PM Excellence Academy
Module 10 of 12
Module 8 taught you to compare what is happening against the plan. Module 10 runs the same comparison on every request the client brings you, against the expectation you set on day one.
Written lesson · the complete walkthrough · companion to the Quick ReferenceModule Home › Module Overview
Wednesday, 2:40. The design review has 10 minutes left. Design Development is in week 7, and the DD 60 percent review closed 6 days ago.
The client’s facilities director looks up from the plans. “While everyone is here, can we add a secure storage room off the lab corridor? It should be simple.”
Everyone at the table looks at you. You have no Change Log open. Nobody put the review periods on the schedule at kickoff. The agreement is back at your desk.
You say, “Sure, we can look at that.”
In that moment you made three decisions with nothing built to make them. You decided whether the agreement includes the room, what it affects, and what the client heard first. Each of those decisions has a cost, and none of them felt like a decision while you sat at the table.
The room may be a fair request. It may also be a week of work across three disciplines, behind a review the client already approved. You can’t tell from the table, and neither can the client. So the answer you give comes from the only test left in the room, which is whether the request sounds reasonable.
Module 8 already gave you half of the answer. Every Friday you compare what is happening on the project against what the plan says. Change management uses the same comparison. You compare what the client asks for today against what the client expected when they signed, and kickoff is where you write that expectation down.
This module has two parts. The first part is the system, five steps you build at kickoff before the first request arrives. The second part is a four part conversation you run while the system works underneath it.
From memory. Module 8 compares two things every Friday. Name them. Then name what Module 7 says you tell the client about change at kickoff.
What the plan says and what is true, on the four lines of work, time, effort and fee earned. At kickoff you tell the client that projects change, and that when a request affects the planned work, you pause to understand it, check whether it is included, and bring the impact back before the team proceeds. Module 10 builds the system behind that promise.
A client request almost never arrives labeled as a change, and that’s the first problem. It arrives as a question in a meeting, a line in an email, or a comment on a drawing set. It sounds small because the person asking cannot see the work behind it.
If you didn’t set an expectation at kickoff, you have one way to test that request. You ask yourself whether it sounds reasonable, and almost every request does. A secure room sounds reasonable. A second material option sounds reasonable. Fourteen comments on a drawing set sound reasonable too.
Skip it, and every request looks reasonable, because reasonable is the only test anyone has left.
Time makes the problem larger. Answer on the same day, and you answer without the facts. Wait a day to get the facts, and the client starts to hear the delay as reluctance. A request that was easy to discuss on Wednesday can feel like an argument by Friday.
The second cost falls on the relationship, and it can happen when you do everything else right. You can price a change correctly, confirm every impact, and still hear from your Principal in Charge that the client found Grace reluctant to help. The client heard the confirmation before any interest, so the client decided the reason for it. The reason most clients pick is that Grace did not want the work.
Both costs come from the same place. The process that decides what a request costs gets built in the same conversation where the client is asking for it, under the most pressure the project will put on you that week. You’re pricing, scoping and managing the relationship at once, with no rule either of you agreed to. The fix is to build that process before anyone asks.
You build steps one through four once, at kickoff and in the agreement. You run step five every time a request moves the boundary of the project. That split keeps the model small enough to use in the middle of a meeting.
A rule the client hears in week 1 is a policy. The same rule, heard for the first time in week 12 during a discussion about money, sounds like an excuse. So you name how change works at kickoff, while the agreement is new and nobody has asked for anything yet.
Ask the client one direct question, and write down the answer.
Pair it with what you told the client at the Module 7 kickoff. Projects change, and when a request affects the planned work, you pause, check whether it’s included, and bring the impact back before the team proceeds. Step one is an agreement about how the two of you will talk to each other later.
That agreement protects trust. A review of 51 studies of work relationships found that when people believe an expectation they held was broken, mistrust rises and satisfaction falls. A stated expectation is one the client can see you keep.
Open the Change Log on the day the project starts. Every request goes in it, the ones you approve, the ones you decline, and the ones you only watch.
| Field | What you write |
|---|---|
| Date | The day the request arrived. |
| Description | What was asked, in plain words. |
| Reason | Why the change is needed, and who raised it. |
| Estimated cost | Hours and fee, or $0. |
| Impact | What it changes in the schedule, the coordination and the scope. |
| Status | Approved, Declined, or Watched. |
On Oakhaven, Grace raised a value engineering option, an alternate roof assembly held in reserve for the CD estimate. It never touched the scope in the agreement. It went into the Change Log with a status of Watched, and nobody decided anything else about it.
That entry still matters. A log with only approved changes shows what Grace charged for. A log with every request in it shows that you watched the boundary the whole time, and it is the first thing you hand a client who asks why the schedule moved.
Name the points on the project where the design is reviewed and approved, and put them on the schedule the client already sees. At Grace those points are schematic design, design development, and the 30, 60 and 90 percent construction document milestones.
Once a review period passes, it closes. Comments that arrive before it are part of the review everyone expected. Work that changes a closed milestone is rework, and rework earns compensation.
Without a named review period, every comment feels allowed, however late it arrives, and the client can’t know when feedback became billable work. Late work also costs more to absorb. A study of 162 construction projects found that a late change costs about twice the labor productivity of the same change made early.
Before anyone asks for added scope, decide who can request it (the owner, a consultant, or an outside party such as a code official) and how that work gets priced.
When a request arrives, run three checks in this order. Schedule comes first, because a change against a fixed end date is the easiest to miss until it is expensive. Coordination comes second, because an extra meeting or review cycle shows up on a timesheet and never on a drawing. Scope comes last, because the agreement already writes it down.
Before you bring a number to anyone, assemble the same four items every time.
| Item | The question it answers |
|---|---|
| Outside the agreement | What does the request add beyond the agreement? |
| Effect on work in progress | What does it change in work already under way? |
| Time estimate | How long will it take, and does holding the schedule need more people? |
| Coordination added | Which meetings, reviews and consultants does it add? |
Then one question does most of the remaining work.
Oakhaven had two requests under one agreement. The client asked for a secure evidence storage room that was never in the program. It needed a security consultant and a reworked layout, so it was real scope the agreement never included. Grace priced it, and the client signed an amendment at the original fee plus $12,500.
The Fire Marshal’s two hour separation requirement changed the design on the same project, and it stayed inside Basic Services. Same process, and the contract gave a different answer each time.
When the contract is unclear rather than silent, the reading is not yours to make alone. Take it to the Principal in Charge before you say a number to the client, and that includes the number zero.
Sort each request before you say a number.
Request 1 of 6
The building official requires more clear floor space at two staff restrooms. The agreement includes code review of the approved program.
Where it goesBasic Services. The agreement already includes this review. Log it as Approved at $0.
If you chose Additional serviceThe client already paid for code review at signing.
If you chose Take it to the PICThe clause has one reading. The PIC reads clauses with two.
If you chose Log and watchThe official requires it, so the team has to act. Log it as Approved.
Request 2 of 6
The client asks for a second public entry. The program shows one. The civil engineer and the security consultant are both affected.
Where it goesAdditional service. A second entry is new scope with coordination for 2 consultants. Assemble the four item package, then price it.
If you chose Basic ServicesThe program includes one entry, and 2 consultants need hours for the second.
If you chose Take it to the PICThe program is clear. It shows one entry.
If you chose Log and watchThe client asked for it, so it needs an answer.
Request 3 of 6
The client's board wants a second exterior material option. The agreement includes one option. SD closed 3 weeks ago.
Where it goesAdditional service. A second option after a closed review is new effort with no end date. Run the schedule check first.
If you chose Basic ServicesThe agreement includes one option, and this is a second.
If you chose Take it to the PICThe agreement states one option. The answer is in the document.
If you chose Log and watchThe board is waiting on it, so it affects the schedule now.
Request 4 of 6
The client returns 14 comments 9 days after the DD 60 percent review closed. 7 of them reopen resolved items.
Where it goesAdditional service. Work that changes a closed milestone is rework, and rework earns compensation. Give it its own Change Log entry.
If you chose Basic ServicesThe review closed 9 days ago, and half the comments reopen finished work.
If you chose Take it to the PICThe date on the schedule answers this one.
If you chose Log and watch14 comments cost hours. Price them before the team starts.
Request 5 of 6
The owner's project manager asks Grace to attend 3 extra coordination meetings a month. The agreement says "coordination meetings as required."
Where it goesTake it to the PIC. "As required" has two readings, so the contract is unclear rather than silent. Say no number, including "no charge," until the PIC reads the clause.
If you chose Basic ServicesOnce you say "no charge," you cannot take it back. The PIC reads the clause first.
If you chose Additional serviceIf the PIC reads the clause differently, the client hears two answers from Grace.
If you chose Log and watchThe first meeting is already on the calendar. It needs an answer now.
Request 6 of 6
Grace's own team proposes a value engineering option for the curtain wall. The client has not decided.
Where it goesLog and watch. Nobody asked for it and nothing is in the agreement. Log it as Watched, so the record shows Grace raised it.
If you chose Basic ServicesNobody decided to do the work, so there is nothing to price yet.
If you chose Additional serviceA price on an idea the client has not accepted reads as a sales offer.
If you chose Take it to the PICNobody asked for the work, so no clause needs a reading yet.
On Monday, run the schedule check first on the next request you get.
Write the decision into the Change Log entry on the same day. Then update every control the change touches, the schedule, the fee, the staffing plan and the scope.
Then tell people. Tell the team first, so nobody finds a moved schedule by accident. Tell the client in the next status update, so the decision they made shows up in writing. Submit the change order before the work starts, because at invoicing there is nothing left to negotiate.
A client who brings you an additional service request trusts you enough to bring you more of the project instead of taking it somewhere else. Treat the request the way you would want your own request treated by someone you trust, with interest first.
Say so, in almost these words.
Mean it, then do the work of confirming the impact. The warmth comes first, the confirmation comes second, and the client hears both. The order matters because the first thing people hear shapes how they read everything after it. In one classic study, a single word in a guest instructor’s introduction, warm or cold, changed how students rated the same class and how many of them joined the discussion.
The first part of the conversation happens before the change arrives. You set it up at kickoff in step one, so the client has already heard the rule. The moment you sense that a request might touch that rule, name it.
That sentence costs you nothing, because the client already expects the pause. It also gives you time to check the Change Log and the current review period before you say anything you might have to take back.
Requests come in different sizes, and the conversation should match the size of the request.
| Size | The test | What you do |
|---|---|---|
| Small | It does not move a review period, and it does not add real coordination hours. | Log it, say it warmly, and move ahead. |
| Large | It touches the schedule, the coordination or the scope. | Run the whole four part conversation, in order. |
For a small change, say it plainly and warmly.
A large change gets the full sequence, always in the same order.
Offer the two paths as equals. One path starts the work today at hourly rates. The other puts a fixed number in writing before anything starts. Both paths are a yes to more work.
On Oakhaven, the client raised the secure evidence storage room in a design review. The first words the client heard were close to “we would love to help you with that.”
Grace checked with the security consultant and the layout team. Two days later the Project Manager returned with the impact, $12,500 over the original fee plus the coordination it would take. The client chose to add it, and then the amendment was signed. The first thing the client heard was interest.
Four situations come up often enough to script. A scripted answer is ready when the pressure is highest, so you don’t have to build a careful answer on the spot, in front of the client. Pick what you would say first in each one.
Pick what you say first.
Situation 1 of 4
The client says, "Just start."
The scripted answer“I would love to get you moving on this right away. Let me confirm the impact before we release the team, and I will have an answer for you by tomorrow.” You agree to speed, and the check still happens.
The opener that leads with a conditionThe facts are correct, and the client still hears a condition before any interest.
The opener that says yes before the checkThe hours are spent before anyone checks the impact, so the client later approves an invoice instead of choosing a path.
Situation 2 of 4
A request looks like it might sit outside the agreement.
The scripted answer“I would love to help you get there. That looks different from what the agreement currently includes, so let me check the agreement and confirm the impact before we tell you whether this needs an amendment.” You are checking the agreement, so the conversation stays about the work.
The opener that leads with a conditionThis decides before anyone reads the agreement, and the client hears a fee before any help.
The opener that says yes before the checkClose enough is a guess. If the agreement does not include it, the team spends hours nobody authorized.
Situation 3 of 4
A code official drives the change.
The scripted answer“This requirement changes the work, and we are glad to help you meet it. That does not automatically mean it is an additional service, so we need to compare it against the agreement and understand the impact first.” The contract decides, whoever raised the request.
The opener that leads with a conditionSome code changes sit inside Basic Services. This decides before the agreement is read.
The opener that says yes before the checkThe team must meet the code, and the agreement still decides who pays. The client never sees the impact.
Situation 4 of 4
Your own team spots the extra work first. The answer goes to the team.
The scripted answer“Don't start yet. Show me where this sits against the current scope, and what changes if we do it.” Log it the same day, before anyone spends the hours.
The opener that leads with a conditionThe hours are spent before anyone checks the scope, and the client hears about the charge weeks later.
The opener that says yes before the checkThe fee conversation later is about work the client never chose.
Open with the same words on the next request that reaches you this week.
The conversation is finished when step five is done. Confirm the authorization in writing. An email is enough, and a phone call alone is not.
A verbal yes shows intent, but it does not by itself authorize the work.
Update the Change Log entry with the decision, and update the schedule and the fee to match. Tell the client in the next status update what changed and why. Tell your own team the same thing, in the same words, so nobody on the project works from an old number.
Now run the whole sequence on one request, from the first words to the written yes.
Run the whole conversation on one request, through the written yes.
Oakhaven progress call, 12 days after the DD 60 percent review closed. The client’s facilities director asks for a lit donor recognition wall in the lobby.
Turn 1 of 6 · Acknowledge
The director finishes describing the wall. Everyone on the call waits for you.
What you do“I would love to help you with that, thank you for asking. Let me confirm what it affects before we commit.” The director hears interest first, and you have time to check.
What happens nextThe director hears a condition first. Your Principal in Charge later hears that Grace seemed reluctant.
What happens nextThe team starts unauthorized work, and you agreed to a cost you do not know.
Turn 2 of 6 · Check
The call ends. What do you do next?
What you doCheck with the lighting designer and the interiors lead, then open the Change Log and check the review period. You know the hours, the review period, and who else it affects.
What happens nextYou gave a number before anyone checked the coordination.
What happens nextThe director gets paperwork before an impact.
Turn 3 of 6 · Return
Two days later you have about 40 hours across 3 disciplines, 1 added meeting, and a closed DD 60 review. How do you return it?
What you do“This is about a week of work across three disciplines, plus one coordination meeting. It comes after the DD review we closed, so it is its own item.” Then give the fee. The work comes before the number, with the reason it is its own item.
What happens nextThe director hears a number with no work behind it.
What happens nextThe charge has no reason, because you never pointed to the closed milestone.
Turn 4 of 6 · Choose
The director asks, “So how do we do this?”
What you doOffer both paths in the script’s words, then ask which one the director prefers. The director chooses, and both choices are a yes to more work.
What happens nextYou made the director’s choice for them.
What happens nextNaming a quick fix tells the director Grace already decided.
Turn 5 of 6 · Confirm in writing
On the call, the director says, “Path one, go ahead.”
What you do“Thank you. Please send me that in an email, and I will release the team as soon as it arrives.” The yes is in writing before any hours are spent.
What happens nextA verbal yes shows intent, but it does not by itself authorize the work.
What happens nextThe director chose the hourly path to start this week, and an email is enough.
Turn 6 of 6 · Document and share
The email arrives. What do you do with it?
What you doUpdate the Change Log entry, the schedule and the fee, tell the team, and add it to the next client status update. The decision shows everywhere someone will look for it.
What happens nextThe schedule and the fee still show the old numbers.
What happens nextIn 3 months nobody can show when the director decided or why.
What you did
Do the acknowledge, check, return, choose sequence today, on the next one that comes in.
Next. The Quick Reference is your job aid. Print it, and keep the two path script where you can read it during a call.
Sources for the findings stated on this page.
Broken expectations and trust. Zhao, Wayne, Glibkowski and Bravo (2007). The impact of psychological contract breach on work related outcomes, a meta analysis. Personnel Psychology 60(3), 647 to 680. 51 studies. Breach correlated .65 with mistrust and negative .54 with job satisfaction, corrected.
Timing of change. Ibbs (2005). Impact of change’s timing on labor productivity. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management 131(11), 1219 to 1223. 162 projects. At 10 percent change, late change showed about a 20 percent productivity loss against about 10 percent for normal or early change.
First impressions. Kelley (1950). The warm cold variable in first impressions of persons. Journal of Personality 18(4), 431 to 439. 55 students. 56 percent of students told the instructor was warm joined the discussion, against 32 percent of students told he was cold.
Tell us what landed this week. It takes about 3 minutes, and it shapes what we cover in the live session.