My year in 2013

2013 has been a successful year.  It has been a good year in both my personal life and my working life.  I worked for two large corporate banking clients, had the biggest turnover for my consulting company, I passed the PMP-RMP exam and have seen both my children continue to grow into pleasant little creatures and are both excelling at school and extra-curricular activities.

MoSCoW

This is a short article to explain the fundamentals of the MoSCoW concepts.  I have been using RAD (Rapid Application Development) for many years, while being a Lotus Notes developer.  

Rapid Application Development does not mean lazy programming or rushed projects, but is a methodology that allows the Project Manager to cut out the "fluff" in projects and applications and to develop the right product, suited to the environment it is designed to work in. 

The 80/20 Pareto Rule means that a few (20 percent) are vital and many(80 percent) are trivial.  The concept of MoSCoW, it to concentrate on the vital deliverables and save the trivial to the end, or cut them all together.

Must haves - The "M" of MoSCoW, is for the priorities, the tasks that must be delivered, otherwise the project will fail.  For example, if building a house, these would be the walls and roof.

Should haves - The "S" of MoSCoW, is for the secondary priorities, the tasks that need to make the product complete and without them, the product will be functional, but not as functional as it should be.  For example, if building a house, these would be the plumbing, insulation, electrics, windows, flooring, fixtures and fittings.

Could haves - The "C" of MoSCoW, is for the additional tasks that would produce the best product possible.  For example, if building a house, this could mean the addition of a swimming pool.

Won't haves - The "W" of MoSCoW, is for the tasks that will not be completed.  If the project had all the time and money in the world, these tasks may eventually be completed, but they are superfluous to the final Product and therefore will not be delivered.  For example, if building a house, this would be the Helicopter pad.

As I said, this is a very short article, but a useful one, I hope.

Project Time

Time is part of the Project Management Golden Triangle.  I have blogged about the Golden Triangle before, but the concept is that you have Time, Scope and Quality, as three sides to a triangle and they all impact each other.  If you extend one side of the triangle, one or both of the other two sides will be impacted.

Time is an important aspect of Project Management.  People who understand scheduling will understand how simple and how complicated time planning can be.  On larger projects, the project plan will be controlling many different work streams in parallel and the Project Manager needs to understand the impact of time on each of the work streams and resources. 

Introduction to Change

Part of the overall project governance is the Change Control.  This can refer to changes in the scope of the project, the budget, the Schedule, the services provided or the products the project produces.  Change control needs to be in place to ensure that the project is delivered on time, to budget and delivers the required product.  Change control ensure that any change introduced to the project is defined.

Risk Management Plan

The Risk Management Plan is one document of many that combine to make the Project Management Plan, in my view.  The Project Management Plan is a set of documents that tell you how the project will be managed in terms of scope, cost, quality, change, resource, risks and much more.

The Risk Management Plan defines how risks will be controlled within the project.  It begins with the identification and then defines the action plan to deal with each type of risk.  The Risk Management Plan does not identify individual risks, but is a structure for dealing with risks.

Weekly Reports

Part of being a good Project Manager is being a good communicator.  A good communicator can convey information both orally and in writing.  One of the key communications is a weekly status report.  This report can become an historic archive of the way that the project is progressing and can allow all stakeholders to see where you are against your schedule and budget and see what the major risks and issues are.

I have a template that I use each week, so that the stake holders can see the progress easily.  This report is produced on Friday afternoon and distributed to the required stakeholders.  I then place this report into a folder within my project site on SharePoint so that anyone can see the report.  The target of this report is to be a single printed page, as any more may take too long for a senior stakeholder to read.  I try to make the report graphical, so at a glance you can see which areas require attention.

When a Project becomes a Program

A Project is a temporary endeavour undertaken to create a unique product, service or result.  This is the definition from the PMBoK guide from the PMI.  A project is not a permanent fixture, including resources, budgets and teams, it is only in place to produce the final product.  A project has a defined end and can be stopped, if the end is not going to be achieved or is no longer a business requirement.

A program is a set of related projects which are managed in a coordinated way to obtain benefits not available from managing the Projects individually.  Programs will contain projects, but Projects may not necessarily be contained within a Program.