How can I do Change Request on Microsoft Project?

Question

Title is self-explanatory. MS Project 2013 for reference. I'm not allowed to disclose many details of the project, but it's a small/medium scale IT project with a team of 6 people. I have everything setup on Project 2013 but I need to do a Change Request and couldn't find any option for that on MS Project.

For example, we have an activity there regarding the purchase of "5x Blade Server model XYZ", but we just got the news that this model will soon get discontinued, so we need to push a CR on this activity.

Answer 1

TL;DR

Microsoft Project is for project planning. It is not a replacement for other documents and processes. There is no such thing as an "MS Project Change Request."

Handling Change Requests

A change request is generally a formal document requesting changes to the specifications of a deliverable. It is up to the project manager and the rest of the team to define how that impacts the scope of the project, the associated work packages, and the scheduled tasks.

Once you've defined what needs to change, you would then have to determine what elements of your project plan (as represented within MS Project) might need to change. For example, a change request that requires two additional weeks to embiggen a widget before you can start the "frobbing the jimjam" work package might require you to create a new task in MS Project, and then adjust the start/end dates for frobbing and all following tasks that depend on it.

Answer 2

And to follow on what CodeGnome wrote, once you determine what needs to change within your schedule, this may not qualify for a rebaseline. In other words, you change your schedule but you are still measured against your original plan. The impacts caused by a discontinued product are simply variances to time and cost as compared to your original plan.

Answer 3

As Fraber indicated, typically I've seen CRs as their own "Phase" in the project plan. As they arise, a task is added to that phase, resources assigned, scheduled out, etc. This way they are clearly identified as outside the scope of the project, and should (as others have mentioned) have clear supporting documentation justifying the CR.

Whether the OP example meets that requirement is up for debate (between the PM and their stakeholders to decide,) especially if it's a planning issue (was the product availability during the project window confirmed/accounted for prior to the SOW completion? If not, then it's not really a change request (the stakeholder hasn't asked for a change and it's not outside the SOW to provide the item in question) but instead is just a variance of the initial task. If a client says "We decided we'd rather have 2 servers with split roles instead of one larger one with all roles" then it's a clearer example of a change request.

Answer 4

Project Open (I'm part of the team) handles change requests as a kind of tickets that belongs to a project and that will eventually change the project structure, once it is approved. The changes to the plan are usually performed directly by the PM. As an alternative, the PM can move the ticket to a project-specific ticket tracker and assign it to a project member for direct execution. This last option works well for small CRs, such as new features in software development.

Im MS-Project you could keep open CRs as tasks in a special "project phase" and assign them to yourself...