Project Review Agenda Template – Sort Of

 

As I alluded to in last week’s blog, the formal project review is perhaps the most important thing that the program manager does. Here, each of the projects in the program have a representative discuss the projects’ performance, concerns and issues. Members of ProjectManagement.com have access to a variety of templates that help with the basics of project management, ranging from risk management checklists to baseline change proposal forms, and these forms are very useful. I don’t recall seeing a template for aiding the program manager with conducting these project reviews, so I thought I’d take a stab at it. Who knows? If Cameron likes this form, he may invite me to submit others! Just for the record, though, neither Cameron nor anybody else from ProjectManagement.com has invited me to roll out the following project Review Agenda Template (RAT) – this is entirely on my own.

Back when I received my PMP® (and it wasn’t recent – my PMP® number is 1004) the PMBOK Guide® had the following major chapters:

·         Scope

·         Cost

·         Schedule

·         Risk

·         Quality

·         Communications

·         Human Resources

·         Acquisition / Procurement

I have long contended that some of these areas are more important to project (and, by extension, program) management than others, but these chapter headings did provide me with the foundation for my proffered template. If we assume that a given major program has twelve projects within its purview, and that the program manager doesn’t want to drag the reviews out for more than ½ day, then we’ll structure the RAT so that each project’s representative has 15 minutes to get everybody up-to-date. I’ve adjusted the agenda headings to reflect my take on the value of the PMBOK Guide® chapters. So, with no further ado, here’s my RAT.

Review Agenda Template (RAT)

Project Reviews for Program _____________      Held on (date, time) at (place)________

Each project will provide updates for the following PM areas:

Scope:  (30 seconds. I mean, c’mon, if the program manager doesn’t even know what your project is about, you could probably ditch this meeting altogether.)

Cost: (5 minutes [less, if you’re verifiably on-time, on-budget]. It’s appropriate that this subject and the next one take up the lion’s share of the review. All anybody really wants to know is, if you’re having a problem, how much it will cost to fix it.)

Schedule: (5 minutes [again, less if you are on a pace to finish early]. If you just got done reporting a Schedule Performance Index [SPI] of less than 1.00, and your critical path schedule is indicating an on-time finish, you’ve constrained too many milestones.)

Risk: (12 seconds, just long enough to have the project rep blurt out “After the baseline is approved, risk management is largely irrelevant.” Besides, a risk analysis of this review indicates that you’ll need to set aside 3 minutes as Contingency.)

Quality: (1 minute firm. Over-wrought statistical investigation does not a valid quantitative analysis make. Besides, this is more of a personnel/process issue than specific-project related.)

Communications:  (18 seconds, unless you really want another lecture on the alleged importance of “involving stakeholders.”)

Human Resources, Procurement: Whoops! Look at that – we’re out of time! We’ll let you guys report on your goings-on at the next review.

Feel free to reproduce this form for your project reviews – just don’t attach my name to it. I’m busy enough ducking risk, procurement, communications, quality, and procurement managers as-is.