Project Pre-Check: The Stakeholder Practice for Successful Business and Technology Change

© Copyright 2007 R. Andrew Davison.

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Contents

TABLE OF FIGURES

PART I Introduction

1 HOW THIS BOOK IS ORGANIZED

2 WHO SHOULD READ THIS BOOK

3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

4 I’D LIKE TO HEAR FROM YOU!

PART II Overview

5 WHY PROJECTS FAIL

6 HOW PROJECT PRE-CHECK HELPS

7 BUILDING BLOCKS

7.1 Stakeholders

7.1.1 Sponsor

7.1.2 Change Agent

7.1.3 Target

7.1.4 Champion

7.1.5 Changes in Perspective

7.1.6 Stakeholder Guidelines

7.2 Project Pre-Check Processes

7.2.1 Diagnostic Process

7.2.2 Framing Process

7.2.3 Oversight Process

7.3 Decision Framework

7.3.1 Change Domain and Factors

7.3.2 Environment Domain and Factors

7.3.3 Assets Domain and Factors

7.4 Managing Decision Areas

7.4.1 Definitions: Best Practice and Decision Area

7.4.2 Mapping Best Practices to Decision Areas

7.4.3 Which Practice to Use

7.4.4 Using Decision Areas

7.4.5 The Decision Framework Value Added

8 USING PROJECT PRE-CHECK

8.1 Fast Start-For Active Projects

8.2 Optimum Value-For New Projects

8.3 Maximum Impact-For All Projects

8.4 Lead by Example-For All Projects

PART III

Project Pre-Check Processes

9 DIAGNOSTIC PROCESS

9.1 Engagement Stage

9.1.1 Input

9.1.2 Process 

9.1.3 Output 

9.2 Orientation Stage

9.2.1 Process 

9.2.2 Output 

9.3 Assessment Stage

9.3.1 Process 

9.3.2 Output 

9.4 Action Plan Stage

9.4.1 Input

9.4.2 Process 

9.4.3 Output 

10 FRAMING PROCESS

10.1 Discovery Stage

10.1.1 Input

10.1.2 Process 

10.1.3 Output 

10.2 Introduction Stage

10.2.1 Process 

10.2.2 Output 

10.3 Assignment Stage

10.3.1 Process 

10.3.2 Output 

10.4.1 The Framing Plan

10.4.1 Input

10.4.2 Process 

10.4.3 Output 

11 OVERSIGHT PROCESS

11.1 Relevancy Control Stage

11.1.1 Input

11.1.2 Process 

11.1.3 Output

11.2 Specification Control Stage

11.2.1 Input

11.2.2 Process 

11.2.3 Output

11.3 Change Control Stage

11.3.1 Input

11.3.2 Process

11.3.3 Output

11.4 Completion Stage

11.4.1 Input

11.4.2 Process 

11.4.3 Output 

12 MANAGING THE PROCESSES

12.1 Using with Other Standard Methods

PART IV

Decision Framework

13 CHANGE DOMAIN

13.1 Dimensions Factor

13.1.1 Burning Platform

13.1.2 Business Need or Opportunity

13.1.3 Business Goals and Objectives

13.1.4 Worth

13.1.5 Requirements

13.1.6 Benefits

13.1.7 Locations

13.1.8 Targets Dates

13.1.9 Phasing & Staging

13.1.10 Assumptions

13.1.11 Volumes, Mix, Peak Periods

13.2 Quality Factor

13.2.1 Authorization

13.2.2 Audit Trail

13.2.3 Correctness

13.2.4 Continuity of Processing

13.2.5 Service Levels

13.2.6 Security

13.2.7 Compliance

13.2.8 Ease of Use

13.2.9 Portability

13.2.10 Coupling

13.2.11 Scalability

13.2.12 Flexibility

13.2.13 Localizability

13.3 Investment Evaluation Factor

13.3.1 Economic Impact

13.3.2 Competitive Advantage

13.3.3 Strategic Fit

13.3.4 Competitive Risk

13.3.5 Project or Organizational Risk

13.4 Stakeholder Capability Factor

13.4.1 Roles and Responsibilities

13.4.2 Sponsor Commitment

13.4.3 Sponsor Communication

13.4.4 Sponsor Capability

13.4.5 Change Agent Commitment

13.4.6 Change Agent Communication

13.4.7 Change Agent Capability

13.4.8 Target Commitment

13.4.9 Target Communication

13.4.10 Target Capability

13.4.11 Target Skill Requirements

14 ENVIRONMENT DOMAIN

14.1 Business Plan Factor

14.1.1 Mission

14.1.2 Vision

14.1.3 Culture and Core Values

14.1.4 Strategies

14.1.5 Enterprise Priorities

14.1.6 Dependencies

14.1.7 Programs

14.1.8 Timing

14.2 Current State/Future State Factors

14.2.1 External Relationships

14.2.2 Products and Services

14.2.3 Processes and Functions

14.2.4 Interfaces

14.2.5 Information

14.2.6 Technology

14.2.7 Resources and Facilities

14.2.8 Organization

14.2.9 Inter-relationships among Decision Areas

15 ASSETS DOMAIN

15.1 Resources Factor

15.1.1 Skill & Capacity

15.1.2 Skill Development

15.1.3 Resource Procurement

15.1.4 Resource Contract Management

15.1.5 Team Formation

15.1.6 Performance Management

15.1.7 Succession Planning

15.2 Delivery Factor

15.2.1 Management of Change

15.2.2 Software Delivery

15.2.3 Technology Change

15.2.4 Quality Assurance

15.2.5 Prototyping

15.2.6 Partitioning

15.2.7 Time Boxing

15.2.8 Reuse

15.2.9 Project Close

15.3 Project Management Factor

15.3.1 Project Management Process

15.3.2 Organization

15.3.3 Estimating

15.3.4 Project Communication

15.3.5 Requirements Management

15.3.6 Risk Management

15.3.7 Issue Management

15.3.8 Change Control

15.3.9 Defect Tracking

15.3.10 Gating

15.4 Business Operations Factor

15.4.1 Budgeting and Cost Management

15.4.2 Compliance

15.4.3 Corporate Tracking and Reporting

15.4.4 Strategic Planning

15.4.5 Content Management

15.4.6 Business Continuity Planning

15.4.7 Contract Management

15.5 Security Administration Factor

15.5.1 Security Policy

15.5.2 Physical Security

15.5.3 Information Security

15.5.4 Human Resources Security

15.6 Technology Operations Factor

15.6.1 Service Desk

15.6.2 Change Management

15.6.3 System Administration

15.6.4 Print and Output Management

15.6.5 Technology Installation

15.6.6 Service Level Management

15.7 Infrastructure Factor

15.7.1 Client Capacity

15.7.2 Server Capacity

15.7.3 Network Capacity

16 PROJECT DOMAIN

16.1 Planning Factor

16.1.1 Business Alternatives

16.1.2 Technology Alternatives

16.1.3 Release Plan

16.1.4 Cost Estimates

16.1.5 Benefit Plan

16.1.6 Quality Plan

16.1.7 Resources and Facilities Plan

16.1.8 Contracts Plan

16.1.9 Communication Plan

16.1.10 Risk Plans

16.2 Organization Factor

16.2.1 Project Organization

16.2.2 Project Roles and Responsibilities:

16.2.3 Team Formation Plan

16.3 Control Factor

16.3.1 Release Plan Performance

16.3.2 Contracts Plan Performance

16.3.3 Risk Plan Performance

16.3.4 Change Tracking and Reporting

16.3.5 Issue Tracking and Reporting

16.3.6 Project Completion

16.4 Communication Factor

16.4.1 Monitor Updates

16.4.2 Monitor Feedback

APPENDICES

A. DECISION AREA SOURCES

B. ADDITIONAL SOURCES

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

NOTES

TABLE OF FIGURES 

Figure 1 - Project Pre-Check Building Blocks

Figure 2 - Stakeholder Roles

Figure 3 - Creating the Stakeholder Group

Figure 4 - Project Pre-Check Processes

Figure 5 - Using Project Pre-Check Processes

Figure 6 - Decision Framework Domains

Figure 7 - Decision Framework Domains & Factors

Figure 8 - Mapping Best Practices to Decision Areas

Figure 9 - Project Pre-Check Domains, Factors and Decision Areas

Figure 10 - Building Blocks Working Together

Figure 11 - Project Pre-Check Processes

Figure 12 - Diagnostic Process

Figure 13 - Sample Completed Diagnostic Questionnaire

Figure 14 - Sample Diagnostic Consolidation

Figure 15 - Sample Diagnostic Action Plan

Figure 16 - Framing Process

Figure 17 - Sample Completed Assignment Questionnaire

Figure 18 - Sample Assignment Consolidation

Figure 19 - Sample Framing Plan

Figure 20 - Oversight Process 96

Figure 21 - Sample Oversight Scorecard

Figure 22 - Completion Questionnaire

Figure 23 - Consolidated Completion Results

Figure 24 - Using Project Pre-Check With Other Standard Methods

Figure 25 - Decision Framework Domains & Factors

Figure 26 – Decision Framework Domains, Factors & Decision Areas

Figure 27 - Change Domain Factors

Figure 28 - Environment Domain Factors

Figure 29 - Assets Domain Factors

Figure 30 - Project Domain Factors

Figure 31 - Profile Chart

In Memory

William Gordon Davison

1910-2005

PART I

Introduction 

1.   How This Book Is Organized

2.   Who Should Read This Book

3.   Acknowledgements

4.   I’d Like To Hear From You

"Utopia:

Everything works right the first time. Everyone quests for doing it better tomorrow than today. Customer needs are constantly met. Products work better, last longer. Waste disappears from the system. People love their jobs."

Joel Barker-Future Edge

It really is possible! To envisage a change, a new venture, a new opportunity, and deliver it successfully. To deliver the right capability, that adds the most value. At a reasonable cost. When it’s needed. With functionality that works. That meets the needs of each audience. Joel Barker’s quote above describing his view of Utopia can become our new, everyday reality.

That’s the aim of this book and the book’s subject matter, Project Pre-Check: to help stakeholders deliver major business and technology change successfully.

What is a stakeholder? In the context of this book, it is a decision maker who:

o Directs an organization that initiates, is affected by or is charged with 

m anaging all or part of a change,  

o Has the authority to set direction, establish priorities, make decisions, commit money and resources and

o Is accountable for delivering the planned benefits on budget and on plan.

Stakeholder involvement and commitment is one of the most important key success factors for successful business and technology change. Without it, a project is pretty well doomed. There are thousands of organizations that focus on effective project and change management, lots of books and a veritable avalanche of periodicals and articles about both subjects. But there are few, if any, tools that focus exclusively on stakeholders-until now!

Project Pre-Check provides a unique practice for stakeholders that is easy to learn, easy to apply and quick to deliver value. Stakeholders can garner meaningful insight into a project’s strengths and weaknesses in a matter of days. The results provide a comprehensive platform for pro-active and remedial action that ensures the focus is always on the real goal-delivering targeted benefits to the organization.

Project Pre-Check is built on years of real world experience and involvement, and exposure to the best and the worst. It reflects the insight gained from outstanding successes and a few excruciating failures, from great leaders and knowledgeable and talented practitioners, and from a few charlatans and hacks.

It was designed to leverage the successes, to make sure that the insights gained and the lessons learned are applied to future undertakings and by future generations. It was developed in response to the failures, to ensure that they never happened again on our watch. It was designed to enable stakeholders to deliver still greater value, consistently, time after time.

"Those who do not remember the past are condemned

to repeat it"

From The Life of Reason by George Santayana

The business and technology press cite numerous studies that indicate the chances of implementing a major business or technology change successfully are significantly less than 50 %. There are regular revelations in the press about companies’ struggles with project cost overruns, damaging schedule delays, disruptive quality problems, injurious security issues or projects abandoned outright.

A sampling of seven of the 88 information technology projects launched since 2003, worth $7.1 billion, found rampant mismanagement. Many were far over budget and past deadline.

From the annual report of Canada’s Auditor General as reported in the November 29, 2006 Toronto Star

There are thousands of books, periodicals, and articles that purport to tell us why major projects fail and how to ensure success. But projects continue to fail, wasting billions in sunk costs and lost opportunity. Why? Because each change is unique, and organizations lack the collective will, knowledge and capability-time, money, expertise and appropriate frameworks-to absorb and apply the available wisdom effectively to each particular situation.

Project Pre-Check provides an extensible framework that helps stakeholders manage and access proven practices and leverage potential opportunities. It leads stakeholders to consider a broad range of concerns; business, technology, strategic directions, operational issues and the logistics of managing change to ensure project success.

But, most importantly, Project Pre-Check requires and enables stakeholder collaboration. It is the key element that makes Project Pre-Check work and it is a pre-requisite for successful change. As Robert Kaplan and David Norton state in their book, The Strategy-Focused Organization, If those at the top are not energetic leaders of the process, change will not take place, strategy will not be implemented, and the opportunity for breakthrough performance will be missed.²

Experience has repeatedly shown that the single most Important condition for success is the ownership and involvement of the executive team.

Robert Kaplan & David Norton-The Strategy-Focused Organization

1 HOW THIS BOOK IS ORGANIZED 

Learning a new practice, a new way of managing change, always requires an investment of time, effort and energy. For some, Project Pre-Check will be a natural extension to an existing collaborative milieu. For others, applying Project Pre-Check will be a significant cultural change. Each individual and each organization needs to determine the most effective path for delivering value. This book is organized to provide each reader with a variety of choices as to how to explore Project Pre-Check and address their particular needs.

Part I-Introduction, describes the rationale for the book, its organization, the players that will benefit from the material presented and the events and people that shaped the ideas and content.

Part II-Overview, describes the context for Project Pre-Check. It includes opinions on why projects fail, how Project Pre-Check can help, an introduction to the Project Pre-Check building blocks and how they can be used to ensure project success.

Building Blocks describes the three key components of Project Pre-Check: Stakeholders, Processes and the Decision Framework. It also explains how they work together to help stakeholders deliver value to their organizations.

Please make sure you read this section. An understanding of the building blocks is essential for forming the stakeholder group, using the processes and leveraging the Decision Framework effectively.

Part III-Project Pre-Check Processes provides step by step coverage for each of the three Project Pre-Check processes-Diagnostic, Framing and Oversight. It identifies the inputs and outputs and provides guidance for each step.

Part IV-Decision Framework includes the Decision Area catalogue which describes the Domains, Factors and Decision Areas that stakeholders need to consider when assessing, planning and controlling a change. Most of the

Decision Areas can be accessed through the use of the appropriate templates. However, for an understanding or a refresher on the meaning of a particular Decision Area or ideas on specific best practices, this section can serve as a valuable reference.

Appendices-include listings of a variety of industry sources and best practices that provide the foundation for this