Five Essential Documents in Project and Program Management

One of my former students in a leadership class in Boston approached me regarding an initiative the student was spearheading in Bangalore, India to work with several local healthcare professionals to convert a local unused building to a healthcare facility to extend care for the many COVID-19 patients. As I extended some level of project level support to this student so that this initiative turned successful, I felt like some essential documents were not in place to guide people in their work. Some of these documents can be very detailed and extensive but each serve a unique purpose without which value can't be realized. 

Justification Document: The business case is the justification document. It justifies the need that is required in the targeted market and further justifies the business value by completing an initiative along with the costs of working on this project over any other initiative. It goes into the details of strategic considerations (application of systems thinking), financial modeling (debt, equity, retained earnings), solution alternatives (application of design thinking), resource organization (internal resources, procurement, application outsourcing, business process organization, disaster recovery/business continuity), and the management (who, what extent, span of control, governance thoughts) considerations. Every one of these considerations is loaded with uncertainty (hence, risk management plan at the portfolio, program, and project levels). Consequently, this business case gives a measure by which value is evaluated over a time horizon. It is also a sensitive document that justifies details on the timeline, resources, funding, and even what other initiatives may be compromised, etc. There may be even models created to support the details. As a result, it is a lengthy document (>100 pages) and can't be shared with everyone (and shared on a need-to-know basis).

Authorization Document: The charter authorizes the project formally and identifies the project or program manager. It will be a very high level requiring the project/program manager to develop it further to understand the expectations on high level scope, high-level timeline, and a high-level resource (it may include cost) so that the stakeholders make the commitment on resources and demonstrate the engagement needed from everyone to demonstrate success. As a result, the project/program manager is given the "authority" to problem-solve and decision-make for tactical changes. Please note that the charter is not a legally binding document and hence is not considered a contract and that a business case is always more detailed than the charter.  The charter is visible to everyone and hence should be 1-2 pages so that the stakeholders ACE (on alignment, commitment, and engagement) for success (of program or project). 

Baseline Document: The integrated management plan is the baseline document. Any management plan is a tactical document! In this document, the high level scope has been decomposed into deliverables (or into component management plan in programs), initial or primary risks have been identified, assessed, and evaluated, the timeline has been drawn with phased milestones for funding and invoice schedules, cost baseline and contingency reserves have been established, quality management plans have been documented, stakeholder engagement and communication plan has been drafted and agreed upon, and resources and procurement management plans have been approved. This document serves as the baseline of how progress is made, and changes may be required during the project/program delivery lifecycle. 

Approach Document: As you can see from the baseline document, there are many things that a project or program needs. From a higher-level stakeholder perspective, the roadmap serves as the approach document focusing on the timeline of when the project or program will be delivering the promised benefits. Roadmap focuses on chronological (timeline) order (prioritization) advocating (communication) the intended direction (benefit delivery to stakeholders) major milestones (decision points) graphically (shows dependency). It doesn't go into the details of the deliverables in the minor milestones but builds a visual chart with high level releases or iterations in a phased release (rolling wave planning). It is mostly modeled after a Gantt Chart (without delineating individual deliverables, tasks, dependencies, or milestones). Occasionally, the roadmap could be a tabular list of milestones, the delivery due date, and the list of benefits (and hence the reason why benefits register come in). 

Value Document: The benefits realization document (or benefit register) comes under the larger benefit management plan and captures the steps and owners necessary to realize the unified (consolidated) or incremental (recurrent) benefits from the roadmap into value. This value document, therefore, identifies benefit details, stakeholder responsible, measurement considerations, and tracking of value delivery. 

While many other documents, like the RACI, risk log, issues log, status documents, backlog, qualified seller list and many others are relevant in project and program management, these five documents above (justification, authorization, baseline, approach, and value) are the most critical documents that are non-negotiable and cannot be missed. 

Thoughts? Please share. 

References

A guide to the project management body of knowledge (2017). 6th Edition. Newtown Square, PA. : Project Management Institute.

The Standard for Program Management (2013). 3rd Edition; Newtown Square, PA.: Project Management Institute.