28
Coping with all that documentation

In brief, without effective document management you will have confusion, time wastage and cost escalation and the project sponsor will have a failed project on their hands.

• Make sure each document is “good”.
• Stay legal and secure.
• Withdraw documents which are no longer relevant.
• Use document management systems extensively and wisely.
• Keep an eye on the number of documents you have!

Before you skip to the next chapter, read this

There is probably no other aspect of management with such a bad reputation or held to be bureaucracy for the sake of it as “document management”. The term often conjures up nightmare visions of pedants, surrounded by a huge pile of paperwork, ticking boxes, and filling in forms. What I say is, thank goodness there are those who care enough to take on the role of document manager or at least make sure it is effectively done. When properly implemented, document management is not “bureaucracy for its own sake” but an essential aspect of governance and therefore rigorous and pragmatic. Done well, it protects the organization from expensive errors and can even be a source of competitive advantage. Remember also, what applies to document management also applies to information generally. Much of the information that used to be in document form is now held in information systems, a trend which will continue. For example, engineering designs are as likely to be in “BIM” or CAD systems as in traditional paper documents. If you think document management is a complex bureaucracy, then you have not yet touched the complexities of configuration management and its related disciplines. We’ll look into those in The Programme and Portfolio Workout.

Project managers and their teams create a wide range of documents. Some documents are important and need to be stored and maintained to ensure they are not lost and the correct version is available to whoever needs it. You probably do this yourself already at home, a folder in a cabinet for important documents or a folder in your laptop where you copy things just in case. You probably also have a back-up for those really precious files. By doing this, you are already doing “document management”. You might even use the same approach at work with a mixture of files in drawers and files in various folders in your laptop. You might be able to find what you need, but what about your team and co-workers? If a document is buried in your personal space, your team won’t be able to find it and might each create their own copies, which might be different versions, with different content.

Let’s look at an example of how this might affect you. As a project manager, you’ll probably understand the need for defined requirements to work to and which form the basis of your whole project. If those requirements keep changing and everyone working on the project isn’t working to the same set of requirements you have a recipe for disaster. At any point in time, it must be clear which version everyone should be using; this is document management in action. If you don’t do this, your project is doomed to failure. If you don’t have effective document management in place:

• people might work on out of date documentation;
• documents will be lost or misdirected and nobody will notice;
• pages which have been taken out of a document cannot be relied on;
• change control will become unmanageable;
• you will have no evidence in the case of a dispute, either within the organization or with a third party;
• you won’t be able to comply with any legal requirements; did you know that in many jurisdictions, contract documents have to be archived for a minimum period in case of future disputes?
• you risk breaches of security by sending documents to the wrong people.

In brief, without effective document management you will have confusion, time wastage, and cost escalation, and the project sponsor will have a failed project on their hands.

What does document management give you?

Document management is concerned with managing documents and other information from creation, through to publication, distribution, withdrawal, and disposal. It involves the indexing, storage, and retrieval of documents and other information in an organized way. It also includes the formal receipt and submission of documents from and to third parties, such as suppliers, customers, regulators, and the media.

There is little point in carefully establishing baseline documents at the start of a project if they are not maintained and protected effectively throughout the project (and beyond for the lifetime of the project’s outputs in many cases). This is what “document management” is all about; it:

• ensures ownership for content (for new documents and changes to existing documents);
• defines the approach for drafting, reviewing, and approving documents;
• defines the validity of the document (status);
• defines who is allowed to see the document (security rating);
• ensures all approved documents are stored in a secure location, accessible to the right people;
• provides an audit trail for any changes (who’s created, amended, accessed, or deleted what?);
• ensures documents are reviewed and updated regularly to ensure they are current or withdrawn when no longer needed.

As the number of documents increases, the benefits accrued from applying formal document management increase. Conversely, the risks and negative impacts of not doing so become more apparent.

A bit about document features

If you take any document you are using at work, you should know exactly what it is, even if pages are missing. Similarly, if you find a page from a document left in the photocopier, you should be able to tell where it came from and even if you should be reading it! Good document design, which should be in every template, makes this easy to achieve. Figure 28.1 shows the document control page from a “good practice” document which has a number of features. It is not important where the features are placed on a page, that is a matter for designers, but every page of the document should have:

• the document’s name, document number;
• security rating, denoting who may read it (such as Internal, Confidential, Secret);
• status, so that you know what level of reliability you can place on it (such as Draft, For review, For approval, Approved, Withdrawn, Working document);
• page number, with total number of pages, just in case you lose some from the back if the printer runs out of paper;
• who issued the document, its version number, and issue date.

The document control sheet should include:

• the document owner, author, reviewers, and approvers, so the readers know whom to talk to if they have any queries;
• a change history, showing the dates of each version issued and why it was issued;
• a copyright notice. This is not essential under English law, but it is best to exert this right explicitly;
• a note as to the circumstances which determine if the document is controlled” or “uncontrolled”;
• if derived from a template, the version of the template on which the document is based. Lessons learned are often built into the templates and it is good to know that the latest one was used, or for an old document, which version was used and hence what may be missing if a new template was used.

Desktop tools normally have most of this information included in the “meta data” for the files. In Microsoft Office, these are called “document properties” and can be maintained and updated very simply although, as with all software, there are some quirks you may have to work around.

Key document management activities

Most document management processes are similar; they include drafting a document, getting it reviewed and then, when ready, obtaining approval. Unfortunately, that is all many processes contain. You also need to distribute the documents to whoever needs them, withdraw documents which are no longer needed or valid, manage any documents you receive from outside your organization, such as from suppliers or customers, and manage how the documents are stored securely. Figure 28.2 shows an outline for a complete process, which you can use or tailor to suit your needs. Figure 28.3 shows a typical document tracking form for use with the process. This may be in any format, using any tool. It could, for example, be built into a work flow tool or embedded in a standard email.

Draft the document

The producer or author of the document should work on the content, consulting whomever necessary to ensure the document is comprehensive and concise. You need to write the maximum content in the minimum number of words; the more you write, the less will be read. Whilst the draft is being prepared, the document status should be set to “Draft”.

The person drafting the document should use a template, if available, so that all documents relating to the project, or even across a whole organization, are consistent in terms of branding, style, and document features. This should include document status, date, title, reference number, author, security classification, review panel, and approval panel. Templates can be:

• General and used for any document. Such templates normally have a cover sheet, table of contents, and document control information. If the document is only one or two pages long, then a “short form” template should be used, which has no cover or table of contents as it is pointless to create a document where the peripheral pages outnumber the real content. A short form document template should simply have the control information, which is best placed at the back.
• Specific, with a table of contents and guidance already included, such as for a business case, project closure report, feasibility report.

Most enterprise project management methods have templates. You can see examples of some on The Project Workout web site.

A template should have guidance on how to complete it; this may be either within the document itself or in a separate guide or product description. Not only should this help when writing a document but it should also include the quality criteria for reviewers and approvers to use when deciding if the document is “good”. Guidance may also include who the approvers and reviewers should be, the format the document should take, and tailoring guidelines. The tailoring guidelines

are important if the template is going to be used in a wide range of different circumstances. For example, tailoring guidelines may suggest merging a number of documents into a single document, splitting a document up into its constituent parts or applying alternative quality criteria. For example, a possible tailoring of the business case described in Chapter 17 would be to have the same content in four separate documents:

• financial analysis
• project definition
• project plan
• project management plan

Chapter 30 tells you more about tailoring.

Review the document

At this point in time, the document status should be “For review”. As the author of a document, you need to make it as easy as possible for reviewers to do their job, whilst making it easy for you to consolidate comments from a number of reviewers. It is therefore best to send a document out for review together with a document review record, with the document details, such as document status, date, version, title, and reference number, already completed. A document review record is simply a table, like that in Figure 28.4, in which the reviewer can add their comments. They can also note whether they consider this a critical comment or simply editorial. Always encourage reviewers to propose alternative or new wording so that their intentions are clear. There is not much an author can do with a comment which simply says, “I don’t like this paragraph”. You might consider holding a meeting to present the document to the reviewers and encourage wider debate as a team, rather than have reviewers working in isolation.

Send the document to the reviewers for formal review; if you have prepared the way, the content should come as no surprise to the reviewers as you should have already engaged them, or their representative, in the development of the document. Ensure it is clear whom any review comments should be returned to and give a deadline. If there is a document guide or product description, include it as this would be the standard against which a reviewer needs to judge the document and make their recommendation on whether it is fit for purpose. If there is no guide, simply add the quality criteria to the review request (Figure 28.3); the vaguer you are, the more wide-ranging and less relevant the review comments are likely to be.

Each reviewer, or group, should list their comments in the review record and return it. You then need to ensure all review comments are consolidated. You can respond accordingly and, if necessary, improve the document.

It is unlikely that you will have created a good document from a single draft. Many people work on the “high jump rule” and assume, for a major deliverable, it will take three review cycles until the document is fit for approval.

Approve the document

When the document is ready to be sent for approval, set the document status to “For approval” and send it to the approvers. Include the consolidated review record for an approver to see, first hand, what comments have been made and how the author responded. As with the reviewers, refer to any quality criteria, document guide or product description to help determine whether the document is fit for purpose. Remember to give a deadline and clearly state what responses are needed. The options are:

• approved, or
• not approved, in which case the approver should give their reasons are and provide direction regarding the improvement needed.

If approved, update the document status to “Approved”. If the document is not approved, it should be revised and either a full review required, or if the changes are less trivial, the revised document may be returned directly to the approvers. Some organizations, especially when working with partners or customers, make a distinction in the “approved” status to denote which organization it was approved by. For example, assume I am a supplier, ABC Limited: I may “approve” the document internally (status = ABC Approved), prior to sending it to my customer. As the document is marked “ABC approved”, the customer will know it is at a high level of completion, not just an early version for discussion. Once the customer has approved it, the status would be set to “Customer approved”.

Distribute the document

Any approved document will need to be sent to the people who need to use it and with a statement as to why it is being sent to them. The document control panel may include the distribution list and also the circumstances under which the document should be distributed. For example, for certain documents, it is only necessary for some people to be told about new documents and major changes to existing ones. For minor changes to existing documents, only those directly affected need be told. Reducing the number of “hits” a person has from document management is a good way to reduce the perception of “bureaucracy”. Some systems send out automated emails every time a document changes, regardless of the significance of the change; this can result in some people getting scores of emails a day from different project teams with no way of telling if the notification is significant. The result is that all such emails are ignored, so there was no point in sending them.

The other documents which need to be distributed are those from outside the organization, particularly a supplier or customer. Such communications can have contractual significance and the document needs to be registered as being received and action taken accordingly, such as acknowledging receipt, making informal comments on an early draft, reviewing the document or approving the document.

Ensure all versions of the document and correspondence regarding review and approval cycles are stored in the document store or archive.

Withdraw the document

A document may be withdrawn at any point. It should also be withdrawn in accordance with an organization’s information retention policy. First, it should be verified that the document can in fact be withdrawn, by consulting stakeholders and, if available, the document author. The document and the document register can then be set to status: “Withdrawn”.

Ensure all document recipients are told that the document has been withdrawn.

Receive document

Documents originating outside the organization, particularly from a supplier or customer, can have contractual significance and need to be registered as being received and action taken accordingly. This usually follows one of two courses:

• the document needs to be distributed to those who need it;
• the document needs to be reviewed, either as part of a formal review, or as a precursor to an approval request.

Make sure all versions of any documents and associated correspondence are kept in the document store or archive; you might need them if a dispute arises.

Manage storage

The document control environment, including structure and permissions should be set up at the start of a project and the project team briefed on how to use it and where to get help, if they need it.

The manager of the solution will need to ensure permissions and access to the document repository are up to date, with new people added and leavers removed.

They will also need to monitor the usage; many systems produce reports which show the effectiveness of the procedure and the state of the document repository, such as outstanding reviews and time to process a document.

When document management is no longer required on a project, all “write” permissions will need to be withdrawn, documentation deleted in accordance with the information retention policy, and any remaining documentation handed over to whoever will continue with its ongoing management. In many industries, especially aerospace, it is not unusual for documentation to be held long after those who created it have retired, just in case of any incidents; these are often called “resurrection documents”!

Document management roles

The roles involved in a document management process generally focus around those needed for each document and those needed to manage all the documents. The following is a guide but will need to be adapted to suit your particular needs and situations.

For each document

For each document, the following roles are needed. Note these are not jobs, simply a role people undertake which is vital for document management.

The document author is accountable to the document owner for:

• producing the draft document, either as an initial draft or a proposed update to an existing document;
• organizing and facilitating reviews as required;
• responding to all comments in a timely manner and revising the document to them into account;
• agreeing who needs to see the completed and approved document.

The same individual may undertake the roles of document owner and document author. The document author should not normally be the document approver.

The document reviewers are responsible to the document approver for:

• reviewing the document and providing constructive comments within the required time frame and in accordance with any quality criteria provided;
• indicating agreement that their comments have been considered (if not actually accepted!).

The document approver is accountable to the document owner for ensuring the document is formally approved following review and amendment. As a minimum, one formal approver is required but others may be included as needed.

The document owner is the person responsible for:

• identifying the document requirements;
• ensuring the document is properly prepared;
• ensuring that the document is reviewed;
• ensuring the approved document is properly controlled and its future review planned undertaken;
• ensuring the document is archived or disposed of (where necessary).

The document owner may be the same person as the document author.

For all the documents

The document manager is accountable for:

• defining the document management solution for the project;
• ensuring compliance with the solution.

For a stand-alone project, this role may be done by the project manager or by a support function. If the project is within a portfolio or programme, then the role may be undertaken as part of an enterprise function or programme management office.

The document controller is accountable to the document manager for the dayto-day document management operations:

• receiving documents from and sending them to third parties;
• ensuring documents are correctly filed;
• notifying the document owner when a future document review is expected;
• notifying those affected when a document is revised or withdrawn.

Depending on the degree of autonomy given to the authors and the level of automation in the solution, the controller may also support the document author and owner by:

• circulating the document for review, together with the review comments sheets;
• consolidating review comments into a single sheet for submission for the document author;
• reissuing the document for approval once comments have been addressed;
• distributing the documents.

What to look for in a document management solution

A document management solution should define:

• the document and content types that should be managed within an organization;
• a template for each document type, referenced centrally in a document register;
• the metadata each document should contain to enable effective indexing and searching;
• in line with the agreed file structure, the most appropriate place to store documents throughout its life cycle;
• the status of each document as it moves through its life;
• the distribution of documents around the organization including control over how, and if, they should be converted (for example the conversion of Word documents to PDF for publication);
• policies to apply to documents, e.g. auditing, reviewing, retention, and disposal;
• how documents should be treated as corporate records, which must be retained according to legal requirements and corporate guidelines;
• how to handle distribution and access to documents according to their information security classification.

As with any management procedure, it is the pragmatic application of the solution to suit local conditions that defines its successful use.

Your document management approach needs to be established during the project setup. Beforehand, however, you should check if your organization or (if working as a contractor or supplier) your customer has any prescribed methods, approaches, or requirements. The buzz words to look out for are:

• document or information retention;
• information security;
• data protection and control.

If there any prescribed approaches, make sure to comply with them and if you are a supplier, cost this in – document management is not cheap. As a minimum you should have:

• a procedure: provide your team with a clear and simple approach to the “draft – review – approve –withdraw” sequence of a document to ensure a clear understanding of who should do what at each step. See Figure 28.2.
• templates: create templates for your team to use, with all the necessary document management features built in. See Figure 28.1.
• a document repository: agree and establish a document repository and structure – if everyone knows where master copies are held, consistency will be established, rework will be reduced and people can be sure they are using the correct document. Many tools have features built in to them to make this easier. Even if you use a tool, you’ll still need to define the document control approach and IT infrastructure to be used and set the correct permissions.
• numbering and naming conventions: use a standard file numbering and naming convention; this provides clear visibility on file types, speeds up access to information and promotes consistency.
• date convention: decide what format any dates on your documents should be written in. If you’re in doubt of the worth of this, think of the confusion caused by American and English date formats: 2/4 is 2 April in the UK but 4 February in the USA! I usually avoid this problem by only using real names for months.
• a document register: set up a document register including, as a minimum, reference, title, author, approver, version, issue date, status, Make this the master index for your document repository. On-line tools have this as a standard feature but you may need to create your own report formats for it to be useful.

You will probably be using an on-line document repository which might be shared across an organization; examples are Microsoft’s shared folders and SharePoint and OpenText’s Livelink. Most of the enterprise “PPM solution” providers include document management as part of their solutions. Given the huge and growing volumes of data within organizations, ensuring consistency of approach and access becomes virtually impossible without an electronic system. For stand-alone programmes and projects, this also becomes more critical as the size of the programme or project increases.

Key features of an electronic system to look for include:

• the ability to store and retrieve documents effectively; each document must be adequately described to support appropriate retrieval, retention period and security level, status, and classification according to your needs and taxonomy;
• unique referencing. A document and version of a document should have a unique identifier in the system which does not change, even if the document is reclassified or moved. It is likely many documents will need to be referenced from web pages, and having a stable hyperlink, which won’t break, is essential;
• permissions management, to ensure only those who need to can edit documents. It also defines who is able to view documents. Do not tie down “read only” access too tightly; this is probably what your security advisors would want on the basis that the only “safe” document is one that no one can see! The benefit of having document management systems is to enable collaboration and ease of visibility, in teams formed of people from any department in the organization. If you restrict access unnecessarily, you will negate these benefits and create a large management overhead maintaining access controls. You must, however, make sure you comply with the security rating; for example, there may be no problem letting everyone in the organization have access to your project management templates, but access to commercial information would need to be limited;
• check in/check out or document locking so that only one person can edit a document at any one time; you need to ensure multiple users do not overwrite each other’s’ contributions;
• version control, so the latest version is always the most visible but previous version are still available, if needed;
• roll back to correct errors;
• audit trail so you can not only see previous versions of documents but also who loaded them, when; some systems also enable you to see who has read a document, which is useful if you want to see how successful a document is or if the right people are using it;
• an automated back-up and disaster recovery capability.

Workout 28.1 – Document management “must do’s”

Take a look at your project and assess whether you are covering the essentials of document management: