Artifact: Status Assessment

Status Assessment	One of the objectives of the process is to ensure that the expectations of all parties are synchronized and consistent. The periodic status assessment provides a mechanism for managing everyone's expectations throughout the lifecycle.
Worker:	Project Manager
Template:	Microsoft Word Template HTML Template
Examples:	Course Registration System Collegiate Sports Paging System (e-Business)
Purpose Brief Outline Timing Responsibility Tailoring Annotated Outline (hyperlinks into HTML template in a new window) Additional Information

Input to Activities:

Handle Exceptions and Problems

Lifecycle Milestone Review

PRA Project Review

Report Status

Output from Activities:

Prepare for Phase Close-Out

Prepare for Project Close-Out

Report Status

Purpose

Status assessments provide a mechanism for addressing, communicating, and resolving management issues, technical issues, and project risks. Continuous open communication with objective data derived directly from ongoing activities, and the evolving product configurations are mandatory in any project. These project snapshots provide the heartbeat for management attention. While the period may vary, the forcing function needs to capture the project history.

Brief Outline

1. Introduction

1.1 Purpose

1.2 Scope

1.3 Definitions, Acronyms and Abbreviations

1.4 References

1.5 Overview

2. Resources

2.1 Personnel/Staffing

2.2 Financial Data

3. Top 10-Risks

4. Technical Progress

5. Major Milestone Results

6. Total Project/Product Scope

7. Action Items and Follow-Through

Timing

Created periodically, typically at the end of an iteration, sometimes more often for very large projects where iterations last several months.

Responsibility

Tailoring

The Status Assessment may be combined with the Iteration Assessment if the iterations are frequent (of the order of one each month). If iterations are lengthy, there will be a need for intermediate Status Assessments.

Additional Information

A lot of the information in the status assessment is copied from other sources, to provide a comprehensive source of information for the people assessing the project. Because the status assessment is not maintained, there is no concern about keeping the information consistent with the evolving system.