Delivery

From the portfolio to the handover. A portfolio holds programs, and a program holds projects. Each project is planned and run, then cut over and handed to the team that keeps it.

Portfolio

Everything under way across the organization, and how it decides what starts next.

Portfolio map

Every program and project under way, with an owner and a stage against each.

Answers: what are we running, and who owns each one?

Also called: project inventory, portfolio register

Intake and scoring

How a new request gets in, and how it's ranked against the work already running.

Answers: should we take this on, and ahead of what?

Also called: demand management, project intake, prioritization criteria

Capacity

How many people are free for new work, counted before anything new starts.

Answers: who's free to do it?

Also called: capacity planning, resource management

Program

A group of projects run together because they serve one goal.

Program charter and benefits

What the program is meant to deliver, and how anyone will know it did once the projects have closed.

Answers: what is this program for, and how will we know it worked?

Also called: program mandate, program brief, benefits register, benefits realization plan

Roadmap and dependencies

When each project lands, and which ones are waiting on another.

Answers: what's waiting on what?

Also called: program roadmap, integrated master schedule, dependency map

Program meetings

The meetings a program holds, and what each one is allowed to decide.

Answers: where does this get decided?

Also called: governance cadence, steering committee, program board

Project

One piece of work with a sponsor and an end date.

Project charter

What the project is for, who sponsors it, what it can spend and what's out of scope.

Answers: why are we doing this, and where does it stop?

Also called: project initiation document (PID), project brief, terms of reference

Acceptance and sign-off

One page the sponsor signs, saying what live means for this project and how someone could test it.

Answers: how will we know we're done?

Also called: what finished looks like, acceptance criteria, success criteria, definition of done

RACI

For each decision, who does the work, who answers for it, who's asked first and who's told after. The letters stand for responsible, accountable, consulted and informed.

Answers: who decides this?

Also called: responsibility assignment matrix, RASCI

Stakeholders and communication

Everyone the project affects, and what each of them needs to hear and when.

Answers: who needs to know?

Also called: stakeholder register, stakeholder map, communications plan

RAID log

Risks, assumptions, issues and dependencies, each with an owner and a date to look at it again.

Answers: what could go wrong, and who's watching it?

Also called: risk register, issue log

Plan

How the work is broken down and scheduled, and what happens when the plan changes.

Work breakdown

The whole job, split into pieces small enough for one person to own.

Answers: what's all the work?

Also called: work breakdown structure (WBS), work packages

Schedule

The order the work happens in, and the chain of tasks that sets the end date.

Answers: when will it be done?

Also called: project schedule, Gantt chart, critical path

Estimates

How long each piece should take, and where the number came from.

Answers: how sure are we of that date?

Also called: effort estimate, three-point estimate, basis of estimate

Baseline and change control

The plan everyone agreed to, and how a change to it gets asked for and approved.

Answers: who agreed to that change?

Also called: scope baseline, change request, change control board (CCB)

Run

The build itself, and the records kept while it happens.

Status report

Where the project stands this week, with any slip shown in the week it happens.

Answers: where are we this week?

Also called: status update, RAG report, highlight report

Decision log

Every decision that changes the project, with who made it and when.

Answers: when did we decide that, and who did?

Also called: decision register, action and decision log

Test evidence

What was tested, what passed and who checked it, kept where someone can find it later.

Answers: can you show it works?

Also called: test summary report, test exit report, UAT sign-off, traceability matrix

Cutover

The days around go-live, when the new system takes over from the old one.

Readiness and go/no-go

The criteria that decide whether go-live happens, agreed weeks ahead, and the one person who makes the call.

Answers: are we ready to go live?

Also called: go/no-go criteria, operational readiness review, launch readiness

Cutover plan and rollback

Every task in the cutover window in order, each with an owner, and every change with a way to undo it.

Answers: what happens during cutover, and how do we back out?

Also called: cutover runbook, implementation plan, backout plan, fallback plan

Rollout

Who gets the new system first, and what has to be true before it reaches everyone else.

Answers: who gets it first?

Also called: phased rollout, pilot, canary release, day one

Handover

When the project ends and a team that didn't build the system takes it on.

Handover and ownership

The team that will run the system, named before go-live, and what the project leaves them.

Answers: who owns it once the project's gone?

Also called: transition to operations, handover to business as usual (BAU), hypercare exit

Project close

What was delivered against what was promised, and who owns what's still open.

Answers: did we deliver what we said we would?

Also called: closure report, post-implementation review, lessons learned

Delivery

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