Dragon1 Standard: Project Landscape Map

What is a Project Landscape Map?

A Project Landscape Map is a defined diagram type in the Dragon1 method. A project landscape map is a generic overview of the structure of a project.

The project structure is often unclear amongst the project stakeholders. Sometimes, only the project manager or some of the steering group members have this kind of view. However, too often, there is no clear or shared view of the project structure.

In that case, repairing faults, doing damage control, and improving the structure is impossible. Because: where do you start?

An old Chinese saying is: if you don't have an overview of your soldiers, you cannot prioritize the actions for the attack by your army.

So you need an overview to prioritize.

What is a Project Landscape Map Report View?

A Project Landscape Map Report View is a visualization wherein a top layer, the status, and progress of the structure of a project is reported.

A Management Report View of your Project

Below is an example report view of the Project Landscape Map. This visualization is the same as the previous one; now, every item on the diagram only has a color indicating whether the underlying document or product is correct, completed, available, and approved on time.

The red color on this example report view tells us a viewer quickly which products or documents are incorrect, incomplete, not available, or not approved on time. Now, you can start to fix things. You can prioritize because you have a (shared) overview of the current status of the project's structure.

Why create a Project Landscape Map?

Creating a Project Landscape Map is only sensible if it has several direct benefits for the business. Three benefits of creating a Project Landscape Map directly impact certain business outcomes. These are:

Benefits*	Business Outcomes*
Giving an overview of all the important and necessary products and documents and their correct version, status, ownership, and location.	Mitigating miscommunication on what is what.
Having insights into the project's critical path.	An objective and honest estimate when things CAN be ready!
Having a shared view of the needed deliverables for the solution components.	Not creating more deliverables or building more components than necessary.

How did this visualization already save project time & project budget?

This visualization has already saved project time & project budget for a large number of projects. Below are three practical case situations in projects where this visualization has helped solve the problem.

Case 1 - A project was started up, and the consultants of the suppliers were creating deliverables. Only half of the project found that deliverables would not fit together. At that moment, we made the project landscape map. It showed that a solution architecture blueprint was missing, and three conflicting standards were used. Based on this visualization, the decision was made to create a solution architecture blueprint, select the correct standards, and recreate some deliverables using only the correct standards. The project could be finished before time as a success, saving time and money.
Case 2 - A project was already running for 7 years. Now, the business processes in the organization were analyzed and redesigned to have the solution realized in the project used optimally during work. Only it was found that functionality in the solution was missing, no deliverables were defined to provide this functionality, and there was no budget and time to create the functionality. At that moment, we created the Project Landscape Map. It showed that the original business case was not a valid financial business case anymore because I was not linked to any of the business goals. The project took too long (more than 9 months) to execute, outdating the current solution concept by years. The project manager advised the owner client to stop the project. The owner client ordered the project time and budget to create a new valid business case.
Case 3 -A program consisting of 5 projects was already running for three years. The project was running out of time but not out of budget. So, more and more consultants were hired to create the planned deliverables to deliver the project on time. However, for every deliverable created, the projects defined two or three new unplanned deliverables, so the time needed to finish the project increased weekly. At that moment, we created the Project Landscape Map. It shows that the business case was never approved, there was no document for requirements, and there was no solution architecture blueprint giving a logical overview of all deliverables as solution components integrated. Based on this visualization, the business case was updated and approved, and the requirements Excel sheets were integrated into a single approved document. Next, a solution blueprint could be created, showing that 70% percent of the deliverables were not necessary within the scope and context of the solution. This all leads to successfully rounding the project exactly on time.

How to create a Project Landscape Map?

Enter your project data in the project model. Next, you alter the project landscape view, addressing your concerns and issues. Next, you enter the rules for the indicators on the progress and status layer (making items color green, orange, or red). Next, you have Dragon1 generate the Project Landscape Map for you. Next, you publish the Project Landscape Map publicly or privately for your stakeholders. Finally, the stakeholders will use the Project Landscape Map to support their decisions.