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Project Management Spectrum and Templates

Sep-92009

This is the third in a series of five short posts on the work and project management spectrum.

Much of the initiatives in organizations are delivered through projects of some shape or other. The question again is - what is the required shape?!

Many of the projects are "unstructured" in that they are coordinated through meetings, emails, phone calls and through many conversations. There is no formal defined approach to managing the projects.
At the next level of formality you still find that the projects are not tracked in any common or transparent manner. There is no common approach - as each project is trusted to deliver. At this level however the problems / exceptions will be logged and tracked. So at this "management by exception" level only the problems are tracked in any formal way and not the tasks, etc..
At the next level, "loosely structured", you typically find that the project is being run with a few processes (e.g. a set of tasks and a set of issues and perhaps a project statement/charter).
At the next "semi structured" level you will typically find that the project has a lifecycle of some shape - perhaps something as simple as Plan-Control-Collaborate lifecycle - but a lifecycle nonetheless.
And at the "fully structured" level you will find that the project is being managed with a full lifecycle and also with risks, issues, change requests, etc.
At the "Enterprise Structured" level you will find all the foregoing and probably more advanced project management techniques (e.g. earned value) are being used to manage the projects also.

Which is the correct approach to use? How much management is needed for the projects? It of course depends on the amount of management you believe you need. Indeed in many organizations they use more than one level. pmPoint has built enhanced SharePoint templates that mimics these differing levels as can be seen in the diagram below and as can be seen on this page: http://www.brightwork.com/pmpoint/project_management_templates.htm

Project Management Spectrum and Templates