Question 1: The charters posted on Blackboard, the examples
shown in class, and the assignment handout are all a bit different.
What items should I include in our team's charter to meet the
requirements of the assignment?
Answer 1: The document posted on Blackboard by the professor
entitled "Team Charter Checklist.pdf" is the specification for this
assignment and describes the minimum requirements for your submittals.
All other information is provided as examples or a point of reference
only. Please ensure that your submittals contain, at a minimum, all
requirements listed in the Charter Checklist. You may include other
items or adapt the examples you've been shown, but at a minimum you
must include everything in the Checklist.
Question 2: I know you showed us how to do time-scaled activity
on arrow diagram schedules in class, but I prefer to do my project
schedules using software. What will and won't you accept?
Answer 2: You may use an alternate schedule representation for
your project documentation submittals as long as it meets the following
requirements:
1) it must include the tasks you generate in your WBS/RACI matrix, which is a different part of the deliverable
2) it must be time-scaled
3) it must show interdependencies among the tasks, i.e., arrows to indicate predecessor/successor relationships
4) it must be coded somehow to clearly show responsibilities/resources allocated.
The activity-on-arrow representation shown in class (see lecture slides
for Sept 6) does all these things. You can substitute an alternate
representation such as a modified Gantt chart, but be sure it meets all
these criteria or you won't get full credit. You should also include a
few sentences to describe how your alternate representation meets these
requirements (e.g., "Resource allocations are indicated by color coding
of the bars in the Gantt chart") to ensure that you receive maximum
credit for your submittal.
Question 3: I don't understand why I have to do both a work
breakdown structure and a RACI matrix when they contain exactly the
same information.
Answer 3: You can blend the two together if you so choose and
still receive full credit for this part of the assignment. To do this,
you have to indicate hierarchical relationships in your tasks in the
RACI matrix, i.e., cluster them together with headings and subheadings
in a way that indicates what is a subset of what. This is often done in
Gantt charts by clustering tasks together into groups that are related.
If you do this, you don't have to provide a separate representation of
your WBS.
Question 4: RACI matrices are nifty, but given the way my team
works, making people Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed
doesn't make as much sense. Can I use different letters to more
accurately reflect how my team works? Will it still be called a RACI
matrix?
Answer 4: Yes, absolutely! Alternative sets of letters will
allow you to organize your WBS by component but still communicate the
various roles played with regard to each component by your team
members. These could include:
C = developing content
W = posting content on wiki
Q = quality checking content
I = integrating content
P = presenting content
You can use whatever configuration of letters best suits how you
plan to achieve the work, but be sure to include a legend to make it
clear what the letters mean. Also note that it's good practice to have
different people responsible for quality checking and integration than
the original developers of content to get a fresh set of eyes looking
at the material. Lastly, in this class we'll always refer to this kind
of responsibility matrix as a RACI matrix, since this is the most
common way it's denoted in industry. There are many documented
variations of RACI matrices, and you should feel free to adapt the
concept to your purposes as long as it clearly indicates who did what.
