Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
People explained to me about the three categories of projects, but there
didn't exist clear written guidance or
criteria
on how to decide which artifacts
made sense for each of the three project categories. When I asked how people
decided, I heard from one senior leader in the company:
We just give them the big list to pick from and tell them to pick what they
need, but we don't tell them how to make that decision.
And then he added:
I think it would be hard to tell them what to include without knowing more
about their project.
7.25 The Purpose of Criteria and How They Can Help
Ta i l o r i n g
This brings us to the subject of
criteria.
It does take time to develop good cri-
teria. It requires you to
think
about and discuss the
factors
you want your
people to consider during their project planning. When you don't take the
time to provide this criteria to help guide people in their planning phase, it
becomes too easy for them to select things without really
thinking through
why they are doing it.
What I found at GEAR was that even though they did “tailor up,” they often
tailored up too much because they didn't ask themselves the
right questions
when creating the artifact list. Think about how much more work you could
be causing your company by simply not placing adequate attention on this
activity early on your project. An example of
simple criteria
to help people ask
the right questions when tailoring up could be:
1. Is it a required deliverable?
2. Does someone need this information to do his or her job either inside this
company or a dependent contractor?”
LESSON 6
Without criteria to help, you can tailor up too much.
