Summary

Who’s accountable for what in relation to the set up, planning and delivery of projects? Can the CIO reallocate IT resources? Can the Sponsor select their own contract resources? When does the project need to conform to the standard project delivery methodology?

These and many more (27 in all) project policies are covered in this “How to define your project policies” Guide.

The Guide was born out of seeing confusion, angst and outright anger at what was happening on projects when no one had set up and agreed the ‘rules’.

In 27 critical areas we have defined a set of policies that allow the business and the technical managers to work together with clear accountabilities that enable all parties to produce exceptional results.

Recognizing that not all policies are created equal, we have also included a hierarchy of policy compliance from “Mandatory” (in all senses of the word) to “Guideline” (if you have no better policy). The four levels of compliance ensure inappropriate policies are not forced on situations where they just don’t apply.

Accompanying this Guide is a blank version that you can customize for your own organization. There are parameters to be set, recommended policy settings and compliance levels to be agreed. We do not aim to be prescriptive but to recommend a series of policies that we have seen remove many of the conflicts on projects that are generated by people not understanding their and other’s roles and accountabilities.

Your customized policies can then be made available throughout the organization to help all project participants know what to do and who is to do it. Sure beats arguing!

Benefits

This Guide

1. deals with the most common points of dispute on projects, making clear the ‘rules’ at the outset
2. takes a practical approach to policy application, not trying to make everything ‘mandatory’
3. allows you to adapt it to the needs of your organization — one size does not fit all
4. pre-empts conflict and confusion, angst and arguments. That must be worthwhile.

Who should read

1. Project Investment Committees
2. Sponsors
3. Steering Committees
4. CIOs
5. PMOs and
6. Auditors.

Contents

1. How to implement these policies
2. Understanding the ‘specific values’ to be set for your policies
3. Project set up policies
4. Project planning policies
5. Project delivery policies
6. Project closure policies
7. Technology set up policies
8. Technology planning policies
9. Technology delivery policies.

In addition, we also provide you with some additional supporting tools and resources to make use of this Guide easy and effective.

Bonus

Project policy blank guide
A version of the “How to …” Guide designed to be customized for your organization and issued. Does not include the ‘how to implement/customize sections of the “How to …” Guide