Chapter
4: Write the Rules: Five Key Documents to Manage Expectations and
Define Success
As
a project manager, he must make sure that everyone involved understands the
project and agrees on what success will be like. Since every project is
different such as, the schedules, products, and people involved, the
stakeholders may have different ideas on how to take on about the project. There are project
rules for a successful project: (1) agreement
on the goals; (2) control over the scope of the project, and (3) management
support.
A
project charter is powerful because it is a formal recognition of authority. It
is also a document that defines the project called statement of work (SOW).
There are three agreements that document the project rules namely: the statement of work, the responsibility
matrix, and the communication plan.
Statement
of work (SOW) is a documentation and acceptance of the expectation that lists
the goals, constraints, and success criteria for the project—the rules of the
game. Once SOW is written it is negotiated and modified by the various
stakeholders; and once everyone agrees to its content, it becomes the rules of
the project. SOW consists of:
1.
Purpose statement;
2.
Scope statement;
3.
Deliverables;
4.
Cost and schedule estimates;
5.
Measures of success;
6.
Stakeholders; and
7.
Chain of command
Responsibility
Matrix details the assignments of each group involved in a project. It is ideal
for showing cross-organizational interaction. It lays out the major activities
in the project and the key stakeholder groups. It can help the communication
problems between departments and organizations because it shows who to contact
for each assignment.
Project
manager creates a communication plan to make people more productive through
agreements, plans, recommendations, status reports, and other means. Project manager
uses communication plan to coordinates and influences all the stakeholders
while giving them the information they need for the project.
