PMP Q #25- Delay in Change Approval
Q25. In a Hybrid Project, the agile track expects a change to be implemented by the predictive track, whereas the predictive track is waiting for Change Control Board (CCB) approval. The delay in change approval frustrates the agile track; how can a project manager reduce such a situation?
A. Assign a single person to resolve such issues
B. Establish a clear mechanism to track issues
C. Improving communication between agile and predictive track
D. Recommend Adaptive ways of working for a complete project
In such a hybrid situation, integration is usually the most challenging thing the project manager has to deal with. So let’s look at the options to choose the best to reduce such challenges:
Option A – “Assign a single person to resolve such issues” – In this case, you have a manager who takes care of the issues, so you have an Issue Manager. It might work, but that single person may also become a bottleneck. You need to see if putting this person is helpful or can create further problems because if the single person is not handling it well, you may have a bigger mess. In general, you need to know the details about the situation before you can say whether or not a single person will be good. That’s something you need to see. You can’t just see based on the question you have in front of you. This option does not look like a good option.
Option B – “Establish a clear mechanism to track the issues” – For issue tracking, you may have a board, and you put those issues on the board, and everybody can see them. So, if any issues are delayed, you have a clear awareness of them and can do something about them. It could be a good idea to track issues, communicate them, discuss them in various meetings and milestone reviews, and make them visible. This tracking will improve the resolution faster.
Option C – “Improve communication between agile and productivity track” – Yes, there should be better communication so that the changes can be –
- Planned better,
- Resolved better, and
- it can help us reduce such situations where you are waiting for another’s group, be it change or some awareness like, yeah, delays are coming.
Hence, improving communication between an agile and predictive track is also a good option.
Option D – “Recommend adaptive ways of working for a complete project” – If a project uses a hybrid approach (mix of predictive and adaptive ways), there must be a reason behind it. So, recommending adaptive ways of working is not a wise idea to avoid the challenge of communication between two tracks. It would help if you explored what you can do to address this challenge instead. Directly jumping to change the life cycle is the wrong thing to do. Hence there are better options to choose.
Now we need to choose from options B & C; for that, we need to check whether we should have a good tracking system (Option B) or focus on improving the communication between Agile and Predictive Track (Option C). Tracking can help you to resolve this situation, and improved communication will be more helpful in reducing such situations.
Reducing such situations where we have a delay, we have late information, and which create wait time can be improved if we have early identification of the issues and early processing of these issues. Option C looks best because it discusses reducing such situations.
