From this post I would like to switch from TFS reporting to Project Management. The main reason is, that I have described all reports my team is using in everyday work. But of course, if we get some new ones – I will post about them for sure.
So, what are the phases of a project? Let’s see them on a chart:
I will go through all phases in my future posts but today I will speak only about Request phase. This is a step before project stats. Its main and usually only document is A3. A3 is a story written on a single sheet.
Let’s briefly explain each section of the document:
- Business Case:
- Background – explains the context of the problem or improvement
- Business Need – derived from or linked to the Business Plan and / or higher level A3.
- Problem – specific opportunity or problem to be overcome including performance measures.
- Current Condition:
- Actual current state (as opposed to perceived state).
- Identification of key issues of waste and opportunities for improvement (linked to business case).
- Target Condition:
- Description of the target condition.
- Reasons why achieving target condition will address the improvement opportunity or solve the business case problem – explanation of any assumptions.
- Action Plan:
- List а what must be done and how (with due dates and responsible persons).
The A3 document must be necessarily approved by Project Sponsor, only then we can initialize project start. Also project team must always return to this document checking whether we’re going in right direction.
To sum up, I’m posting the example of an A3 from one of my projects:
