Bika lab systems employs a project methodology based on MITP (Managing the Implementation of the Total Project) developed by IBM, ISO 9000 conformant and taught at the Stellenbosch Business School in Cape Town

The project’s objective and scope is established and a comprehensive work breakdown structure defining deliverables and schedules undertaken, agreed upon and accepted together with procedures for monitoring progress

To form the basis for tracking, reporting and control of the project, a further planning and estimation stage dictates how the project will handle the building, testing and integration of program modules, its delivery and release, documentation, operations, support and training

Project scope is managed through a change management procedure, performance and delivery through up-to-date definition and status of each. All project plans kept up to date. Progress is regularly measured and reported against plans, highlighting variations and issues are managed to resolution. Risks, potential impact and actions are reassessed. All project procedures are maintained to support the project quality objectives

The project is completed per project completion report, in which post project responsibilities are established and the process reviewed to provide a basis for future co-operation and improvements to the process

Project Administration - Online Project Office

Bika implements a ‘Project Office’ as a password protected part of her web-site, allowing project members easy access to documentation and reference to important project information, eg project plans and schedules, progress reports, change control, issue and risk management information

Online Issue Management

In any project there are events that are not going to plan. These issues, impacting on any aspect of the project, are managed via working procedures established at the outset to ensure they are fixed with the minimum impact to the project

Bika uses an on-line issue tracker in support of these processes

Project members get logins in the issue tracking system, log and assign issues to other members and include others to be copied in email communication on the issue

Issues are given priority according its urgency by the project member logging it and she may escalate the priority there-of should conditions ask for it. The issue will go through different statuses as it is addressed and this progress can be followed in the tracker. Only the project member who logged an issue, may close it as resolved. It stays in the database and remains searchable for future reference

The Bika and client project managers are responsible for chasing issues assigned to their team members respectively

Quality Management

MITP is a quality management system in its own right and the records generated  as a result of its use as a project management system, constitute quality records by definition. All these records are open to team members in an on-line depository and include all project plans and deliverables

Performance Management

In the project establishing phase, ‘tracking indicators’ are identified against which actual performance can be measured. These are derived from milestones achieved, tasks completed and deliverables built, tested, accepted and released

Information gained from tracking performance against the indicators help the project managers to identify problems as quickly as possible and provide the basis for taking corrective action

This Information is presented as progress reports circulated and discussed at project reviews. This leads to a better understanding of problems, the management there-of and rapid agreement on plans to correct out-of-line situations

Progress reviews create a sense of ownership within a project team and to the client reassurance that the project is moving to plan and that issues are addressed