15.1. Beginning the Development Project
In Chapter 9, we saw the importance of picking the right project and learned how to rank alternatives to ensure that you have chosen the project with the best chance of success.
15.1.1. Selecting the Team
After the project is selected, it is time to select the project team, including representatives from the impacted business functions (as identified by the people component analysis) and from Information Technology. By this time, we've already identified the steering committee and program core team members, so now we need to assign specific individuals to the project team for Valencia (see Figure 15-2).
Figure 15-2. The project team
The program core team is lead by the business program manager who will provide continuity across multiple projects. For each project, we will select a project manager, often, but not always, from the IT department. The role of the project manager is to lead the work and ensure that the project remains on track from beginning to end.
15.1.2. Chartering the Team
The next step is to charter the team. This involves the whole team in an exercise (project launch meeting) to identify high-level scope, resources, and timing requirements for this project. We identified the individuals who must attend the project launch in Chapter 9 when we developed the project overview document and the project summary document (shown together here as the project charter) for Valencia (see Table 15-1).
| PROJECT CHARTER | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Direction (issue/opportunity, critical success factors) | We don't know who our most valuable customers are because we identify customers differently in every system. We can't be sure of their total purchases or how much it costs to serve them. | |||
| Focus (business functions, target customers, customer offer) | Business functions: Product (S800) Marketing; Business-to-business Sales | |||
| Scope (what's in and what's out) | ||||
| Component | Scope Is | Scope Is Not | ||
| Information | Categories | Customers, Installed Products | Product, competitor, etc. | |
| Sources | Orders, product registrations | Support contracts, etc. | ||
| Process | Database Marketing Inbound telesales | Marcom, Channel Sales | ||
| Technology | Customer Identification Reference file; client server | Transaction system | ||
| People | Product marketing managers for 825 and 827 in North America; North American premier call center reps. | Sales reps, etc.
Other products Europe, South America, Asia | ||
| Expected Deliverables | ||||
| 1. Customer reference file for managing consistent identification | ||||
| 2. Key data sources integrated (loaded and linked) | ||||
| 3. Top 50 customer companies audited and managed for high-quality company consistency | ||||
| 4. List of customer contacts at target companies who own 815 or 817 fans | ||||
| High Level Schedule | ||||
| Milestone | Due | Actual | Owner | Approved |
| 1. Launch/Plan completed | ||||
| 2. Analysis complete | ||||
| 3. Design complete | ||||
| 4. Construction complete | ||||
| 5. User Test complete | ||||
| 6. Implementation | ||||
| Key Resources | ||||
| Role | Assigned Individual | Percentage of time assigned | Duration | |
| Executive Sponsor | ||||
| Program Manager | ||||
| Project Manager | ||||
| 82x Series Product Manager | ||||
| North America Premier Call Centers | ||||
| IT analysts, designers, engineers | ||||
| Project Tradeoff Matrix | ||||
| Deliverables | Schedule | Resources | ||
| Constrain (least flexible) | X | |||
| Optimize | X | |||
| Accept (most flexible) | X | |||
The project charter serves as the high-level direction. It develops a clear sense of scope and an understanding of the relative weight of the tradeoffs that will drive future project decisions.