Planning and workload tools
Event change impact comparator
A revised plan has landed on the table and the committee wants to see exactly what it changes before deciding.
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The short answer
The comparator lines up the baseline and the revised plan item by item and shows the difference in cost, duration, scope and owner. It then lists the items that depend on something that changed.
It does not recommend accepting or rejecting the change. A blank baseline is treated as unknown, not zero, so a missing figure cannot fake a saving or an increase.
What to enter
- One row per task or deliverable, with a short ID.
- Baseline and revised cost in ringgit, and baseline and revised duration in days. Leave a cell blank if you do not know it.
- Baseline and revised scope and owner role, as short text.
- Depends on: the IDs of items that must happen first, separated by commas.
How differences are labelled
Each difference is revised minus baseline. A negative cost difference is shown as a saving and a negative time difference as a reduction. A positive one is an increase.
If either side of a comparison is blank, the row is marked not comparable and left out of the totals. The warning lists the excluded items and how many were compared.
Affected dependencies
An item is affected when it depends, directly or through other items, on an item that changed in cost, time, scope or owner. The table shows which changed items each affected item waits for.
Only dependencies you list are followed. An item outside your list may still be affected, so read the table as a prompt to check, not a full answer.
Limits
Duration totals add up only if the items run one after another. Use the dependency mapper to see the real sequence.
The result is a comparison for the approval owner. Log the outcome in the decision log once someone with authority has decided.
Worked example · Fictional example
A fictional two-day forum
Fictional organisation and figures, to show the comparison.
A fictional association compares four items. Venue hire falls from RM 20,000 to RM 18,500, a saving of RM 1,500. The AV package rises from RM 8,000 to RM 9,200 and its duration falls from 5 to 4 days.
The registration desk has no baseline cost, so it is marked not comparable and left out of the total. The net cost total is a saving of RM 300 across the three comparable items. The registration desk is flagged as affected because it depends on the AV package.
Use this yourself
Change impact worksheet
Fill one row per item. Work out each difference as revised minus baseline and label it.
| Item | Baseline | Revised | Difference | Label (saving, increase, reduction, not comparable) | Items waiting on this |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total of comparable items only |
Handle it in-house, or bring in help?
Your team can usually handle this when
- A handful of items, with clear baselines and one revised plan.
- The approval owner only needs the differences laid out.
Outside planning help earns its fee when
- The baseline itself is disputed or incomplete.
- Many items depend on each other and the revised plan touches several workstreams.
- The committee needs the options costed and sequenced before a decision date.
Want the knock-on effects worked through?
A project lead can take the revised plan, map what depends on what, and set out the effect on cost, time and ownership for your committee to decide. Recommendations are put as options, and the decision remains with the approval owner.
Questions organisers ask
Does the tool recommend accepting the change?
No. It shows differences and affected items only. The decision belongs to the approval owner.
What if I do not have a baseline figure?
Leave it blank. The row is marked not comparable and excluded from totals, never counted as zero.
Why are only some items listed as affected?
Only the dependencies you enter are followed. Items you did not link may also be affected.
Related resources
Content record: Draft. Written from the cited sources and checked by automated rules; not yet independently reviewed.