Scalable Project Discipline

Should we classify projects by size and scale project discipline using size (cost / effort) as the meter for project discipline? I've seen that more often, since investment size (cost / effort) at risk warrants discipline to improve likelihood of success.

But how about situations when various size projects (including small ones) are critical to business success and either time or quality of the deliverable is the key business driver. Business critical projects are worthy of a disciplined method of delivery.

Or, should we ignore size, etc. and achieve a level of PMO maturity that operates at such an efficient level of productivity and project volume throughput that the project management discipline is optimal across the full portfolio?

What do you think? ...

... "there must be a dividing line between projects that are complex and critical enough to require a full, rigorous methodology, and those projects that are simple and routine enough to be managed with minimal project overhead. The question is: Where is that line? " ...

Via TechRepublic: Project size classification determines rigor

Eat Own Dog Food

Microsoft's CIO shares insights on navigating the short-term while staying focused on the long-term strategy. And, he gets to taste and then feed the internal organization their own dog food. ...

... "Microsoft’s IT organization has long had a role within the company of being what we call the first and best customers of Microsoft products. So it was a well-established routine for taking in various waves of technologies that get introduced ... " ...

Via CIO Insight: Microsoft CIO Tony Scott

Scalable Green Clouds

Some interesting points in the following article re ... analogy of on-premise computing with on-site power generation, a scalability success story with cloud computing, and alignment of IT sustainability goals with future cloud computing models. ...

... "Energy efficiency, as well as reliability and scalability, ought to be factors in your cloud computing migration strategies. " ...

Via InformationWeek: Cloud / Electric Generator

Helicopter IT Project

Project explores the use of unmanned helicopters with a sensor network to address response to natural disasters. A number of research projects are being funded by the EU to address this scenario. ...

... "This is primarily an IT project so we did not concentrate so much on the helicopters’ airframes as on a scaleable control system which, in the future, could be used on a larger scale, he notes. " ...

Via Physorg: Supercopter

Plan and Estimate using Agile

Agile techniques are not just for small projects. ...

Organize for Virtualization Success

A virtualized environment offers the ability to achieve significant scalability. Benchmarks and heuristics can help you assess the future state model for your organization post-implementation. ...

... "Management team: 15 percent of IT groups are creating a dedicated team, often called the virtual computing team, that brings together experts from various IT disciplines to manage the overall virtualization effort ... " ...

Via CIO: Benchmarks

Project Planning for Scale

Server stress tests. Network utilization tests. Plan for scalability accordingly on your IT projects. ...

... "First, every IT project takes twice as long as you expect. Don't let any IT guys tell you otherwise and, if you're the IT guy, plan accordingly. " ...

Via ZDNet: Scalability