Introduction

In Chapter 5, you learned how to validate a project proposal that was assigned to you and to develop a high-level definition of an IT project. In this chapter, we re going to continue along that same line, adding detail and organizing the project as well. As you know, IT project management (IT PM) is an iterative process and you ll revisit various steps more than once. It s also true that in many instances, IT PM steps occur concurrently or out of order. For instance, it s possible that during the high-level definition stage, you also developed additional project definitions and data that we ll discuss in this chapter. While there is a logical flow to the IT PM steps, in the real world things don t always follow an ideal order. The key is to properly define and organize your IT project before you start actually doing the work of the project, whenever possible.

If a project is in trouble, the steps we re going to discuss in this chapter are often the ones that were skipped. If you re taking over a project, especially one that s flirting with disaster, go back and review or verify the steps listed in Chapter 5 and this chapter. You need not do all the steps with the same rigor or with the same level of detail, but you should verify these steps were performed and performed correctly if you re working on a project that is faltering. You should also review the conclusions and decisions made if the project...