Projects are all about organization. There are too many moving parts and if you don’t have them figured out, you’re going to miss something important. I’ve used the template before, primarily based on the Rita approach, to make sure I was thinking about each of the key items in a project as I went through it. There are items that aren’t needed with any project. The key was finding the one or two items along the way I had missed.
Initiation
- Identify Stakeholders
- Develop the Statement of Work
- Understand the Business Case
- Assess Project Feasibility
- Uncover Initial Requirements and Assumptions
- Determine Company Culture and Existing Systems
- Collect Processes and Procedures
- Divide Large Projects up
- Create Measureable Objectives
Planning
- Determine how you will plan for each knowledge area
- Scope
- How will scope be defined, validated, and controlled
- How Scope Statement and WBS will be created
- How deliverables will be accepted
- How changes will be handled
- Requirements
- How requirements will be planned, tracked, reported
- Configuration management – How requirement changes will be initiated, analyzed, tracked, and approved
- How requirements will be prioritized
- What will be included in Traceability Matrix
- Time
- How the schedule will be created/managed
- What tools or processes are used
- How progress will be measured
- How to control the schedule and manage variances
- Who should be involved
- Cost
- Who will be involved in estimating costs
- How will we get the estimates, how close do they need to be
- How will costs be controlled
- Quality
- What are the standards, practices, or requirements to ensure the quality of the product
- Who will be involved with planning
- How will quality be conducted
- Will benchmarking be used
- How will tests be conducted
- What will be tested
- Human Resources
- Roles and Responsibilities
- Communications
- Who needs to know
- What do they need to know
- When/How Communicate
- Risk
- Methodology: Approaches, Tools, and data used to perform risk management
- Roles and Responsibilities of those involved
- How much time will be spent on risk
- When risk management will be performed through the process
- Risk Tolerances
- How Risk will be categorized
- Types: External, Internal, Technical, Unforeseeable
- Sources: Schedule, Cost, Quality, Scope, Resources, Customer Satisfaction
- Procurement
- What types of contracts will be used
- How procurement documents will be handled
- Who will be involved
- Risk Management
- How estimates will be gathered
- Constraints or assumptions that could affect procurements
- How Make/Buy Decisions will be handled
- How lead time should be handled
- Stakeholder
- Engagement Levels
- Relationships between Stakeholders
- Communication Requirements
- Scope
- Determine detailed requirements
- Create project scope statement
- Determine any needed procurements
- Determine planning team
- Create WBS and WBS Dictionary
- Create Activity List
- Create Network Diagram
- Estimate Resource Requirements
- Estimate Time and Cost
- Determine Critical Path
- Develop Schedule
- Develop Budget
- Determine Quality Standards, Processes, and Metrics
- Create Process Improvement Plan
- Determine all Roles and Responsibilities
- Plan Communications and Stakeholder Engagement
- Perform Risk Identification and Planning
- Go Back – Iterations
- Finalize Procurement Documents
- Create Change Management Plan
- Finalize “How to Execute and Control” on all Management Plans
- Develop Realistic Final PM Plan and Performance Measurement Baseline
- Gain Formal Approval of the Plan
- Hold Kickoff Meeting
Execution
- Final Pieces
- Acquire Final team
- Select Vendors
- Follow the Plan
- Execute the Work According to Plan
- Produce Deliverables
- Gather Work Performance Data
- Follow Processes
- Release Resources as Work is Completed
- Use Issue Logs
- Manage the team
- Hold Meetings
- Evaluate Team and Individual Performance
- Facilitate Conflict Resolution
- Hold Team Building Activities
- Give Recognition and Rewards
- Mange Communication and Stakeholders
- Report on Project Performance
- Send and Receive Information, and Solicit Feedback
- Manage Stakeholder Engagement and Expectations
- Quality
- Continuously Improve
- Perform Quality Audits
- Determine Whether Processes are Correct and Effective (Quality Assurance)
- Change Management
- Request Changes
- Implement Only Approved Changes
Monitor and Control
- Monitor
- Measure Performance Against the Baseline
- Measure Performance Against the other metrics
- Analyze and Evaluate Performance
- Gain Acceptance of Deliverables
- Create Forecasts
- Monitor Stake Holder Engagement
- Manage Reserves
- Perform Risk Assessments and Audits
- Update the Project Plan and Project Documents
- Control
- Determine if Variances Need Action
- Take Action to Control the Project
- Influence Factors that Cause Change
- Manage Configuration
- Perform Quality Control
- Control Procurements
- Change Management
- Request Changes
- Perform Integrated Change Control
- Approve or Reject Changes
- Inform Stake Holders of the Results of Change Requests
Complete Final Performance Reporting
- Complete Procurement Closure
- Gather Final Lessons Learned and Update Knowledge Base
- Complete Financial Closure
- Gain Final Acceptance of the Product
- Hand off Completed Product
- Index and Archive Records
- Confirm Work is Done to Requirements
- Solicit Feedback from the Customer about the Project