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CSC.990
Change Management
For Entry-Level Cost Control Professionals
Gregory J. Whiteside
ABSTRACT Change management is a key skill for any cost control professional. The basics of
effective change management for an entry-level cost control professional are outlined in this
paper. The new cost control professional must understand that a proactive approach to change
management will help minimize project costs. Topics discussed will include budget viewpoints,
documentation, and change management. Change documents must be specific and concise, as
they affect not only budgets, but also scope. Project change documentation is important to
project success. Finally, understanding the differences between how the client and the
contractor view the project budget will be discussed along with the basic differences in
management approaches to the budget.
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List of Figures
Project Life Cycle and Approval Gates ........................................................................................
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Basics
This first section will outline the cost controllers role, explain the lifecycle of a project, explore
work breakdown structure (WBS) setup, and discuss cost reporting. These concepts provide a
foundation for the change management discussion to follow. This section will provide an entrylevel cost professional with a working definition of their new role. Common terms will be
introduced throughout, and it will be explained how these ideas work together.
FEL 2
Optimize
-Factored estimate
-Select 1 or 2 concepts
to optimize
-Optimize concepts
-Set scope
-Set up WBS
FEL 3
Finalize
-Prepare for execution
-Develop full estimate
-Cost control plan
-Procure long lead
items
-Set up contracts
Execution
-Change
management
Operation
-Project closeout
-Final invoices
During Front End Loading (FEL) [3], the project is normally expensed and part of a business
units annual budget. This money is primarily used for determining project scope, developing
conceptual designs, and developing a preliminary project estimate of cost and schedule for
economic evaluations. Starting with FEL 2, most expansion and new facility projects are
capitalized. In FEL 2/3, procurement activities may include commitments for long lead
equipment items. These are specialized items, such as compressors and reactors, that can be
engineered early in FEL and set the scope of the project. Long lead equipment must be
commissioned on a specific date in order to meet the business units revenue generation date
requirements. From the time they are ordered to the time they arrive on site may be several
months, or in some cases, years. Thus, they are ordered as early as possible in order to shorten
the schedule.
A unique aspect of change management during FEL 2/3 is that current funds have to be
managed while the full project estimate is still being developed. The changes that occur during
FEL 2/3 are absorbed into the full project sanctioning estimate. The full estimate incorporates
any FEL 2/3 changes. Should the project be canceled during FEL 2/3, then the company
accountants must be able to determine which expenditures are capitalized and which are
expensed. Some items may fall into a business write-off.
During FEL 1, studies are being done to determine whether or not to pursue a project. These
studies may address optimization, expansion, or compliance issues. The cost controllers
involvement at this stage is minimal.
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Cost Reporting
Once the WBS is set up, the cost controller begins tracking against each element. It is important
for the cost controller to understand how costs are collected. Labor is collected through
timesheets. Employees report how much time to allocate to a portion of the work. Sometimes
time is collected through a gate log system, and a timekeeper allocates time for the workers.
Material costs are collected through invoices. As the invoice is received, it settles to a specific
WBS element. Both labor and material costs go through an authorization process. They must be
validated before the recipient agrees to pay. For instance, the gate log may be used to validate
a workers time on site. Discrepancies are easily identified and must be addressed.
Cost reports communicate the financial state of the project. As stated previously, the budget is
set up using the estimate as a guide. Estimated costs are what a project would cost if approved.
Budgeted costs are funds that have been approved to be spent. Committed costs are
contractually obligated to be paid if the contractor to whom they are committed fulfills their
part of the contract. Expended costs are those that have been spent.
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Purchase Orders
The budget sets out the authorized amount for each WBS element. These are the funds that
can be committed for that scope of work. Funds are committed when the client releases a
purchase order (PO) to a contractor or supplier. A purchase order is a contract between the
client and contractor. Terms and conditions vary, but if the contractor meets the terms of the
contract, the client agrees to pay the amount agreed upon, according to the terms. Each
purchase order should be written for a clearly defined scope. Purchase orders can be used to
further breakdown the WBS, as multiple POs may fall within the same WBS element. On the
other hand, a single purchase order may affect many WBS elements.
Project Changes
Any number of factors may cause a project not to proceed according to plan. Additional work
may be discovered, execution may change, or a cost saving alternative may be identified. For
example, purchase orders can be used to further breakdown the WBS, as multiple POs may fall
within the same WBS element. Thus, a change to a PO may or may not be a change to the WBS
element budget. In these cases, changes to the PO should be managed separate from the
overall project budget. On the other hand, a single PO may affect many WBS elements. To
further illustrate how POs may be utilized to provide control, consider the following example.
Example 1
Contractor A was awarded the construction portion of a project. They were responsible for
procuring all field material and supplying the field labor and overhead. The Client could have set
up just one PO with multiple line items for each portion; e.g. materials, equipment, labor,
overhead. Instead, the Client chose to split the work into two POs: one PO for material and
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Example 1 Recommendations
Because the material and equipment PO had been separated from the labor and overhead PO
from the onset, the transition to the new contractor was successful. To have taken the
materials and equipment procurement scope away from Contractor A would have been to reset
the lead on the long lead items back to zero, which may have put the project well behind
schedule. Having two separate POs allowed one to be cancelled and the other to continue
unhindered.
Documentation
Proper documentation is essential to maintaining a project budget. Changes must be
documented. An entry-level cost control professional should be able to trace back to the
document or form that authorized them to alter the budget. When they increase the amount of
a PO, they need to be able to prove that they were authorized to do so. The cost control plan
should identify the official change form to be used on the project along with the responsible
team member who must authorize changes or payment. Ultimately, these decisions rest with
the project manager, although at times they can be delegated to the construction manager or
another contract administrator. If any other team member were allowed to approve
commitments to a contractor, there is a risk of double-payment, inaccurate forecasts, and overcommitment of project funds.
A change log also helps keep track of changes. The log includes basic information for each
change. It is a summary of all the project changes. It may include a change number or unique
identifier, a short description, originator, basic dates, approval status, and a high-level
breakdown of the cost impacts.
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Example 2
Early in the job, the Contractor submitted several change requests for additional materials to be
purchased. It was thought that their original budget would have plenty of money left over in
other categories to be able to cover the amount requested. So, the requests were logged as
For Documentation Only. Nearer to job completion, the contractor found they were
significantly short in several categories. Since there was not extra money in the budget, let
alone enough to cover the FDO changes, the project ran over.
Example 2 Recommendations
There are several issues at work in this example. Poor forecasting did not take into account the
FDO change requests, and poor documentation caused these changes to be overlooked.
Changes should be evaluated as they affect the project forecast at the time that they are
identified. If the change orders create a change to the forecast, they should be logged and
reflected in the cost reports. Logging a change as FDO, and wishfully thinking it will be made up
later on is not recommended. The initial impact should be logged, and if a mitigation plan is
developed later, it should be logged as either a new change or a revision to the original. This
situation could have been avoided if the team had followed a disciplined approach to change
management.
Changes are sometimes written to a contractor in order to bring purchasing documents in line
with what will be invoiced on a time and material (T&M) contract. Care should be taken to
insure that changes are not being requested in a way that will skew performance numbers.
Sometimes changes are written because the productivity factor (PF) is poor. PF is an
assumption or scope element in the basis of estimate. If productivity is noticeably different
than the basis of estimate, it could due to reasons such as out-of-sequence work, weather
conditions, change in scope, change in design, rework due to inspection, quality or errors, etc.
As stated before, this may be an indication that something changed or that something was
not documented or implemented correctly but it is not a reason for a change order. The
purchasing documents may be updated to ensure the contractor is paid even though there is
not a determining root cause. In any event, a change order or trend will probably be issued to
recover the cost due to a change in performance. Any unresolved issues are normally addressed
in the contracts conflict resolution section or in arbitration if necessary.
Understanding Changes
The cost professional must have a clear understanding of changes taking place and the impact
of the changes on the project. To do this, they must first have a clear understanding of the
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Example 3
The case is given where a Contractor was awarded the procurement of major equipment for
the project. The Client released the PO to the Contractor with a separate line for each type of
equipment. In the Contractors reporting, the equipment was referenced by the description and
not by the PO line item. Some of the original vendors selected by the Contractor were not able
to meet their obligations and new vendors were selected. This changed the descriptions that
were used by the Contractor they no longer matched the line items on the PO from the Client.
This made it very difficult to identify changes, and especially root causes to the changes. The
granularity set up in the original PO was lost, and eventually the Client had to rely on balancing
to the overall PO value.
Example 3 Recommendations
In this example, neither the contractor nor the client did well to prevent the issue. The client
failed to set reporting requirements, and as such, the contractor did not provide useful reports.
The cost controller for the client should have insisted that the invoice be itemized as per the
contract and returned the invoice for correction and contract compliance.
Conclusion
Change management is a major part of the cost controllers role. Good planning in early project
stages will allow changes to be identified easily and executed successfully in project execution.
Projects can be complicated, and the cost controller should be familiar with each piece and how
the pieces work together.
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Gregory J. Whiteside
Fircraft, contracted to Chevron Pipeline
Gregw07@gmail.com
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