What it means
A customer asks to add a project deliverable, and a team says it can finish in two days. The added work might consume a shared specialist and delay a later milestone.
Project change request schedule impact review rate measures whether eligible changes are assessed against the current schedule before a decision. Define the review so that it identifies affected tasks, dependencies, resources, milestones and uncertainty, not just a new due date.
PMI's schedule management discussion emphasizes clear critical-path terminology and schedule reporting, while APQC defines engineering change order cycle time from request through implementation, a different measure from evaluating proposed schedule impact. Choose the population, since formal scope changes above a declared threshold may qualify, and report excluded routine edits.
Set the stage so review informs approval, rejection or deferral rather than occurring only after implementation starts, and preserve the baseline by keeping the approved schedule and the current forecast so reviewers can see what changed. Check dependencies, because a task off the current critical path can become critical after a change consumes float.
Check shared resources as well, since a specialist booked on another project may make a nominal two-day task take longer. Check supplier lead time, because materials, external approval or subcontractor availability can drive the real date, and check customer prerequisites, since a date depends on when the customer supplies data, access or approval and the condition should be stated.
Review downstream work, as testing, training and handover may need extension even if build work is quick. Check constraints, because a contractual milestone or regulatory window may be fixed, requiring an alternate plan or formal change, and show alternatives, since parallel work, phased release and reduced scope have different cost and risk.
Avoid false precision, as a schedule estimate with unresolved design should show a range and assumptions, and record the reviewer, since planning lead and delivery owner may need to sign off under project governance. Keep customer authority in view, because an internal schedule proposal does not change a contracted delivery date without agreement.
Define the numerator as decisions with a valid review, including documented no-impact decisions, and the denominator as eligible decisions, not only the ones ultimately approved, while pending requests awaiting resource or vendor input remain visible rather than classified no impact. Handle overlapping changes by comparing against a consistent forecast version when two requests can affect the same task, track replan since an approved change may require an updated baseline and communication to affected teams, and separate execution, because a reviewed schedule can still slip and later performance is compared separately.
Watch time zones, since a date-only deadline for teams across countries can become ambiguous at handover, check emergency work, since urgent safety changes can use a controlled exception with retrospective documentation, not a silent bypass, and audit a sample by tracing one request to dependency analysis, decision, revised forecast and customer communication. Test near-term milestones, because a change that does not alter final completion can still delay a customer demo or permit review, preserve decision context so that a faster path using overtime identifies its cost and safety implications, record accepted assumptions such as a customer's data arriving by Tuesday, and use the rate to make schedule consequences visible before commitments are changed.
In practice
Real-world examples.
Example
A proposed feature adds two days of work and four days of testing on the critical path; both are documented. The decision-maker sees that the final milestone moves by six days before approving.
Example
A change uses spare capacity with no milestone effect, supported by the resource and dependency review. The no-impact conclusion counts as a valid review because the reasoning is recorded.
Example
Two overlapping requests rely on the same engineer, so the schedule assessment tests their combined demand. Reviewing each one alone would have shown spare capacity that does not exist.
Formula
Calculation
Illustrative rate = eligible change decisions with valid schedule impact review / all eligible change decisions in the cohort x 100. Show pending and emergency-path cases separately.
Worked example. A fictional project office records 24 eligible change decisions in a quarter. Eighteen have a documented review of dependencies, resources and milestones, four were approved through the emergency path with retrospective documentation still due, and two have no review.
- Rate = 18 / 24 x 100 = 75%.
- The four emergency cases are reported separately until their documentation is complete, rather than being counted as reviewed or ignored.Case study
Seen in the real world.
This entirely fictional case follows Delta Projects. A customer requested a new report, and the team estimated two build days. A schedule review found it required a shared tester who was unavailable until after a milestone. The lead presented the actual date options for approved decision before changing the plan. The case does not authorize a real contract date change.
Watch out
Common mistakes.
- Equating task effort with impact on the overall schedule.
- Changing an internal due date without customer agreement where required.
- Ignoring shared resources and testing downstream.
Questions
People also ask.
Can a change have no schedule effect?
Yes, if the dependency and resource review supports it.
Does impact review approve a new date?
No. Contract and project authorities must approve the change.
Is this the same as change-order cycle time?
No. One measures review coverage, the other elapsed change implementation time.
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