Project Rules are the foundation of a successful project. Agreement on the goals of the project among all parties involved, control of the scope of the project, and management support are the crucial factors that are defined in the following project documents.
Project Charter. This document comes from the Project Sponsor (and the Customer, if possible) and announces that a project has begun while demonstrating management support for the project and project management. It establishes the PM's authority to make decisions and lead the project. It is distributed widely and comes first among these project documents.
Statement of Work (SOW). Lists the goals, constraints and success criteria for the project. Once written this document is subject to negotiation and modification by stakeholders, but once formal agreement is reached on its content it becomes the project rules. At a minimum, the SOW includes:
- Purpose statement (why are we doing this project?) - guides the project team's decision making and clarifies the purpose of the project for the customer.
- Scope statement - describes the major activities of the project in such a way that it will be clear if extra work is added later, and explicitly includes what is NOT included in the project.
- Deliverables (what is the project supposed to produce) - tells the team what it is supposed to produce including intermediate and end deliverables; product descriptions should be referenced in deliverables but deliverables does not reiterate the product description, if a detailed product description does not already exist then that should be the only deliverable for a project.
- Cost and schedule estimates - must be realistic and accurate.
- Objectives - defines the measures of success beyond producing the deliverables on time and under budget; objectives should be specific and measurable to provide a basis for agreement on the project.
- Stakeholders
- Chain of command
Responsibility Matrix. Precisely details the responsibilities of each group and major player in a project and shows cross-organizational interaction. Each item on the matrix of major activities and stakeholder groups is assigned a code: R (responsible for execution), A (approval authority), C (must be consulted), and I (must be informed). This tool manages the role of the project office, and, once accepted, gives the PM a written document to refer to in the event of a dispute.
Communications Plan. Establishes a written strategy for getting the right information to the right people at the right time; defines which stakeholders need what information (authorization, status change, coordination); and should include an escalation procedure; communications should be repetitive, multichannel and include informal communication.
Project Proposal. Launches the project and overlaps the content found in the SOW verifying earlier assumptions or developing topics in greater detail; results from a mini-analysis phase that assembles enough information to make the decision to formally launch the project. The Project Proposal contains, at a minimum, the following:
- Project goal - states the specific desired results from the project over a specified time period
- Problem/Opportunity definition - describes the problem/opportunity without suggesting a solution
- Proposed solution - describes what the project will do to address the problem/opportunity
- Project selection and ranking criteria - categorizes the project benefit to facilitate decision making regarding the allocation of resources across a portfolio of projects
- Cost-benefit analysis - summarizes the financial reasons for taking on the project, expected benefits compared to costs to quantify ROI; includes tangible benefits, intangible benefits, required resources (cost), financial return
- Business requirements - primary success criteria for the project in terms of what the business or customer will be able to do as a result of the project's successful completion
- Scope - list and description of the major accomplishments required to meet the project goal
- Obstacles and risks - know risks (might occur) and obstacles (certain to occur) that could cause disruption of failure
- Schedule overview - expected duration, significant milestones and major phases
These project documents provide a vital framework for understanding, communicating and negotiating the purpose and details of the project, and a means of achieving consensus among stakeholders while keeping scope creep at bay.
