There are so many benefits to utilizing an effective change management system. In order to accurately project highway expenditures, accurate schedule and cost estimate data is a crucial component.  Project budgets and schedules change constantly as more is known about the project and various factors come into play that either increase or decrease the time and cost of delivery. Change management protocols ensure that corporate data systems are updated based on the latest information.  In the case of improved delivery, keeping projects on track is a top priority.  An effective method to improving delivery is to mitigate issues before they cause significant risks to projects. Tools such as the OTIA Green / Yellow / Red reports are just one way to help flag and resolve issues before they escalate.

The first thing you should do is contact your STIP Coordinator. They will be the best resource for advising you on the various processes you will need to go through to obtain the approvals you need.  Some regions have their own change management process requirements that need to be accounted for. In this case, a financial plan adjustment is needed which is handled by your Regional STIP Coordinator or Financial Plan Coordinator (in most cases, this is the same person.)  If your project also involves OTIA I, II or III, other change management requirements will ensue.  See each program area for details.

As in the case of budget adjustments, you may be required to obtain approvals within your region first.  In most cases, if the schedule extension does not cause a delay to the construction season or federal obligation year, the change management processes are somewhat simple. Depending on the type of project involved (i.e. OTIA, or federally funded), the protocols tend to differ because of program or legislative constraints.  Also, if your project is within six months of being bid let, you will need to work with the Office of Pre Let to adjust the bid let schedule.

These redundant processes are very time-intensive and OPD is extremely sensitive to these issues.  The second phase of Change Management will be integrate these processes so that change requestors need only to provide change details one time; the system will handle the programmatic connections behind the scenes. If you have any suggestions on how to improve these processes in the future, or would like to be involved in shaping the change management process for the business line, please let us know.

OPD and the application development branch of Information Systems (TAD), recently began a systems improvement initiative called the Project Delivery System (PDS) Project. The main focus of PDS is to replace the outdated Project Control System (PCS) and improving on the Project Delivery Work Planning system (PDWP) to incorporate the functionality currently provided by PCS.  Since PCS is the beginning point for all highway improvement projects, this component will lay the foundation for other PDS goals and objectives such as integrated change management tools and processes.  If you would like further information on the PDS initiative, please visit the Project Delivery System (PDS) Project page or email the PDS Project Team. You can also view the draft Change Management "To-Be" Process Map (pdf).

The BOC and OSG continue to improve communications and sharing of project change requests and results.  Because OTIA I and II is more restrictive, regions are directed to obtain OSG approval first, prior to requesting BOC approval. Again, approvals from one group will be communicated to the other to ensure issues such as conflicting approvals are minimized.

Substantial can be defined in many ways and differently from program or regional area to another. In the context of PD-02, substantial change should be measured against existing regional and statewide guidelines.  "Guidelines" might include those developed at the regional PDLT level, those developed for each of the OTIA Programs, as well as those at the statewide levels for STIP Amendments.  Depending on the type of project you are inquiring about, you would want to check the respective processes to identify what 'substantial' refers to relative to your specific change request.
 

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