PROJECT Management explored

It is an age old problem that anyone who has been involved in managing a project will have grappled with.  It is essential to manage the documentation associated with the delivery of the project, especially in these days of assurance, audit, litigation etc but it has to be appropriate...  Documents produced by the project team for the project are straightforward and a system like PROJECT in a box helps no end with these, but what to do about all the documentation from the world outside the project which the team uses, relies on......even bases itself upon?

Let us assume that the team are using an externally owned technical standard (say an ISO standard) as part of a product or work package specification....here we have a dilemma.  If the project team bring a copy of the technical standard into the project documentation set and use it, what happens if the master copy is revised?  They would then be using a potentially invalid document.

All versions of PROJECT in a box even the free PRINCE2 software Community Edition provides users with the perfect way of overcoming this using shortcuts.  Instead of saving the reference document itself in the project library you save the link to it.  This can be on one of two forms either a URL Shortcut or a Windows shortcut, both of which just store an address and when clicked on take the user to the destination and display what is there.

In practice the URL shortcut tends to be used more widely as it can easily link to content inside and outside the organisation just storing the browser address of the location where he reference material is found.  URL shortcuts are used for web articles, document download pages, web based applications, discussions threads and many other sources of information.

Potentially much more useful though are windows shortcuts.  Although only within the organisation, they can be used to link to individual files, folders or whole network drives pointing a project team to standards, policies and working instructions which change frequently as well as to launch applications consistently in standard desktop environments.

Both shortcut types can be built into your personalised method templates so that a new project is linked out automatically to appropriate guidance, standards and materials in a consistent and efficient manner.  This is invaluable for an organisation running a formal PSO or PMO and wanting to deliver consistent activities without a big overhead of governance activity to achieve it.  In particular the assurance tools in the full PROJECT in a box system can tell an administrator when, by whom and from which process this links were used.

This mix of approaches and tools is invaluable for the lone PM or the largest of corporate change programmes or portfolios alike and is typical of the practical experience led approach PROJECT in a box take to deliver the capabilities which make projects easier to deliver.