Scope change approval

This playbook manages one proposed scope change to an active customer engagement, from initial request intake through baseline comparison, delivery and commercial impact evaluation, formal human approvals, and verified commitment updates. One run evaluates a single change request against the current contractual baseline and delivery schedule. It does not handle full contract renegotiations, new master services agreements, or indefinite project management. Tool interactions with document repositories, contract platforms, or delivery tracking tools rely on configured API connections, falling back to structured export summaries and manual confirmation if integrations are unavailable.

• Retrieve the submitted change request and extract the requested modifications to deliverables, acceptance criteria, deadlines, and budget. Compare these details against the active scope baseline recorded in the project repository or agreement records. Identify specifically where the request expands existing deliverables, introduces new milestones, modifies dependencies, or requests accelerated timelines.
• Evaluate technical and operational feasibility with delivery records. Compare the additional effort against current team capacity, skill requirements, and existing delivery commitments. If the request lacks necessary specifications, technical constraints, or clear acceptance criteria required to estimate effort accurately, pause the evaluation to gather the missing details.
• Information request. Present the specific missing scope details or technical requirements to the project lead or customer counterpart. Request the exact specifications, delivery dependencies, or acceptance criteria needed to complete the impact assessment. Resume assessment only after the necessary details are provided; if the information cannot be obtained, preserve the active baseline, assign the held case to the engagement manager for follow-up review, and keep the request on hold.
• Formulate the change assessment options, detailing the proposed adjustments to delivery milestones, staffing, timeline, and associated fees. Calculate the direct schedule and cost variance relative to the current agreed baseline without assuming client budget approval or internal resource availability. If the assessment indicates that the proposed changes would breach contractual delivery dates or exceed allocated capacity without feasible mitigations, escalate the conflict.
• Exception. Report the schedule conflict, capacity deficit, or deliverable infeasibility to the engagement director and delivery lead. Detail the impacted milestones, resource shortfall, and alternative timeline or scope trade-offs. Proceed only when the leadership team selects an approved trade-off option, rescopes the request, or instructs the case to be declined.
• Assemble the formal scope amendment packet, incorporating the baseline reference, detailed scope variance, revised delivery schedule, price adjustment, and payment terms. Present the packet for commercial and delivery authorization prior to client submission.
• Approval. Present the complete scope change packet, including proposed pricing adjustments, revised completion dates, and operational trade-offs, to the commercial owner and delivery lead. Require explicit sign-off from both roles before issuing the amendment to the client. If either owner rejects the proposal or requests alterations, adjust the assessment or record the rejection and hold the existing scope without modification.
• Transmit the approved amendment to the client authorized signatory through the designated agreement platform, preserving the approved recipient, message content, and verified customer signing authority. If transmission confirmation is uncertain or fails, inspect the contract platform for an existing draft or dispatched document before attempting any automatic or manual retry; if status remains unverified, hold the run for the commercial owner. Monitor for formal signature or written acceptance under agreed contract procedures. Do not adjust operational delivery tasks or contractual commitments based on informal discussions or preliminary verbal assent.
• If the client requests revisions or material scope or commercial terms change during negotiations, route the updated terms back for explicit renewed approvals from affected commercial and delivery leads before reissuing the amendment.
• Approval. Present the client-executed amendment or written formal sign-off to the engagement manager to confirm contractual validity and verify that the executing party holds recognized customer signing authority. Require explicit confirmation that the executed terms match the internally approved proposal. If the client declines the amendment or negotiations terminate, record the case as declined with the original baseline preserved.
• Upon verified client execution, update delivery management records, milestone deadlines, and assigned task scopes in the work tracking system to reflect the newly agreed commitments. Before retrying any uncertain or failed tracker update, inspect existing boards and tasks to detect partial writes; if inspection cannot confirm system state, hold the case for delivery lead verification. Read back the updated records to confirm that milestone dates, scope descriptions, and resource assignments match the executed amendment exactly.
• Confirm completion of the scope change by verifying that both the contractual repository and active delivery boards reflect identical revised baselines and that all required delivery records are updated. If delivery system updates fail or cannot be confirmed programmatically, assign manual verification to the delivery lead and hold the run until confirmation is recorded. If the change was rejected or withdrawn at any stage, record the decision, retain the original baseline, and move the case to held or declined.
• In a fictional example, a retail software client requested an additional payment gateway integration two weeks prior to user acceptance testing. The agent compared the request against the statement of work in Notion and identified a three-week schedule delay and forty hours of additional engineering effort. Because the initial request lacked webhook security specifications, the agent issued an information request to the client technical lead, assigning the engagement manager to follow up if unanswered. After specifications were provided, the delivery lead flagged a milestone collision, prompting an exception review where the engagement director agreed to shift the final launch date by two weeks with an added professional services fee. The commercial lead and delivery lead approved the amendment, which was then transmitted to the client designated signing officer in PandaDoc. When the client requested a minor payment milestone modification, renewed commercial approval was obtained before the client signed. The agent inspected Asana before applying milestone updates, read back the verified dates, and confirmed the updated baseline.
• Completion requires verified execution of the approved amendment by authorized signatories and confirmed read-back of all required updated delivery milestones in the project tracking system, or explicit recording of a declined or withdrawn decision with the original baseline left undisturbed.