Should we classify projects by size and scale project discipline using size (cost / effort) as the meter for project discipline? I’ve seen that more often, since investment size (cost / effort) at risk warrants discipline to improve likelihood of success.
But how about situations when various size projects (including small ones) are critical to business success and either time or quality of the deliverable is the key business driver. Business critical projects are worthy of a disciplined method of delivery.
Or, should we ignore size, etc. and achieve a level of PMO maturity that operates at such an efficient level of productivity and project volume throughput that the project management discipline is optimal across the full portfolio?
What do you think? …
… “there must be a dividing line between projects that are complex and critical enough to require a full, rigorous methodology, and those projects that are simple and routine enough to be managed with minimal project overhead. The question is: Where is that line? ” …
Via TechRepublic: Project size classification determines rigor
I think the criticality of the need for the project deliverables should be the key factor in deciding to go ahead with the project. Yes projects do need to be classified by size and scale, but that should be for the purposes of scheduling not approving.
This is not binary – it is not a choice between categorise by scale or ignore scale.
Approval of projects should rely on cost vs. benefit (neither of which should be considered as purely financial measures), achievability and risk.
Approach to projects should be based on a considered assessment of the likelihood of success of a given approach – so a waterfall methodology may not be best for a blue sky product development. Iterative models won't work for an office move.
The considerations are endless… and while they will typically include the scale of a project, scale alone is a poor indicator.
The challenge is to understand your portfiolio and find the criteria you need to apply.