Logical Design – at the workface

I’ve just put the Logical Design page up, and I seem to need more content, so it’s back to the writing desk to create this bit. This will be interesting as I try to describe what is often a very dynamic process in words that other people can understand. I’ll set myself a target of Friday and get started. This may be the start a a slightly more formal approach as it involves ‘Use Cases’.

Moving to the Development Phase

Building up the pages, and getting the pages happening as I want them to be, has been a challenge and a good learning experience. But now I have put up the first page of the Development Phase of the methodology, and realize that web publication has moved into the development phase. The next ten or so pages detailing development will happen over the next week and then I can return to writing the methodology. I see the current work as being ‘Chapter 1’ a freestanding summary methodology, the next chapter will be on the governance stream of the methodology. My current target is to finish ‘Chapter 1’ this month and then move on to the ‘stream chapters’. I have another sub-project which is ‘Project 21 – the software’ which is in the conceptual phase, I think some software to help implement the methodology might be a good thing.

A better way to manage projects

I’ve realised that maybe I could have started with the more exciting subjects like why do ‘IT Project always run over budget?’, but the answer to that lies in project methodology, and in the area of governance; I have to work my way towards it by laying the groundwork in place. The basic reasons are very simple, that project planning tools are not flexible enough to measure true progress and can only measure on and over budget activities. The only way that a project can be delivered on time using conventional project management software is to either have a grossly overestimated project or to finesse the cost codes once they have reached capacity, the truly creative manager will use both of these techniques and other methods of falsifying deliverables and costs so that the sun comes out. But is this really necessary? Can IT professionals predict what will happen on an IT project? The answer is yes, but must be qualified by good methodology and governance and recognizing that project outcomes deliver into a value range, not a value point. On the down side a lot of IT Managers enjoy the ‘mystical’ side of IT and are not into modern project management technique, not that ‘mystical’ management is purely the realm of IT.