Whether you are creating a project management/delivery methodology based on the PMBOK, Prince2, RUP or other processes or whether you have five phases or nine phases; consider the following as a general guide to what needs to be done in a general order or timing. I have created many methodologies and use the following as a map to success.
Initiating Phase
Phase Description
Initiating is the process to define, analyze, prioritize, and approve a project before work can begin. In some companies, the Initiating phase may not even include the PM or project team unless they are used as subject matter experts by the Governance Committee during analysis.
Each new project begins with the creation of a Business Case, a Project Summary, and the completion of the Project Prioritization Scoring Sheet (let me know if you need to see samples)
Once the project is approved, it is assigned a project manager and scheduled against all other active projects using resource and budget constraints.
As the project moves to the next phase, a planning team is organized and the project is kicked off.
Success Criteria
- Are the Business Case and Project Prioritization worksheet in alignment with the desired business goals?
- Have all stakeholders been identified and considered?
- Have business and technology risks been identified?
- Has “success” been well defined in the Scope and Project Objectives and do all stakeholders agree on how to measure it?
- Have we considered people and process, technology, and training impacts?
- Has a configuration management approach been defined for all project deliverables?
- Have end user scheduling constraints been considered for the schedule and deployment
Major Activities
(P) Submit project “idea” in a Project Summary for review
(G) Create and submit Business Plan
(G) Complete Prioritization Sheet
(G) Select or reject project
(G) Identify Project Sponsor
(G) Begin Project Charter definition
(P) Stage project to begin in FY calendar
Deliverables (See Appendix A. – Document Flow)
(PM) Project Summary
(G or B) Business Case
(G or B) Prioritization Sheet
(All) Meeting Reports for all meetings
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Key: G=Governance, B=Business Group, P=Project Manager, T=Project Team, A=Business/Functional Analyst, Pr=Process, Te=Test Team, Tr=Training,
Q=Quality Assurance/Quality Control, M=Maintenance, (All) Everyone involved |
Planning and Design Phase
Phase Description
The Planning and Design phase provides the groundwork for the rest of the project and will prepare the project for implementation.
The project team is formed and roles and responsibilities are assigned. The team gathers the detailed requirements providing them with a detailed description of the business capability or technical solution to be implemented. Requirements will answer the question “what” before the team decides exactly “how” to approach the solution. Details are identified and documented for the chosen solution and may be business (i.e. process workflows) or technical (i.e. an application, hardware integration, or new network) in nature.
The Project Schedule and a number of plans (see deliverables) are created to guide the project team through implementation and testing of the project solution in preparation for deployment according to the gathered requirements.
The designs will progress from a high-level (conceptual) to very detailed (physical and logical) and should include functional and operational information.
Success Criteria
- Does every team member and stakeholder clearly understand the expectations and responsibilities of their roles?
- Have we conducted all interviews needed to ensure requirements are comprehensive and clear?
- Have we captured business, technical and operational requirements?
- Have requirements been validated:
- For completeness?
- For compatibility with legacy systems, processes, and corporate standards?
- For regulatory constraints?
- Are the requirements documented in a standard format?
- Have the requirements been mapped to use cases/stores à test cases à test plans?
- Has the test group created the test plan before the completion of this phase?
- Have we considered future growth and performance?
- Does the project schedule have a baseline and is it published?
- Have business and technology risks been identified and management strategies agreed upon?
- Have we established a process for tracking and managing change requests?
- Has the project budget and tracking process been established?
- Are we able to trace design and test deliverables back to their original source requirements and can we account for all of our requirements in corresponding designs?
- Have we conducted peer reviews to ensure our designs are comprehensive and clear?
- Have all related systems or projects been examined for compatibility or overlap?
- Have we validated the use of architectural standards for data structures, application interfaces, security, infrastructure, business processes, etc.?
- Have we designed in operational features like runtime metrics, audit trails, common error reporting or notification?
- Do designs address maintainability, serviceability, security, recoverability, installation, audit, etc?
- Do designs facilitate the ability to operate in “test mode”?
- Has the training plan and materials been started?
- Has a transition plan been considered for transition to maintenance at the end of the project? Maintenance should be included during the project planning and implementation to ensure their understanding of the maintenance needs, training, and any other transition issues.
- Have you considered Business Recovery or Business Continuity Planning for your project output?
Major Activities
(P/T) Review all available project documents from previous phase.
(P/T) Review any relevant documents from prior, successful projects.
(P) Meet with Project Sponsor to discuss Roles and Responsibilities.
(P/T) Meet with Project team to discuss Roles and Responsibilities.
(P) Complete Project Charter and Project Summary if needed.
(A) Conduct Requirements interviews and complete requirements documents.
o Map requirements to Use Case, Test Cases, and Test Plans to ensure everything has been covered.
(P/T) Create Project Schedule and baseline before publishing to PM tool.
(P/T) Complete Project Planning including all documents
(All) Complete Project Designs.
(P/M) Start Transition and Deployment Plans
(P/Tr) Start Training Plan and deliverables
(P/M) Start Business Recovery/Business Continuity Plan
(P/G) Conduct Planning and Design Review and gain permission to proceed to Implementing phase.
Deliverables (See Appendix A. – Document Flow)
(P) Project Charter
(P) Project Summary
(P) Request for Proposal (RFP) - optional
(P) Request for Information (RFI) - optional
(A) Requirements Documents (Business, Functional, and Operational Specifications)
- Business and System Process documents
(P) Meeting Reports for all meetings
(P) Communications Plan
(P) Risk Assessment/Management Plan (consider the project schedule for risk items)
(P/T) Project Schedule
- Project Budget and Cost Plan
- Project Resource Plan
(P) Roles & Responsibilities
(P) Project RAIDCBT Log (Risk, Action Item, Issues, Decisions, Change, Business
Processes, Training Needed)
(P) Status Reports
(P) Change Control Form and Process
(P) Project Management Plan (Optional, but a best practice)
- Goals
- Objectives/Scope
- Approach
- Assumptions/Constraint
- High-Level Risks
- Timeline/Milestones
- Staffing Plan/Org Chart/Roles and Responsibilities
- Communications Plan/Contact List
- Cost Plan/Budget
- Quality Management Plan
- Change Management Plan
- Issues Management Plan
- Procure Plan
(Te) Test Plan
(P/All) Planning and Design Checkpoint Review form
Begin work on:
(Tr) Training Plan
(P/M) Transition Plan
(M) Maintenance Plan and SLAs
(P/M) Start Business Recovery/Business Continuity Plan
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Key: G=Governance, B=Business Group, P=Project Manager, T=Project Team, A=Business/Functional Analyst, Pr=Process, Te=Test Team, Tr=Training,
Q=Quality Assurance/Quality Control, M=Maintenance, (All) Everyone involved |
Implementing and Testing Phase
Phase Description
During the Implementing phase, we implement what was designed according to the project requirements following the project plans and the project schedule.
The Implementing phase concentrates on the creation of new (or revision of existing) processes, application solutions, and/or technology infrastructure components necessary to sustain business capability.
Testing really starts during the Planning and Design Phase as the requirements are outlined and move through the progression of Use Cases, Test Cases, and Test Plans to ensure the functionality is included in the finished product. Testing validates the behavior of the solution and it’s “fitness” for deployment. Testing should progress from the validation of business or technical requirements through customer acceptance and operational readiness.
Success Criteria
- Have we conducted peer reviews of code and/or processes?
- Have development standards been consistently applied?
- Has unit testing been performed in a structured way? Are there documented approaches or results?
- Is all source code, process and system documentation under version control?
- Is there an administrator managing promotion to test?
- Is there a single list of defects to be fixed?
- Has training material been created for users of the system, for operational support, for online help, and/or for the Help desk?
- Have test requirements, cases and procedures been completed and reviewed for readiness?
- Have data naming standards been followed and validated?
- Is there a master list to trace tests back to designs and requirements?
- Is there an agreed upon test coverage goal?
- Have all stakeholders been included in at least one type of testing? (Including operations, developers, business subject matter experts, business sponsors, technology partners, maintenance and operations team, end users, etc.)
- Have “destructive” tests been designed to stress the system, or have tests only been designed to “prove that the system works”?
- Has a transition plan been created and tested? Does it include “roll-back” options?
- Has the plan for moving the solution into maintenance (Transition) been validated by all stakeholders?
- Has Business Recovery/Business Continuity Plan been finalized?
Major Activities
(P) Execute project plans and project schedule
(P) Report status
(P) Keep project team and stakeholders informed
(All) Build, Test (Run Test Cases for the following tests: Unit, Systems Integration, User Acceptance, End-to-End, Cycle, Regression, Backup & Recovery, and Stress), and Modify solution as needed
(P) Implementation planning is completed and approved.
(T) Implementation tasks are executed
(P) Conduct Implementing Phase Review and gain permission to deploy solution
(P/M) Finalize Transition Plan
(P/M) Finalize Business Recovery/Business Continuity Plan
Deliverables (See Appendix A. – Document Flow)
(P) Meeting Reports
(P) Status Reports
(P) Updated Project Schedule
(P) Updated Project Budget
(P) Updated Resource Utilization Plan
(P) Updated RAIDCBT Log
(T) Updated Business Process
(P) Project/Implementation Metrics
(Te) Updated Test Plan
(Te) Pilot and Test Results
(Te) Updated Test Checklist/Approval
(P) Completed Deployment/Transition Management Plan
(All) Solution Documentation
(Tr) Training Plan
(Tr) Training Deliverables
(M) Business Staffing Plan
(M) Maintenance Plan and SLAs finalized
(P) Project/Implementation Metrics
(P) Implementing Checkpoint Review form
(P/M) Updated Transition/Roll-back Plan
(P/M) Final Business Recovery/Business Continuity Plan
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Key: G=Governance, B=Business Group, P=Project Manager, T=Project Team, A=Business/Functional Analyst, Pr=Process, Te=Test Team, Tr=Training,
Q=Quality Assurance/Quality Control, M=Maintenance, (All) Everyone involved |
Closing Phase
Phase Description
The Closing Phase provides the opportunity to assess the effectiveness of the project processes, the delivered solution, and formally close the project.
Lessons learned and best practices are captured to be used during continuous process improvement sessions and as a reference for future projects and administrative closure takes place to ensure all project accounting is completed. Project resources are formally released after the PM has had a chance to provide feedback to the resource manager for each resource.
Benefits realization and customer satisfaction are handled after the project close by Project Governance.
Success Criteria
- Are measurements for assessing benefit realization understood and techniques in place for tracking them?
- Have sufficient operations or maintenance staff been committed to long-term support requirements?
- Have requirements, defect logs, and other documentation been provided to the support team?
- Are there guidelines for differentiating between routine maintenance and enhancement project work?
- Has the project manager provided performance feedback to the resource manager for all project team members?
- Has all project accounting been completed and all bills paid?
Major Activities
(All) Complete Post-Project Process Debriefing
(All) Complete Post-Project Results Review
(P) Ensure all project billing is complete
(P) Write up and present project performance feedback for all team members and provide to their resource managers
(All) Celebrate!
Ongoing by Governance
(G) Quantify Benefits Realization
(G) Measure Customer Satisfaction
Deliverables (See Appendix A. – Document Flow)
(P) Post-Project Process Meeting Report
(P) Post-Project Review Meeting Report
(P) Lessons Learned
(P) Project performance feedback for all team members
(P) Project Close Checklist/Approval
(G) Customer Satisfaction Survey
(G) Benefits Realization (ROI) metrics
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Key: G=Governance, B=Business Group, P=Project Manager, T=Project Team, A=Business/Functional Analyst, Pr=Process, Te=Test Team, Tr=Training,
Q=Quality Assurance/Quality Control, M=Maintenance, (All) Everyone involved |