Models

Prioritised for recurring project work: A benefits map makes the proposed links between outputs, changed behaviour and useful outcomes explicit. Treat each link as a hypothesis to test.

Before using it: Define the intended outcome and who will measure it.

Prioritised for recurring project work: Choose how to organise delivery by examining uncertainty, the cost of change and the feedback available. Different components of the same project can need different approaches.

Before using it: Start with uncertainty, feedback and the cost of changing completed work.

Prioritised for recurring project work: A communication plan connects an information need to its audience, purpose, owner, timing and feedback route.

Before using it: Start with the decision, audience and feedback needed.

Prioritised for recurring project work: A compliance map links applicable obligations to owners, delivery requirements and evidence. It helps distinguish a confirmed obligation from an assumption that needs expert review.

Before using it: Identify who can decide, the constraints and the evidence needed.

Prioritised for recurring project work: Cost aggregation rolls estimates into a coherent budget while preserving the ability to see what the totals contain.

Before using it: Separate work estimates, reserves and approved funding.

Prioritised for recurring project work: An engagement-gap assessment compares current behaviour with the participation needed for a particular project decision or outcome.

Before using it: Consider interests, influence and those affected by decisions.

Prioritised for recurring project work: A structured ethical discussion makes competing obligations and affected people visible before a decision is justified solely by convenience or schedule.

Before using it: Identify who can decide, the constraints and the evidence needed.

Prioritised for recurring project work: Governance makes decision rights explicit: who can approve what, which constraints apply and who must decide when a forecast crosses them.

Before using it: Identify who can decide, the constraints and the evidence needed.

Prioritised for recurring project work: A life cycle groups work into phases and defines when to reconsider the investment. A gate is a decision based on evidence, not simply a meeting on the calendar.

Before using it: Start with uncertainty, feedback and the cost of changing completed work.

Prioritised for recurring project work: A milestone marks a verifiable state or decision in delivery. It helps coordinate commitments without pretending to be the detailed schedule.

Before using it: Check dependencies, duration assumptions and resource availability.

Prioritised for recurring project work: A responsibility matrix connects deliverables and decisions to the people doing the work, approving it, advising on it and receiving updates.

Before using it: Identify who can decide, the constraints and the evidence needed.

Prioritised for recurring project work: A reserve is funding held for uncertainty under an explicit release rule. Showing reserves separately makes the remaining exposure and decision rights visible.

Before using it: Separate work estimates, reserves and approved funding.

Prioritised for recurring project work: A resource plan connects the work to the skills, capacity and availability required to perform it.

Before using it: Keep effort, elapsed duration and skills distinct.

Prioritised for recurring project work: Choose an action, an owner and a fallback for an uncertain event.

Before using it: Describe events, consequences and assumptions before assigning numbers.

Prioritised for recurring project work: A business case compares feasible options against a need, including doing less or doing nothing. Its purpose is to support an investment decision that can be revisited.

Before using it: Define the intended outcome and who will measure it.

Prioritised for recurring project work: A work breakdown structure decomposes agreed scope into manageable elements with boundaries and accountable owners. It organises the work; it does not by itself show its sequence.

Before using it: Agree outcomes, boundaries and acceptance evidence.

Use when this specific decision arises: Decide when to say yes and when to walk away, against your best alternative.

Before using it: Use the same scope and test commercial assumptions.

Use when this specific decision arises: Forecast, as a range, when a team will finish, and see whether a gap comes from its pace or from added scope.

Before using it: Use consistent workflow boundaries and observation periods.

Use when this specific decision arises: Sort the possible causes of one problem into groups, so the team looks across the whole system first.

Before using it: Agree acceptance criteria and distinguish variation from a meaningful signal.

Use when this specific decision arises: Expect how people often react to a change over time, and plan support so that the dip is shallower and shorter.

Before using it: Identify whose behaviour must change and how adoption will be observed.

Use when this specific decision arises: Conflict-handling modes provide different ways to balance your own concern with another person’s concern. The useful question is which response fits the stakes, relationship and time available.

Before using it: Describe observable behaviour and the context before choosing an intervention.

Use when this specific decision arises: Choose how a supplier is paid, and so who carries the cost risk, to fit how well the work is defined.

Before using it: Use the same scope and test commercial assumptions.

Use when this specific decision arises: Tell normal variation from a real signal over time, so you act on special causes and change the process for the rest.

Before using it: Agree acceptance criteria and distinguish variation from a meaningful signal.

Use when this specific decision arises: Compare progress and the forecast with the baseline, then correct the work or change the plan.

Before using it: Use a common baseline, measurement boundary and status date.

Use when this specific decision arises: Find the chain that sets the shortest possible duration: the work whose delay moves the end date.

Before using it: Check dependencies, duration assumptions and resource availability.

Use when this specific decision arises: Earned-value forecasts estimate final cost under stated assumptions about the efficiency of remaining work. Several forecasts can be useful precisely because their assumptions differ.

Before using it: Use a common baseline, measurement boundary and status date.

Use when this specific decision arises: Earned value compares the budgeted value of completed work with planned work and actual cost at the same status date.

Before using it: Use a common baseline, measurement boundary and status date.

Use when this specific decision arises: Fit the technique to the stage and the data, and show how wide the estimate still is.

Before using it: Define scope, units and the evidence behind the range.

Use when this specific decision arises: Keep a flow of work moving and predictable, by showing all of it and limiting how much is in progress at once.

Before using it: Use consistent workflow boundaries and observation periods.

Use when this specific decision arises: Adjust the amount of direction and support to a particular task and the person’s current familiarity with it. Agree the arrangement rather than assigning a permanent label to the person.

Before using it: Describe observable behaviour and the context before choosing an intervention.

Use when this specific decision arises: Plan the people side of a change in an order that works: make the need felt, move with support, then make the new way last.

Before using it: Identify whose behaviour must change and how adoption will be observed.

Use when this specific decision arises: MoSCoW separates what a delivery increment must include from what is important, optional or explicitly outside this increment. It makes scope flexibility visible before time runs out.

Before using it: Agree outcomes, boundaries and acceptance evidence.

Use when this specific decision arises: Judge an investment in today's money: discount each year's cash flow, add them up, and find the rate that gives zero.

Before using it: Use consistent currency, timing and price assumptions.

Use when this specific decision arises: Rank the causes of a problem by count, so the team fixes first the vital few that produce most of the effect.

Before using it: Agree acceptance criteria and distinguish variation from a meaningful signal.

Use when this specific decision arises: Show how long the money is at risk: the time until the cash coming back equals the cash put in.

Before using it: Use consistent currency, timing and price assumptions.

Use when this specific decision arises: Improve a process or a deliverable in small, tested steps.

Before using it: Agree acceptance criteria and distinguish variation from a meaningful signal.

Use when this specific decision arises: A power–interest grid helps discuss who can affect the project and who is affected by its outcome. It is a starting point for engagement, not a judgement of a person’s worth.

Before using it: Consider interests, influence and those affected by decisions.

Use when this specific decision arises: End a project or a release so the result is accepted, runs in the right hands, and nothing is left open.

Before using it: Start with uncertainty, feedback and the cost of changing completed work.

Use when this specific decision arises: Psychological safety concerns whether people can raise a question, concern or mistake without expecting interpersonal humiliation. It supports learning alongside clear standards of work.

Before using it: Describe observable behaviour and the context before choosing an intervention.

Use when this specific decision arises: Keep four quality checks apart: process, deliverable, specification and real need.

Before using it: Agree acceptance criteria and distinguish variation from a meaningful signal.

Use when this specific decision arises: Look at how a disagreement is changing: can people still examine the problem together, or are threats and personal attacks making a constructive exchange harder?

Before using it: Describe observable behaviour and the context before choosing an intervention.

Use when this specific decision arises: A reflection cycle turns an experience into a specific change you can try, instead of stopping at whether the event felt successful.

Before using it: Describe observable behaviour and the context before choosing an intervention.

Use when this specific decision arises: Set the people the plan needs per period against those available, and remove the overloads.

Before using it: Keep effort, elapsed duration and skills distinct.

Use when this specific decision arises: Schedule compression seeks an earlier finish by changing how critical work is performed, overlapped or resourced.

Before using it: Check dependencies, duration assumptions and resource availability.

Use when this specific decision arises: A message passes through a channel and is interpreted by someone with their own context. Feedback tests whether the meaning received matches the meaning intended.

Before using it: Start with the decision, audience and feedback needed.

Use when this specific decision arises: Tell each level where the project stands, where it is heading and what to decide, in colours read the same way.

Before using it: Use a common baseline, measurement boundary and status date.

Use when this specific decision arises: Team-development stages offer a vocabulary for discussing how a group establishes working relationships and ways of delivering together. They describe a possible pattern, not a required timetable.

Before using it: Describe observable behaviour and the context before choosing an intervention.

Use when this specific decision arises: Change a baseline only by decision: the impact known, and the right level deciding.

Before using it: Identify whose behaviour must change and how adoption will be observed.

Use when this specific decision arises: Deliver in short, fixed cycles, and after each one inspect and adapt.

Before using it: Start with uncertainty, feedback and the cost of changing completed work.

Use when this specific decision arises: Replace a single guess with a range: an expected value and a spread that show how sure the estimate is.

Before using it: Define scope, units and the evidence behind the range.

Use when this specific decision arises: How long each activity can slip before the end date moves, or before the next activity must wait.

Before using it: Check dependencies, duration assumptions and resource availability.