Records Management Policy
Get help defining the policies and practices governing the life cycle management of records within your corporation using this detailed sample policy.
Application Development > Life Cycle Management
Data Warehouse Asset Management Data Mart Plan
This excellent Microsoft Project plan will help you implement a complete life cycle project to design and build a data warehouse.
Methodologies and Life Cycles
Two essential tools for the successful project manager are methodologies and life cycles. Learn more about why you need these tools to succeed in project management.
Banking Package Implementation Plan
Deploying an application solution package in a banking environment is complicated and challenging. This Microsoft Project plan based on a real project shows you how.
HR Package Evaluation Plan
Have you been tasked to help evaluate HR application packages? This Microsoft Project plan will come in handy.
In an age of tight budgets and global competition, businesses need IT to do more than complete on time, on budget and with the required functionality. Learn Why Spreadsheets No Longer Cut it for Strategic PMOs.
Siebel Implementation with RAD Iterations
A total roll-out of Siebel, including Rapid Application Development phases, testing, training and even change management is in this comprehensive Microsoft Project plan.
Choosing A Project Lifecycle
The best approach on any given project depends upon many factors, including the novelty of the work, the duration and size of the project, and access to users and quality project information. Here is a primer on what to consider when choosing between a waterfall and cyclic lifecycle.
Project Documentation Checklists
This document outlines the major project documentation at each project phase (first section), project management knowledge area (second section) and typical software development life cycle (third part). Feel free to include other documentation sets that are relevant to your industry and project life cycle.
Managing Project Risk
This presentation is a short but sweet refresher course on risk analysis, identification, reporting and mitigation within the context of an ongoing project review process. Remember, risk dogs a project throughout its entire life cycle.
Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control -- Environmental Information System Project Management Plan
This MS Word project plan has it all, from executive summary to risk assessment to value management. The plan details how to plan, develop and deploy a new distributed Environmental Information System by converting the data from a legacy information system. It's a great start!
Application Package Vendor RFI
This is not a typical request for information that goes on forever in boring text, putting you and your potential vendors in a coma. It is a useful matrix that succinctly itemizes nearly every criterion for selecting an application vendor.
Issue Documenting & Tracking Form
The following form provides a mechanism to document and track any issue during its life cycle. After an issue is created, a team should determine whether the issue has any bearing on the project and what should be the course action to address the issue. All issues must be periodically reviewed to determine if they still have any significance for the project.
Quality Management Systems Procedures: SW Product Development
This procedure defines the activities involved in the lifecycle of software product development .
System Development Life Cycle Made Easy
The system development life cycle (SDLC) is a formal set of activities and phases used to guide the project through the complete development of an IT solution. But it's more than that, too. Click here and get smart.
Business Case Development Project Plan
Getting off the ground starts with a business case. This project plan is the first giant step you'll need to move forward with your proposed project.
Self-Documenting Code Checklist
Code is a developer's signature on a software project, and not all developers play by the rules of good coding standards. Ensure that your development team leaves a coding legacy that not only implements the application at hand but can be understood by others and maintained during future development cycles.
Project Risk Assessment
Do you need to put together a high-level risk assessment? Here's an example that will not only itemize the project risks, but will help you quantify them before you begin your development cycle.
Top 10 PMO Worst Practices: Pitfalls to Avoid
Why do PMOs have such a high failure rate? It's time to take a look at the top 10 PMO worst practices--and advice on how to avoid them.
The Waterfall Relevance
The basic premise for the New York state project management methodology is that there are two lifecycles in managing a software project: the Project Management Lifecycle and the System Development Lifecycle. This article briefly examines both cycles, worthy processes to follow for any organization seeking a quality PM solution.
The PMO-Executive Tango
Executives need projects so they can deliver on commitments, and projects need executives, who control the resources and networks essential to success. This co-dependent relationship is itself a project that can be cultivated within a PMO for an organization's strategic long-term benefit.
Speed Up Project Cycles
With the increase in distributed teams and the rise of online meetings among them, a Web conferencing tool like GoToMeeting Corporate can help project managers accelerate project cycles by enabling better communication, increasing engagement and sharing ownership of project results.
Agile Change Management
While all project planning should account for the possibility of change, Agile projects live by it. They can also die by it if team members don’t embrace change as part of the process and work collaboratively to manage it.
Unifying Project/Change Management
A new book emphasizes the integration of project management and change management to improve the chances of success for business, IT and other organizational initiatives.
Software Testing Principles Checklist
Do you know how to thoroughly and efficiently test the software product you have so painstakingly built? Don't risk delivering a faulty software product due to insufficient or unfocused testing. Use this list to check whether you are testing smart--or just testing!
Seven Successful Habits of Effective Software Leaders
It's easy to find a million ways that software managers can fail with their teams and their projects. This article prioritizes seven practical leadership tips and techniques that can help build great teams that consistently deliver great projects. And these habits are so simple, you can put them into practice immediately!
ROI Calculator
The attached tool has been developed to assist you in generating some solid payback data to be used to evaluate the return potential of your proposed method. Not only will it help the gods of finance see the light, but will also help you to understand whether your project is a winner or loser before you ever put your signature on the purchase requisition.
Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control Information System Project
This detailed Microsoft Project plan will help you plan and execute the conversion of a legacy information system to a new distributed application system. It uses the gantthead Distributed Application Development Process, customized for the Environmental Industry.
Data Warehouse QA Plan
Oops! isn't what your client wants to hear at the eleventh hour in the delivery cycle. Use this sample QA plan to verify that the data warehouse (or data mart) has been designed and built correctly before it undergoes user acceptance testing.
Agile2011 Impressions
Agile Leadership Network board president Rob Mac Iver summarizes his highlights at the recent Agile2011 Conference in Salt Lake City, including the event's first Executive Forum.
Chapter Challenge
ASPE announces IIBA Chapter Challenge
The Post-Launch PMO Blues
Management consultants are being called on to help establish project management offices that are simply not equipped to succeed after they leave. Here are three things they’re doing wrong.
Smart Training Performance Model
Based on Clay Carr's Smart Training concept, this PowerPoint presentation outlines the concept of performance and guides you through each step of the performance cycle.
Data Storage: The Big Picture for 2008 and Beyond
More information to more organizations is creating a data overload that could overwhelm businesses in the next few years. What are IT professionals doing to manage the current situation and to prepare for the coming deluge?
Computer Associates to Buy Niku for $350M
The acquisition will give the business software giant a foothold in the fast-growing IT governance market.
DAD Package Implementation Plan
Are you implementing a package in a distributed application development environment? You need a plan for the full implementation cycle, from planning and requirements analysis through deployment. Here's a sample from a Warehousing/Shipping environment.
Test Plan
What tests do you need to perform on the new system and when before moving it into production? Here's a comprehensive test plan to help you cover all the bases and stay on schedule.
Risk Management Grid
The Risk Management Grid is a technique to identify potential risk events that could impact one of more of the project’s Seven Win Conditions. Importantly, it also serves to decide how those events will be prevented or mitigated.
Scrum and the Product Owner
Is the product owner the most stressful position in Scrum? It can be a thankless task, and here we explore their responsibilities (thankfully, it isn’t all bad news).
Project Management Maturity: A Framework Refresher
How mature is your organization, and how mature does it need to be? There are many ways to define maturity. Here is an overview of the major maturity models and how they might relate to the projects, programs and portfolios that you're working with.
Project Plan Review
Your project plan will determine how good (or bad) life will be for you and your team over the course of the project. A good project plan uses the proper inputs, addresses good planning practices, and is positioned for ongoing use through the life of the project. Put sufficient effort into the plan and double-check it against a guideline, such as this checklist.
Project Plan Checklist
A lot is riding on your project plan, such as the success of project itself, not to mention your career! Wouldn't it be nice to check to make sure it contains the basics from which to run your project?
Analyze This
In any business intelligence cycle, the analysis step is critical to providing value back to the organization. But don't confuse information with intelligence...
Storage Sanity
Most intelligence cycles do not include storage as a step at all, lumping it in with collection. But as this writer knows all too well, when collecting stuff you need to store it properly.
The Evolution of ALM
Few know the evolution of Application Lifecycle Management and how the Structured Revolution of the 1970s and '80s was a major turning point in software development. This article presents a retrospective on ALM and Structured Development Life Cycles--those that shaped it, the influencing principles and the related methodologies and tools the movement spawned.
Kicking Up Your Kinetic Energy
Has the spark gone out of your project meetings? Does your team seem like they need a recharge? Did you ever think the problem might be you? Even if you think you’re already “giving” at the office--it may not be enough.
Agile Management: An Oxymoron?
The smart project manager will be aware of agile development approaches--and be prepared to embrace them and adjust their PM approach accordingly. So let's try and bring some sanity to chickens and pigs...
ORACLE Coding Standards
Your Oracle code may do the job, but is it intelligible? Reusable? Use these standards to make coding simpler and easier to debug, which results in quicker programming for your team and the gift of reusability for future teams.
Quality Management Systems Procedures Testing
This procedure describes the process of testing software code or products by the test team. It documents the procedure for the entire testing cycle: generating test plans, scheduling tests, conducting tests and reporting test results. This procedure applies to new development, as well as major and minor releases, including customized solutions delivered to customers.
Innovate: The Doing -- Learning as You Go
Learning by doing -- on the fly!
The Business of Agile: Managing a Startup from Conception to Inception
Those with solid agile project management experience and knowledge--coupled with an entrepreneurial vision to see the trends and navigate incubating startups to launch--are poised to take great advantage both monetarily and professionally in years to come.
