PROJECT Management explored

Traditional PROJECT in a box method templates have had a defined structure and set of templates which are inserted into the navigation structure for the main body of a project and another set for a stage.  Both the project and stage elements are often personalised for the customer organisation and for larger projects multiple stages added to support the delivery of complex deliverables.

The nature of projects is that different stages address different types of activities and as such have varied processes and documentation requirements and users have addressed this in the past by tailoring each stage once it is created from the template.  The new multi-stage method templates allow a user to define any number of different stage types as part of the method template.  Obviously the overall method template process structure remains the same but different documents can be displayed and different guidance given to users with each stage type.

The uses for this capability are widespread and here are the main two that Beta users have been highlighting:

Delivery stages -Templating different documents for different types of stage i.e. a desk study/research stage as opposed to a software development stage as opposed to a testing stage or a stage used to purchase a standard product or system off the shelf via competitive tender.  Having a library of these stages available as part of the Method Template allows the organisation to further guide its project teams and encourage the following of best practice.

Gates, Checkpoints and Reviews - setting up Review Stages so that standard documentation for a review (or a range of different review types) could be inserted into a project when the review was to be undertaken.  Having a review process added to the overall method template structure would enable the review checklists, agendas guidance notes etc to all be merged with the key project or programme documentation in a quick and helpful manner.  Any number of reviews could be added as and when required and each review would pull through the 'current' documentation so even long running projects could take advantage of the approach.

This capability will be open to administrators as part of their method management capability to implement as they wish using an updated Method Manager tool putting even more methodology control into the hands the organisation.  We will be assisting customers to turn their ideas into practice as required and may then decide to introduce some standard stage types or reviews into our popular prescaled PRINCE2 methods and DSDM Atern.