4 The Solution: Project and Content
This is the PIEmatrix "pie" view of a project lifecycle. The circular pie depicts ongoing or iterative slices (same as project stages or phases). You can modify the PIEmatrix pie template to have a different number of slices with different labels. This pie shows six slices only as an example. The lifecycle view can be used for popular iterative or agile methods, or for traditional waterfall approaches.
By the way, this is how we came up with "PIE" in PIEmatrix.
This is the "pie and matrix" view of a project, which is the core structure of our visual model. Each layer represents content for a process best-practice, methodology, or set of procedures. Furthermore, each cell within this matrix would represent the layer content in three views: process steps, people roles, and deliverables files.
Your organization can have one or multiple layers for a best practice. Each layer content would be created within PIEmatrix by your content experts. Once ready as a "pie template", the project managers would simply select a ready-to-use template for their project.They can also select how much content is necessary (small, medium, or large) and which vendor tools will be leveraged.
Go to screen shot to see an example of how the PIEmatrix application uses this metaphor.
PIEmatrix is a platform and your best practice content is the GOLD. Together, your organization ends up with a powerful means for reducing risk!
The power of PIEmatrix is the ability to easily create your best practice content in minutes and deploy it to the enterprise for all projects. On-going content maintenance and evolution is quick and easy, which lowers cost-of-ownership.
The following are different types of content you could make available for your organization in PIEmatrix:
- Industry content: Industry standards can include best-practice content for project management, such as PMI PMBOK or PRINCE2. Other examples for standards (for the IT industry) include ITIL, RUP, Lean Management, Six Sigma, etc. Compliance process standards may be available in the market for Sarbanes-Oxley, FDIC,FDA, HIPPA, and other regulations. If your organization already use industry standards, you can migrate the content into PIEmatrix. Once in PIEmatrix, you can easily modify content and improve it over time.
- Custom content: Your organization may have invested in its own proprietary enterprise standard process content to garnish a competitive edge. Your custom content can be migrated into PIEmatrix for enterprise use.
- Third-party content: If your firm uses process content from third-party consulting firms, partners, or outsourcing service firms, all parties can leverage the same best-practice content while working on a project from within PIEmatrix. This is especially important when team members are dispersed around the world. Imagine how much easier it would to work with multiple partners on large-scale projects when everyone is on the same page and speaking the same process language. That's risk reduction at work!
