The Deliverables Management Handbook
The Deliverables Management Handbook
Bridging Tasks to Outcomes
About the Book
The concept of ‘Deliverables Management’ is like background noise in the project management narrative. It seems like a self-evident concept that requires no further explanation or expansion. Existing sources are often redundant and circular: a “deliverable” is something that “gets delivered”; and the things that "get delivered" are "deliverables". How it is delivered is the subject of other techniques and processes. In Project Management’s ‘conventional wisdom’, the idea of a deliverable and its management is so obvious that nothing else is required.
However, I've never been comfortable with tacit or superficial knowledge, so I researched and developed the concept into a practice I have used for as long as I can remember. It's brought clarity and structure to my projects, especially those involving software and virtualised materials.
In my practice, deliverables are a fundamental mechanism in your project because they bridge your project outputs to your customer's outcomes. We flip the script from 'something to be delivered' to 'something to be consumed'.This changed perspective brings enormous benefits to your project, such as better scope definition and management, waste reduction, and increased accountability. Deliverables management is one of those rare practices that makes your project both more efficient and more effective.
After reading this book, you will be able to:
- Understand the Deliverable Concepts: Move beyond superficial understandings with comprehensive explanations of deliverables and their crucial role in projects.
- Use Deliverables in Your Project: Learn how to think about deliverables in both static and dynamic terms in real project situations, enhancing any project methodology or development process.
- Plan Your next project from a deliverables paradigm: Benefit from over a decade of the author's experience in refining and applying deliverables management to real-world projects.
- Leverage AI Integration: Explore how cutting-edge tools like ChatGPT can streamline deliverables management, making your projects more efficient and successful.
- And much, much more.
The "Handbook of Deliverables Management" provides both definitional and practical explanations of deliverables and how to manage them in a project. Thinking about deliverables in both static and dynamic terms will improve just about any methodology or development process.
Bundles that include this book
Table of Contents
- Getting Engaged with this Book and its Author
- Notes about this version
- How to Read This Book
- Why I Wrote this Book
- Outline of this Book
- Introduction
- Background
- Task Management in Projects
- The Problem of a “Work” Focus
- A Value-based Project Reference Model
- Dematerialisation and the Risk to Project Coherence
- Dematerialisation of Product
- This is why Software Development is Hard
- Managing Software Development is even harder
- Knowledge ‘In the World’ and Knowledge ‘In the Head’
- Summary
- What is a Deliverable?
- Deliverables - Some Basic Definitions
- Task-based Management
- Deliverable
- Deliverable Materialisation
- Deliverable Persistence
- Producer and Consumer
- The “Hand-off” between Producer and Consumer(s)
- Deliverable “Core” and “Wrapper”.
- The Consumer Determines Usability.
- Intermediate and Final Deliverables
- Purpose of Deliverables
- Rematerialisation & Standardisation
- Accountability
- Efficiency
- Effectiveness
- What about Time and Cost Estimates?
- A Deliverables Perspective
- Recap - Task Management in Projects
- Deliverables Alternative
- Enabling a Value-based Project Model
- Deliverables have no structure
- A Recap: Work and Deliverables
- Deliverable Networks
- A Network of Dependencies
- A Network of Handoffs
- Cross-workstream Dependencies
- Examples of Deliverables Networks
- Example 1 - Shopping
- Deliverables - Some Basic Definitions
- Deliverables Management
- Overview
- Work focus -> (deliverable) -> work focus
- Deliverable focus -> (Work) -> Deliverable focus
- What do we need to do?
- Characteristics and Benefits
- Methodology Neutral
- Target Projects
- End-to-End Technique
- Deliverables Explicitly Drive Quality Criteria
- Creates clear accountability
- Provides Linkages and Closure
- Self-Diagnosing and Integrative
- Conclusion
- Overview
- Operationalising Deliverables Management
- When to Introduce Deliverables Management
- Iterative/Progressive Elaboration
- Conclusion
- Deliverables Information Management
- Descriptive Attribute Categories
- Descriptive Attributes
- Identity and Ownership
- Deliverable Types
- Deliverable Purpose and “Fitness for Use”
- Deliverable Acceptance
- Deliverables Register
- Level of Detail
- Deliverables Register Implementation
- Leading or Lagging Deliverables Register
- Conclusion
- Example Deliverable Registers
- Example 1 - Stand-alone Deliverable Register
- Key uses of Deliverables Register
- Project Planning and Establishment
- Project Scheduling, Phasing and Release Management
- Budgets
- Time Recording
- Deliverable Network
- Integration with Other Artifacts
- Deliverable Lifecycle
- Introduction
- Functional States of Completion
- Deliverable Task Expansion
- Standard Lifecycle Models
- Delivery Model
- Overview
- Deliverables Network Model
- Integration Plan
- Conclusion
- When to Introduce Deliverables Management
- AI in Deliverables Management
- Developing the Deliverables Register
- Using AI to Identify Deliverables
- Example ChatGPT Sessions
- Conclusion
- Using the Deliverables Register with other Project Artifacts
- Cross-Referencing with Specifications
- Cross-Referencing with Budget
- Cross-Referencing with WBS (Work Breakdown Structure)
- Cross-Referencing with Risk Logs
- Cross-Referencing with Issue Logs
- Cross-Referencing with Action Logs
- Example ChatGPT Session
- Conclusion
- Maintaining the Deliverables Register
- Daily Processes
- Weekly Processes
- Monthly Processes
- Ad-Hoc Processes
- Example ChatGPT Sessions
- Conclusion
- Other Techniques
- Forecasting and Predictive Analysis
- Automating Repetitive Tasks
- Automating Repetitive Tasks
- Generating Insights and Reports
- Enhancing Communication
- Example ChatGPT Sessions
- 4. Other AI Techniques
- Forecasting and Predictive Analysis
- Automating Repetitive Tasks
- Generating Insights and Reports
- Enhancing Communication
- Example ChatGPT Sessions
- Conclusion
- Developing the Deliverables Register
- More from Adam Russell
- About the Author
- Life Summary
- Career Summary
- Copyright
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