Managing Change Requests – This Is How I Do It With Can Do

Change Requests Are Part of Everyday Project Work – In Our Team Just as Much as With Our Clients

In many workshops or rollouts, the question sooner or later comes up:
“What’s the best way to manage CRs in Can Do?”

That’s why I’m sharing a hands-on look at how I manage change requests – based on my own experience as a project manager.
Which features do I use regularly?
What helps me keep an overview?
And how do I make sure that budget, resources, and timelines stay under control?

Budget Items for Change Requests

For each change request, I create a separate budget item in Can Do. This has two major advantages:

• I can immediately see the additional costs caused by the CR.

• I keep the original project budget clearly separated.

These CR-related budget figures are fully integrated into the project cost plan. I can analyze them by project, work package, or time period – providing an essential basis for controlling and informed decision-making within the project.

Figure 1: Editing Budget Items – Logging a Change Request

Identifying Deviations With Baselines

I rely heavily on baselines to make changes visible.
Before implementing a major change request, I save a project snapshot – and then compare:

• How does the timeline shift?

• What changes occur in resource allocation?

• How do the costs compare?

This way, I can immediately see the impact of a CR – both visually and in tabular form.
I use this regularly to assess deviations in a structured way and communicate them clearly.

Figure 2: Cost and Effort Comparison – Baseline vs. Change Caused by CR

Compare Current Plan With Baseline (Target vs. Actual Comparison)

The easiest way to display a visual and data-based comparison is within the Project Planner app. From the same menu, you can select the desired baseline from the list. Can Do will then load both project versions – the current plan and the selected baseline.

Figure 3: Target vs. Actual Comparison

In the chart, the baseline is displayed as small lines above the current planning elements. This allows deviations to be easily identified. When hovering the mouse over the small circles before and after the lines, a tooltip appears showing the comparison data.

Figure 4: Table View of Deviations

The table displays the most important deviations, such as changes in the start date.

The Burn-Down app shows the decreasing trend for effort and cost over the course of the project. It can also display a comparison with a baseline.

Figure 5: Burn-Down Chart

Documentation Directly on the Project Object

I document all key information related to a change request (CR) directly within the affected project, work package, or task:

• Justification for the CR

• CR number & approval status

• Responsible persons

• References to external sources (e.g., ticketing system, SharePoint, Confluence)

Can Do offers several options for this:

• Custom fields

• Description fields

• History with comments and change tracking

This ensures everything is clearly documented – transparent and easy to trace.

Analyzing & Reporting Change Requests

Using dashboards in Can Do – or via Power BI – I evaluate change requests across multiple projects based on:

• Root cause

• Status (requested, approved, implemented, etc.)

• Cost and budget impact

• Schedule changes

This is particularly helpful for organization-wide forecasting and KPI analysis.
It allows trends to be identified, decisions to be made with confidence, and project success to be managed more effectively.

Figure 6: Dashboard With Cost and Effort Overview for Change Requests

My Conclusion as a Project Manager

Change requests are part of the job – but they need to be managed properly.
Can Do provides exactly the tools I need to do that. No patchwork of Excel sheets, emails, and gut feeling – but a seamless solution for structured CR management:

✔ Dedicated budget items
✔ Unlimited baselines for reliable comparisons
✔ Detailed, configurable documentation – including external links
✔ Monitoring via dashboards and BI reports

This ensures that change requests are fully integrated into project management and controlling – transparent, measurable, and manageable.

For me as a project manager, this means:
👉 more clarity,
👉 better communication,
👉 and more stable project success – even when conditions change.