Lasotell Project Management Services

Does this scenario sound familiar?

   "The XYZ job is due next week. We have delayed starting it for three weeks, but now we must do it or we will run out of time."

   Five days later: "Let's review what we have got so far. Eeerk! Most of this is no good. We have to re-do at least half of it. Quick, tell everyone they have to work all weekend!"

   The morning of delivery: "Don't worry about the spell check and the graphics, just print it so we can get rid of the damned thing and finally get to bed!!"

If this is a common experience for you, then this page may provide some Magic Bullets (in the form of work practices) that can avoid such scenarios on most occasions.

Lasotell can provide PRINCE2 certified Project Managers who have up to 20+ years experience in Planning the Work and Working the Plan in various projects across the Pharmaceutical, Television, Defence, Banking, IT, and Biotechnology industries. Our PRINCE2 Project Managers are also ITIL certified for working in service delivery environments.

One of the most pervasive needs of life, business in general and projects in particular, is documentation in one form or another. Documents are a deliverable product of every project -- as management products supporting project outcomes and also as the primary project product(s), depending on the project. This means that writing a document can be a seemingly straightforward product as one of several deliveries in a PRINCE2 work package or one large, complex product, such as a Tender response, for the whole project. Unfortunately, many people set out to write a document (or even a long essay) without knowing how to ensure they will achieve their own, or someone else's, expected outcome.

The following paragraphs summarise the fundamental approach to writing any and every document.


Plan the Work and Work the Plan

Figure 1 shows the stages for preparing documents properly. The stages are scalable from one person working on an important position paper, due in three days, to a team of 50 engineers working on a document for three months or more.


plan-work-writing.gif (14K)
Figure 1 — Document Life Cycle

(In PRINCE2 terms, depending on the product, the content for an Information Plan goes into the Project Brief and Project Approach and the content for the Content Specification goes into the Project Initiation Document, Stage Plan, Work package and/or Team Plan. In non-PRINCE2 environments, the Document Life Cycle is the basis of an acceptable and proven method for managing documentation only projects of any size.)
The Information Plan focuses on the audience for the document(s) and deals with questions such as:
  •    Who is the real audience?
  •    What is the real purpose of the job?
  •    What are the real requirements?
  •    Manuals: what tasks do the target people perform?
  •    Brochure: what are the customer's needs?
  •    What are the implications on the product?

This document requires client acceptance before preparing a Content Specification.

The Content Specification addresses a number of topics and functions (a mere Table of Contents, in isolation, is probably the least useful planning tool):
  •    Specifies what information is actually required
  •    States why is it required
  •    Specifies where it will be located in the document
  •    Specifies the overall structure of the document
  •    Provides a draft Table of Contents
  •    Specifies the Useability Test(s) to know if the document will work
  •    Provides guidance for Reviewers — they can see what you intend to achieve.

This document must be accepted by the client before progressing to the Detailed Design and Writing stages.

As well as the two documents,above, two versions of the Project Plan should be delivered, one with each of the documents. The Project Plan should include the Degree of Difficulty calculation to show the impact of the complexity of the job relative to the historical metrics for that document type.

The Delivery phase in Figure 1 includes a wrap-up report that honestly appraises progress against the plan. It compares planned hours against actual hours worked. It also includes another Degree of Difficulty calculation to assess the actual impact of the factors and so to compare the planning estimate with reality.



Solution Activity

In parallel with the Information Plan and Content Specification activities, a "solution activity" may be required to provide the actual substance of the content of the document. This is very common when responding to tenders. The solution phase covers 30% of the available time and is terminated by a Solution Walkthrough review for all interested parties.

Progress through the solution is documented using Issue Trees and Storyboards.

A PDF copy of the more detailed procedure described on this page, which includes a copy of a paper describing Issue Trees, is available for you on the downloads page. The Word templates mentioned in the procedure are available on request.



Benefits of Applying the Process and Procedure

You can expect to receive the following measurable benefits from applying the proper practices to your documentation projects:

   At least double the average original-page writing page productivity of current documentation projects

   Fewer people required for the documentation tasks

   Fewer work hours per person to deliver higher quality material

   More time for technical people to focus on the solution and (for proposals, the cost models)

   Better estimates of the size and scope of documentation tasks

   Fewer nugatory documentation activities (including re-writing in proposals)

   Improved productivity and control when working with distributed documentation teams.



Applicable Lasotell Project Management/Project Support Skills

   Project Startup, Initiating a Project, Controlling a Project Stage, Managing Product Delivery, Managing State Boundaries, Closing a Project, Planning, Directing a Project

   Business case, Organisation, Plans, Project Controls, Risk Management, Quality Management, Configuration Management, Change Control

   Product Based Planning, Quality Reviews, Issue Management

   Scheduling

   Managing resources (and the necessary diplomacy)

   Ensuring cost effective work methods

   Specification writing and editing — any place, any time, any subject

   Prototyping

   Staff Management and motivation

   Maintenance Planning — desiging and producing low maintenance documents

   Maintenance watchdog — highlighting potential product maintenance traps

   Style guide(s).



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This page can be found at www.lasotell.com.au and was updated 12/11/05.