Managing project work products is a strong example of the preventative aspects of project control. If you have a solid process in place, and you are using it, everything rolls along as expected. It’s only when you have a “gap” in this area that it attracts attention from stakeholders—generally unwanted attention. The principles of managing project work products are simple and can be boiled down to three management fundamentals:
Identify—Define all the work products that need to be managed. Make sure all the work products are identified, not just the major ones and not just the product deliverables. For each deliverable type, you might need a different configuration management process. This is often true when dealing with both digital and tangible deliverables and when dealing with documents and software components. This can also be true when there are limitations with the configuration management tools that are available.
Protect—Protect the integrity of the work product. This means that you need to control who has access to the work product, what changes can be made by each person, and that you can recover the work product in the event of an unexpected accident or disaster. The access control can have several layers, but the most common aspects are facilities access and network access. In addition, this means protecting any contractually significant approvals or sign-offs.
Track—The ability to trace your steps and track the changes that are made to a work product. Common terms associated with this principle are “version control” and “revision history.” The other important aspect of this principle is the ability to provide status on the current state of all managed
work products.
Best Practices
Whether you utilize manual or automated processes, here is a list of techniques that should be considered for your configuration management process:
1. Establish central repository—First and foremost, define a central repository for the project where all project work documents will be stored. Make sure access to the repository can be controlled and that the appropriate stakeholders have access to it.
2. Define review/revision/approval process—Define which work products need to be reviewed and approved when any change is made, who can make those changes, who needs to approve those changes, and the associated workflow that needs to be followed.
3. Define a “gatekeeper”—Experience has shown tremendous value in establishing someone as the official librarian for the project repository. This person is responsible for controlling access to the repository, updating the repository, and ensuring that the configuration management procedures are being followed.
4. Implement access controls—Ensure that the project repository is only accessible to authorized stakeholders and the granted access level is aligned with their role on the project.
5. Establish common directory structure—To better organize work products and to make it easier to find them when you need them, it is recommended that a directory structure be defined that is aligned with the project phases and workflow process.
6. Establish file-naming conventions—Also in the spirit of better organization of work products, it is recommended that a common convention be defined for naming project work products. The conventions provide consistency and help improve project communications and stakeholder expectations as well.
7. Establish search keyword conventions—Given the growing popularity and use of Internet search engines, people are more accustomed to searching for what they need by the used of keywords. This can be especially helpful if the project repository directory structure is large or has multiple layers, and it can be a tremendous timesaver if it is “less than obvious” where a given work product would be found.
8. Establish version numbering scheme—If these guidelines do not exist for your organization already, determine the rules that will govern the versioning scheme for each category of work product. Common elements to consider include version number format, differences between major and minor versions, and conventions to be followed.
9. Establish baselines—A key best practice, especially before any milestone-type event on the project, such as phase-end, tollgate, start of a testing phase, or releasing work product to a client. To effectively deal with any quality issues and client expectations, you must be able to clearly define (and maintain) the configuration of a work product at a given point in time.
10. Use standard document sections—To help encourage effective configuration management practices, it is recommended that work product templates be developed that contain standard document sections. Recommended document sections include the following:
12. Back it up—Make sure that your project repositories have proper backup procedures in place and that they are actually working.
13. Address needs of different work product types—A single configuration management process might not be adequate for your project. You should develop specific configuration management procedures for each type of work product you are managing.
14. Leverage configuration management tools—Although effective configuration management procedures can be executed using clearly defined manual procedures—and a fair amount of discipline and a central control point—the process is much easier with configuration management tools. The tools enable you to control access to the repository, control the revision process (only one person can check out the work product for edit at a time), and provide an automatic audit trail.
15. Define product configuration build/release process—On any project that deals with a product that is composed of multiple components, a process is needed that properly integrates the components into a final product. This is especially true for any product that represents a system. This process enables you to establish a baseline configuration.
16. Develop configuration management plan—This is where you document all of the configuration management best practices you are going to utilize for your project. The configuration management plan enables you to communicate the procedures and rules that the project will follow and to gain agreement on the plan.
17. Leverage archive folders—A simple but powerful technique to help you manage (and not lose) project information is to always create an archive folder within a specific project directory to hold any previous versions. This is especially useful for digital work items that are not managed by a configuration management tool. This practice also has the added benefits of better organization and better visibility of the most current work items.
Identify—Define all the work products that need to be managed. Make sure all the work products are identified, not just the major ones and not just the product deliverables. For each deliverable type, you might need a different configuration management process. This is often true when dealing with both digital and tangible deliverables and when dealing with documents and software components. This can also be true when there are limitations with the configuration management tools that are available.
Protect—Protect the integrity of the work product. This means that you need to control who has access to the work product, what changes can be made by each person, and that you can recover the work product in the event of an unexpected accident or disaster. The access control can have several layers, but the most common aspects are facilities access and network access. In addition, this means protecting any contractually significant approvals or sign-offs.
Track—The ability to trace your steps and track the changes that are made to a work product. Common terms associated with this principle are “version control” and “revision history.” The other important aspect of this principle is the ability to provide status on the current state of all managed
work products.
Best Practices
Whether you utilize manual or automated processes, here is a list of techniques that should be considered for your configuration management process:
1. Establish central repository—First and foremost, define a central repository for the project where all project work documents will be stored. Make sure access to the repository can be controlled and that the appropriate stakeholders have access to it.
2. Define review/revision/approval process—Define which work products need to be reviewed and approved when any change is made, who can make those changes, who needs to approve those changes, and the associated workflow that needs to be followed.
3. Define a “gatekeeper”—Experience has shown tremendous value in establishing someone as the official librarian for the project repository. This person is responsible for controlling access to the repository, updating the repository, and ensuring that the configuration management procedures are being followed.
4. Implement access controls—Ensure that the project repository is only accessible to authorized stakeholders and the granted access level is aligned with their role on the project.
5. Establish common directory structure—To better organize work products and to make it easier to find them when you need them, it is recommended that a directory structure be defined that is aligned with the project phases and workflow process.
6. Establish file-naming conventions—Also in the spirit of better organization of work products, it is recommended that a common convention be defined for naming project work products. The conventions provide consistency and help improve project communications and stakeholder expectations as well.
7. Establish search keyword conventions—Given the growing popularity and use of Internet search engines, people are more accustomed to searching for what they need by the used of keywords. This can be especially helpful if the project repository directory structure is large or has multiple layers, and it can be a tremendous timesaver if it is “less than obvious” where a given work product would be found.
8. Establish version numbering scheme—If these guidelines do not exist for your organization already, determine the rules that will govern the versioning scheme for each category of work product. Common elements to consider include version number format, differences between major and minor versions, and conventions to be followed.
9. Establish baselines—A key best practice, especially before any milestone-type event on the project, such as phase-end, tollgate, start of a testing phase, or releasing work product to a client. To effectively deal with any quality issues and client expectations, you must be able to clearly define (and maintain) the configuration of a work product at a given point in time.
10. Use standard document sections—To help encourage effective configuration management practices, it is recommended that work product templates be developed that contain standard document sections. Recommended document sections include the following:
- Title page
- Revision history page
- Approval page
- Standard header and footer formats/data
12. Back it up—Make sure that your project repositories have proper backup procedures in place and that they are actually working.
13. Address needs of different work product types—A single configuration management process might not be adequate for your project. You should develop specific configuration management procedures for each type of work product you are managing.
14. Leverage configuration management tools—Although effective configuration management procedures can be executed using clearly defined manual procedures—and a fair amount of discipline and a central control point—the process is much easier with configuration management tools. The tools enable you to control access to the repository, control the revision process (only one person can check out the work product for edit at a time), and provide an automatic audit trail.
15. Define product configuration build/release process—On any project that deals with a product that is composed of multiple components, a process is needed that properly integrates the components into a final product. This is especially true for any product that represents a system. This process enables you to establish a baseline configuration.
16. Develop configuration management plan—This is where you document all of the configuration management best practices you are going to utilize for your project. The configuration management plan enables you to communicate the procedures and rules that the project will follow and to gain agreement on the plan.
17. Leverage archive folders—A simple but powerful technique to help you manage (and not lose) project information is to always create an archive folder within a specific project directory to hold any previous versions. This is especially useful for digital work items that are not managed by a configuration management tool. This practice also has the added benefits of better organization and better visibility of the most current work items.
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