The following article is part of the self-preparation for the modern BVOP® Project Management Certification program.
Documentation management may include creating and maintaining documentation and ensuring its quality.
- Documentation creation
- Project management documents
- Project Charter
- Project Plan
- Project Status Report
- Work Schedule
- Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
- Gantt Chart
- Timesheet
- Communication Plan
- Change Management Plan
- Change Request Form
- Stakeholder Management Plan
- Human Resources Management Plan
- Cost Management Plan
- Risk Management Plan
- Project Budget
- Statement of Work
- Stage end Report
- Project Team meetings log
- Lessons Learned log
- Daily log
- Post Implementation Review
- Project Closing Documents
- Project management documents
Documentation creation
Depending on the projects, organizational, legal, or structural requirements, the Business Value-Oriented Project Management (BVOPM) office may need a different set of documents.
Project management documents
A project may need different documents, reports, templates, logs, analysis, and many other extensive preparations, activities, and tools. Some of the popular traditional project management documents are:
- Project Charter
- Project Plan
- Project Status Report
- Work Schedule
- Work Breakdown Structure
- Gantt Chart
- Timesheet
- Communication Plan
- Change Management Plan
- Change Request Form
- Stakeholder Management Plan
- Human Resources Management Plan
- Cost Management Plan
- Risk Management Plan
- Project Budget
- Statement of Work
- Stage end Report
- Project Team meetings log
- Lessons Learned log
- Daily log
- Post Implementation Review
- Project Closing documents
Project Charter
In general, this is an outline of the scope, objectives, business needs, high-level budget, high-level risk, and participants in a project. This document outlines in advance the roles, responsibilities, and objectives of the projects. It also identifies key stakeholders and defines the authority of the project manager.
Project Plan
The project plan presents planning assumptions and decisions, facilitates communication between project stakeholders, documents approved scopes, costs, and schedules.
Usual topics in the project plan may include management of:
- Scope
- Requirements
- Schedule
- Finances
- Quality
- Resources
- Stakeholders
- Communications
- Project changes
- Risk
- Procurement
Project Status Report
It is usually used to regularly update the project team, sponsors, stakeholders, and customers on the current status of the project. It may contain general information, costs, finished and unfinished tasks, issues, resolutions, risk, further plans, etc.
Work Schedule
It may present standard workdays, holidays, non-standard working times, tasks, and assigned resources.
Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
Hierarchical decomposition of the entire project into small components, tasks, goals, phases, and deliverables. It is usually a tree structure that shows a subdivision of the effort needed to reach a goal. The WBS is a useful tool for visualizing the needed work and may facilitate budget, time, and resources planning.
Gantt Chart
It is a type of bar chart that illustrates a project schedule and shows the dependency between activities. The Gantt Chart presents the tasks of the project on a vertical axis, and the time required to perform each task is visualized on a horizontal axis.
Timesheet
Usually contains the amount of a worker's time spent on each task.
Communication Plan
May contain information about communication channels, participants in planned communication, common topics for discussion, and frequency of events conduction. It may be a part of the general project plan.
Change Management Plan
Lists activities or roles that will require additional focus during the implementation and control phase of a project. It may contain plans for a change of any kind, procedures for responding, and integrating change.
Change Request Form
May contain the desired changes in the current scope, process, product, and the involved in the change roles, resources, needs, risks, etc. This form can be filled by external parties, internal teams or project management roles and delivered to others for approval, review, or planning.
Stakeholder Management Plan
Describes how stakeholders will be involved in the project. It may include their needs, concerns, limitations, the ability to influence the project, contact information, role, and other specific information. It usually contains only stakeholders with a high interest in the project.
Human Resources Management Plan
The Human Resource Management Plan usually sets out how human resources for the project should be defined, controlled, and managed.
Cost Management Plan
The cost management plan is an outline of the project estimation, allocation, and control of the costs of the required resources, so all project activities are eventually implemented.
Risk Management Plan
Possible risks, causes, and consequences may be included in this plan. Various responses to different risks are usually pre-defined.
Potential responses to risk may be:
Avoiding – The management and teams change plans to avoid a problem.
Mitigate – The management and teams try to reduce threat impact.
Accept – Accepting the negative impact.
Transfer – Outsource risk to third parties that can manage it.
Project Budget
It may include a breakdown of all project costs, potential future costs, eligible costs, etc.
Statement of Work
Statement of work is a document that may present legal relationships and may serve as a contract between a client and a service provider. It may contain a scope of work, a period of providing a service, deliverables schedule, applicable standards, acceptance criteria, etc.
Stage end Report
It contains information about the progress of the project up to a date and topics requiring discussion or approval, as well as recommendations for the next steps that may also need approval. It may also include a review of the business case, achieved benefits, expected future benefits, deviations from plans and agreements, review of team performance, etc.
Project Team meetings log
Key points of team meetings, decisions, and topics may be documented for future reference.
Lessons Learned log
In the course of the project work, teams usually learn important information that can be documented and used for future projects.
Daily log
It is usually an informal document containing significant events, problems, decisions, and other topics from the current day.
Post Implementation Review
Describes the status of the project and whether the objectives have been achieved. It is usually created in the final phases of the project and may include feedback from independent parties.
Project Closing Documents
Collection of documents or a single document containing a list of points that should have been executed. The project sponsor, project manager, quality manager, and other roles can participate in completing and signing the document.
The BVOP recommends a careful approach to the creation and maintenance of documentation of all kinds, as these can be heavy and time-consuming processes that can cause waste. The BVOPM office defines which documents need to be maintained and their exact use, formalities, and details.
Creating and maintaining customized documentation may be a flexible and advisable approach to documentation management. Adherence to classic and traditional documents can bring both advantages and disadvantages. The BVOP suggests that creating and maintaining a large collection of documents may cause waste if they are not used or do not add any business value to the project. Their content needs to be clear and short enough and at the same time cover important topics. They have to be understandable by everyone that may require, read, maintain, and use them.
The following issues related to chapter "Documentation management" are included in the certification exam. The sequence of questions is presented in the table.
The data is current as of December 11, 2024, 4:13 am
| ID | Issue | Time | Category |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | Lessons Learned log | 60 sec | PM, PDM |
| 1 | Timesheet | 60 sec | PM, PDM |
| 2 | Gantt Chart | 60 sec | PM, PDM |
| 3 | Daily log | 60 sec | PM, PDM |
| 4 | Risk Management Plan | 60 sec | PM, PDM |
| 5 | Stage end Report | 60 sec | PM, PDM |
| 6 | Statement of Work | 60 sec | PM, PDM |
| 7 | Work Schedule | 60 sec | PM, PDM |
| 8 | Project Closing Documents | 60 sec | PM, PDM |
| 9 | Cost Management Plan | 60 sec | PM, PDM |
| 10 | Change Management Plan | 60 sec | PM, PDM |
| 11 | Human Resources Management Plan | 60 sec | PM, PDM |
| 12 | Post Implementation Review | 60 sec | PM, PDM |
| 13 | Project Status Report | 60 sec | PM, PDM |
| 14 | Project Plan | 60 sec | PM, PDM |
| 15 | Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) | 60 sec | PM, PDM |
| 16 | Stakeholder Management Plan | 60 sec | PM, PDM |
| 17 | Project Team meetings log | 60 sec | PM, PDM |
| 18 | Project management documents | 60 sec | PM, PDM |
| 19 | Project Charter | 60 sec | PM, PDM |
| 20 | Project Budget | 60 sec | PM, PDM |
| 21 | Change Request Form | 60 sec | PM, PDM |
| 22 | Communication Plan | 60 sec | PM, PDM |
Comments from the BVOP™ community on “Documentation management”
Summary
Manage documentation: create, maintain, and ensure quality. Includes project docs like charter, plan, status report, schedule, WBS, Gantt chart, timesheet, communication plan, change management plan, stakeholder management plan, HR management plan, cost management plan, risk management plan, budget, SOW, stage end report, team meetings log, lessons learned log, daily log, post-implementation review, and closing docs.
BVOPM may require different documents based on project needs. Popular project management documents include Project Charter, Plan, Status Report, Schedule, Gantt Chart, and Risk Management Plan. Other necessary documents include Communication and Change Management Plans, Stakeholder and Human Resources Management Plans, Cost Management Plan, Statement of Work, and Project Budget. Post-project documents include Lessons Learned and Project Closing documents.
This is an overview of the different documents used in project management. The Project Charter outlines the scope, objectives, budget, and risks of a project. The Project Plan documents the scope, costs, and schedules of a project. The Project Status Report provides regular updates on the project's progress.
The Work Schedule outlines tasks and resources needed. The Work Breakdown Structure breaks down the project into smaller components. The Gantt Chart shows the project schedule and dependencies. The Communication Plan outlines communication channels and topics.
The Change Management Plan lists activities for responding to changes. The Stakeholder Management Plan describes how stakeholders will be involved. The Human Resources Management Plan outlines how human resources will be managed. The Cost Management Plan outlines cost estimation and control.
The Risk Management Plan identifies possible risks and responses. The Statement of Work serves as a contract between the client and the service provider. The Stage End Report provides information on project progress and recommendations for the next steps. The Project Team Meetings Log documents key points from meetings.
The Lessons Learned Log documents important information for future projects. The Daily Log documents significant events, problems, and decisions from each day.
The Post Implementation Review evaluates whether project objectives were achieved.
- Previous article Business Value-Oriented Project Management (BVOPM)
I searched a lot on the internet. As far as I understand Statement of Work is something like the scope of the project. Can you confirm whether this is true?
I'm sharing my project management documents and processes cheat sheet I made for the university. I hope it is useful to everyone.
Project Life Cycle
The project life cycle is about a logical division of the actual physical work on the project and the phases that all teams must go through.
The business value of the project
Business value is a general and widely used term that covers many topics related to the overall well-being of organizations, economic factors, products, customers, projects, and management models.
Decomposition
The breaking down of something large into smaller aggregates. Once we have a big idea broken down into its small logical components, it's much easier to imagine what we'll need to make our product/software, etc.
Project Charter
A Project Charter is an outline of a project's scope, objectives, business needs, indicative budget, high-level risks, and stakeholders. This document pre-describes roles and responsibilities, explains project objectives, identifies key stakeholders, and establishes the authority of the project manager.
Requirements
Breaking down a scope description into more detailed requirements may reveal the actual need for a lot of additional work
Quality Management Plan
A brief or detailed description of the required quality of the project
Stakeholders
When we plan our project, stakeholders are listed and described for reference whenever needed
Communications plan
A communication description in project planning explains to everyone how communication will be conducted between parties, and teams and exactly how and through what channels it will be carried out
Change management plan
The change plan for the project covers the topics of how requests for changes will be submitted by the client, how they will be processed and treated, and how this will possibly affect the project and its parameters
Human Resources Management Plan
The human resources management plan, as part of the project management plan, describes how we will select, acquire, manage and release human resources
Procurement Management Plan
It is necessary to know how the delivery of the project work will proceed at each stage of it.
Cost Management Plan
The project cost plan is an important part of the project planning phase and effectively serves as a safety net that should ensure that project costs will be kept within budget.
Risk Management Plan
We must have a risk management plan to try to anticipate all risks from the outset and how they can be avoided
Work Breakdown Structure
Breaking large tasks into smaller ones will show the most realistic predictions. It's a good tool for visualizing the work needed and can make budget, time, and resource planning a lot easier.
Gantt Chart
A very useful diagram that illustrates a project schedule and shows the relationship between activities. A Gantt chart represents project tasks on a vertical axis, and the time required to complete each task is visualized on a horizontal axis
Statement of Work
A type of abbreviated project management plan that describes what needs to be done, why it needs to be done, and any parameters such as deadlines and deliverables that need to be achieved
Stage end Report
The document contains information on the progress of the project by a certain date (weekly, monthly or other periods and dates set for our project) and includes topics that require discussion or approval and recommendations for the next steps of the project that may need approval by customers or our management
Release plan
We must have this plan prepared in detail for the release of new functionality, upon completion of part of the work on the project (milestone) and its handover to the customer
Project Team meetings log
A detailed diary of our meetings should be kept so that we do not miss information and forget something.
Lessons Learned log
We must be aware of mistakes made and lessons learned in the course of work. Lessons can be found in every situation
Daily log
We keep short and simple notes of what happened during the day
Post Implementation Review
Post Implementation Review (PIR) is a type of assessment of whether the project objectives have been met. It is applied to evaluate the effectiveness of the project. This helps avoid similar mistakes in future projects
Project Closing documents
Project completion or "closure" includes documents containing a list of items that were to be completed. The project sponsor, project manager, quality manager, and other roles may participate together in reviewing, completing, and signing these documents.
Executing, Monitoring, and Controlling
It is done continuously throughout the project. Executing, Monitoring, and Controlling, is simply the longest phase in the project, during which the PM and everyone around work hard to achieve the goals. We execute the project, observe what is happening, and control its parameters.