Initiation

Yes

No

ü  Was the initiation stage formally authorised?

ü  Were the Authorizing initiation agenda items covered?

ü  Is there a Project Initiation Document (PID)?

ü  Is the PID produced to Project Management standards?

ü  Are the project objectives stated?

ü  Have project constraints been identified?

ü  Is project scope stated?

ü  Are reporting procedures, contents and frequency defined?

ü  Is there a communication plan covering both inward and outward communication needs?

ü  Does the PID contain the project plan?

ü  Is there a Business case in the PID?

ü  Are the reasons for the project given?

ü  Is there an investment appraisal or cost/benefit analysis?

ü  Was the PID quality reviewed?

ü  Did the project Board formally approve the PID?

ü  Was the project board committed to the process?

ü  Was initiation done before work on specialist products began?

ü  Was there an initiation en stage assessment (Authorizing a Project)?

ü  Was the next stage plan presented at the initiation end stage assessment?

ü  Were issues affecting the PID managed effectively?

ü  Was formal approval to proceed to the next stage given?  

Organization

ü  Is there a project Board?

ü  Are any limits to the authority of the project Board documented?

ü  Is it clear to whom the project Board reports?

ü  Which member of the project board reports to senior management?

ü  Does the senior user adequately represent all user areas?

ü  Were project board members contributing fully to all exception assessments and end stage assessments?

ü  Are project board members carrying out their other project duties?

ü  Is there a project Manager?

ü  Have project assurance roles been agreed?

ü  Has any role for Project support been clarified?

ü  Does each person have job description?

ü  Has each person agreed/signed their job descriptions?

ü  Was the organization agreed by the end of starting up a project (SU)?

ü  Is the documented version of the organization correct?

ü  Is the role of suppliers clearly defined?

ü  Have any changes to the management team been recorded?

ü  Has the project Board received training for its roles?

ü  Was the team Manager Role used effectively?

ü  Are job descriptions agreed with any late appointments?  

Business case

ü  Is there a business case?

ü  Are the reasons for the project clearly defined and valid?

ü  Is there an investment appraisal?

ü  Are figures based on defined items that can be measured?

ü  Is the business case passed down from pre-project work?

ü  If, so have the figures been checked out?

ü  Are costs based on the project plan or some other figures?

ü  Have ‘before’ measurements been taken in order to assist comparison in the post-project review?

ü  Is the business case updated and reviewed for each end stage assessment?

ü  Who measures the impact of changes on the Business case?

ü  Is the impact of changes on the Business case assessed?

ü  Is the project is part of a program, is the program’s Business case fully reflected in the project?

RISK

ü  Is there a risk log?

ü  Is it being kept up to date?

ü  Are risks to each plan identified, analysed and acted upon?

ü  Is a formal procedure for the management of risk in use?

ü  Is risk assessment part of each end stage assessment?

ü  Was the major risk entered in the business Case?

ü  Have risk ‘owners’ been identified?

ü  Are risks monitored on a sufficiently regular basis?

ü  Is risk assessment part of each major change request assessment?

ü  Were risk probability and impact assessed?

ü  Have proactive risk actions been taken where necessary?

ü  Was there any needed contingency plan prepared?

ü  Were all obvious risks covered?

ü  Were the risks and countermeasures discussed with the project Board?

ü  Were appropriate countermeasures taken?

ü  Were risks reassessed when plans were changed?

Project Plan

ü  Is there a project plan?

ü  Does the project plan comply with project management requirement?

ü  Are planning assumptions stated?

ü  Does the project plan show the stage divisions?

ü  Has each risk to the plan been added to the Risk Log?

ü  If an end date was imposed, is it realistic?

ü  Was the project plan quality reviewed?

ü  Were the assurance roles involved in the review?

ü  Was the producer-based planning technique used?

ü  Is there a checklist of key products?

ü  Are there product descriptions fro each major product?

ü  Are the Product Descriptions being to the standard project Management format?

ü  Are Product Descriptions being reviewed before the start of building those products? 

Stage Plan

ü  Is there a stage plan for each management stage ?

ü  Do stage plans comply with the project management standards?

ü  Is stage tolerance defined?

ü  Are stage controls identified and suitable?

ü  Are planning assumptions stated?

ü  Are stage plan risks identified and included in the risk log?

ü  Are stage plans consistent with the project plan?

ü  Is next stage planning carried out correctly in each stage

ü  Are the quality of stage plans reviewed?

ü  As the current stage plan approved?

ü  Is product-based planning used in stage planning?

ü  Is there a product checklist for each stage?

ü  Are there product descriptions fro each product on the checklist?

ü  Are the product descriptions to standard?

ü  Are product descriptions prior to the start of the build process?

ü  Were the team Managers/team members involved in planning?

ü  Did the assurance roles review the draft plan?

ü  Did project assurance add quality checks to the draft stage plan?

ü  Did project Assurance and names to these quality checks?

ü  For project management activities?

ü  Is time allowed for the analysis of project issues?

ü  Has a reasonable rate of staff effectiveness been chosen?

ü  Is the method of quality checking identified for each product?

Control

ü  Are checkpoints held at the frequency stated in the plan?

ü  What actual progress information is captured?

ü  Are actual used to update the stage plan regularly?

ü  Is the update frequency commensurate with the plan size?

ü  Is there a record of work package authorization and return?

ü  Are estimates collected to complete any further information?

ü  Are product checks kept up to date?

ü  Are checkpoint reports produced?

ü  Are highlight reports produced when stated in the plan?

ü  Are highlight reports produced to the agreed standard?

ü  Is the stage plan regularly checked against tolerances?

ü  Are exception reports used when tolerances are threatened?

ü  Were any required exception plans produced?

ü  Were exception assessments hold to approve any Exception plans?

ü  Can stages be completed within the agreed tolerance levels?

ü  Are end stage assessments carried out at the end of each stage

ü  Is there any end stage report for each stage?

ü  Is the end stage report to standard?

ü  Is end stage assessment documentation circulated prior to the meeting?

ü  Is the end stage report accepted at the end stage assessment?

ü  Are unfinished products included in the next stage plan?

ü  Does the project Board sign off stages and give approval to proceed?

ü  Do relevant project members attend end stage assessment?

ü  Are end stage assessment actions recorded?

Quality

Must scope and document the below;

ü  Has the customer specified quality expectations?

ü  Is there a project quality plan?

ü  Will the project quality plan achieve the customer’s expectations?

ü  Does the project Quality plan point at specific quality procedures?

ü  Are quality responsibilities defined in the project quality plan?

ü  Are there stage quality plan?

ü  Are individuals and quality methods identified in the stage quality plans?

ü  Is there a quality log?

ü  Is the quality log up to date?

ü  Does the team maintain one central Quality Log?

ü  Does the project Manager get sufficient feedback to ensure quality is ok?

ü  Are project assurance roles sufficient involved in quality checking?

ü  Do the quality file and quality log match?

ü  Is any external quality assurance function happy with its involvement?

Quality Review

ü  Has training in quality reviews been given to attendees?

ü  Have the chairperson and reviewers been identified at stage or team planning time?

ü  Are products sent out before quality review meetings?

ü  Are products descriptions and blank question lists sent with the products?

ü  Are products reviewed against their product Description?

ü  Are products reviewed by the means stated in the Product Description?

ü  Is enough time planned for preparation, review and follow-up?

ü  Are question lists completed prior to quality reviews?

ü  Is there an agenda for each quality review meeting?

ü  Do reviewers unable to attend quality reviews send question lists?

ü  Do quality reviews generate follow-up action lists?

ü  Are corrections signed off by the reviewers?

ü  Are product authors always present?

ü  Are second reviews carried out if needed?

ü  Is there a review result for each review? 

Change Control

ü  Is there a documented procedure for change control?

ü  Is that procedure the same as stated in the project plan?

ü  Are project issues recorded?

ü  Is there an issue log?

ü  Are project issues assessed regularity?

ü  Is the impact of project issues on the Business case ass essed?

ü  Is the impact of project Issues on the risk log assessed?

ü  Do all project issues action?

ü  If the impact of a project issue exceeds tolerance, is it escalated to the project Board?

ü  Are plans updated to incorporate agreed changes?

ü  Is a distinction made between off-Specification and Request for change?

Configuration Management

ü  Is there a formal configuration management method in use?

ü  Are products controlled once submitted to configuration management?

ü  Are products uniquely identified?

ü  Are relationships between products identified?

ü  Are products identified as complete?

ü  Do products have version identifiers?

ü  Are product records up to date?

ü  Is the accuracy of the product records checked regularly?

ü  Are all old versions preserved?

ü  Is it easy to retrieve old versions?

ü  Are the configuration management records in line with the support requirements?

ü  Is the configurations Librarian role well defined, allocated and agreed?

ü  Are new records created during product-based planning?

Project filing

ü  Is there a recognizable filing system?

ü  Is its structure documented and available?

ü  Does it cover management and specialist products?

ü  Does it cater for multiple versions for example, of plans?

ü  Does the filing system provide an audit trail?

ü  Is it easy to find things in the filing systems?

ü  Is the filing kept up to date?

ü  Is filing responsibility clearly defined in a job description? 

Initiate:

ü  Establish Project Parameters

ü Build business case

ü  Need or opportunity

ü  Mission and purpose

ü  Scope and deliverables

ü  Objectives, assumptions, and constraints

ü  Timelines and major milestones

ü  Budget, costs, benefits, payback period, and ROI

ü  Specifications, quality, and standards

ü  Major risks and mitigation strategies

ü  Project team (organizational structure and skill sets), consultants, and vendors

Define:

ü  Target customer (external or internal) and sponsor (funding source)

ü  Scope and budget

ü  Objectives (clear and realistic)

ü  Strategy and tactics

ü  Stakeholders, subject matter experts (SMEs) contributors, vendors, and partners

ü  Methodology.

ü  Organization (projectised, matrix, or functional)

ü  Core team members (select, evaluate, and monitor)

Project Selection (Alignment with Business Value)

Evaluate business cases:

ü  SORT and categorize per established criteria

ü  SCREEN for alignment, priority, feasibility, resources, and policies

ü  EVALUATE in terms of business need, strategy, budget, and technology

ü  SELECT projects based on business goals, needs and value. Address competitive advantage and affordability issues. Consider “staged delivery” for complex projects

ü  MONITOR projects and review quarterly. RECALIBRATE portfolio when necessary

Return on investment (ROI), payback period, benefit cost ratio, present value, net present value, and internal rate of return (IRR) are the financial criteria often used. Murder boards, peer review, scoring and economic models are also used to pick projects (portfolio management)

Stakeholder Analysis - Moods, Attitudes, Beliefs, Expectations, Perceptions

ü  Analyse stakeholder requirements:

ü  Identify and prioritize stakeholders

ü  Determine stakeholder objectives, needs, and expectations

ü  Determine stakeholder roles, contributions, and risk tolerances

ü  Determine stakeholder knowledge, skills, and commitment to project

ü  Assess impact of each stakeholder in terms of project objectives

ü  Develop a strategy to manage stakeholders’ point of view (POV)

ü  Tip: Incorporate stakeholders’ requirements and review periodically. Resolve customer and stakeholders conflicts in favour of the customer.

Risk Assessment - focusing on mitigating risk and fully documenting all risks during scope

Types:

·         Business

·         Technical

Sources:

ü  External (market shifts, regulatory, government, and environmental)

ü  Internal (schedule, costs, quality, scope, and resources)

ü  Technical (changes in technology)

ü  Unforeseeable

Tolerances:

ü High

ü Medium

ü Low

Methodology:

ü  Identify

ü  Evaluate (probability, impact, and alternative strategies)

ü  Document and respond (avoidance, mitigation, acceptance, or deflection)

ü  Monitor and control (contingency planning, reserves, and insurance)

Assess:

ü  Project team (technology and methodology skill level, business knowledge, team

ü  composition, location, and environment)

ü  User involvement and knowledge

ü  Organizational impact and priority

ü  Senior management commitment. READ “motivation and intent”

ü  Project attributes (development technology and methodology, schedule constraints, project

ü  priority and novelty, and project development cycle and implementation)

ü  Requirements stability

ü  Criticality, size, and complexity

ü  Document risks, take action, and monitor daily (ongoing process)

Develop staff potential:

ü  Focus on performance, achieving results, and professional growth

ü  Provide penalty-free relationship

ü  Be a positive, supportive, and candid resource

ü  Encourage questions, critical thinking, and self education

ü  Develop strengths (knowledge, skills, and abilities)

ü  Assist in creating an individualized action plan

Meet with a mentor or project champion on a regular basis – talk outside your team, educate yourself on team and leadership skills.

STAGE (Plan, Schedule and Document)

Generate:

ü  Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) (top tier should reflect product life cycle)

ü  Define WBS activity levels (Units, Deliverables, and Units)

ü  Review WBS with project team (and stakeholders)

ü  Finalize WBS elements

WBS should capture the entire scope and provide a framework for planning and

estimating. On large and complex projects, also generate a WBS Dictionary

Estimate:

ü  Assess planning factors

ü  Evaluate personal/team experience

ü  Review and select estimating methods

ü  Investigate historical data and methodologies

ü  Size (lines of code, function point, or feature set)

ü  Estimate effort (man-months or FTEs)

ü  Document assumptions and estimates

ü  Schedule (calendar months)

ü  Estimates review and sign off

Prepare:

ü  Project charter (signed by senior management)

ü  Roles and responsibilities matrix

Consider project size and complexity, product availability and need, and level (quality) of customer involvement

Kick-off:

ü  Assign team members

ü  Hold kick-off meeting (agenda, location, props, and minutes)

Buy-in:

ü  Brief project team and contributors

ü  Obtain commitments from management, team, stakeholders, SMEs, and contributors

Development tools:

ü  Identify

ü  Document and install

ü  Train team members

Evaluation and Metrics protocol:

ü  Review project objectives and scope

ü  Identify critical success factors (CSF)

ü  Identify metrics

ü  Balance and prioritize metrics

ü  Set targets (knowledge and achievement goals)

ü  Cost and resource data

ü  Number of changes and defects

ü  Process conformance

ü  Productivity

ü  Code changes and growth

ü  Requirements changes

ü  Use cases (completed, projected, integrated, and tested)

ü  Schedule (development phases, milestones, activities, total effort, estimate time to complete, establish baseline, variances, and deliverables)

ü  Issues

ü  Code builds

ü  Risks

ü  Quality metrics

ü  Lines of code

ü  Functioned points

Apply metrics to control, evaluate, and improve performance

Performance Metrics

ü  Clearly identify purpose (if at program level define mission)

ü  Develop qualitative requirements for metrics to guide input/output measures

ü  Develop primary metrics (indicators and measurements)

ü  Implement project metrics

Performance metrics improve the decision making process and resource allocation. The criteria for metrics is organizationally acceptable, customer-driven, meaningful, timely, credible, responsibility-linked, balanced, cost effective, compatible, comparable, and SIMPLE

Document Activities

Design all activities to the project, follow set guidelines and rules, get approvals

Organize:

ü  Project notebook

ü  Server space (activate backup procedures)

ü  Web space (activate backup procedures)

Clarify:

ü  Project objectives after preliminary requirements document is available

ü  Assumptions and dependencies

ü  Requirements (scrub)

ü  Development activities are traceable to requirements

ü  Project specifications (generate)

Describe:

ü  Entry and exit conditions

ü  Review and approval criteria

ü  External project dependencies

Prepare Schedule(s)

ü  Top-down and bottom-up process:

ü  Identify scheduling tool

ü  Identify deliverables and milestones

ü  Conduct planning meetings

ü  Get project team inputs

ü  Scrub data inputs

ü  Generate schedule(s)

ü  Review schedule with team

ü  Run schedule and update

ü  Obtain schedule approval

ü  Distribute approved schedule(s)

Prepare summary schedule for management reviews and micro schedules for

day-to-day activities by phase. Schedule complex components first.  Understand who the target audience is and exactly what is it that they want to review and in what format.

Notes:

1. Recognize planning for what it is...A RESULTS-ORIENTED PROCESS

2. Stick to the Plan – Do Not Deviate! READ “Ship Date!”

3. Prepare multiple schedules and test each one, try to use worst case scenario, try to fail the project during planning stage.

4. ALL activities should support GOAL and the Organisations methodology

5. Prepare proper documented, tested and proven to work estimates and metrics to test.

6. Prepare ONLY plans that can be MONITORED

7. Plans identify activities, but the TEAM MAKES THEM HAPPEN – autonomous.

Summary of Best Practices

Establish Key Processes

When – How – Who

Initiate Start:

Project planning

ü  Requirements, issue, and risk management

ü  Tracking and oversight

ü  Configuration/change management

ü  Quality assurance

ü  Outsource management (consultants and vendors)

Enforce standard and any project integration procedures. Key results areas

are customer, business unit, department, stakeholders, and team members.

EXECUTE (Control )

Drive to Successful Completion

Power sources:

ü  Formal

ü  Reward

ü  Penalty

ü  Expert

ü  Referent

Prioritize time/cost/quality triangle:

·         Time

·         Cost

·         Quality

Conduct regular deliverable walk-throughs and peer, technical, and code reviews. Implement checkpoints, standards, structured methodologies and processes to ensure consistent format and adequate information are generated.  Test thoroughly and retest

Control Scope:

ü  Gain product understanding and customer agreement

ü  Baseline customer’s requirements

ü  External changes (marketing, user driven, or environment)

ü  Internal changes (no gold-plating - meet requirements only)

ü  Impact analysis (budget, schedule, and risk)

ü  “Fix it in the next release” (establish sustaining engineering bin)

ü  Negotiate changes

ü  Clear go/no agreement

Motivate team:

ü  Vision and identity

ü  Inspire, ENGAGE, and challenge

ü  Manage team as a team

ü  Communicate, get feedback, and follow-up

ü  Build mutual trust (honesty, openness, fairness, and RESPECT)

ü  Delegate tasks to team (EMPOWER)

ü  Make team responsible for actions, not individuals

ü  Maintain productive environment

Tasks

Daily:

ü  Focus on the deliverables

ü  STOP to evaluate progress (variances in deeds and words)

ü  Avoid scope CREEP and making MAJOR mistakes

ü  Lead and solicit FEEDBACK (emphasize “collaborative” effort)

ü  THINK about relevant issues, risks, and concerns

ü  Log and ACT on issues and risks (mitigate)

ü  Troubleshoot (problem solve), and/or escalate, but resolve quickly

ü  MONITOR activities, follow-up, and recalibrate

ü  Strive for win-win relationships and focus on BUSINESS VALUE

Three words “responsive issue resolution”! Keep sponsor and stakeholders in the loop.

Code build daily (heartbeat of project) during test phase

Weekly:

ü  Conduct project review (focus on status, issues, and next steps)

ü  Check for project drift (actual progress/work outstanding/gap analysis)

ü  Take corrective action(s) (identify issues, recalibrate project, and document)

ü  Communicate upcoming events (lookahead schedule with milestones/tasks)

ü  Share knowledge, skills, and lessons learned

ü  Review metrics, productivity, schedule, cost, and quality

ü  Ensure key processes and practices are followed

ü  Monitor consultants, vendors, partners, and subcontractors

ü  Generate status report (performance reviews, key issues, top 10 risks, jeopardy process (OK, Alert, and Jeopardy), variance and trend analysis, earned value analysis, and communicate state of project)

ü  Maintain “stakeholder” involvement (critical)

Conduct business/technical reviews and archive deliverables, after each phase.  Promptly make staff changes to improve team performance, but discuss with senior staff members first

Conflict Resolution Modes

ü  Collaborate (problem solve)

ü  Compromise (sharing)

ü  Accommodate (smoothing)

ü  Withdrawal (avoiding)

ü  Competing (forcing)

Reduce conflict through EFFECTIVE communication. Schedule, priorities, resources, technical opinions, procedures, cost, and personality are the usual sources of conflict

Use the Urgent vs Non Urgent – Important vs Non Important  Matrix

Contract  Outsource Management

ü  Outsource planning  (procurement resources and plan, market conditions, constraints,

ü  assumptions, SOWs, expert judgment, evaluation criteria, and documents)

ü  Contract solicitation (qualified vendor list, bidders conference, and Request for Proposal

ü  Source selection (procurement policies, proposal screening, estimates,

ü  evaluation criteria, and contract negotiation)

ü  Contract administration (contract, schedule, performance reporting, reviews, results,

ü  change requests, invoices, payments, correspondence, and contract changes)

ü  Closure (documentation, audits, acceptance and closure)

Carefully select vendors and partners…hold to the same standards of performance as project team, internal consultants, SMEs, and contributors

CLOSE       

Exit criteria:

ü  Execute system test plans successfully

ü  Finalize acceptance test plan (ATP)

ü  Complete user’s guide and system description

ü  Finish user training

ü  Complete configuration audits

ü  Customer accepts final build per ATP

ü  Complete deployment

ü  Hold post mortem – Focus on lessons learned and review scope, objectives, and deliverables from business and technical perspectives

ü  Outline tangible and intangible project benefits

ü  Evaluate costs (planned/actual)

ü  Review all information relevant to future development

ü  Make recommendations

ü  Archive project documentation and source code for later reference and reuse

ü  Done!

ü  Celebrate your achievements

Project closure activities are about learning, future development efforts, improvement of processes, and key result areas. No finger pointing! Act on recommendations

9 Essential Tips

REPEAT – Think Top Down, Plan Bottom UP.

Observe, focus, and lead

Engage the customer

Closely monitor expectations

Take care of the team

Coordinate meticulously

Collaborate

Listen

Embrace change- look for opportunities and take corrective action