As thanks for visiting our website, we have included a few tools for your use in planning your projects. These can be downloaded; in pdf format, which means you will need to have Adobe Acrobat Reader to open them. The project lifecycle is in PowerPoint.
Tools Survey:
Project Life Cycle: This diagram shows the four basic phases for all projects. There is a list of activities that you must do through each of those phases. These are typical activities, your project may require more or less.
Project Definition and Requirements: This tool is a critical first step in planning any project. This document is a form where you (along with your project team) will fill in the blanks. It forces you to think about those initial activities that typically get overlooked in the early stages. For instance, it will ask you to identify the key stakeholders, project objectives, the top 5 factors that could cause your project to fail, etc.
This is a valuable tool that many clients pay for. You get it for free….
Scope Change Request: All projects, large and small, have changes. We have never seen a project that did not go through some sort of scope addition or modification. Therefore, do not think you can plan so well that you will never have a change—this is an unrealistic perspective. Rather, think of how you can manage change: document the request, determine the impacts to your project and get formal approval/disapproval.
This tool will do the job. It asks you to determine the impact of the proposed change to your project budget, schedule, quality/performance and resources. There is also a sign-off page for the change. This form will be the best thing you’ve seen to CYA.
We have given you a couple of really useful tools to help you do your job more effectively. All we ask is that you give us credit for their development and use. You will notice our little copyright statement as a footnote and our sailboat logo. Please leave these in place. Other than that, you have our permission to use these forms for planning your projects. Do not sell these to others.