Setting up Project Files

Overview
Once the project is under way, it is important to keep track of all the information being produced regarding the project and the management and specialist products. There is a need to be able to manage different versions of products and to be able to retrieve information quickly and reliably. Establishing a sensible and pragmatic project filing system at the start of the project can ease these problems.

Context
This process takes information from the Project Plan and produces the Project Filing structure to add to the Project Foundation Document. It needs to interface with any Configuration Management processes

Process Description
The objectives of the process are to:

	Institute a system of storing and retrieving all information relevant to the management of the project (i.e. define the Intranet Site structure), the quality checking work done and the products themselves, which will provide appropriate support to the project team, and to the implementation of change management
	Assign responsibility for managing this filing system.

In order to achieve these objectives, various steps have to be undertaken:

	Establish what information will be produced throughout the project and will need filing
	Establish what deliverables will be produced throughout the project and the need for associated storage
	Establish what retrieval requirements the project team has
	Establish filing systems that are appropriate for the identified filing and retrieval needs.

The Issue Log, Action Log and Quality Log are created during this process.

Responsibilities
The Project Manager is responsible, assisted by any project support roles and advised by those with project assurance responsibilities.

Information Needs

Management information	Usage	Explanation
Project Plan	Input	Contains all the information about the deliverable the project is expected to produce
Project Quality Plan	Input	Part of the Project Foundation Document
Issue Log	Output	Created in readiness to record all Project Issues
Action Log	Output	Created in readiness to record all Project Actions
Quality Log	Output	Created in readiness to record all details of quality checks
Project Filing structure	Output	Part of the Project Foundation Document

Key Criteria

	Is the formality and rigour of the project filing system appropriate for the scale, risk and complexity of the project?
	Will the retrieval system produce all required information in an accurate, timely and usable manner?
	Will the Project Files provide the information necessary for any audit requirements?
	Will the Project Files provide the historical records required to support lessons learned?