Scope & change control
Stop extra work disappearing into delivery.
Not every movement from plan is bad delivery. Often the client simply asked for more. Aria keeps the agreed scope on the record and gives extra work a deliberate route — so it is charged, exchanged, absorbed or declined on purpose rather than absorbed invisibly.
Scope of record
The scope agreed with the client stays attached to the project, alongside the original document it came from. That gives every later conversation a baseline: this is what was agreed, and this is what is now being asked for.
Requests that change that baseline become change requests rather than quiet additions to a task list.
On the record
- Original and contractual scope
- Source documents kept with the project
- Change requests with their history
- Decisions and approvals, with who and when
Assessed impact
- Effort
- Timeline
- Cost
- Client fee where one applies
A five-stage workflow
Change requests move through Understand, Decide, Review, Approve and Done. The stages exist so the commercial decision happens before the work starts, not after someone notices the budget.
At the Decide stage there are four honest options: charge for the work, exchange it for something already in scope, absorb it deliberately, or decline it. Absorbing is a legitimate choice — it just should be a choice.
Stages
- Understand — what is being asked and why
- Decide — charge, exchange, absorb or decline
- Review — check the impact and the wording
- Approve — internal approval, then the client's
- Done — the project plan and commercial baseline update
Approved changes update the project
Once a change is approved, the plan and the commercial baseline move with it, so forecast cost and margin reflect the new agreement rather than the original one.
The trail stays: what was requested, what it was assessed to cost, what was decided, who approved it and when.
Where this connects
See it against your own work
A short walkthrough using a project you recognise beats any feature list.