When the brief changes mid-way

This article is a skeleton — the content has to come from you

The change control procedure is a company decision. We are not inventing it: a wrong answer here is a contractual risk.

What needs answering

1. Up to what point is change free

Is there a point in the process up to which amendment is part of the service, and where does additional work begin? Tied to a stage, or to hours?

2. When does it affect the price

What scale of change warrants re-pricing? How is it charged: hourly, by stage fee, or as a new offer?

3. When does it affect the programme

Amending a closed stage affects several disciplines. By how much does the programme move, and how do we flag that in advance?

4. What cannot be undone

With prefabrication, change after manufacture starts is not a design question but a material cost. Where is that point in our process, and how do we signal it in advance?

5. How is it recorded

In writing, in an amended offer, by email? Who approves it?

What we already know, and belongs here

The design disciplines build on one another, so a late change affects more than one of them. The design programme · Coordination between disciplines.

With a prefabricated structure the design has to close before manufacture — after that, change turns the member made into scrap.

Change is cheapest at concept stage and dearest at detailed design. Concept design.

The point

The skeleton is here, the rule is missing. Answer the five points above and this becomes one page.