Tasmanian IT – Project Health Check

Tasmanian IT Blog   •   January 18, 2019

The Project Health Check

With the start of the new year you may be part of a Steering Committee for new projects, or the next phase of existing projects.  Kick off the year with a stable foundation, and now is the ideal time to review your projects and give them a “health check” to ensure you have all bases covered.

Below is a high-level list of categories for consideration when reviewing your project or program of work.  Take this overview to your next Steering Committee to see how your project is performing.

If you would like assistance performing project Health Checks, Tasmanian IT have defined processes to support your team in doing a 360-degree health check of your projects, empowering your business to deliver success.

Contact us via phone on (03) 6270 2262 or via email at Office@TasmanianIT.com.au.

Business Case

Does this document exist and is the project still on track to deliver the initial objectives?

Project Plan

Has a Project (Management) Plan been developed and is this document up to date?  Is this document being utilised as the driving force of the project, or has it been developed and not re-visited?

Requirements

Are the requirements clearly defined, both functional and non-functional?

Governance

Has the project governance model been developed including clear lines of reporting?  Does the governance model include a Quality Assurance component for governance processes?

Roles and Responsibilities

Have the roles and responsibilities for project members and stakeholders been clearly defined?

Scope

Is the scope clearly defined, and are there processes in place to handle any potential change to scope?

Financial Management

Has a budget been documented and is it up to date against actuals and forecast costs?  Are processes in place to manage procurement?

Schedule

Has a schedule been documented and is it up to date?  Do you know what the critical path is and what items are on the critical path?

External Dependencies

Do you know what legislation, other projects or activities outside the project could impact this project delivery?

Quality Control

How are you measuring quality and is this being tracked?

Change Processes

Have the changes from a project, business and technology perspective been considered?

Communications

Has a stakeholder analysis been performed, have all stakeholders been captured including what they need to know and when?

Resource Management

Is there a resource management plan in place including staffing, facilities and technology?

Risks & Issues

Have Risk and Issues registers been developed and up to date?  For each High and Extreme risks, is there a mitigation plan in place?

Contingency Planning

Do developed project plans include contingency for finances, schedule and scope?

Benefit Realisation

Has a benefit realisation plan been developed which clearly defines benefits in a measurable format? Has a baseline for each benefit been set?

Test Management

Has a Test strategy and plan been documented and is it up to date?  Have User Stories and Use Cases been documented?  Does testing include items such as disaster recovery, go live processes and post project support?

Integration Management

Have the integration requirements and interface designs been documented?  Do these documents take into considerations things like Development, Testing and Production integration requirements?

Data Management

Does your project require data migration from a legacy system?  Have the requirements for data migration been documented?  What data translation is required?  What new data needs to be developed?

Training

Has Training strategy and plan been developed?  How were the training needs identified?  Does it include training needs for project staff, system end users, organisational management and system support staff?

Deployment

Has the deployment process been documented? Does this include general project release management activities as well as the Go Live period?

Documentation

Does the project have a style guide for documentation?  Have the right documents been developed to the correct detail level?  Are these documents version controlled?  Are the documents stored in a central and secure location?  Are project documents backed up and who will these documents be handed over to post project?

Handover and Support

Does the project have a defined resource or team to handover the project outputs to?  What are the requirements the project team must deliver for handover?  Has the support model been defined and appropriately resourced?  Has the business signed off on the support model design?

Project Closure

What are the exit criteria that must be met for project closure?  What is the plan for project resources, staff, facilities and residual budget?  Has a post project implementation review been planned and documented?  Who will design and perform this review?  How are the lessons learned or identified being documented?  What process is in place to ensure future projects learn from these lessons?