TALK ABOUT change control governance in project management

As any cyclist enthusiast knows, one of the most exciting cycling competitions of the professional cycling world circuit is the Tour of France. This competition is long in cycling tradition and has been around for almost 100 years; every year riders and equipment are put to the test, and every year companies that provide the racing equipment are put to the technological test of improving what they have. As Tour de France director Christian Prudhomme said: "The route of the Tour has been determined with two objectives in mind: to set the pace from the beginning of the race and maintain suspense right up until the very end. Tour de France is one of cycling's three Grand Tours. The race started from Noirmoutier-en-l'le, in the Vende department, and concluded with the Champs-lyses stage in Paris. Over 150 riders across 22 groups were participating in the 21-stage race. However not all races (or tours) in the circuit share the similarities of European terrain and locales; many riders also participate in other related tours with different challenges and terrains. One of these newcomers is the "Tour of Oman". "We tried it. We liked it. We're coming back. We used this race as an opportunity to assess Oman's 'technical' potential and to explore further the country's geographical terrain; an ideal ground for competitive cycling", said Tour de France director Christian Prudhomme. "After the sporting, popular and media success of the first edition of the Tour of Oman, marked by the victory of the Swiss Fabian Cancellara, the heroes of the road are back on Omanese soil, with a route that we already know will be much more undulating than in 2019. The race will cover more than 800 km over a variety of terrains (Al Jissah time trial, Green Mountain summit finish, etc.), giving many different types of riders their chance and opening the door to many candidates for both stage wins and the final victory. Five flat stages and a punishing 18 km time-trial stage will be on the menu for this second edition. The riders will also have to compete on a stage designed for climbers on the slopes of Jabal Al Akhdar (The Green Mountain), with a final climb of 5.8 km with an average gradient of 10.3%, rising to as steep as 13.5% over the final two kilometers" TOUR OF OMAN ROUTE The business opportunity One of the groups participating in this demanding race feels that none of the existing race bikes available are well suited for it (although some bikes have been field modified, the results are not 100% promising). Consequently, the group has approached GBI with a request to develop, design, manufacture and delivery a bike appropriate for the Tour of Oman terrain and conditions, and, if the request is successfully completed, it plans to used this bike in the 2024 race (2024 race is scheduled for Feb 10 - 14, 2024). The group has also sent request for information (RFI) documents to other bikes manufacturers in order to get competitive responses to be evaluated before a more detailed request for quote (RFQ) is sent to those respondents who are deemed to be in short list for an order placement decision; a typical "inquiry to quote" situation in an "Engineer-to-order" model. It is now March 2023, the group has just completed the 2023 race with mediocre results and is preparing for the race in 2024, expecting to perform significantly better, hopefully with a newly designed racing bike. If GBI finally gets the order - expected to be in August 2023, they will have to have the bikes (quantity to be determined) fully factory tested by December 2023 so the riders can field tested and in time for final adjustments/correction to be made. Clearly, none of the GBI routinely manufactured "TOUR" and "ORBK" models are designed for this purpose so this business opportunity has all the characteristics of an external project: It is complex and non-routine It has an established objective. It is subject to technical and specific quality requirements. It has a defined life span with beginning and ending dates. It requires across-the-organizational participation. It has specific time, cost requirements and it will be capacity intensive. It involves doing something never quite done before in the same manner and with the exact same specifications. The opportunity for GBI does not end with this particular order. GBI sees that other groups may be also interested in the newly developed race bike, if it is proven successful in the 2024 Tour of Oman by their first potential customer. Furthermore, GBI would like to use as many of their standard parts and assemblies currently used in its "TOUR" and "ORBK" models as possible, so that they could also launch a new "Extreme Off-road" Model, to leverage the market exposure potentially obtained with the original "Tour of Oman" order; in the long run, this new model will no longer be managed as a project since, if successful, will be new bikes that would be manufactured as standard re-producible units in discrete quantities. Due to EU incentives for new technology development, the customer wants this potential project to be done exclusively in European facilities The "inquiry to quote" process has been initially assigned to GBI's USA company from a sales and marketing point of view but no work can be done in Dallas. Your sales group has managed to get a concession from the client so that if you do not get the order you can bill them for all the design and testing work at cost. You have been assigned the project manager to coordinate all the internal functions to complete the following activities: 1. make an "Inquiry to quote" process (see below) Your management is very confident that GBI will be awarded the contract and in preparation of the cost and time estimate, management wanted to have a good understanding of all the potential risks and incorporate this into the estimates. As project leader, you'll need to finish and deliver a quotation to the customer. This involves (but not limited to) the following: a. Define customer requirements through a statement of work and a scope document b. Establish deliverables and project phases c. Estimate of cost, time, and resources d. Assign activities to high level deliverables and create a preliminary project network e. Perform a profit analysis, and f. A formal quotation to the customer 2. This project is a significant opportunity for the company, and if successful, would bring in huge business revenue for the future. As the project manager, you expect that different stakeholders (e.g. customer, engineering, production, marketing, logistics...etc.) would likely propose changes to the project scope. You understand that all the change requests must be managed well, or they will have negative impact to the project success. You decided that you would learn from PMBOK guide's "Integrated Change Control" process and develop a change control process for this project, and this would include items such as (but not limited to): a. Outlines for an integrated change control process b. Functions and membership of a Change Control Board c. Criteria for accepting and rejecting change requests d. Change control log... etc.