. Enterprise environmental factors, or EEFs, are conditions not under the project team's control that influence the project, such as organizational culture, government regulations, market conditions, industry standards, and existing IT infrastructure. OPAs are internal and controllable. ---