Running small projects with PMBOK
Abstract
It is a very conventional thinking that PMBOK is designed to be
apply on large scale multi-million
projects. In fact, we can apply the knowledge in PMBOK and
tailor it to be leverage in small scale
projects running by two to three project members. In this
article, the author will demonstrate on how to
customize PMBOK process in implementing a small scale project.
This small scale project is to help an
institute to develop a computerized survey application to
collect data from targeted subjects and
generate a report from the collected data to be further analyzed
by a subject matter expert. This project
has a hard end date that it must be delivered in four month
time. We have to reckon that in a small
scale project, project funding is very limited. We need to
control our budget and time spent on the
project to avoid running over budget.
Initiating Process Group
a. [4.1 Develop a project charter] and [10.1 Identifying
stakeholders].
These processes are kicked off when we engaging the overall
program stakeholders to close the
business deal. During preliminary interview with them, we obtain
high level information on
overall program objective, project scope of work, indicative
budget and deliverables. After the
interview session, we need to prepare Draft Design Document
which comprises simplified
project charter that outlines the project objective, timeline,
budget, deliverables, high level
requirements and sign-offs. This draft document will become
final once the program manager
review it and put on his sign-offs to ink the deal.
You do not a fancy document with hundreds of pages to describe
the work has to be done. Use
a single statement in your charter to describe your project
scope. Outline the deliverables,
project timeline and milestones, budget and sponsor, that is the
stakeholders that has authority
to approve the project. In a small project, program manager will
be the only authorized person
to approve and making payment for the project. Participation
from program sponsor will be
limited.
This is a sample of the project charter:-
Project Name: Survey Software
Scope: To deliver a software solution to capture survey data
from subject and then at a later
stage create specific output into a report collectively to allow
subject matter expert to further
analyze the result.
Budget: 10000
Timeline: Deliver by 30 April 20xx
Milestone: Feb 1 Feb 14 Collect requirements
Feb 15 Mar 30 Construct product
Apr 1 Apr 19 User Acceptance Test
Apr 20 Apr 29 Project Rollout
Apr 30 Deliver project
Program Manager: xxxxxxxxxxx
