9.2 COMMONALITY

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We are going to be discussing a number of stages of the SMP development and implementation process over the next few chapters. There are two elements of commonality across these stages.

The first relates to the normal management procedures that should be applied to any project stage. An outline plan should have been prepared during the initiation stage and this should have been agreed as part of the decision to proceed. However, each stage will require some detailed planning. Organizations differ in when this is actually done, some preferring to carry out detailed planning for a stage as the first task within that stage, others prefer such planning to be done as the last task of the preceding stage. Provided this planning is done, I do not believe that it matters which option is chosen.

The second element of commonality has to do with staffing. In an ideal world, a project team would be assembled and this group of people would see the whole thing through to full implementation. There would be no staff turnover and no constraint on resources so that all team members went through the familiarization process at the same time even if this meant that some team members were then underutilized for a period of time, We live in the real world!

The reality is that, at any point in time, some staff may leave or be reassigned, as may managers. This implies that task bubbles covering staff/management appointment and subject familiarization can be added to any of the stages we will be discussing. Bear this in mind and, if you expect staff turnover, be prepared to manage this risk. One way of doing this is to ensure that the metrics team consists of at least two people, even if one of them is part-time.

In this way you can at least maintain some degree of continuity if your "expert" leaves.

Neither of these areas will be explicitly discussed during the next few chapters but remember that they can be present.

Some people may feel that a review task, that is, the work associated with reviewing deliverables of a particular stage, should also be seen as a common element across all stages. I have deliberately left that task out of this immediate discussion because I have found that the type of review process differs depending on the stage you are in at a given time. I intend to discuss the review processes explicitly as necessary.

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