Project Management White Papers

White Papers and reports on various project management topics. If you have a white paper or report you think would be of interest to people managing projects, please let us know and we'll be happy to consider it for publication.

 Strategic Partnership: An Imperative for Project Management in Multiplayer Setting

Akhibi Gregory Osagie, B.Eng, PMP, CCC
This paper looks at the use of strategic partnership in realising organisations' project objectives through reduction of interfaces and improved co-ordination of dependencies. The issues around project performance improvement and challenges are further reviewed from Project Management functional and Relational Contracting perspectives. The paper concludes that there are potentials for better performance results if project contributors are integrated into a team with a common focus on delivery. To achieve this, the contracting strategy will need to focus maximisation of individual expertise through Relational Contracting and ensure ab initio equitable distribution and assumption of risk by the one who ultimately bears them - the client.

 Requirements Engineering: The State of the Practice Revisited

Vincent Marinelli and Phillip A. Laplante
In 2002 a survey was conducted to assess current requirements engineering techniques usage in industry (Neill and Laplante 2003). The survey revealed industry trends regarding the specific practices used by individuals in their most recent project. Respondents indicated a significantly higher rate of software project success than is often cited by industry surveys. In addition, the survey revealed that project size and duration were better indicators of success or failure then were lack of use of defined requirements engineering techniques. Have things changes significantly since this survey was conducted? Have new trends emerged? A follow-up survey tries to answer these questions and some of the results are presented here.

 Co-ordinating Project Management Initiatives across the Organisation

ESI International
Companies that are progressing down the path of becoming project based often find they need to co-ordinate their efforts across divisions or departments in order to achieve the real business benefits of effective project management. Typically there is a need for co-ordination at three levels of the organisation - company executives or senior functional managers, project or programme managers, and project support personnel.

 Project Management and the Organisational Strategy

ESI International
Project management is rapidly becoming a standard way of doing business in organisations. We accomplish a considerable portion of our typical firm's effort through projects. Projects are becoming the tools of implementing the business strategy of an organisation. Every project in an organisation should contribute to its strategic plan. How can we ensure this linkage? We need to make sure that we integrate projects within the strategic plan. This integration requires a process for prioritising projects by their contribution to the plan. In this white paper, we will introduce the strategic planning process, how it relates to project management, and how to implement a project selection and prioritisation process.

 The Rapid Assessment and Recovery of Troubled Projects

ESI International
This white paper guides the experienced project manager in the application of successful techniques for assessing the status of a project, determining if a recovery is possible, and turning the project around.

 Optimizing IT to Meet Business Objectives

Hewlett-Packard
This white paper explores the role of Business Analysis, Project Management and ITIL V3 in helping IT to deliver business objectives as a full-fledged business unit that contributes to the success of the enterprise. How does an organisation move to running IT as a business? Technology and business decision makers need to align their goals and strategies more closely. IT executives need a new way of looking at service management - one that goes beyond just technology, and takes into account everything IT does to drive business outcomes.

 ITIL, Business Analysis and the Enterprise Requirements Hierarchy

Terry Longo, Kathleen Hass and David Cannon
This white paper characterises the relationship between the Business Analyst and an IT Service Management based IT organisation. It also suggests a generalised model of requirements and how best practices, such as the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL), contribute to meeting enterprise-level requirements. These requirements are based on key concepts from IT Service Management, Business Analysis and software development. Within this paper, that model is referred to as the Enterprise Requirements Hierarchy (ERH).

 Project Management Process

Dave Larsen
Project Management provides an integrated framework for project organisation, planning and control which is designed to; ensure the timely and cost-effective production of all the end-products; maintain acceptable standards of quality; achieve for the enterprise the benefit for which the investment in the project has been made.

 ProjectMinds' Quick Guide To Project Management

Manjeet Singh
With an emphasis on simplicity, this book provides clear, friendly step-by-step instructions to the art of project management inspired from the PMI methodology. Whether you are a senior manager or someone who has never been on a project, you will learn the tools and techniques that help you to direct a project.

 Chaos Report

The Standish Group
In 1995 The Standish Group surveyed IT executive managers for their opinions about why projects succeed. The resulting report makes interesting reading.

 One Hundred Rules for NASA Project Managers

Jerry Madden and Rod Stewart
Lessons Learned as compiled by Jerry Madden, Associate Director of the Flight Projects Directorate at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. Jerry collected these gems of wisdom over a number of years from various unidentifiable sources.

 Supplier Selection Checklist

Duncan Haughey
It is useful when selecting a supplier to have a checklist with which to evaluate their suitability. How much of the checklist is used and how thoroughly will depend on your own needs. However, even a brief review using this checklist may help raise points that could otherwise be overlooked and become issues later.

 How to Successfully Deploy Productivity Software Across Teams

Rodney Brim
In 25 words or less, what would you define as the critical success factors for rolling out project and performance management software across a workgroup or team. This article is a four-part review of findings and recommendations in this area.

 Avoiding the Project Management Obstacle Course

Duncan Haughey
Let's get straight to the point, project management by form filling is not an effective way of managing projects. These days many organisations and individual's whole project management strategy revolves around becoming slaves to a methodology. Don't get me wrong, there are many very good methodologies out there and they all have their part to play but it's not the be-all and end-all of project management.

 Time Management: More Time, Less Stress

Duncan Haughey
A selection of time management tips for anyone interested in improving their productivity and lowering stress in their workplace and personal lives. This is particularly important for project managers who must be able to management their own time effectively if they hope to run successful projects.

 A Perspective on Programme Management

Duncan Haughey
This study looks at the technique of programme management. It suggests a framework on which organisations can base their programme management strategy and will be helpful to anyone tasked with the running of multiple projects.

 Eight Key Factors to Ensuring Project Success

Duncan Haughey
Here are eight key success factors that every project manager should take into account when running a project. It comes complete with a questionnaire to help project managers assess the health of their projects.

 Turning Many Projects into Few Project Priorities with TOC

Frank Patrick
For those who work in organisations that rely on programmes of projects, multi-project environments where resources are shared across a number of projects, there are usually a lot of things that need to get done. An environment of many projects typically generates many priorities for project resources and managers alike and can make that focus difficult to achieve. This document looks at an approach that can help.