When Does an RFC Become a Project?

[blamblam]

I'd people's opinions on this.

Basically, what is the criteria that sees an RFC become a Project? In our process, the RFC still remains as a Major Change but for whatever reason it is deemed to be managed as a Project.

Does anyone out there have any smart definitions or criteria to help formalise this process?

[Tania]

Hi,

I believe that a project can be described as a program of change with a defined deliverable or set of deliverables.

In most cases a project will consist of a series of changes that occur in support of the project's key objectives. For example; The project may be to implement a new business service. This project may involve a number of defined changes:
- RFC to add a new server to the data center, i.e. provide power, A/C, network connectivity, actual server equipment, operating system
- RFC to migrate application and database from test environment to production environment
- RFC to open up connectivity to the business service to the users
- RFC to apply emergency change to fix a bug in the application software
- RFC to activate module 2 of the business service
etc...

What each of these RFCs have in common is that they are all related to the delivery of a new business service (the project). Additionally if your change system enables you to record the project id with every associated change, you can measure the success of the project and cost all activities associated with the project.

Hope this is helpful.

Best wishes,
Tania

[mcardinal]

It was indicated to me about five years ago that an RFC is the means by which a project is initiated. As Tania stated you should also use RFCs and Release Management principles and procedures to help manage the deliverables of a project. Also ITIL states that if no project change management process exists for an organization, then ITIL Change Management can also serve as a suitable substitute.

Change Management is a very good "wrapper" or "governance" process for projects because of the risk management aspect and the control over approvals. Using an RFC helps determine if the project should be done in the first place or if it is too risky.

Michael

[blamblam]

[manish]

Hi,

Just to add on to this discussion, this is what my understanding is-

ITIL Change Management framework can be used by the project if there is no project change management exists, however both of them should be kept separate. As Tania has pointed out one Project in its life cycle can lead to multiple changes thereby initiating multiple RFC's. However the scope of these RFC's would be limited only to one or few tasks of the Project.
Also a project can be triggered in different stages of an RFC. Assuming the change is a major change and the impact analysis to be carried out involves multiple resources and multiple locations etc.. can be taken as a project and executed, same goes for change built or implementation for that matter for any major change.
The idea here is to define the inter-relationship between Project Management and Change Management and practice the same.

Thanks,

Manish