What are Deliverables in Project Management?

What is Meant by Deliverables in Project Management?

What are Deliverables

The output element which must be attained for completing any project is called the project deliverable. It could be a product, or a service or even a result obtained that indicates a completion of the project. 

Few project deliverables examples are include 

• Project proposal 
• Any design document or drawing 
• Technical report 
• Tender document
• Project Progress report
• Usability report
• Product prototype

Project Management Deliverables

The project management has a lot of deliverables within the 6 phases and at the end of the project closure. There are project inputs and outputs from the project. The inputs are time, resources, efforts, data, infrastructure, etc. The outputs are deliverables in project management such as product or service or documentations. 

There are outputs from one process to another process those are again intermediate product or service, not the finished output, documentation, etc which go to the next process again those are intermediate deliverables in project management. 

For example, if you are making an application then there are build team and code team which outputs the code along with the documentation to the testing team. The testing team outputs the semi-finished product to the integration team. Then when the app integration is done it outputs the product to the release team, deployment team, operation team, and finally to the monitor team. These are sometimes called process deliverables but used interchangeably. 

How to Classify Project Management Deliverables

The deliverables in project management must satisfy the following criteria, they are as follows,

• Deliverables must be within the scope of the project
• There should be an agreement for the internal and external stakeholders on the deliverables of the project
• The deliverables must satisfy the objective of the project
• The deliverables must be specific or definite
• The output that is desired and agreed by the customer

The Deliverables May be Classified in the Following Ways,

1. Large or small – Depends on the project size and exactly what the customer demands or expects
2. Tangible or Intangible – Tangible is something such as products for example a completed software/application or products such as any finished goods. Intangible is any service rendered to the client such as training or business development activity etc
3. External or Internal – External deliverables may be the finished goods or services to external clients. For example – the client may be interested and given an order for a web application, thus the finished completed website for the client may be called external deliverables. Internal deliverables are those which are the output to the intermediate process or for internal consumption such as Timesheet, Variance reports, etc.

How to Create Project Deliverables 

The project deliverables are created as a milestone in the projects and also verify if projects are going in the right direction and final deliverables after the project closure are as per the expected outcome. 

To create the Project deliverables you must ask the following questions,

1. What is the output or outcome expected by the customers?
2. When will you say that the project has met the desired outcome?
3. What is the project required to be accomplished?
4. What are the important tasks of the project to accomplish the desired results?
5. What are the important stages of the project's objectives?
6. What are the resources needed to accomplish the agreed objectives?
7. What would be the cost and the budget for attaining the desired outcome?
8. How will the team acquire and achieve this target deliverables?
9. How much time is required to achieve the deliverables milestones? 

When you ask the above questions you will come up with the statements or ideas that you get are the deliverables in project management.

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What Happens to a Deliverable After It is Created?

The deliverables thus created flows through each process to compare the outcome, to do the quality check, and verify the scope to achieve that the desired specifications are met to its correctness and completeness.

The deliverables at each stage are inspected and compared with the desired outcome in those stages or for final products or services.

The quality check is done by using the deliverables in project management to see it meets the expected outcome without any defect or failures.

Verification of scope indicates that all the results were what was discussed and agreed to the internal and external stakeholders.

Project deliverables to know from Real Projects

The deliverables for some of the real project are as follows,

Project Deliverables For the IT projects

• Requirement specifications document
• Interfaces
• Backend systems development
• Testing
• Going live
• Data migration
• User training sessions

Project Deliverables for Website Development

• Business or clients requirement specification
• Web design document
• Website links and contents
• User training sessions
• Completed websites

Project Deliverables For the Consulting

• Initial minutes of meeting
• Process maps and workflows
• Project Plan
• Progress document
• Final report

Top 14 Tips to Manage Deliverables 

1. Before starting the project define the project deliverables
2. Gather the requirements for the deliverables thoroughly and accurately
3. Classify the deliverables
4. Get the sign off for each deliverable before the commencement of the project
5. Make the key deliverables first
6. Get the acceptance criteria for the deliverables in the project initiation meeting by involving the stakeholders
7. Segregate the deliverables as per the phases of the project management
8. Define metrics for the deliverables acceptance well before the start and get sign off.
9. Identify the time frame for each deliverable
10. Include the deliverables in the project plan
11. Use some kind of Project Management software for managing the deliverables
12. Have in mind the distinction between the milestones and deliverables
13. Use the standard project deliverables
14. Use smart goals criteria for the deliverables when gathering requirements

Concluding Thoughts 

Project Management deliverables are important when doing project management for any project to deliver the products or services. To know more there are various project management courses certified by PMI. 

StarAgile is one of the reputed training institutes which is the partner to PMI for delivering PMP certification training to the professionals. They conduct online training classes in this field, and we recommend you take this e-learning course which has advantages of taking it anywhere and anytime at your convenience.