Project Brief
Document Sign-off
| Name | Role | Date signed off |
|---|---|---|
| Project Sponsor | ||
| Project Manager | ||
| Programme Manager | ||
Background
This project brief has prompts and tips for many of the sections. Please remove/edit these as they are there to help authors in writing the document and for project teams to consider but not suitable for the final version of the brief.
Scope
Changes to Scope will be logged on the PICCL and also recorded on the Project Scope Change page.
Out of Scope
Any significant work we need to explicitly state we are not doing (that some stakeholders may assume or expect that we will).
Objectives and Deliverables
Summarise - What we are aiming to do and deliver, by when.
What are we aiming to ultimately deliver that will be key to the measure of the success of this project - but potentially any significant other things along the way (that may outlive the project).
Ideally we set these as MoSCoW:
MUST - we would see the project as failing totally or partially if these are not achieved
SHOULD - we have a high expectation that these will be doable with planned work and budget - but if necessary these can be descoped
COULD - if all goes very well, these might be possible
WON'T - we want to be explict about certain things that people might expect us to deliver but we want to be clear we won't deliver
Key Milestones for this deliverable- if known, any hard dates and highly desirable dates
| Objective 1 Description of the Objective | Description of the Deliverables needed to achieve the objective | MoSCoW | Key Milestones |
| Deliverable D1.1 | |||
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Deliverable D1.2 |
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| Deliverable D1.3 | |||
| Objective 2 Description of the Objective | |||
| Deliverable D2.1 | |||
| Deliverable D2.2 | |||
| Objective 3 Description of the Objective | |||
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Deliverable D3.1 |
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| Deliverable D3.2 | |||
| Objective 4 Description of the Objective | |||
| Deliverable D4.1 | |||
| Objective 5 Description of the Objective | |||
| Deliverable D5.1 | |||
| Deliverable D5.2 |
This table can be used through Business and Technical Analysis, Design, Build, and Testing/UAT as a Traceability Matrix to ensure the project brief project objectives and deliverables are followed through.
Benefits
Benefits management and realisation will be available on the ITI Sharepoint space.
The benefits that the deliverables will enable or act as a catalyst in making happen. These benefits may be immediate or may be realised after the project has closed.
Success Criteria
Driven by the Deliverables and Objectives. Do we have objective measures that we can point to to say the project has been a success (typically we said we would deliver X and we have).
Alignment with Strategic Vision
This project will deliver benefits, change and innovations in alignment with the IS Strategic Vision and the University's Strategic Vision for 2025. ** Check the Annual Plan on ITI Sharepoint to see how the project's deliverables and benefits have been aligned to Run/Grow/Transform and the Strategic Themes **
Run / Grow / Transform
Which activity does the project contrinute to? The project could be one or more of R/G/T.
IS Strategic Vision the main elements of the vision that this projects contibutes to are highlighted in bold.
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Student Experience |
Commentary |
| Student experience and the unique Edinburgh offer | |
| Online and distance learning leaders | |
| Library national and international leadership | |
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Research and Innovation |
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| Research IT and Data Sciences | |
| Innovation | |
| Collaborative leadership and social responsibility | |
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Service Excellence |
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| Process improvement, efficiency, quality and best practice | |
| Long‐term IS strategic planning and linked professional services | |
| Information Security |
University's Strategic Vision for 2025 the main elements of the vision that this projects contibutes to are highlighted in bold.
| A unique Edinburgh offer for all of our students | Commentary |
| • all of our undergraduates developed as student/ researchers with clear, supported pathways through to Masters and PhD | |
| • all our students offered the opportunity to draw from deep expertise outside their core discipline | |
| • a highly satisfied student body with a strong sense of community. | |
| Strong and vibrant communities within and beyond the University – making the most of our unique offer of world-leading thinking and learning within one of the world’s most attractive cities | |
| A larger, more international,staff who feel valued and supported in a University that is a great and collegial place to work, develop and progress | |
| More postgraduate students – underpinned by the best support in the sector to ensure we attract the brightest and best regardless of ability to pay | |
| A strong culture of philanthropic support focussed especially on our students and on outstanding research capabilities. | |
| Many more students benefiting from the Edinburgh experience (largely or entirely) in their own country – supported by deep international partnerships and world- leading online distance learning | |
| Sustained world leading reputation for the breadth, depth and interdisciplinarity of our research supported by strong growth in research funding and strong international partnerships – drawing from well-established and less well developed sources |
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| An estate that matches expectations, responds flexibly to changing student and staff needs, and showcases the University |
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A deeper and earlier collaboration with industry, the public sector and the third sector – in terms of research; knowledge exchange; and in giving our students the best possible set of skills for their future |
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| Digitial Transformation | Commentary |
|---|---|
| Describe how the changes this project delivers will contribute to the digitial transformation of the Service |
IS Change Programme - How will this project's Deliverables and Benefits promote the Themes
Indicate if the project deliverables and benefits contribute to the themes with the IS Change Programme.
| IS Change Programme Theme | How the project deliverables and benefits contributes to change |
| Project Management | |
| Working Together | |
| Standards and Technical Leadership | |
| Staff Learning and Development | |
| Service Based Culture | |
| Equality and Diversity | |
| Innovation | |
| Flexible Resourcing | |
| Communication and Branding |
Priority and Funding
Check the Forward Look and Annual Plan on ITI Sharepoint to see the project's priority within programme and portfolio (and reflect this also on the project info section of the website).
Confirm that we have funding for this project.
Service Excellence - Information and Security
Are we using standard builds for the project (that is, pre-validated security controls will be in place for infrastructure and data)? Or Do we anticipate having to develop non-standard infrastructure? Will we have third party integrations on installations? Are we dealing with data outwith our standard set of controls? If so, What level of risk is associated with the data? What are the appropriate controls?
- The project must outline how it is dealing with risk, how the need to design/build/test impacts on project scope, budget and timeline.
- Confirm which University or divisional polices are providing guidance here.
- Set Security design, execution and acceptance as a Deliverable
- Quality Assurance - Create a Security Milestone for Delivery - and Design, Build and Acceptance depending on project complexity - that must be signed-off by Project Manager and Section Head.
- Create any specific risks around security
Service Excellence - Process Improvement, efficiency, quality and best practice (Social Responsibility and and Sustainability)
If the project could or will lead to recycling of hardware then
- Create a milestone called 'Recycle - Engagement' so that the project can engage with the Department for Social Responsibility and Sustainability at the appropriate time
- Add a Benefit to the ITI Benefits Management and Realisation log (ITI Projects Sharepoint)
Is there an opportunity to take advantage of the Green IT Initiative for further funding?
Otherwise set as Not Applicable.
Digital Transformation
Indicate if and how the project itself is contributing to Digital Transformation.
WIll it use available resources or funding specific to the initiative? e.g. using the services of the ISG Usability Team, applying for Digital Transformation funding. Are we using new techniques or tools or processes in this project that can be used to transform how we work in general?
IS Change Programme - How will the execution of this project promote the Themes
Indicate if the project itself (during plan, execution, implementation) contributes to the themes with the IS Change Programme.
| IS Change Programme Theme | How the project process will contribute to change |
| Project Management | |
| Working Together |
Will the project team talk to other colleagues across IS? Can they bring previous experience and fresh thinking to the project? Add working together to your Communication Plan - go beyond the stakeholders. How will you raise awareness of the project with your colleagues across the divisions? Might you work closer - co-locate, for example? Could the processes involved in the project itself be improved - what is difficult to do? Is the Admin cumbersome, time-consuming? Add to the Closure Report. Look to guidance from the IS Change Management team on how to approach this.
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| Standards and Technical Leadership | |
| Staff Learning and Development |
Is there an opportunity for the project to offer development opportunities for colleagues? Could someone from another team in our division or another ISG division be seconded to the project to provide skills we may be struggling to find in this period? Can we offer a development opportunity for someone in our division at a lower grade - to come into our project and be skilled up, fulfill a higher grade role for a while? For planning, make sure you allow the necessary time to engage / recruit in your project, and feed back to the annual plan/forward look? Set out why this project does not or cannot take advantage of this change theme.
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| Service Based Culture |
Are we helping the service to shift-left? For services impacted by the change we are delivering : check the Service Catalogue (due for 2016/17) for Service Owner and Service Operations Manager. Confirm with them who should be stakeholders on the project. Also check with head of IS Helpline. Confirm at what stages if the project SO/SOM want representation and sign-off - especially around Design and UAT and Delivery. Do we need a Handover? Add Stakeholders to these Milestones. Is there a CMDB entry to update to reflect changes?
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| Equality and Diversity |
Planning: Discuss the Project Board, project team and key stakeholders with your Sponsor - do the groupings reflect/promote diversity? Be aware of particular periods or dates that may conflict with religious or social or domestic obligations. Design: Are we designing a User Interface? Are we designing with best practice in Usability and Accessibility for all devices? Please explicitly ensure that the Design of the UI has been checked for promotion of Equality and Diversity. e.g. Use 'Mx' in the Honorifics section- - but do we even need honorifics - how much information do we actually need to collect from a user? Does our interface make assumptions about the kinds of people our users are? Do we accommodate people who are at a distance, working flexibly, may not wish to be identified by gender, race, age or show a photo? Do we give options as to what services users might want or do we assume they will want what we want, or what users have wanted in the past? Are we being creative in thinking about use cases beyond the metrics and other ‘evidence' we have for users in the past - not simply recreating/perpetuating old ways of working? How are we naming a Service (or even Hardware) ? Consider a naming convention to highlight or promote Equality and Diversity. Do we have the opportunity in this to promote role models or show our understanding of diversity? Would this give us an additional route for comms or stakeholder engagement? e.g UCL named their HPC ‘Grace’ https://www.ucl.ac.uk/isd/news/isd-news/research-it/introducing-grace which gave them an added ‘good news story’ and a chance to dispel myths that there are no women in computing. Quality Assurance: Add a Design Milestone and a separate Milestone for Acceptance Sign-Off. The Design Milestone confirms that the UI has been checked for promotion of Equality and Diversity, and that we have designed an inclusive UI. Add to the Design Milestone, or better, create a separate Usability Milestone for Design and QA. There must be a separate EqIA Milestone to show that this has been done. Ensure that appropriate authority is signing off on the legal aspects of Equality and Diversity.
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| Innovation |
Has this project the potential to deliver innovation? The project delivery itself may be an innovation - a new service, for example? But could different ways of doing things be trialled? Could the project team talk to stakeholders and IS colleagues about innovation? Digital transformation is one consideration. List any innovations that were delivered in your Closure Report. If an innovation was tried and failed - also add to the Closure Report - it is okay to fail. |
| Flexible Resourcing |
Have we considered contract staff, students and interims (and in future, apprentices)? Can a difficult resourcing situation be resolved by use of fixed term staff or limited secondments? For planning, make sure you allow the necessary time to engage / recruit in your project, and feed back to the annual plan/forward look. Set out why this project does not or cannot take advantage of this change theme. |
| Communication and Branding |
Communication: Ensure that you have a session as part of planning for Stakeholder identification and analysis. Set out the communication plan by the end of the project brief - or set a milestone date for when you will have this in place if end of planning not possible. Project Manager is the accountable person and will sign-off the milestone. Branding: Are you delivering a new Service or significantly upgrading a new service? If so, then the project team must engage with the new Branding guidelines and Change Management Theme team for ISG, the branding for the school or college via the college marketing team, the University's Comms and Marketing team - potentially all of these. Use gel.ed.ac.uk to access assets and guidelines for branding of communications, websites, mobiles. Use the Student Digital Guidelines. Quality Assurance: A milestone must be created for Branding and the Project Manager must sign-off as the accountable person.
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Governance
Project will all have these governance roles by default.
| Role | Name | Division / Group / Team / College / School and Title |
|---|---|---|
| Project Sponsor | ||
| Programme Owner | ||
| Programme Manager | ||
| Portfolio Owner | ||
| Portfolio Manager | ||
If the project has a project board for governance then list its composition here:
Project Board
| Role | Name | Division / Group / Team / College / School and Title |
|---|---|---|
| Executive | ||
| Senior User (may be the Executive) | ||
| Senior Supplier | ||
| Other board members | ||
| c |
Planned Project Timelines
For small projects and project teams, the milestones will set out the project plan.
For medium and large projects, a project plan - MS Project, Gantt, or other - can be added to the Plan Log and revised as project progresses.
Resources Skills and Cost
Budget
For small projects and project teams, state the estimated effort - build and test, project management.
For medium and large projects, an estimate can be added to the Estimation Log and revised as project progresses.
Also estimate costs of hardware, software, licenses, travel, other.
Project Team
The project team : who manages the team, lead and other technical people, business analysts, lead and other represenatatives, people in other areas of the University who will be involved in analysis, testing, acceptance and service handover.
| Role | Name | Division / Group / Team / College / School and Title |
|---|---|---|
| Project Manager | ||
| Technical Lead and other technicians | ||
| Business Analyst | ||
| Business Lead(s) | ||
| Procurement Advisor | ||
| Service Contact | ||
| User(s) - who will help in analysis, testing and sign-offs | ||
Tolerances
For medium and large projects, state any tolerances for cost/timeline/scope beyond which point the Project Manager must request approval of the change from the Sponsor and / or the Board.
Quality
The milestones are a key tool in ensuring that the project process itself is followed as set out by ITI, and that the product deliverables are to the required Quality.
Edit this template to list the key Milestones and who signs off on these milestones. Add milestones for Security, Accessibility, etc. as advised on previous page.
| Milestone | Sign-Off means | Date of Milestone | Who signs-off (Accountability) |
Start of Project |
Project can begin, is in line with Programme and Portfolio priority, has resource |
Add initial planning dates for milestones |
Sponsor, Programme Manager |
End of Planning |
Project Brief, Plan, Estimated Budget, Risks - all approved. Project has resource approved by section head for the estimated effort. Project has funding for effort for other costs. |
Sponsor, PM, Programme Manager, Section Head(s) |
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| Communication Plan | If not completed by end of planning then indicate when planning done | PM | |
| End of Analysis | quality and completeness of analysis | business analyst/business lead / senior user/ PM | |
| End of Design | quality and completeness of design | technical lead / senior supplier/ business lead / senior user/ PM | |
| End of UI Design | quality of UI - to show we have designed an interface that is usable, accessible, promotes equality and diversity | technical lead / senior supplier/ business lead / senior user | |
| End of Build | quality and completeness of build | technical lead / senior supplier/ PM | |
| Acceptance | overall quality of deliverable, UAT has been passed, Intergation testing successful, all components technically checked - fit for delivery to live service |
technical lead / senior supplier /business lead / senior user /business analyst /PM
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| Security QA | deliverable satisifies security | Section Head | |
| Branding QA | for new, upgraded services, sign-off that branding guidelines for ISG, University, school/college has been followed by the project team |
PM but UoE C&M, college C&M and (pending) ISG Branding Team also should sign-off |
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| Design UI QA | to show we have built an interface that is usable, accessible, promotes equality and diversity | Sponsor and Service Owner | |
| EqIA | For new services or services undergoing substantial change, there must be an equality impact assement completed, validated by equality office and deposited on eqia website | PM or Service Owner Equality Officer | |
Delivery |
Change to Service can proceed |
Sponsor, PMservice owner/ service operations manager (helpline) |
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| Handover to Support | support can take over running of the Service | service owner/ service operations manager (helpline) | |
Closure |
Project can close |
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Sponsor, PM |
Assumptions
What are the key underlying assumptions for the project that underpin the planning? For example, that the requirements we have outlined are complete, that all our stakeholders have been identified, that the software we are using is ready and configured, that we have a ready to use TEST environment.
Constraints
Are there constraints on this project? For example, specialist skills are needed, having to deliver in certain windows through the academic year, we need ot share a TEST environment with other developers?
Risks
The project manager will ensure that the project team will review the risk log at every team meeting, and project owners update their risks at least once a month or more as appropriate to the project.
Issues
The project manager will ensure all changes to cost/timeline/scope must be recorded in the issue log, and reflected in miletones log, budget and estimations, and the project Scope Change log.
Previous Lessons Learned
Does the ITI Lessons Learned (see ITI Projects Sharepoint) indicate any issues or risks from previous projects? Is any other previous experience pertinent?
Dependencies
Are there other projects or work that this project is dependent on to start or possibly interact with at a later stage - or vice-versa that depend on this project.
Are we depending on certain events to take place?
Are we dependent on suppliers, or product releases?
Communication
For projects with an array of external stakeholders, a Communication Plan can be created and made available on the ITI Sharepoint space if preferred.
Also confirm that : Project Sponsor and Project Manager meeting schedule has been agreed with Sponsor. Project Team meetings schedule has been arranged (these may be combined with Sponsor meetings).
Check the Forward Look on ITI Sharepoint to see the level of engagement our partners expect for your project.
Check the Forward Look to see if your project wil be using the Major Governance Toolkit.
*** end of project brief ***