Artifacts in Project Management
Background and importance
Project Management involves extensive planning, execution and effective communication within teams and with stakeholders. Documentation holds the soul of any effective project management skill. Artifacts are the documents that provide relevant information to project that may be Vision and Need for project, from Business case, VOC, VOB, VOP, VOE to Scope, Specification and Stages of project along with timelines, expected impact, templates, analysis reports, etc. All these elements are of high importance for the team and all related parties to the project keep referring back to artifacts during various stages of project. Management can do a comparison between planned and actual status, take corrective actions, be proactive in taking decisions and enhance effective and efficient closer of the project.
Type of Artifacts
There are 9 different types of Artifacts known and extensively used in project management.
1) Strategy Artifact
Client expectation, Need of the project, Scope and Metrics, Charter etc are documents created at the beginning of the project. These documents basically define the objective of running a project. Stakeholder’s agreement, commitment and sign off for investment is generally initiated with these set of documents. This artifact is vital as it allows the team to refer back to Strategy decided in the beginning and allows them to course correct the execution plan to deliver the desired result.
DMAIC – prepared mostly in Define stage but is referred back at each stage.
2) Communication Plan
Most of the projects will have their focus around ARMI and Communication. Starting with the core team responsible to participate / deliver to sponsors, champion and aligned Quality team, the frequency, content and medium of communication varies. A well lay out plan and shared with the interested team improves credibility, expectation, transparency and ensures accountability.
DMAIC - prepared mostly in Define stage but is referred back at each stage.
3) Logs and Register
Projects has dependency of various types of data gathering and its analysis. This is important for team to focus on the identification of relevant potential aspects and create an action plan to improve the performance. A project manager should always keep a record of all data analysis and records used and mentioned during decision making and execution. Risk, Assumptions, Historical output data, Stakeholder feedback etc all should be documented in form of a standard register.
DMAIC – Mostly prepared during measure and analysis phase but is quite relevant in Improve and control stages
4) General Plans
Ensuring in time progress and expected outcome is Project Manager’s core responsibility. Usually, manager will prepare multiple plans aligned with the core vision and committed objective. Example logistics, accuracy, iteration and exception handling, UAT results etc all should have an exclusive plan. This allows focus and continuity to the project progress.
DMAIC – most used in Improve phase but often is important in all phases including Measure to Control.
5) Reports
Periodic report submission is an integral part of stakeholder and team management. A summary view on how project is progressing against target, influences the authority to take decisions and ensure success to the project. Investments, Quality, Risk etc are some of the examples that gets officially submitted as record for stakeholders.
DMAIC: Created in all stages of the project mostly from Measure stage
6) Organization Hierarchy Charts
Depending on the scope, landscape and characteristics, a relationship exists between various process, departments, products, teams and stakeholders. A well-defined representation via a chart shows the value flow and inter dependency between various parties. This also helps to establish an Escalation channel, ownership of process breakdown and associated risk.
DMAIC – Most often prepared in Define stage but it keeps getting updated and at different layers during every stage of the project.
7) Visual Dashboarding and information
Day wise performance, month on month comparison, inter operator level performance etc all are considered to be live documents. The visual representation of performance and status is an easy way to communicate all teams on how progress is compared to defined targets. An excellent tool for Operations as well as stakeholders, enables GENBA and documented response and explanations serves in Root cause analysis and appraisals.
DMAIC – Improve and Control stage has most relevance but can also be leveraged for various stages of Analyse phase.
8) Baseline
Baseline is the defined set and approved version of how the project should perform. Budget allocation and usage, man power deployment, timelines to milestone and performance are some examples where Baseline is used extensively. Baselines can get updated as the project progresses during each stage of the project starting with Define stage.
DMAIC – used in all stages of the project but Improve and Control stages has most focus and attraction as it facilitates a performance comparison for team and stakeholders.
9) Agreement and contracts
Depending on project, the various binding and agreed clauses in an agreement are documented. The only one assurance cover or guard that both the service provider and investor to a project may have to resolve the dispute in the eyes of law. Price, delivery time, material quality and reimbursement contracts are various example of agreement that stakeholders get into either before or during the course of project.
DMAIC – Often the generic agreements are signed off during Define / Pre-define stage of projects but dependent on the outcome and progress, agreements can be made between the interested parties. Measure and Analyse phases would witness most the real time document.
A quick summary of Artifacts adaption in DMAIC
Define
Measure
Analyse
Improve
Control
Strategy
P
R
M
R
R
Communication
P
M
M
M
M
Log and Register
P
P
P
P
P
General Plans
P
P
P
M
R
Reports
R
P
P
P
P
Hierarchy Charts
P
M
M
M
M
Dashboards
R
P
R
P
M
Baseline
P
R
M
R
R
Agreements
P
R
M
P
P
P – Prepared, Maintained and Referred, M – Maintained and Referred, R – Referred mostly
The chart is a directionally generic recommendation and with the assumption that all the artifacts can be prepared and maintained during any stage of DMAIC and need be.