Project Processes and Trends

Process Considerations

Looking beyond your company's portfolio of projects—products and services that it works so hard on—reflect on those core processes needed to support overall objectives. Beyond being passionate and committed in your work, there must be a fundamental focus on having the right processes in place. There will always be opportunities for you as project or development manager to tailor processes; therefore, you must understand how and when processes come into play. Someone once said, "We don't use standard business processes; we have unconventional ways of recharging our entire business, which totally support our project and development methodologies."

On any project you undertake, you may encounter situations from which you need to remove certain processes because they are not in your project scope. For example, you don't need to do financials on your project (on many projects, project managers don't touch finances). In this case, you would drop the financial process and use the rest. Or, you are using a Waterfall methodology on a project and your client insists on document management (i.e., version control, distribution). In this case, you need to add this process to the project scope. Project methodologies:

• Demonstrate the ability to get the job done.

• Meet certain criteria set by auditing or certification groups monitoring the company.

• Allow the company to prioritize resources accordingly, based on the project's progress.

What Core Processes Are Available?

Core processes are typically those key processes that transform "what the company does" into valuable outputs for its client. Without these key process areas in place, projects would struggle to meet their schedules.

Processes	Area Addressed	Resource Needed
Change control	Configuration management	Configuration manager
Procurement	Purchasing of equipment	Procurement manager
Issue and risk	Problems on the project	Project manager
Documentation	Document management	Configuration clerk
Estimation	Project cost forecasting	Cost estimator
Communication	Project communications	Project manager
Recruitment	Hiring new project resources	Human resources/personnel
Marketing and sales	Marketing and sales	Marketing and sales manager
Project framework	Actual project methodology	Project manager
Finance	Budgeting and invoicing	Financial manager
Audit	Project	Quality assurance
Quality assurance	Project quality	Quality assurance manager
Training	Training	Trainer
Product development	Developing/manufacturing	Development manager

Decide which processes you need on the project. You could use either all of them or only a selected few. However, they need to be available and ready to execute when a project manager wants them. Companies that are ISO certified or regulated by groups such as the FDA or CMM often have their processes in place, which implies that these companies have defined key processes across the organization and their staff are familiar with them.

Project management processes have been around for years, but have never been fully integrated into the project management "space" or ecosystem. Recently, processes have been reemphasized through changing technology and commercially available methodologies that necessitate leveraging all processes, which were possibly never fully used before. However, organizations have been slow to adopt them because most off-the-shelf processes are too generic to work effectively.

Key factors for defining processes

Provides guidelines for efficient development of quality systems and solutions.

Reduces risk and increases predictability.

Captures and presents best practices.

Promotes a common vision and culture for the organization.

Provides a roadmap for applying tools and techniques.

Easy to understand and simple to use.

Project Methodology Processes

As discussed in earlier chapters, the necessity for having solid project processes in place remains undisputed. Some of these essential project processes are:

• Issue management process.

• Risk management process.

• Change control process.

• Procurement process.

• Planning process.

• Estimating process.

• Quality assurance process.

Issue Management Process

An issue is something that has happened that can threaten the success of your project. With issue management, you encounter typically four different scenarios:

• Unconscious issues (there, but unknown).

• Conscious issues (not publicly known, although discussed with the right people).

• Shared issues (shared but remain unresolved).

• Shared and resolved issues (the ideal scenario).

Change Control Process

When we speak about change control, then I have to address the whole issue of scope creep, both on the end user's side and on the developer's. The business plan (should) define the value that will result from the expenditure of money and resources. This value definition needs to be translated into specific measurable requirements that then become the functional specifications for the developers. Then the change management process can track the impact of new insights and understandings as the project matures without losing scope of what it was that was originally determined to have enough business value to warrant the project in the first place.

A change management process should control changes in any project environment affecting products or services being developed by the project team. A core change team must assess the impact of any proposed changes to gauge cost, schedule, documentation, and training, plus the change's impact on retooling implications. The change management process identifies, defines, evaluates, and approves these changes before any implementation. This configuration management process must be introduced to the project, through the implementation of five key formal processes for:

1. Submission and receipt of change requests.

2. Review and logging of change requests.

3. Determination of the feasibility of change requests.

4. Approval of change requests.

5. Implementation and closure of change requests

Submit Change Request

This process provides the ability for any member of the project team to submit a request for change to the project. The following procedures are completed:

• Change requestor identifies a requirement for change to any aspect of the project (e.g., scope, deliverables, time scales, organization).

• Change requestor completes a change request form (CRF) and distributes the form to the change manager. The CRF provides a summary of the change required, including the:

  • Change description.

  • Reasons for change (including business drivers).

  • Benefits of change.

  • Costs of change.

  • Impacts of change.

  • Supporting documentation.

Review Change Request

This process allows the change manager to review the CRF and determine whether a full feasibility study is required for the change approval group to assess the full impact of the change. The decision is based primarily on the:

• Number of change options presented.

• Complexity of the change options requested.

• Scale of the change solutions proposed.

The change manager opens a change request in the change log and records whether a change feasibility study is required.

Identify Change Feasibility

This process involves the completion of a full change feasibility study to ensure that all change options have been investigated and presented accordingly. The change feasibility study involves definition of the:

• Requirements.

• Options.

• Costs and benefits.

• Risks and issues.

• Impact.

• Recommendations and plan.