Plan Project Development Process

(TSP Launch Meeting No. 3)

In the next step of the project launch process, the team typically formalizes the steps in their development process. To do this, you may draw upon existing organizational processes, or you may define new processes as a team during the launch. The team may create defined processes, or they may simply identify common, repeatable workflows. The Process Dashboard provides tools that assist with this task.

If your team is defining new processes from scratch, it is often a good idea to use a whiteboard, easel, and other traditional meeting aids to capture the team's ideas, as this helps to promote the free flow of ideas. When the team processes begin to solidify, it is helpful to have an individual enter these into the dashboard. (On the other hand, if your process definitions take a long time to solidify, it may be more helpful to wait until after the meeting is over to enter the process steps into the dashboard.)

Processes and workflows are entered into the Common Team Workflows Editor. From the Work Breakdown Structure Editor window, you can access the Common Team Workflows Editor by selecting the Workflow menu and choosing Edit Workflows.

Processes and workflows are once again displayed hierarchically and edited in an outline format. (For more in-depth information on editing this outline, see the Editing the Work Breakdown Structure help topic.) In this hierarchical outline, each item that is a direct child of the Common Workflows node represents a single process or workflow. These items are displayed with an etched rectangular icon (). You can designate a given node as a process or workflow by un-indenting it as far to the left as possible.

Define the steps in a process or workflow by creating items hierarchically underneath it. Underneath a process or workflow, you can define documents that will be created and tasks that will be performed. To define the type of each item you create, click on its icon to display a menu. When defining a high-maturity process, make certain to select the most appropriate process phase for each task you create.

You are not limited in the number of processes/workflows you can create. Each process/workflow, however, should be given a unique name.

The columns on the right are completely optional, but entering data can save you a great deal of time later.

The columns described above are used by most teams, so they are always visible. However, a number of optional/advanced columns are also available. To enable these optional columns, click the Add Column button on the toolbar (), and select from the following choices:

There is not a Save button on the Common Team Workflows Editor. Instead, workflow definitions are automatically saved when you save the main work breakdown structure. To save, switch back to the main Work Breakdown Structure Editor window and select Save from the File menu.

High-Maturity Personal Planning

As you define the steps in a workflow, two special task types are provided in support of high-maturity personal planning. These types are "PSP Task" and "High-Maturity Planning Task."

In either case, the responsible individual will be able to draw upon their personal historical data to refine their plan. This provides a bridge between team historical data and personal historical data:

This two-phased approach is an example of the "rolling wave" planning technique, which is considered a best-practice with the project management commmunity.

Reusing Workflows via Libraries

Two buttons on the toolbar provide the ability to import () and export () workflows. This makes it possible to share workflows between projects and between project teams. When you click one of these buttons, the workflow editor will ask you to identify the name of a workflow library file. You can export workflows to a new or existing library file, or import workflows from an existing file. After choosing a file, the Import/Export Team Workflows window will appear. This window shows the workflows from the current project in a table on the left, and the workflows from the library in a table on the right.

When exporting, you can select a workflow in the table on the left and click the Add button to export it to the library on the right. When importing, you can select a workflow in the library table on the right and click the Add button to import it to the project workflows on the left.

Workflows are identified by their names (for example, "Simple Process" in the image below). If you import or export a workflow which has the same name as an existing workflow in the destination table, the existing workflow will be overwritten. For example, in the image below, the user is importing workflows from an existing library. They have selected the "Simple Process" workflow in the library on the right. Since there is already a workflow by that name in the project workflow list on the left, the application has automatically highlighted it, and changed the text on the Add button to "Overwrite," indicating that if this workflow is imported it will overwrite the workflow that is highlighted on the left.

At times, you may wish to import all the workflows in a library, or export all of the workflows in your project. The Add All button will perform this task. Keep in mind that any existing workflows with the same names will be overwritten, as described in the paragraph above.

The changes you make in the Import/Export Team Workflows window will not be saved until you click the Import or Export button at the bottom of the window. (Only one of these buttons will appear, depending on whether you chose to import workflows or export workflows.) When you click the Export button, the changes you made to the workflow library will be saved to the named file. When you click the Import button, the changes you made to the project workflows will be applied to the contents of the Common Team Workflows Editor. When importing or exporting, if you make a mistake or change your mind, just click the Cancel button and no changes will be saved.