My IT Management Philosophy has always been based on four key principals
which I have always considered to be independent of the current ‘flavour of the month’ in terms of IT development /project management methods:-
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Click this to download a FREE PRINCE 2 Product Description Template. This template is an example Product Description for a Project Initiation Document (PID).
The question I often get asked by IT Professionals some of whom are surprisingly PRINCE 2 accredited, is:-
What is a PRINCE 2 Product Description?To answer this question we need firstly to define what PRINCE 2 means by the term “Product”:-
Typically, a product is a self-contained project deliverable, which is either a document or a system (hardware/software)or component thereof.
The product description is, therefore, a description of a product intended to be produced and developed or obtained – even before it is planned – to ensure that the people involved in its production know:
• Why it is needed
• What it will look like
• From what sources it will be derived
• The Quality specification to which it must be built.
The Product Description is a control document. It is written as part of the planning process. It defines the deliverable, the standards to be used in its creation, and the quality criteria to be applied to ensure it is fit for purpose. Not only is this information essential for the Author, but the Product Description also forms the initial checklist for checking the quality of the finished product.
Extract from Managing Successful Projects with PRINCE 2 (CCTA)
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Most project managers are aware of UML, even if they haven’t used it themselves.
However, having worked as a Business Analyst on a number of ‘UML projects’ I believe that many Project Managers don’t really know how to use UML requirements gathering techniques to maximise the chances of a successful project.
I am going to try to help you understand some of the pitfalls and issues that are all too often encountered when setting up a UML based IT project.
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This Post explains with an example from Microsoft how many corporations believe that sacking staff and especially managers is the path to better IT project /programme success rates.
Friends know at their cost, not to get me on the subject of IT project failures when dinning out. My passion for this subject knows no bounds, having spent the best part of 20 years studying “The Madness” i.e. project failure rates of between 70% and 91% with projects cancellation rates of approximately 30% (Standish Group Report).
CHAOS Standish Group Report and other surveys suggest many reasons for such failure rates. However, the ability of these surveys to get to the heart of the problem heavily depends on who’s asking the questions. Obviously a survey questionnaire prepared by a “heavy-weight” IT programme manager is going to look very different to a survey set-up and designed by a university academic. The key thing to remember when designing questionnaires is that:-
“You always have to know what you don’t know, to ask the write questions. This depends on experience”.
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During the early part of my Project /Programme Management career I decided it was important to get some programme /project auditing experience. I have to tell you that trying to find a company actually wanting to independently check on the status of its projects /programmes of work was like trying to find someone to volunteer for open heart surgery. Nevertheless, I believed then as I do now, that to become a great project /programme manager one needs to donate at least 2 working weeks to auditing each year. How on earth can one mentor managers, lead with gravitas, define an organisations IT strategy if you have not spent time looking into other peoples work and seeing for oneself what works and what plainly does not ?
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