Project Management Business Documents: In this module, you will learn about Project
Management Business Documents - Project Business Case, Project Benefits
Management Plan, Project Charter and Project Management Plan and Project
Success Measures.
# What is Project Management Business Documents?
The project sponsor is generally accountable for the
development and maintenance of the project business case document whereas the
project manager is responsible for providing suggestions and oversight to keep
the project management business documents in alignment with one another and
with objectives of the organization.
There are two documents called business case & benefits
management plan that are interdependent and iteratively created and maintained
throughout the project life cycle. The project manager needs to ensure that the
project management approach captures the intent of business documents.
Project managers should appropriately tailor the prominent
project management documents for their projects.
Few common Business documents are:
1.
Project Business Case
The project business case reveals to us why the business
organization is attempting the project. It also provides the justification of
the project and need assessment is performed before business case.
In other words, the main purpose of a business case is to comprehend
the business need for the project. It also provides vision to decide whether
the investment in the project is worthwhile.
It is a documented economic feasibility study used to
establish the validity of the benefits of a selected component. It is usually accomplished
by business analyst and includes the business need as well as cost-benefit
analysis.
This document is used throughout the project life cycle. It
helps measure the project success at the time of completion of the project
against the project objectives. The business case may be used before the project
initiation and may result in a go/no-go decision for the project.
PMI states the business case is made because of one or more of
the following:
A business
case documents may contain the following elements:
- Description of business need for the project stating how project aligns with organization’s strategic vision. This also includes identification for scope and stakeholders affected.
- A recommended solution to pursue in the project like Constraints, assumptions, risks, and dependencies for the potential options and Success measures.
- Description of expected result of each alternative solution.
- Evaluation statement describing the plan for measuring benefits the project will deliver which includes any ongoing operational aspects of the recommended option.
- Situational Analysis which includes identification of organizational goals, strategies, objectives, root cause of the problem, know risks, success factors etc.
- Cost-benefit analysis
2. Project Benefits Management Plan
Benefits management plan describes how the benefits of the project will
be delivered and when they will be delivered. Examples of benefits may include
increasing the sales of a business with new or improved products, reducing
business cost implementing automation process, increase employee satisfaction,
increase awareness about product etc.
The documented explanation defining the processes for creating,
maximizing, and sustaining the benefits provided by a project and
describes the mechanisms that should be in place to measure those benefits.
A project benefit is defined as an outcome of actions, behaviors,
products, services, or results that provide value to the sponsoring
organization as well as to the project’s intended beneficiaries. Development of
the benefits management plan begins early in the project life cycle of the
project.
It is designed to make sure that the benefits of
the project are made permanent, even though the project itself is a temporary
one. Here are the key elements of the benefits that is provided by Project
benefits management plan:
- Target benefits – what is the expected tangible and intangible value of the benefits to be gained from project
- Strategic alignment – how to do the benefits align to the business strategies of the organization
- Timeframe for realizing benefits - short-term, benefits by phase, long-term, and ongoing
- Benefits owner – Who is having the accountability to monitor, record, and report realized benefits throughout the timeframe
- Metrics – direct and indirect measures to show benefits realized
- Assumptions - factors expected to be in place or to be in evidence for benefits to be realized
- Risks – what are the associated risks for realization of benefits
The
benefits management plan will be reviewed regularly throughout the project to
ensure that the declared benefits are still on track for delivery.
Development
and maintenance of the project benefits management plan is an iterative
activity. This document complements the business case, project charter, and
project management plan.
The
project manager works with the sponsor to ensure that the project charter,
project management plan, and the benefits management plan remain in alignment
throughout the life cycle of the project.
3. Project
Charter and Project Management Plan
A. Project
Charter
The project
charter is issued by the project sponsor that formally authorizes the existence
of a project. It provides the project manager with the authority to apply organizational
resources to project activities.
The project
team uses the project charter as a starting point for initial project planning.
The project charter documents the project success criteria, the approval
requirements and who will sign off on the project.
The type and amount of information in the
project charter varies depending on the complexity of the project. Project
charter should define the high-level information about the project.
Elements of
project charters may include Project purpose, Measurable project objectives and
related success criteria, High-level requirements, High-level project
description, boundaries and key deliverable, Overall project risk, Summary
milestone schedule, approved financial resources, Key stakeholder list, Project
approval requirements (i.e., what constitutes success, who decides the project
is successful, who signs off on the project), Project exit criteria (i.e., what
are the conditions to be met in order to close or to cancel the project or
phase), Assigned project manager, responsibility, and authority level, Name and
authority of the sponsor or other person authorizing the project charter
B. Project
Management Plan
The project
management plan describes how the project will be executed, monitored and
controlled. Project management plan is managed by the project manager.
Project
management plan components include:
Subsidiary
management plans:
Scope
management plan - Establishes how the scope will be defined, developed,
monitored, controlled, and validated.
Requirements
management plan - Establishes how the requirements will be analyzed,
documented, and managed.
Schedule
management plan - Establishes the criteria and the activities for
developing, monitoring, and controlling the schedule.
Cost
management plan - Establishes how the costs will be planned, structured, and
controlled.
Quality
management plan - Establishes how an organization´s quality policies,
methodologies, and standards will be implemented in the project.
Resource
management plan - Provides guidance on how project resources should be
categorized, allocated, managed, and released.
Communications
management plan - Establishes how, when, and by whom information about the
project will be administered and disseminated.
Risk
management plan - Establishes how the risk management activities will be
structured and performed.
Procurement
management plan - Establishes how the project team will acquire goods and
services from outside of the performing organization.
Stakeholder
engagement plan- Establishes how stakeholders will be engaged in project
decisions and execution, according to their needs, interests, and impact.
Baselines:
Scope
baseline - Approved version of a scope statement, work breakdown structure
(WBS), and its associated WBS dictionary, which is used as a basis for
comparison.
Schedule
baseline - Approved version of the schedule model that is used as a basis
for comparison to the actual results.
Cost
baseline - Approved version of the time-phased project budget that is used as a
basis for comparison to the actual results.
4. Project
Success Measures
Project
success measures describes the success parameters of a project. One of the most
common challenges in project management is determining whether a project is
successful or not. Earlier cost or profitability were the primary factors, but
success could mean user experience. Therefore, each project should describe the
success parameters of a project.
Recently,
practitioners and scholars have determined that project success should also be
measured with consideration toward achievement of the project objectives.
But
traditionally, the project management metrics of time, cost, scope, and quality
have been the most important factors in defining the success of a project.
Project
success may include additional criteria linked to the organizational strategy
and to the delivery of business results.
These
project objectives are:
- Meeting financial measures as well as nonfinancial objectives documented in the business case. These financial measures can be Net present value (NPV), Return on investment (ROI), Internal rate of return (IRR), Payback period (PBP) and Benefit-cost ratio (BCR)
- Meeting organizational strategy, goals, and objectives
- Completing the project benefits management plan
- Contract terms and conditions fulfilment
- Stakeholder satisfaction with achieving agreed-upon quality of delivery
- Acceptable customer/end-user adoption
- Achieving other agreed-upon success measures
The chance
for project success greatly increases when the business alignment for a project
is constant because the project remains aligned with the strategic direction of
the organization.
Conclusion
Most hopefully, you
would like this information, and this is more informative for you.
The information
provided above about Project management business documents is very much important to keep in mind for every Project
manager in an organization.
Share your
views/questions about this script in the comment box below which would be
highly appreciated and of course, you can also contact me on my email id: sdeepak222@gmail.com.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thank you for taking time reading this
article.
Does managing business documents not imply any handling or storaging in the cloud? At least that's what I was expecting before reading this article and also what I've read here.
Reply