A Systematic Approach to Modelling Change Processes in Construction Projects

Modelling change processes within construction projects is essential to implement changes efficiently. Incomplete information on the project variables at the early stages of projects leads to inadequate knowledge of future states and imprecision arising from ambiguity in project parameters. This lack of knowledge is considered among the main source of changes in construction. Change identification and evaluation, in addition to predicting its impacts on project parameters, can help in minimising the disruptive effects of changes. This paper presents a systematic approach to modelling change process within construction projects that helps improve change identification and evaluation. The approach represents the key decisions required to implement changes. The requirements of an effective change process are presented first. The variables defined for efficient change assessment and diagnosis are then presented. Assessment of construction changes requires an analysis for the project characteristics that lead to change and also analysis of the relationship between the change causes and effects. The paper concludes that, at the early stages of a project, projects with a high likelihood of change occurrence should have a control mechanism over the project characteristics that have high influence on the project. It also concludes, for the relationship between change causes and effects, the multiple causes of change should be modelled in a way to enable evaluating the change effects more accurately. The proposed approach is the framework for tackling such conclusions and can be used for evaluating change cases depending on the available information at the early stages of construction projects.