7 Essential Project Planning Documents By Marian Haus, PMP Solid project planning is a prerequisite for project success.

Poor planning, meanwhile, can lead to missed deadlines, budget overruns, poor quality deliverables, frustrated project teams and even project failure. In my previous post, I offered five steps to assist in planning the project-planning phase. One of those steps involved preparing planning documents. To foster a successful planning phase, here are seven planning documents I believe most project managers will find indispensable. This list certainly might vary depending on the project setup, project size, complexity and organizational planning guidelines. 1. Project management plan -- This is used as a reference index, encompassing all planning and project documents. 2. High-level project schedule plan -- This document captures highlevel project phases and key milestones. It is the document most project stakeholders will see or want to see. 3. Project team planning -- This document provides a "who-is-doingwhat" view of the project. This document fosters efficient project execution and effective project communication. 4. Scope plan -- The scope plan documents the project requirements, the agreed scope and the Requirements Traceability Matrix (RTM) summary. 5. Detailed project work plan -- This keeps track of the activities, work packages, resources, durations, costs, milestones, project's critical path, etc. It will be an essential document and work guideline for your core project team. 6. Quality assurance planning -- This document tracks the quality standards your project deliverables will have to align to. These may typically include product testing approach and tools, quality policies, quality

checklists, deviations definitions, quality metrics, product defect severity grades, acceptance criteria, cost of poor quality, etc. 7. Risk planning -- This document contains the project risks and the related mitigation plans; as well as the project opportunities and the related exploiting plans. The importance of this document is one of the most underestimated in project planning. Be prepared to have a contingency plan in case something goes wrong or to take advantage of opportunities when they arise. Start with this checklist when you sit down to plan for your next projectplanning phase. Depending on your project's needs, fine tune the checklist and tailor it by adding and removing planning assets, determining the planning time frame, the underlying details and rigor. Revisit this planning exercise, learn from it and enhance it, to continuously improve your project planning skills. 0 Items Project Management Best Practices: Key Processes and Common Sense Organizations continue to look for the key to unlocking the mystery of project management (PM) best practices, but the steps that go into successful project management are not mysterious at all they are standard procedures that, if executed, will improve a projects chances of success. The key word here is if. Projects fail because of poor planning and fuzzy requirements that cause a chain reaction of poor productivity. Regardless of size, good projects benefit from careful planning and active management. Follow the 20/80 theory: Increase your planning process by 20 percent, and you will reap 80 percent growth in productivity. We expect to see an annual 15 percent per year increase in formal project management practices during the next five years. Companies formalizing these practices will have to develop and actively use management procedures, including planning and communication, to facilitate project delivery.

Recommendations Build a best-practice library of methods that have worked in previous projects. Keep it modular, so that procedures can be tailored for a specific project based on size, complexity, team structure, etc. The library is a living repository that grows with each completed project. Requirements management tools are excellent repositories for artifact information that can be reused for efficiency, as are project management tools that store completed project plans that can be reproduced as templates. As projects are completed, perform a postmortem to update or change procedures for continual improvement. For organizations that do not have accessible historical project data and want to purchase developed methodology, consider a training program with certified training consultants that offers not only core methodology training, but also key areas, such as cost management, assessments and requirements management. Another alternative is to contract a specific project with a consulting organization that can deliver proven project plans and will transfer knowledge and practices. Refer to standard industry reference material as a guide for building internal practices; the Project Management Institutes (PMI) Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) provides detailed information about core professional project management procedures. ISO 9000 and the Capability Maturity Model (CMM) are also excellent sources for best practice information. While each of these standards may be too involved for your organizations requirements, there may be individual procedures you can use that will improve weak areas in current practices. Proof/Notes We Dont Have the Time to Do It Right, but We Have the Time to Do It Over. Despite the claim that project management is widely accepted as common practice, the reality is that less than half of the companies claiming to have integrated project management practices have standard procedures extending beyond strategic projects. Performance is ad hoc and changes with each new project. Without a standard foundation for execution, projects fall down when there are no standard procedures. Failure to gather and maintain adequate requirements causes project teams to have to rearrange delivery dates and to miss deadlines.

Organizational pressures, such as lean resource availability, cause continual resource constraints, forcing project managers to scramble to find adequate coverage. When the pressure to deliver becomes too great, common sense often goes out the window, and then crucial steps, like testing, are skipped. The end result is shoddy, and the rework required to repair the damage is far more expensive than if it were caught in the planning stages. All projects come under fire, but in an uncertain economy, increased pressures to derive optimal value emphasize the need to ably deliver projects. Reduced budgets and leaner staff do not equal reduced expectations; companies with smaller staffs and/or increased reliance on outsourcing are realizing that strong process is the key to better application development and avoiding expensive rework. Even in accelerated life cycles, planning and management best practices can be exercised. In traditional projects, planning was an exhaustive process; in accelerated cycles, successful planning concentrates on drawing boundaries to create a prioritized set of deliverables that are released in iterative phases. Process is not about reinventing the wheel, but finding what has worked in the past and applying it to the present, using strong communication to deliver and manage these processes and paring away anything that diverts the team from project goals. The ultimate challenge for project management is to find a repeatable process and communicate it clearly so that multiple levels within an organization accept and support the benefits. The key to best practices in project management is no mystery; it lies in the execution. Projects benefit from repeatable standard functions, regardless of size (see figure below).

Project Management Best Practices The best practices of project management have been written about in dozens of formats. The PMBOK breaks it into 37 key process areas; most projects are finished before the project manager actively understands what those areas are. From an educational standpoint, the PMBOK provides a manager with an excellent explanation of why each area is important; unfortunately, current life cycles do not actively support every detail mentioned in PMBOK. Flexibility is vital here. In order to plan and execute effectively, break it down into small repeatable phases that can be arranged to best suit the projects goals. For example, portions requirements management will be practiced throughout the life of the project in status meetings and in audit processes. Take the information gathered as part of requirements management (RM) as a guide for

measurement to keep project scope in alignment. There are many things you can do to manage projects; however, the following are practices that you must perform in order to execute a successful project: Scope: Know if it cuts the mustard: Before undertaking any project, evidence must exist to support its value. Perform a feasibility study to gauge market potential, enterprise risk/benefit and technological impact before any activities are started. Follow a structured initiation process: Gaining executive understanding and commitment before undertaking a project, especially one that carries some risk for IT, prevents political jockeying over priorities and resource commitment. Make sure that the project has a designated business champion, and gather the necessary business and technological criteria to justify the project to continue adequate executive support during the life cycle. Planning:

Plan:

Comprehensive planning is critical, even with short development cycles. Make project goals attainable by prioritizing deliverables to keep a team tightly focused on specific issues. From there, involve the team, stakeholders and sponsors in closely managed sessions to discuss each objective and clearly explain risks and benefits to understand exposures and the dangers to the project. Doing this promotes a unified front, because everyone understands how the project is affected by unnecessary changes, especially if it is understood that more features will follow shortly. Maintain realism in planning: Determine short-term must haves (e.g., one to three months) and long-term goals (e.g., one to three years). In order to keep to delivery dates, it is often necessary to deliver a streamlined application or site with enhancements coming in regular scheduled intervals. Open communication at this point is critical to maintain expectations. Meet weekly with stakeholders to keep scope creep to a minimum. Assess requirements: Perform stakeholder interviews to ascertain the business and usability objectives for the project. Hold collective review sessions and prototyping whenever possible to keep the project team focused on the correct path and manage end-user

expectations. Automate the requirements management process whenever possible to provide a central location for audit trails and status management. Dont overload milestones: Keep the milestones actionable, and keep them close together (ideally, no more than three weeks apart); however, in a project of less than three months in duration, the spacing can drop to 1 weeks. This is critical if you are opting for short-term deliverables within a compressed life cycle. Closely spaced milestones provide opportunity for faster recovery if the project starts to stray. Publicize your plans: Distribute regular and relevant status information in the most accessible way possible, for example, e-mail, intranet project pages or an enterprise project management tool. The more people who are intimately familiar with project requirements and action plans, the less cause there is for a misstep. Broad access increases the chances of catching a potential problem that a project manager may have missed. Delegate: A project manager cannot, and should not, do it all. Use the team approach whenever possible for planning and execution, guided by the project lead. For example, the system architect and senior programmer manage the architectural and system design phases of the project and report to the project manager, who focuses on administrative and coordination activities. Manage vendors: This has two meanings. During the planning phase, if standard tools for communication and execution are not in place, it is critical for the team to implement them. This is especially true if the team is outsourced or distributed. A single location for critical documentation and communication is essential. For project execution, designate a single source, whether it is the project manager or a lead technical person, to be the single point of contact for any vendor issues. Clarify expectations for reporting, issue management and deliverables and penalties for not meeting those expectations. Get these agreements in writing.

Execution/Control:

Delegate, part two: The small-team approach allows a project team

to remain flexible and not get bogged down in the minutiae. Even if a project is large in scale, the small team works effectively. Empower

project or team leaders to manage tasks within their areas of expertise and work closely to keep communication open. Keep everyone on task by meeting formally on a weekly basis to review and measure against milestones, but meet daily on an informal basis to head off possible problems as quickly as possible. Automate whenever possible: Make automation as accessible as possible. Use requirements management tools, such as Telelogic Doors or Borlands Caliber RM, to track changes in scope or keep additional critical information centrally stored. Project management tools, from vendors such as Project Central, eLabor.com and Business Engine, allow team members to track time and issues that keep project managers and team members informed of progress and assist in avoiding miscommunications regarding objectives. Collaborate, collaborate, collaborate: Team members perform much more effectively if they are in active communication with each other so that each dependency is clearly understood and managed. Hold weekly information sessions with the team to discuss issues, and collectively figure out correction strategies. If the team is scattered, use collaborative tools such as Webex, Placeware or Centra to hold meetings and share information. The method is not as important as the action itself. Keep everyone informed. Use audits: To assess the health of the project, hold biweekly audit sessions, and check the status and progress of the project. Issues discussed during an audit are actual progress vs. work and cost estimates, requirements measurement for scope control and overall quality measurements in productivity. The actual audit process is very flexible; using the project charter as a guide, the team prepares criteria that measure the entire project, and then uses subsets of those criteria for assessment with each milestone. Short life-cycle projects can still benefit from audit sessions that ensure that precious time is not wasted. Keep them short and to the point, and refrain from personalization. Keep the focus on the project goals Measure productivity: You cant improve if you dont measure. Develop standard criteria for measurement, such as meeting deliverables, defect detection, resource utilization and rework, to find out where you can optimize or where you need to devote extra attention.

Practice change control: Regardless of project size, if change control

is not practiced, the project wont meet deliverables and will miss delivery dates. Use software configuration management or requirements management tools to automate and manage the change process. Establish a chain of command for approving any scope change for the project. Formality depends on life cycle, but make sure that at least one business and technical lead is consulted for every change to estimate risk and duration of the changes. Test: It is critical to test early and often to ensure that the project is meeting deliverables and is production-ready. Hold walkthroughs, for example, end-user style demonstrations, peer-to-peer code inspections, information inspections, etc., at various stages of the project to ensure that the quality is built-in and that certification time is reduced. Allot time for user acceptance testing and beta testing whenever possible to minimize postproduction problems. At a minimum, testing should account for 15 percent of the project. If the technology is new or there are large amounts of system integration, plan for a minimum of 30 percent test time over the life of the project. Design concise implementation procedures: Develop a step-by-step implementation plan that covers production test procedures, installation requirements as well as a contingency plan for problem management that includes back-out procedures and production support steps. Accompanying documentation must include release information: known problems, a high-level test plan.

Closure:

Conduct a postmortem: This is the time to hash out any issues that

will improve production support and improve process for the next project. Be sure to collect all project issues that caused any delays or restructuring of project focus, implementation issues and morning after support problems. Like audits and walkthroughs, these are not forums for personal criticism, but are used to analyze procedures for improvement. Check temperature: Assess project success at several intervals after implementation to measure how well the project met expectations. This important metric delivers the foundation for future project growth. For example, if there are high levels of production support or

rework, check the requirements and design processes; chances are, there was something critical missed during this phase where easy corrections were possible. Alternative View Adopting some practices for larger projects is suitable, but is too time consuming and inefficient for smaller projects. Borrowing from standard practices is fine, but project managers should not be tied to a rigid set of practices for unpredictable projects. Procedures should be tailored to the project. Findings If an organization has experience in developing various types of projects (but has little to no centralized project management), it should have a repository of organizational history to serve as a starting place to design procedures. Analyze current project practices, and perform a gap analysis between successful and challenged projects. Procedures that worked for previous projects may work for current procedures. Even in shorter development cycles, the process works by breaking down a successful method into its core objective, e.g., requirements management worked in previous projects because of strong stakeholder interviews. PMI is a registered service mark and PMBOK, CAPM, PMP and PgMP are registered trademarks of the Project Management Institute, Inc., which is registered in the United States and other nations.

Project Management Knowledge The Ultimate Resource for Project Managers Google Compatible Apps for Project Management It seems like everyone is using Google these days and not just for personal purposes. According to the folks at White Stratus, one in five U.S. companies use Google Apps. Surprisingly, the bigger the company, the more likely they are to be leveraging these tools. The most commonly used applications are those that come standard with the basic product suite (Docs, Calendar, etc.). However, as businesses get past the pilot stage they are branching out and adding more functionality with niche solutions from companies that build web-based products to interface with Google Apps. Project management is one area where such specialty applications are coming into their own. Product Options There are dozens of PM apps on the market. Each one has its own blend of features ranging from basic collaboration and document sharing to more comprehensive solutions with project reporting functions. Here are details on a few applications: Gantter Project This application focuses on the scheduling aspect of project management. As the name suggests, you can use it to generate bar charts showing progress. The developer claims that the product integrates fully with Google Docs and that MS Project files can be imported. Manymoon This product centers around team management. It allows users to share files and gives the project manager the ability to assign tasks. These functions are interfaced with Google apps such as Gmail with single signon. You can create projects from a basic template and track milestones. However, Gantt chart-style reports arent available. Smartsheet This app offers both communication capabilities and chart generation. The newest version of this product also gives users the ability to create sub-

tasks and define logical relationships. It also tracks changes to promote better decision-making. Mavenlink This application puts a lot of emphasis on customization. You can brand your portal with your companys look and feel. Unlike many Google integrated apps for project management, this one includes time tracking and billing functions. Pros and Cons of Using Apps The most commonly mentioned benefit is that many Google compatible PM apps are free or very low cost. Sometimes, apps are rolled out in a free version because they are still in the testing phase and will eventually be billed on a pay-per-use or similar basis once all the kinks are addressed. In the meantime, be prepared for a lot of revisions as the app is being developed. If frequent changes affect the end users experience, this could negatively impact a project. On the other hand, if your current software tools arent serving your project management needs, you might test drive a few apps to see if they work for you. Here are some questions to ask in your search for the right fit: What functions currently being handled by other software does this app fully replace? Will I need separate applications for time tracking, reporting, billing, etc? Can I import and export data to other applications as needed? Is real-time data sharing with other back-end software possible? You may find that it takes several overlapping apps to get all the functionality you need from these cloud-based niche products. While Google Apps may be making significant inroads in large businesses, it doesnt appear that there is currently a comprehensive project management app that could be deployed on the enterprise level. Tagged as project management by daisy 28.05.2011 No comment

Project Management Dealing with Doomed Projects Most of us hate to admit that things arent working out as planned. But, if you are in project management long enough, you will get to experience a project cancellation. Sometimes, you can tell early on that a project has the potential to go very wrong. Warning signs include: Lack of ownership at the highest level of the organization Inadequate resources committed at the start of the project Team infighting and poor communication Going over budget with no clear timeline for completion Constant delays in completing schedule milestones Scope and final goal keep changing Those final 3 issues can usually be avoided with appropriate planning. However, sometimes you inherit a project from a previous PM thats already halfway down the road to nowhere. In that case, theres good news and bad news. The bad news is that you will have to work twice as hard to breathe life back into the project (if thats even possible). The good news is that you can blame everything thats gone wrong so far on your predecessor. You can do this without sounding whiny if you offer real solutions to the problems you point out. What If You Cant Save a Project? If obstacles such as high costs, poor design or execution, and changing objectives cant be overcome or worked around, it may be best to shut things down. This is a time when your project management communication skills need to be at their best. A cancelled project can affect morale throughout your organization. Be sure to solicit input from your full team and other stakeholders before moving forward with shutting down a project. That way, you will all be in agreement and you wont overlook any possible solutions that could save the project. Follow Proper Cancellation Protocol Keeping relationships intact and conserving resources are the two main priorities in the actual cancellation process. If you are performing the project for a client, they should be involved at each step so they dont feel like it is all out of their control. If you need to cancel orders with vendors, do this as soon as possible so they arent devoting production capacity to

your project and counting on revenue thats not going to materialize. When possible, identify ways to reuse project resources for other scheduled or future projects. Be sure to still recognize and reward team members for their contributions its usually not their fault that things went wrong. Add a Kill Switch in Advance Next Time One part of project management planning that doesnt get a lot of attention is setting parameters that will determine when a project should be shut down. This concept should be evaluated during risk management planning. You should be able to identify a specific point when the ROI for a project just isnt going to be worth it. This could be a dollar amount. Or, it could be a timeline. For example, your organizations goal might be to bring a certain product or service to market before a competitor. If you fall 12 months behind, the whole project might become moot. Rerouting project resources to something thats more likely to be a winner could be the most strategic choice. Dont Get Caught Up in Emotions Determining the criteria for discontinuing a project ahead of time (and sticking to it) makes it easier to actually pull the trigger if the time comes. Otherwise, you may get caught up in a cycle of justifying more and more expenditures on a project thats a money pit. Like the song says Youve got to know when to hold em, know when to fold em. Getting emotionally involved in a project and having your pride hurt when you have to let go can be tough. But the sooner you put a failure behind you, the sooner you can start working on your next success. Tagged as communication, planning, project management by daisy 21.05.2011 Tips for Eco-Friendly Project Management Eco-Friendly or Green project management is catching on throughout the business world. There are entire consulting firms devoted to helping businesses engage in more sustainable practices for projects. This is a little different than going green from an operational standpoint. A change in operations can be made once for the entire organization, and then you can move on to the next issue.

With projects, there are always new factors coming into play So, there are 3 main focus areas in decisions about making projects greener. First, you can make changes in the processes and practices you follow in every project (think of this as being the program management level). Second, there are the decisions that you make that apply to a specific project. Some of these will involve choices you can make during planning. Others will come up during the execution of the project. Third, there is the decision to actually take on a project that makes increasing the sustainability of your organization its major objective. Such a project would result in updated operations protocols and tie in to a corporate stewardship program. Program Level Green Tips At the program level, virtualizing as many processes as possible is one way to be more sustainable. Does every project document have to be hard copy, or is it possible to store information electronically? Even contracts can be e-signed these days and still be considered valid in court. When you look for a project management software platform, evaluate how many paperbased processes it can really replace and which ones it just duplicates. Review your list of most commonly used vendors. Add ecoresponsibility to the list of factors that determine who you buy from. This can include choosing vendors who ship materials a shorter distance or those who use recycled materials in their products and packaging. Often, you will find that sustainability and cost efficiency go hand-in-hand. Project Level Green Tips At the project level, its not just the steps along the way but the final product itself that should be evaluated for greenness. Determine if the end consumer can reuse, recycle, or repair the product or any of its components. Look to large corporations that participate in cradle to cradle types of certification for ideas in this area. There might be fairly straightforward ways to make your product more energy efficient or less prone to emitting VOCs. For service oriented projects, find ways to work smarter instead of harder to save resources.

During risk management planning, remember to calculate any risks to the environment. Then, put project management safeguards in place to mitigate these risks rather than simply trying to externalize them and make them someone elses problem.

Corporate Stewardship Tips If possible, make time once per year to instigate an internal project that is focused on reducing waste, increasing energy efficiency, or creating a healthier workplace. Done right, these initiatives pay for themselves in cost savings. Youll also be able to use these activities to boost morale and to increase your positive branding. Tagged as planning, project management by daisy 14.05.2011 More Project Management Tips from the DOE Last week, we looked at part of a study released by the DOE in conjunction with the National Academy of Sciences. Its quite a comprehensive report, and it might make you feel a little inadequate about the state of your project management. However, youll be glad to know that even the big boys dont start out getting things right. In fact, this study was prompted by what the Academy called the DOEs lack of a uniform set of objective

measures for assessing the quality of project management(this absence) prevents the identification of best practices and impedes widespread improvement in project management throughout the agency. If an
organization as cumbersome and set in its ways as the typical government institution can recognize this and begin making positive changes, theres nothing holding your company back from doing the same!

9 Critical Benchmarking Activities According to the NAS report, there are 9 basic aspects of benchmarking. These activities apply to benchmarking done at any phase of a project (planning, execution, review). For best results, this benchmarking should be integrated into the project management culture rather than being viewed as somehow separate. This encourages openness to new ideas and a willingness to make changes as needed to improve project and program processes. Here are the 9 activities: 1. Deciding what to benchmark 2. Defining the metrics to be used 3. Developing a reliable method of data collection

4. Actually collecting the required data 5. Analyzing the data to highlight deficiencies in performance and areas where best practices are not being followed 6. Identifying the root causes of these PM process and outcome shortcomings 7. Developing a plan of action to reduce or eliminate known deficiencies 8. Integrating new best practices into the project delivery process 9. Making benchmarking a recognized and valued part of the process of continuous improvement The Input/Process/Output/Outcome Cycle Because benchmarking is designed for use at each stage of a project, its helpful to clearly define the cycle of a standard project. The DOE uses assessments that cover four basic stages. Input is the first stage and benchmarking is done by measuring resources that will be provided for the project. The next stage involves process metrics. The manner in which activities are carried out is compared to PM standards for how things should be done if all policies and procedures are followed. Output focuses on benchmarking the quantity and quality of the end product. The outcome is measured by how well the end product actually serves the purpose for which it was intended and whether it supports larger program objectives. External factors may influence the project at any stage. These influences must be taken into account as issues that should be planned or adjusted for even if they cannot be entirely controlled. What Makes a Performance Metric Useful? As you go through the process of actually deciding what data to use, there are some characteristics that have particular value. Data collected for benchmarking should be: Measurable (objectively or subjectively) Reliable, consistent, and verifiable Simple, clear, and easy to understand Timely and cost effective Minimally affected by external influences Meaningful to users at all levels Related to mission outcome Useful for driving effective decisions and process improvement

The more criteria on this list you can match in your performance measures, the better! Why Is Project Management Benchmarking Important? What role do benchmarking metrics play in project management? In the broadest sense, benchmarking is what gives an organization the ability to test and evaluate PM processes and methodology, project outcomes, and the performance of individual project managers. Without this type of oversight, its still possible to recognize that projects are failing, going over budget, and running past schedule you just wont be able to figure out what to do about it. Benchmarking Overview Laurence Nicholson published a report on benchmarking in PM World Today back in 2006 that is still relevant and useful now. You can read it free online here. The focus is geared somewhat toward IT projects, but the same principles Nicholson discusses can easily be adapted to any industry. Here are some takeaway points: Not every organization can or should use the same metrics for project analysis. Failing to correctly match metrics with real life objectives simply leads to wasted resources with no added value to show for it. Using a balanced blend of subjective and objective metrics makes sense. Easily measurable factors like cost and time should be weighed alongside more subjective factors like customer satisfaction and team cohesion. Metrics may be used to determine whether processes are consistent or if there are areas where approved methods are not being used. Staffing levels and employee engagement are critical to the success of projects. PMs should understand HR metrics that impact project performance and collaborate with HR to increase the quality and availability of project team members. One of the most often overlooked aspects of project management benchmarking is its role in determining if projects are aligned with larger organizational goals.

Who Uses Project Benchmarking? Large business enterprises and government agencies that have a well developed project or program management process are more likely to make effective use of benchmarking. Such organizations can be a great resource in providing examples of how benchmarking works. For example, the Department of Energy collaborated with the National Academy of Sciences to publish a report on its own project management processes for educational purposes. Here are some highlights: Many projects can be broken down into a series of critical decision points requiring approval: mission need, system requirements and alternatives, baseline, implementation, and transition to operations. Benchmarking done at each of these junctures can aid in appropriate decision making. Goals should be clearly defined, actionable, and measurable. They should have their origin at the organizational level and flow down to the PM level. To aid in goal alignment, similar performance metrics should be used to measure whether goals are being met at both an organizational and project management level. Data collection is most effective when centered on known sources of accurate, repeatable, and verifiable information (not discounting the fact that subjective data should also be collected and used in benchmarking). Feedback systems should be in place to promote continuous improvement of all aspects of project management from processes to results. Benchmarking should be cumulative so that multiple projects can be compared and evaluated to identify larger patterns of performance. GAPP & Project Management Data privacy is an important concern in project management. The administration of a project may involve collecting, handling, or storing information from a wide variety of sources. For example, in the software consulting industry, performing a mainframe migration for a client might involve access to large quantities of data on that clients customers and/or employees. Almost all projects will have some data elements that are considered private or confidential. This means part of the planning and administration for a project should concern how to keep data secure and ensure it is used only in appropriate ways.

What Standards Apply? There are many standards that could be used as a framework or starting point for these policies and procedures. The Generally Accepted Privacy Principles (GAPP) developed by the AICPA is one set of standards to consider. The level of stringency with which these principles are applied should correlate to the sensitivity of the data being handled. Here is an overview of a few of these principles and how they might be applied to the project management sphere. Privacy Management This is the overarching strategy that is developed to safeguard sensitive data. It includes the creation of policies and procedures for the privacy program. These policies and procedures must be documented and communicated to all relevant parties. Adequate resources should be assigned to put infrastructure elements in place that help ensure the achievement of policy objectives. Accountability must be assigned to those responsible for implementing and maintaining privacy so that there are well defined consequences for program failure. The management policy must also include monitoring to identify evolving risks or any new regulations that might affect the privacy policy and practices. In project management, privacy should be discussed as it relates to both communications planning and risk management. Collection & Use Notices Whenever any personal identifying information or other confidential data is collected, it should be made clear why the data is being collected and how it will be used. This is typically done through the presentation of some type of notice. The notice includes the contact information for the group or individual responsible for answering questions or resolving issues regarding how private information is collected or used. For project management, the topic of confidential or proprietary information is often covered in an NDA or similar contractual document. This represents a formal agreement to follow ethical privacy practices in not disclosing a clients confidential data to any third party without express, prior written consent. The use, retention, and eventual disposal of such data may also be addressed.

Security of Privacy This aspect of privacy management concerns the physical, procedural, and electronic steps your organization takes to safeguard privileged project management data. It should take into consideration the potential for and consequences of accidental and deliberate destruction, unauthorized access, disclosure, or other misuse. Any administrative, physical, and technical controls put in place should include a backup plan in case the personnel authorized to access the confidential project management data become unavailable. Privacy security safeguards should be tested at least once a year to ensure they are functioning as intended.