Without a standardized process, change requests can lead to scope creep and pushed timelines. A digital change request form automatically generates tasks when your stakeholders submit change requests, so your team can follow a pre-defined process for evaluating and implementing project changes.
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No project plan is perfect. Circumstances shift and priorities change over time, and that’s ok. But without the right planning, project changes can lead to serious scope creep and potentially derail your entire project timeline.
While you can’t predict the future, you can plan how to adjust your project plan when needed. That way, you can take change in stride—knowing that you have a process in place to deal with it.
That’s where a change request form template comes in.
A change request form is a structured set of questions stakeholders fill out if they want to make changes to your project plan. These forms ensure you get enough information to determine whether the adjustment is necessary—including the reason for the change, its priority, and the requested implementation date.
A change request form is part of a larger change control process, which lays out the steps you should take to triage and incorporate change requests into your project. This process helps you reduce scope creep while still being flexible enough to address new, high-priority deliverables. For example, you may need to evaluate costs, risks, and project quality repercussions before deciding to approve and implement a change request.
A change request form template is more than just a form—it’s a reusable workflow that helps you translate form submissions into actionable tasks. By providing a form with specific questions for stakeholders to answer, you ensure that you get all the information you need to make an informed decision on whether or not to implement the change. Once the form request is submitted, it automatically creates a task in a project management platform that guides your team through a predefined change control process to evaluate and implement change requests.
Here’s an example. Imagine one of your stakeholders wants to increase the text size for a new web feature. Instead of sending you an email or a Slack with the request, they fill out the form—which asks them about the relative importance, priority, and impact of this change. Then when they hit submit, a task is automatically created to document the request—along with additional tasks to evaluate the cost, risks, and quality impacts of the change. As a result, your team knows the exact steps they need to take to evaluate new change requests.
Creating a reusable template for this workflow makes it easy to establish a change control process for every new project. All you need to do is copy the template, fill in the specific details for your project, and start working.
Static change request form templates—like Excel spreadsheets or Google Docs—require a lot of work to maintain. You need to make sure stakeholders have access to the form, create a submission process, manually triage requests, and find a way to document which changes are approved or rejected. That’s a lot of clicking around and switching between different apps.
With a digital change request form template, all that work is automated. You can fill out the form, document requests, and create action items all in the same place. Instead of constantly updating documentation, you can see progress in real time as your team goes through the steps to evaluate, approve, and implement changes to your project plan.
With a digital change request form template, you can:
There are two important components to a change request form template: The form itself and the template you use to document and track form submissions. Let’s start with the form.
To create your change request form, think of all the information your team needs to know to evaluate each request. For example, your form could include the following fields:
Once you create your form, it’s time to create your template. You want your template to mirror the different fields on your form—so you can see all the information stakeholders fill out. To continue the example above, that means your template should include columns to track the requester, change description, reason, priority, and requested implementation date. You can also create custom fields to identify the status of each request—like “requested,” “evaluating,” and “approved.”
Now that the backbone of your template is in place, you can set up automatic rules—a function that lets you create automatic triggers and actions (i.e., “when X happens, do Y”). The possibilities here are endless—for example, when a new proposed change is added you can automatically add additional tasks to evaluate the cost, risks, and quality impacts of the request.
Once you create your template, using it is simple. Depending on the level of automations you set up, you may need to triage and assign tasks to the appropriate team members, update the status of requests, and complete tasks and approvals. Your template does most of the admin work for you—ultimately, the most important thing is to make sure stakeholders know where to find your change request form so they can easily submit requests.
Change—and change management—is an essential part of project management. If you’re a project leader, creating a system for managing change requests can help you adapt and save time later on. And with a change request form template, you can easily establish a change management process for every new project.
Share your template with anyone who needs to stay informed about your change management plan. This includes project team members, cross-functional stakeholders, and change approvers. As a team lead, you can also share your template with direct reports to make sure everyone on your team follows the same predefined change control process for their projects.