Impact Management
Impact Management is the overall process of anticipating and managing circumstances that may adversely affect a program in terms of scope, cost, benefits, and/or schedule. Alternatively, it is the process required to manage expectations, to govern project scope and to prudently protect scarce financial and human resources. The disciplined use of Impact Management will yield the following benefits:
- Achieve early recognition of program impacts
- Gain rapid consensus on resolutions
- Develop common ownership of project scope and completion dates
Impact Management consists of three distinct and separate but related functions:
- Risk Management
- Issue / Problem Management
- Change Management
There are heavy correlations between these three functions; risk management, issue (problem) management, and change management. A risk is identified through risk management. During risk management, there is the potential for an event to occur that has the potential to cause a negative impact to the program. When one of those potential events becomes reality, the program needs to begin issue (problem) management. The resolution and fixes to these issues, then typically yield changes to the program, which requires the program toexec.