“Scope creep” is often a dirty word in construction and project management.

But in an era of rapidly changing business requirements, the traditional project management principle of avoiding change is at odds with reality, especially in the industrial property sector.

Changes are not always driven through omissions or scope gap. For major projects over a long period of time, no matter how much detail is included in the scope of a project, there will naturally be change through a project’s lifecycle and the improvements in processes, outputs and technology.

This is most evident in the industrial property sector, with supply chains becoming more and more advanced. The automation technology and materials handling equipment within distribution centres and manufacturing plants are constantly improving. While the team behind the project do as much as possible to future-proof the site, even within the construction period, there will be optimisations and advancements of the technology that will need to be catered for.

The drive for constant improvement means change in major projects is inevitable. While traditionally the common philosophy of managing a project is to avoid change as much as possible due to the potential cost and time implications, we should embrace the ability for improved outcomes. However, the improvements will only be possible if the change is managed thoroughly.

These are key fundamentals I’ve learnt over my career to manage change in projects:

Streamlined approval processes

On large projects, there are usually multiple people or stakeholders that need to approve a variation.

Establishing streamlined approval processes up front with a client, ensures all necessary stakeholders are part of the process and understand their responsibility.

Having an established and understood process ensures variations are dealt with in a timely fashion to minimise any further delays.

Presenting information

Understanding how information is to be presented to the client or contractor is crucial to managing change.

A project manager must know what the client wants to see and present in the right documentation to get swift approval.

This information should include sufficient supporting information such as a quantity surveying review to substantiate the costs, information identifying any impacts to other areas and the timeframe that a decision is required before further impacts come into play.

Contract obligations

All contract and Agreement for Lease (AFL) obligations must be included in the process, so all parties are aware of their obligations.

Each party needs to understand their obligations with respect to assessing and approving a variation, especially the timing for responding and approving. Often, in major organisations where approval processes can be lengthy, this should be taken into consideration when negotiating contracts and AFLs to ensure the client has enough time to respond to a request.

Communication

Lastly and most importantly, open and transparent communication lines between all parties are essential.

As a project manager, as soon as you are aware that a variation is coming, you must start talking to the builder/developer and get pricing requests and impacts for the client.

All parties must be constantly informed on variations and their impacts, especially the urgency around approvals, because if decisions take longer than expected or agreed, they can often result in greater cost or time impacts.

It is time to rethink how we respond to change in projects, we need to prepare for change, rather than avoid it. Embracing change and providing an open process to manage the variations will only lead to improved outcomes for the project.

Steve Packer is a Senior Project Manager at TMX, with over 15 years of client-side experience in the delivery and construction of major industrial facilities.