Living with the plan as changes occur

Let's explore how change requests can be received from the client and how we should handle them. Knowing how to recognize one as it happens and how to respond is very important for the consultants talking to the client. We might be on a call with some of the client's SMEs, talking over how a feature will work in NetSuite, and someone from the client team might chime in, saying "Yes, and we also need to be sure that we can also track (something you've never heard of)." A good consultant is a really good listener, and so mentioning a new tool they use, or process they follow, should always sound a little warning bell in your head. I've noticed this can happen at any stage in the project, even very late in the overall schedule, so there's no time when a consultant can let a phrase like this go unnoticed.

Instead, when a client drops something new into any conversation, it's always important to explore it...