The documents provided below are templates I have created in the process of managing projects over the course of my career. These are intended to help others either gain a perspective on some approaches I have adopted to manage projects or communicate concepts. They can also be used to as a starting point for the development of similar templates that fit your own requirements. These are all in native formats (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Project, Visio etc.) and are freely available with no obligation.
This Excel template is an abstraction from the Rational Unified Process which associates RUP Roles (Project Manager, Architect, Business Analyst) to specific artifacts within a project and associates these using a modified RASCI chart to project participants. This is intended to be a lightweight tool that shows at a glance the artifacts that have been identified in the Development Case (the Project Deliverable List also on this page can be a useful tool for this) and who is responsiblefor creating them. I have, in the past, used hyperlinks between the artifact names and role names to an installation of the Rational Unified Process if this is available enterprise-wide.
The term RASCI is an acronym used in process workflows to delineate who is Responsible for the work, Approves the work, Supervises the work, Consults on the work and should be Informed of the work. The attached matrix only uses Responsible and Consulted but it could easily be extended to include the complete RASCI format. Instructions on the use of the matrix are included as a Tab in the spreadsheet.
This Excel template is a complement to similar information that you might find within a project GANTT chart but calls it out in a more explicit and focused way. The template shows all the major artifacts that are scheduled to be produced during a project and when they will be Started, available in Draft form, or Completed. It also useful to specify any artifacts which will be formally Reviewed (in which case a Draft should be available sufficiently in advance of the review). In many respects this is a more detailed view of the Rational Unified Process (RUP) Development Case.
For larger projects I have created this artifact for each phase of the project (Inception, Elaboration, Construction and Transition). While GANTT charts are critical for illustrating dependencies and specific resource requirements they can be difficult to view online or print, in addition, most project management tools (such as MS Project) are not available on an enterprise level so not everyone can view a project file in its native format. Excel is a much more ubiquitous product which is why I have developed the tool using this product. This template requires moderate Excel skills to add in deliverable names and modify the calendar used. The template uses a 10 week project as an example.
This artifact is not so much a template as an example of how to develop and implement an Enterprise Architecture. This reflects work I created approximately ten years ago with several specific goals in mind. The first was to implement a consistent mechanism for managing IT investments across a dynamic, rapid growth business environment. There is a a high emphasis on aligning technology processes and the overall architecture with business goals and strategies. Ultimately, this would support a Balanced Scorecard measurement approach. This is a complete website which was designed to allow easy navigation of important IS reference material with a minimum of maintenance and support. Documentation is included on both the Java applets used for mouseovers on images and the menu applet within the site. The rest of the material consists of templates and examples which could be of considerable value to someone responsible for managing the creation of a similar set of material. This artifact is probably more relevant for someone managing IT assets and resources across a medium sized organization (500 - 5,000 users).
Individual elements of the entire site can be downloaded and if interested in receiving the entire site please
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me a request and I will send you a .zip file.
The Weighted Criteria Assessment Matrix is a tool designed to aid decision making involving a large number of criteria or decision points. This tool is primarily used for technology decisions but can easily be modified for any multi-criteria decision. As the name suggests, these criteria are 'weighted' based on their importance to the decision. The goal is to provide an objective assessment of a decision (which can be a product selection or an architecture decision). Any number of products or decisions can be compared simply by "copy and pasting" one of the existing columns into a new column. This template includes an instructions tab which provides more details.
The Agile Iteration Route Map is a tool that identifies what functionality will be delivered in each iteration of a project. As the name suggests it acts as a map that project stakeholders can reference in order to anticipate how the application will develop throughout its lifecycle. The Iteration Route Map is primarily used by the project manager, architect and development team to manage analysis, design and implementation activities throughout the project.
The Iteration Route Map identifies the use cases /stories and other components that will be developed for the system and classifies these in terms of their size and complexity. Three general categories are used: High, Medium or Low for Complexity and Large, Medium and Small for Size. The classifications should be assigned jointly by the architect and the lead developer or possibly the entire engineering and development teams. These leverage a relative estimating technique so accuracy is more important than precision.
A weighting is then applied to each of these to components to determine an estimate of development effort, the initial estimate is developed using the concept of Perfect Engineering Days (PED). PEDs reflect a fully productive day of development, no distractions, no meetings, no coffee/smoke breaks, just perfect programming time. These PEDs are then increased by a Load Factor which reflects not only these typical productivity reducers but also includes challenges associated with supporting a particular programming language (for example Visual Basic 6.0 which does not support inheritance). Development productivity should improve over time (as developers become more familiar with the domain and the team). Items that are both Large and highly Complex are probably good candidates for early iterations as they probably reflect the highest risk items or the most architecturally significant.
The template has a complete set of instructions on one of its tabs.
