Project Management: Workflow

Disciplines> Project Management> Workflow

In the initial iteration of the Inception Phase, the Project Management discipline begins in Conceive New Project, during which the initial Vision and Risk List artifacts are created and reviewed. The objective is to obtain enough funding to proceed with a serious scoping and planning exercise.

An embryonic Software Development Plan is created, and the project bootstrapped into life with the initial Iteration Plan. With this initial authorization, work can continue on the Vision and Risk List to give a firm foundation for fleshing out the Software Development Plan in Develop Software Development Plan.

Uppon conclusion of the Software Development Plan, enough should be known about the risks and possible business returns of the project, to allow an informed decision to be made to commit funds for the rest of the Inception Phase, or to abandon the project. Next, the initial Iteration Plan is refined to control the remainder of the initial iteration in inception, in an invocation of Plan for Next Iteration(the workflow detail used here is the same as will be used for planning subsequent iterations - hence the somewhat odd name in this context). In Plan for Next Iteration, the Project Manager, Analyst and Designer decide which requirements are to be explored, refined or realized. In early iterations, the emphasis is on the discovery and refinement of requirements; in later iterations, on the construction of software to realize those requirements.

At this point, the Project Management discipline merges into a common sequence for all subsequent iterations.

The iteration plan is executed and is concluded by an iteration assessment and review, to determine if the objectives for the iteration have been achieved.

In parallel, the routine daily, weekly and monthly tasks of the project management are performed in Control Project, in which the status of the project is monitored and problems and issues are handled as they arise.

When the final iteration of a phase completes, a major milestone review is held. At the conclusion of the project, a Project Acceptance Review is held and the project terminates, unless the review determines that the delivered product is not acceptable, in which case a further iteration is scheduled.

Detailed planning, in Plan for Next Iteration, then leads into the next iteration. In parallel, changes to the Software Development Plan are made at this time, in Develop Software Development Plan, capturing lessons learned, and updating the overall Project Plan (in the Software Development Plan) for later iterations.