Many attributes influence tailoring for the project. These include, but are not limited to:
- Product/deliverable,
- Project team, and
- Culture.
The project team should ask questions about each attribute to help guide them in the tailoring process. Answers to these questions can help identify the need to tailor processes, delivery approach, life cycle, tools, methods, and artifacts.
3.4.3.1 Product/Deliverable
Attributes associated with the product or deliverable include, but are not limited to:
- Compliance/criticality. How much process rigor and quality assurance is appropriate?
- Type of product/deliverable. Is the product well known and physical, for example, something easy to recognize and describe like a building? Or something intangible like software or the design of a new drug?
- Industry market. What market does the project, product, or deliverable serve? Is that market highly regulated, fast moving, or slow to evolve? What about competitors and incumbents?
- Technology. Is the technology stable and well established or rapidly evolving and at risk of obsolescence?
- Time frame. Is the project time frame short as in weeks or months, or long as in several years?
- Stability of requirements. How likely are there to be changes to core requirements?
- Security. Are elements of the product business confidential or classified?
- Incremental delivery. Is this something the project team can develop and get stakeholder feedback on incrementally, or something that is hard to evaluate until near completion?
3.4.3.2 Project Team
Project team considerations include:
- Project team size. How many full-time and part-time people will be working on the project?
- Project team geography. Where are the team members predominantly located geographically? Will some or all of the team be remote or colocated?
- Organizational distribution. Where are the team’s supporting groups and other stakeholders located?
- Project team experience. Do the project team members have any experience in the industry, in the organization, or working with each other? Do they have the skills, tools, and technology required for the project under consideration?
- Access to customer. Is it practical to get frequent and timely feedback from customers or customer representatives?
3.4.3.3 Culture
Evaluating the culture includes considerations regarding:
- Buy-in. Is there acceptance, support, and enthusiasm for the proposed delivery approach?
- Trust. Are there high levels of trust that the project team is capable of and committed to delivering the project outcomes?
- Empowerment. Is the project team trusted, supported, and encouraged to own and develop its working environment, agreements, and decisions?
- Organizational culture. Do the organizational values and culture align with the project approach? This includes empowering versus specifying and checking, trusting local decision making versus requesting external decision making, etc.
Through the evaluation of these attributes, tailoring decisions around engagement, process, and tools can be made for the project. These removals and additions are depicted in Figure 3-5 with an “X” for removals and dotted boxes for the addition of trial processes
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