2-2-1 Purpose
The purpose for this document is to provide justification for the allocation of resources to begin formal planning for the project. While some resources are required to even create the Product Description and Project Charter, no other work should proceed until the review board has authorized this project.

The purpose for this project is to demonstrate the use of the PMI methodology through a comprehensive set of project documents.

2-2-2 Copyright
Summer 2004, Irvine, California, USA, copyright by Robert E. Perrine, PMP. Offered as is, with no warranty regarding the accuracy or suitability of this material. Copyright reserved. You are, however free to copy and distribute these documents with the following restrictions.

• You may not charge for use or distribution of this material.
• Your usage of this material is conditioned upon your compliance with the PMI Code of Ethics.
• All distributions must be made with the intent to further the collected wisdom of humanity.
• You may not remove my name or my copyright notices from these documents.

2-2-3 Table of Contents
Recursion Project
2 Scope
2-2 Project Charter
2-2-1 Purpose
2-2-2 Copyright
2-2-3 Table of Contents
2-2-4 Scope
2-1-4-1 Business Need
2-1-4-2 Product Description
2-1-4-3 Product Details
2-1-4-4 Constraints
2-1-4-5 Assumptions
2-2-5 Quality Expectations
2-2-6 Identified Risks
2-2-7 Organizational Structure
2-1-7-1 Designation of the Project Manager
2-1-7-2 Project Management Approach
2-1-7-3 Staffing Plan
2-1-7-4 Communication Schedule
2-2-8 Time
2-1-8-1 Duration Estimate
2-1-8-2 Project Milestones
2-2-9 Cost
2-1-9-1 Resource Requirements
2-1-9-2 Procurement Forecast
2-1-9-3 Benefit-to-Cost Analysis
2-2-10 Revision History and Authorization to Proceed

2-2-4 Scope
2-2-4-1 Business Need
I have three business needs: 1) to share my knowledge, 2) to expand my knowledge and 3) to transform my knowledge into a tangible, transportable form.

I have a need to share my knowledge by demonstrating the PMI methodology to fellow project managers. Doing so will help students in classes that I teach and be an asset to other project managers in the community. Thus, my goal is to follow the PMI methodology and build a set of project documents. For those unfamiliar with the methodology, this will serve as an illustration. For those skeptical of the methodology this project should prove that the methodology can be implemented in a concise form.

I have a need to expand my knowledge. In education, this learning method is called “synthesis”. Basically, synthesis occurs when you apply your learning to the creation of something new. This is a powerful learning technique. I have completed numerous projects and reviewed the documents on countless others. This time, however, I am focusing on the specifics of this methodology. I expect to probe deeper into the PMI definitions and I expect to broaden my exposure by searching for example projects outside my normal scope. Also note that synthesis is a time honored sign of the transition from journeyman to master. A journeyman travels from master to master, using the tools built by the master. A master is expected to build his or her own tools.

I also need to make my knowledge transportable. Over the years I have seen numerous project templates, but many of those templates are proprietary and belong to the consulting companies I have worked with. I have also built project templates for companies that I have worked for. But, work done in the service of an employer belongs to the employer. Hence, my motivation for this project is to use my personal time to build an enhanced set of project templates. Since this project is being worked on my own time, using my own resources, these documents will be mine to share. For example, I cannot show students documents that I create while performing service for my employer. I can, however, publish on the internet documents that I create on my own time, with my own software, on my own computer. Surprisingly, after years of arguing against the iconoclasts from the freeware industry, I find myself aligned with their stated purpose. Knowledge benefits humanity best when it is shared.

2-2-4-2 Product Description
The product to be built during the course of this project is a set of documents. It is expected that there will be about thirty total documents, but that number will be refined during the course of this project. These documents must be made available through an internet portal.

2-2-4-3 Product Details
This product is based upon the Project Management Institute A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (ISBN 1-880410-25-7), also known as the PMBOK 2000.

When completed, there will be one document to represent each of the key documents described in the PMBOK 2000. Note that the intent is to represent the documents typical of a mid-sized project. Thus, some documents will be merged and others will be excluded. This is necessary so that the methodology is not obscured in a clutter of documents some of which are only meaningful on larger projects.

For a small project, a subset of that methodology can be implemented with about ten documents. A goal for this project is to move beyond the scope of a small project into more of a mid-ranged project. Based upon a preliminary analysis it should be possible to build this product with about thirty documents.

These documents must be easy to maintain, easy to format and easy to distribute. The primary author currently uses Microsoft Word for document creation and a combination of Adobe Acrobat, HTML and zip archives for document distribution. Based upon what is known today, those tools should suffice.

Each document will be created with the intent that it will later be used to generate a template for future projects.

There must be consistency of style across the document set. TThe formatting of this set must be appropriate such that templates can be readily applied to professional projects. TIn general, it seems that bordering adds to the appearance of documents. However, prior experience has shown that excessive formatting require unnecessary effort to preserve the format. It is recommended that page borders be used instead of section borders to preserve the appearance while simplifying the administration and maintenance of the document set. TThis product is expected to have a life well beyond the life of the project. Prior experience in tool creation has shown that a well built tool can continue to be useful for many years. This project should not span more than a few months. This product must be designed to last at least three years.

2-2-4-4 Constraints
My team has little time to devote to this project. This project must be worked outside normal business hours and will compete with both work and social schedules.

There is no allocated budget for this project. It may be necessary to budget funds to support the staff acquisition process. For example, it might be important to buy a few lunches or dinners. Funding for those expenditures will need to be justified and may or may not be approved.

The team already owns personal copies of all of the required software. Web space has already been allocated, but it has a precise maximum capacity. If additional software or additional web space is required, then a separate evaluation will be required for those expenditures.

No staff is available to assign to this project. If it is to complete on time, it will be necessary to recruit volunteers.

2-2-4-5 Assumptions
I know fellow project managers who have expressed an interest in this project. I assume one or two of them might be available to review some of these documents. If that assumption does not work out, then these documents may be initially published without review.

2-2-5 Quality Expectations
Quality must be inherent in each document from the beginning. As is often said: “you only have one chance to make a good first impression.” If visitors come to the web site and find an inferior product, they will not return.

Time, however, is a severe constraint on this project. Thus each document must be build expediently and the quality must be high on the first pass. There is no time or opportunity to come back later and improve on the quality.

The quality expectations can be summarized as:

• Each document should exhibit the quality characteristic of documents produced by large consulting companies. Those companies know that the documents remain long after the staff has moved on. It is the impression those documents make that either motivates the users to call them back or keep them away. These documents must be solid, clearly defined, properly formatted and have a consistent professional appearance. At the same time, these documents must never look bloated or padded.
• Quality, however, is often correlated with quantity. I once successfully reduced the volume of code in a subsystem from 30,000 lines to 3,000 lines while improving on the overall quality and feature set. Some praised the effort, others complained that I must have left something out. It is important that no feature be omitted. Consultants know that one of the first judgments a customer makes is whether or not the pounds of paper can counterbalance the weight of the ink on the check.
• This project must withstand peer review. We work with other project managers. We meet with other PMO managers. And many of us teach classes filled with experienced project managers. The results of this project must withstand their scrutiny.
• Finally, these documents cannot look like they are just another class project. While searching for relevant reference documents I found numerous quips, and footnotes from others claiming that their portal was different because their portal was built by professionals – not just college professors. That is an invalid classification of the sample, but it is clearly a widely shared prejudice. Although I have taught and still teach, that is not an excuse for substandard work. On the other hand, a clear definition of “quality” is “fitness for use.” If the intended use of those other portals is to present a simplified illustration to aid undergraduate students, then those portals may well exhibit high quality. My audience, however, is fellow professionals. Thus my documents must exhibit “fitness for use” as defined by experienced professionals.

2-2-6 Identified Risks

Risk	Description	Probability	Impact
1	The project schedule will suffer if the project team is reassigned to other projects before finishing. This risk can be mitigated by expediting the project. Also, if necessary, I can devote vacation time to work on this project.	High	High
2	There are topics that need to be covered in which I do not have the depth that I would like to have. This should be viewed as a positive risk – i.e., an opportunity. One of the stated goals for this project is to learn more. This project will challenge me to put to paper a clear statement that can withstand peer review. It may be challenging to do that, but there is no expectation of failure.	High	Low
3	The tools that I am using have serious limitations. I am continually annoyed by the characteristics of the document editor that I use. It is, however, the most widely used tool for this purpose, and thus it has become the de-facto standard for portability in source documents. I will mitigate aspects of this by using Adobe Acrobat to encapsulate the resulting document in a stable package that can be distributed via the internet.	High	Low
4	Aspects of this work will need to be revised when the PMBOK 2004 is released. This could be mitigated by modeling this project after the new release. That, however, would make these documents less useful to those still tied to the 2000 release. Instead, the proposed mitigation strategy is to budget an upgrade at a later time.	Meduim	Medium

2-2-7 Organizational Structure
2-2-7-1 Designation of the Project Manager
After carefully considering all possible candidates, the Project Sponsor (Robert Perrine) explained to the project review board (Robert Perrine) that the best Project Manager available for this assignment is Robert Perrine. Thus, by the authority vested in the project review board, Robert Perrine has been designated as the Project Manager for the Recursion Project. All employees in this venture are expected to support this project and work with the Project Manager to expedite completion of this project on time and within budget.

2-2-7-2 Project Management Approach
This project is a recursive project. Typical projects reference a set of standards and policies that are already established. In this case, however, those policies have not yet been formalized. Thus, for this project, the initial project management approach is to rely upon prior experience. Quickly, however, the project management approach will be formalized through written subsidiary management plans including the Scope Management Plan, the Communications Management Plan and others.

2-2-7-3 Staffing Plan
This project will begin with a part-time staff of one person. Later, it is expected that volunteers will be enlisted to aid in the document reviews. The proposed organizational structure is shown below.

2-2-7-4 Communication Schedule
Again, since this project is recursive, there is no company standard to pull from as a boilerplate for this section. The communications plan shown below is proposed as a starting point. These details will be formalized when the communications management plan is defined. Later, that plan will be updated as project team members are added.

Who	What	When	Why
All Stakeholders	Project Milestones	Monthly	To track progress and see accomplishments
Authors	Project Status Report	Weekly	To measure progress and check EV.
Designated author, administrator and reviewer	Change Notification	Ad hoc	To notify each other of status changes on specific documents.

2-2-8 Time
2-1-8-1 Duration Estimate
At this point in time, the estimated number of documents is 30. Based upon prior experience, and benchmarking the effort required on the documents “Recursion 001 Guidelines”, “Recursion 002 Product Description” and “Recursion 003 Project Charter”, the initial estimate is that document creation will require about 3 hours per document. It also seems to require about 1 hour per document to find good examples to add as reference links.

Once document reviews begin, it will take additional time to review each document and make updates.

The preliminary time estimate is thus:

• 30 documents x ( 3 hours author + 1 hour research + 1 hour review) = 150 hours total
• At the rate of 7 hours on Saturdays, 3 hours on Sundays and 5 hours during the week, the resources available are 15 hours per week.
• The preliminary duration estimate is thus:
     150 hours total / ( 15 hours per week ) = 10 weeks

2-2-8-2 Project Milestones

Knowledge Area	Initial Release Date
Communication	4 July 2004
Scope	4 July 2004
Time	11 July 2004
Human Resources	11 July 2004
Cost	18 July 2004
Quality	25 July 2004
Procurement	25 July 2004
Risk	1 August 2004
Integration	8 August 2004
Reviews and updates completed	22 August 2004
Fill in the gaps	12 September 2004

2-2-9 Cost
2-1-9-1 Resource Requirements
To complete this work, with the specified quality, in the allotted time, this project will require the following staff:

Staff	Responsibilities
Robert Perrine Project	Sponsor, Project Manager, Primary Author and Web Site Administrator
TBD	Contributing author. I have a friend who is already working on a similar project. If we pool our resources we can combine our documents into one site.
TBD	There are a couple key areas where it is best to have a subject matter expert review the documents.
TBD	I have friends who are also PMO managers. I will ask a few of them if they are interested in reviewing the site and see if they have any advice or recommendations.

2-2-9-2 Procurement Forecast
When this charter was first prepared, no software or hardware purchases were expected. The tools already available were:

• Microsoft Word XP (2002)
• Microsoft Excel XP (2002)
• Microsoft Visio 2000
• Jasc Paint Shop Pro 7
• Adobe Acrobat 6 Professional

• Adobe InDesign CS
• Adobe Illustrator CS
• Adobe Acrobat 6 Professional

2-1-9-3 Benefit-to-Cost Analysis
Both the benefits and costs on this project are difficult to quantify. While the following is not a traditional benefit-to-cost analysis, it does indicate that there is an assumption that the benefit will exceed the cost.

The costs are essentially the time and effort from volunteers. Each of us, however, could bill out at $50 to $150 per hour based upon the project and duration of the project. For a conservative estimate I recommend:
   150 hours total * $80 per hour = $12,000

Also, the upgrade to Adobe CS will cost approximately $1,000

The benefits are the dissemination of information. Being conservative, I will assume that only students from our Chapter classes go to this site. If there are 30 students in each class, and 3 classes a year, that is 90 students.

Assuming 50 of those students use this site and learn from it each year, then the value per student required is:
   $13,000 expended / 50 students / 3 year product life = $87 per student

That is an achievable number.

In addition, there is the intangible benefit associated with the visibility this portal give the team.

2-2-10 Revision History and Authorization to Proceed

Date	Author	Description
3 Jul 2004	Robert Perrine	Initial release of this document.
Authorization to Proceed
3 Jul 2004	Robert Perrine, Project Sponsor
Date	Author	Description
4 Jul 2004	Robert Perrine	Revisions based upon feedback from the project review board.
Authorization to Proceed
4 Jul 2004	Robert Perrine, Chairman of the Project Steering Committee
Date	Author	Description
5 Jul 2004	Robert Perrine	Revisions to match the numbering scheme from the Work Breakdown Structure.
Authorization to Proceed
5 Jul 2004	Robert Perrine, Project Manager
Date	Author	Description
11 Jul 2004	Robert Perrine	Converted from MS Word to Adobe InDesign.
Authorization to Proceed
11 Jul 2004	Robert Perrine, Chairman of the Project Steering Committee
Date	Author	Description
17 Nov 2007	Robert Perrine	Converted back from Adobe to html. I recommend against using Adobe products.
Authorization to Proceed
17 Nov 2007	Robert Perrine, Owner of the product