What are the irreducible minimum project artifacts?

Information Technology

Vivek Bhatia Principal| The Bhatia Group Oakland, Ca, United States

What would you say the absolute core, irreducible minimum project artifacts needed for project success on an IT (hw or sw) development project? I mean PMLC, not SDLC (aka,not counting rqmts since that varies based on planned vs agile).

I came up with
- Business Case
- Budget
- Project Charter
- Project Plan
- Issue Log
- Risk Log
- Change Request
- Communications Plan

I know there are many more any given organization could choose to use, what i'm trying to list are those that are not optional.

Posted: Aug 28, 2018 12:52 PM

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Srikana Ray

Community Champion

IT Project Manager

Documentation of what is being accomplished in the project - Work Breakdown Structure or Feature-Stories.

Posted: Aug 30, 2018 8:13 AM

Abolfazl Yousefi Darestani Manager, Quality and Continuous Improvement| Hörmann-TNR Industrial Doors Newmarket, Ontario, Canada

Good list.

Posted: May 19, 2020 8:26 AM

Stéphane Parent Self Employed / Semi-retired| Leader Maker Prince Edward Island, Canada

You can do it with only a project plan but I suggest you also have a project management plan.

The project plan - what you are going to do - would cover a schedule (or milestone list), a risk register, an issue log, ... It's up to you to decide how you will develop your plan. For small projects, you can get away with a single file, usually a spreadsheet. For bigger projects, you may need a few separate documents.

The project management plan - how you are going to do it - outlines the processes and procedures you will use to create, maintain, and monitor your project plan. Again, your project management plan could be a comprehensive, single document or one main document with subsidiary management plans.

The business case, feasibility study and project charter are all documents you have to do before your project starts.

Posted: May 19, 2020 2:40 PM (Updated by author: May 19, 2020 2:40 PM)

David Portas London, United Kingdom

As Kiron suggests: "it depends". Every organization and problem is unique. The Team is the minimum essential for project success, so create the right team and let them decide what artifacts they need. Having a formal list might risk compromising a team's creativity and focus.

Posted: May 22, 2020 10:10 AM

Tarun Nair Adoor, Kerala, India

This will entirely depend on the project, project manager, organization.
You can have different set of mendatory or optional documents for small less complex project and it can be different for large or complex project.
For me the list will include risk, wbs, cost and schedule (in some form, excel word, mpp etc.).

These can be separate or marked in one document.

I have also seen people making only one excel to mark all relevent key information in different sheet and to my surprise it will be well maintained single document and covers all important topics at one place. ??

Posted: May 24, 2020 8:12 AM

Soha Karjawally Software development manager / Program Manager| Phoenix - USA Montréal, Quebec, Canada

Aug 28, 2018 4:57 PM

Replying to Kiron Bondale

...

Vivek -

It all depends on the complexity and scale of a project. Small, straightforward non-discretionary projects might get by with a charter and not require a formal business case.

I've also seen the Comms Plan as a section of a PM Plan rather than a separate artifact...

I prefer to consolidate Risks/Actions/Issues & Decisions into a RAID log (or even add Assumptions and make it a RAAID log)...

Kiron

Hi Kiron, although I agree with you, I don't understand where do we stand vs PMI recommendations? and do we wait until the end of the project to evaluate the success of the PM ? then what about a case where the project needs to be handed over to another PM? or an organizational change? do we evaluate the way the project team felt dealing with a PM than another? (sometimes team members don't like the extra work that can enforce quality, which is usually pushed by PMs). What do you think about that please? Thanks.

Posted: May 24, 2020 9:15 PM

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What are the irreducible minimum project artifacts?

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