Complexity, Tasks, Roles

In the 11/16 meeting, we touched briefly on the affect of project complexity on project tasks. Specifically, we discussed the affect of project task catalogue on the roles. We agreed that, in general, the more complex a project is, the more tasks will be needed to complete it (i.e., for effective governance and communication) and therefore the more roles will be required to fulfill the tasks.

Created 11/16/2010
Edited 11/29/2010 - brainstorming session with Amon Horne
Edited 11/30/2010 - follow-up with Bill McAvinney

CONTRIBUTING PAGES: RUNNING and REPORTING

FOR THIS DISCUSSION, assume:

1. Development/Configuration projects. (i.e., not facilities, hardware rollout, VOIP, etc.)
2. "Project Complexity" is not an effective measure of project cost.
3. Software development process exists; i.e., this complexity study falls within any project development life cycle.
4. The task is not the role. Roles may be served by the same person, or several different people.
5. Everyone owns the product. The common goal is the client-identified benefit to completing the task.

hypothesis: project complexity increases the need for task GRANULARITY. task number and granularity leads to headcount. which eventually leads to defined roles.

in the task families, where do we put project management? e.g. budgeting, facilitating conversations?

Factors which increase project complexity

political sensitivity

reputation risk

technology complexity

business complexity

invividual and team unfamiliarity with impacted systems and/or the thing being built

includes development environment

number of systems impacted

number of business processes impacted

number of stakeholders

and also...

size of project

i.e., number of users affected, cost, etc.

everything below this line is in SUPERDRAFT

risk

High risk projects, i.e., those which have the potential to harm functioning processes or systems, require mitigation measures and additional documentation. If not completing the work will harm a functioning process or system, then not doing the project is similarly risky.

regulatory requirements

If a project is initiated to ensure that a team or function meets regulatory requirements, the project leads may be asked to contribute compliance paperwork.

cost

High budget requires additional control, risk mitigation, governance, and compliance.

approvers and stakeholders

Greater numbers of approvers necessitate more time spent in seeking and securing signoffs. Greater numbers of stakeholders require more time in interviews, more user profiles, more testing, and potentially also more time in signoffs.

available resource proficiency with the technology

Outsourced projects may require additional oversight on the part of management.

systems interfaces

Each system connecting to a new, changed, or retired component must be represented on a project, and each connection increases the design accommodations and systems requirements.

process interfaces

Each process that will be changed by a systems project must be updated, at least given a workaround, to accommodate the change.

development hours

The more development hours, the more management will be needed to track and support those hours.

Sample:

Tasks on a project

(TL) = Team Lead
(BA) = Business Analyst
(PM) = Project Manager