tributed to participants prior to the start of
the workshops is an action item that must
be tracked.
Project team members will also have
activities they are required to perform to
ensure project deliverables are completed
on time, and these should be documented
and appear in an action items log.
It should contain such information as
activity description (or action description), activity owner, and timeframes for
when the activity was raised and when it
was completed. If the activity requires a
description of its resolution, this should be
incorporated as well.
The action log helps to identify the successes and challenges of the BCM project
and easily notifies the PM when specific
activities are falling behind or if there are
concerns with a department because there
are so many action items attributed to the
department.
Managing the action log also helps
other project team members understand
who is responsible for what and provides a
guide as to when they can expect an activity to be completed, especially if they are
dependant on another individual, department, or division to complete an action
item before they themselves can start their
activities.
If action items aren’t captured and
documented, team members can easily
forget they were ever assigned an action,
as other daily operational initiatives may
take precedence, and the project activities
are forgotten. When documented, people
understand they are being held responsible
for them and are more inclined to complete the activity.
Minutes
For every meeting, documented minutes must be captured and distributed.
Obviously, minutes don’t need to capture
word for word what is said but at the very
least they should capture the topics of discussion and related action items and/or
decisions.
As with most projects, there are numerous topic-specific meetings that have
attendees from multiple areas; it’s the
same for the BCM project. There can be
multiple meetings with multiple teams
and each one must have a set of minutes
for the BCM PM to keep track of discussion progression, project status, as well as
individual team progress. Without them, it
is very difficult to keep track of what is
occurring across many departments.
Minutes can be combined with the
action items log to track those items specific to the topic of discussion within each
minutes; combining the two documents
can make for easier management and
tracking, but this is personal preference
from PM to PM.
Minutes will help convey information
up to the project sponsor and executive
level, assuming that key meeting minutes
are distributed to those outside of meeting
participants. If they contain accurate information, executives can monitor the progress of the project and feel involved and be
a part of the project team.
Status/Progress Reports
Every PM can expect to complete a
project status report. The style and content of the status report will vary amongst
organizations, but they’re all used to doing
the same thing: communicate the project status and progress to management.
A status report is more than just a docu-
mented moment in time for the project; it
should provide more than that. It should
provide, at a minimum, the following
points:
u current status and progress of the project
u overdue or lagging key activities/
deliverables,
u identify the next milestone to be achieved,
u a high-level description of key project risks
and issues and
u identify recent project successes and
accomplishments.
Status reports will help the BCM PM
and the project sponsor – the executive
financially supportive of the initiative –
identify how the project is performing
overall and what activities the sponsor
may need to assist with to get it back on
track. The status report should be able to
detail the value it is brining to the organization and the value it will be delivering
at the end of the project timeline. When
completing the status report, it helps BCM
PM understand where he or she is managing the project and what tasks need to be
focused on to keep things moving forward
in a successful manner.
Core Team Status Meetings
The core team can be described as the
steering committee, the group of high-
level senior representatives that help
oversee the entire project (not individual
project team members who participate in
multiple meetings developing the project
deliverables).
One of the key differences of a core
team status meeting is that it’s not intended
to be a working group meeting, discussing
minute details of topics but rather discussing the project strategy, addressing project
risks and issues, and ensuring that identified roadblocks are removed for the BCM
PM. Often, the project sponsor attends
these meetings, as it helps the sponsor
keep in contact with the PM and the core
team members, providing guidance and
advice when required to help the team and
the project be successful.
As with other meetings, minutes are
taken, and action items may be assigned.
However, the level of action item here
will be different than those of working
group meetings that are topic-specific. The
actions assigned here would be the management representation assisting with the
assignment of resources or the assistance
in resolving conflict if the BCM PM is
unable to resolve it themselves.
Core team status meetings assist with
keeping the project on course and adhering to the desired strategy set out by the
sponsor and executive during project initiation.
Resource Management
No matter how long someone has been
with an organization, no one knows everything. This means no one can plan and
execute a project without the assistance of
others or project resources.
When planning a BCM project, the PM
must identify the resources required from
each department that will be needed from
initiation to project closure, along with an
estimate of when they will be required.
With the assistance of the project sponsor, requests are made to department leads
seeking individuals to be assigned to the
project. As these individuals have knowledge with regards to specific services, processes and/or technologies, they’re usually
referred to as subject matter experts
(SME), which every project requires.
The BCM PM must ensure that for
every phase or component of the project,
there is sufficient SME representation, for
without the appropriate resource available,
