Plan for the management of project data.

Data are the various forms of documentation required to support a program in all of its areas (e.g., administration, engineering, configuration management, finance, logistics, quality, safety, manufacturing, and procurement). The data can take any form (e.g., reports, manuals, notebooks, charts, drawings, specifications, files, or correspondence). The data may exist in any medium (e.g., printed or drawn on various materials, photographs, electronic, or multimedia). Data may be deliverable (e.g., items identified by a program’s contract data requirements) or data may be nondeliverable (e.g., informal data, trade studies and analyses, internal meeting minutes, internal design review documentation, lessons learned, and action items). Distribution can take many forms, including electronic transmission.

The data requirements for the project should be established for both the data items to be created and their content and form, based on a common or standard set of data requirements. Uniform content and format requirements for data items facilitate understanding of data content and help with consistent management of the data resources.

The reason for collecting each document should be clear. This task includes the analysis and verification of project deliverables and nondeliverables, contract and noncontract data requirements, and customer-supplied data. Often, data is collected with no clear understanding of how it will be used. Data is costly and should be collected only when needed.

Typical Work Products

1.    Data management plan

2.    Master list of managed data

3.    Data content and format description

4.    Data requirements lists for acquirers and for suppliers

5.    Privacy requirements

6.    Security requirements

7.    Security procedures

8.    Mechanism for data retrieval, reproduction, and distribution

9.    Schedule for collection of project data

10.  Listing of project data to be collected

Subpractices

1.    Establish requirements and procedures to ensure privacy and security of the data.

Not everyone will have the need or clearance necessary to access the project data. Procedures must be established to identify who has access to what data as well as when they have access to the data.

2.    Establish a mechanism to archive data and to access archived data.

Accessed information should be in an understandable form (e.g., electronic or computer output from a database) or represented as originally generated.

3.    Determine the project data to be identified, collected, and distributed.