Going Beyond the Waterfall

“...the authors provide very sound and realistic advice for the types of projects envisaged, not necessarily only IT projects. For readers in senior positions, the book provides a good read and actionable advice and templates for advancing the cause of the enterprise at its upper levels. After all, as the authors observe, ‘The next decade of digital business will see continued pressure for organizations to react quickly to changing conditions in the economy, market, and competition’.”
 —R. Max Wideman, Fellow, PMI

“I‘ve seen too many projects fail due to poorly defined and ill-managed scope. Going Beyond the Waterfall shares the best tools, techniques, and approaches to ensure you undertake just the actions that will deliver the intended value; nothing more, nothing less. This is a must read!”
 —Haydn Thomas, Vice President, Mindavation

“A project manager will have at least a 50% greater chance of leading a successful project after studying the insights into scientific scope management mentioned in this book. I would encourage my fellow PMP® professionals to have a copy of Going Beyond the Waterfall on their bookshelf right next to the PMBOK® Guide

Every year technology projects face hard decisions about how to mitigate risk and address challenges as teams work on creating useful solutions to deliver promised business value. Those decisions impact scope at every step and help to evolve it until the final product is delivered and implemented. Scope can longer be set in stone! 

This book will help project teams understand how and when scope changes and evolves as a part of a living-development process by answering the ultimate question: “Are we doing the right things the right way?” 

Going Beyond the Waterfall explains how to define scope at the outset of a project. It provides a solid model for predicting and managing solution scope across a project life cycle where the decisions and actions of every team member contribute to that evolutionary process. In addition, it identifies the impacts that key tasks and activities will have on scope and how each can be managed effectively to prevent unnecessary scope creep and reduce run-away projects.

Barbara Davis is President of RQX Global Training & Consulting, LLC, an organization that provides technology management and profit management services for projects, resources, portfolios and IT services. She is a proven thought leader and expert in business analysis, project management, and various aspects of information technology management and business. Ms. Davis has been a champion of business analysis and technology standards and infrastructure for well over a decade, during which time she developed the world’s first university accredited business analysis diploma program, as well as proprietary methodologies. She is also an international speaker and author of Managing Business Analysis Services: A Framework for Sustainable Projects and Corporate Success and Mastering Software Project Requirements: A Framework for Successful Planning, Development & Alignment.

 Darren Radford is President and CEO of Aspire, a management consulting firm, located in Vancouver, Canada, that offers a delivery focused and outcome-based solution capability to effect the right changes at the right time in the right way. Mr. Radford is a respected thought leader in the areas of business and IT strategy; portfolio, program, and project management; product delivery; stakeholder engagement; risk and quality; business analysis; and business transformation. His reputation was built on identifying innovative approaches to solving growth, productivity, and cost management challenges by transforming and evolving firms into high functioning organizations capable of sustainable success. Mr. Radford has over sixteen years of business and IT-enabled transformation experience in the commercial and government sectors.

Section 1: Discovery, Scope and Defining Business Solutions
Chapter 1: Identifying Scope & Solutions: Are We Doing the Right Things?
Chapter 2: The Evolution of Scope on a Project
Chapter 3: Stakeholder Engagement and Involvement
Chapter 4: Implications of Business Architecture

Section 2: Mid-Flight Change Control
Chapter 5: Requirements Elicitation, Analysis, Specification, and Validation
Chapter 6: Governance

Section 3: Applying Project & Architecture Methodologies
Chapter 7: Agile
Chapter 8: Waterfall
Chapter 9: Enterprise Architecture

Section 4: Implementation & Beyond
Chapter 10: Roll-Out: Marketing and Socializing the Solution
Chapter 11: Handing Over to Operations (BAU)
Chapter 12: Decommissioning and Sun-setting