The change process can be a mine field.
[ Posted by Dan on March 31, 2002 | 0 Comments ]

Jakob Nielson is doing a report on the cost of design changes and is soliciting data from you. In my experience, the cost of change is high and inevitable. The inevitability rises from the client always having their objectives thought out (to some degree at least) but often hasn't thought about how it's going to be accomplished. When you start building something (and writing in proverbial stone), they can see it, and the change requests start coming in.

A part of succesfully managing changes (which keeps costs down) is documenting the requests and making estimates on how much the proposed changes will cost in terms of dollars and time. Prioritizing those changes, and deciding if they actually contribute to the success of the project (which can be a political situation) will help keep you on target. So, in the end, you might have the data that Jakob needs...

We need:
> screenshot(s) of the "before" design
> screenshot(s) of "after"
> why the change was made
> the before vs. after numbers

Personally, I can't wait to see what sort of results come from this study. I've seen change processes devolve into a stream of conciousness that resulted in huge costs and missed deadlines.

 

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