During a longer international project, it is possible that the project will have its direction changed due to internal business needs or outside factors. In traditional project management, there is no organized way to deal with this. With the lack of a method, many project leaders just change the project plan and keep going. They do this after every change. After a few changes, it becomes very difficult, if not impossible, to track changes and find out what happened. The baseline schedule becomes meaningless. People lose confidence in the project. The team morale plummets.

The use of templates can help shield the project plan from changes.

Unless the project changes dramatically, project changes can be accommodated within the template.

This provides for greater stability. It also reveals the flexibility inherent in using templates.

Here is another guideline. Do not respond to each change separately. Instead, bundle several changes into a new release of the project plan. This is the same technique employed with software and engineering releases of upgraded products.