Triage for PPM in Peril

Michael R. Wood is a Business Process Improvement & IT Strategist Independent Consultant. He is creator of the business process-improvement methodology called HELIX and founder of The Natural Intelligence Group, a strategy, process improvement and technology consulting company. He is also a CPA, has served as an Adjunct Professor in Pepperdine's Management MBA program, an Associate Professor at California Lutheran University, and on the boards of numerous professional organizations. Mr. Wood is a sought after presenter of HELIX workshops and seminars in both the U.S. and Europe.

  Cost Management   Portfolio Management   Quality   Risk Management   Schedule Management   Scheduling   Strategy  

Ever stop to think what you would do to rescue and revive a failing project portfolio? How would you go about deciding which projects could be saved and which ones were too far gone? Maybe taking a lesson from how medical triage teams approach situations where there are mass hurt and wounded would help.

In a recent article entitled “Using Triage Methodology to Keep IT Projects on Track”, Dana Craig presents an approach called the “Triage Methodology”. In this article, Craig defines the method as follows:

“… a process of sorting or classifying injured people in emergency rooms, war zones, or disaster areas. A color coding system is used to identify priority of care.”

Applying the Triage Methodology to projects, Craig identifies the following classifications:

“Black – serious issues that didn’t receive necessary attention when required. The moment is now gone for you to be able to revive them. Failure has already occurred, so you must devise a workaround or alternative means to achieve the same effect.

Red – immediate and important issue, requiring response. This is a critical path item, meaning not resolving it will result in certain delay or failure to deliver. Examples might be issues with being able to invoice customers properly, corrupt data, or a key feature not working.

Yellow &…

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