Acceptance Management
Acceptance management is about accountability. The accountability extends not only to the person providing the document to make sure that it is complete, but also to the person requesting the document to make sure requests are clearly stated. By following the procedure below, the Project Manager and the team will reduce the uncertainty in providing items needed for successful project completion. The Project Manager should use the acceptance management plan anytime that there is a major deliverable due by a group, or an item lies on the critical path of a project. One way to track the items that have an acceptance plan due is to include a "D" in Text Column 1 of the Microsoft Project task. Any item with a "D" will have a form that should be signed in order to mark the task complete. Click Here for an example of an Acceptance Management document. |
| Acceptance Management Purpose | Completing a Form |
| Header Information | Description |
| Criteria | Remarks |
| Sign Off |
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The main purpose of the Acceptance Forms is three fold:
Acceptance will be in writing by an authorized employee indicating that the deliverable “meets expectations”. Following the acceptance of all deliverables there will be a final overall acceptance of the project indicating that all expectations were met per the Scope Planning documents. Each deliverable acceptance form includes the criteria for acceptance to avoid rejection of a deliverable because “it is not what someone expected”. There will be no acceptance by default. Acceptance or rejection must be within the agreed time or escalated to the next management level. |
A new form should be completed for each product deliverable defined in the project schedule by the Project Manager or the area requesting the deliverable. A copy of the acceptance form should be placed in the project documentation and updated with signatures, digital or scanned, once the deliverable has been accepted. |
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The top of the form asks for some basic information. This includes the business unit that the deliverable is being completed for, the project name and the task name or product. This information is important, especially if there are several acceptance documents for a project. The Business unit described in the header information should be the requesting business unit. The form may be filled out by either the Project Manager or the project team member needing the information. |
The description area of the form should give a brief description of the item for which acceptance is needed. This could be a small paragraph about the task for acceptance including where it will happen in the project and any other tasks that the task may be dependant in order to complete the task. The requestor needs to make sure that the description is clear for the deliverable. |
The Criteria for acceptance area of the form will list what needs to be completed in order for the receiver to accept the task as being completed. This could include the document that is expected to be received, the state of affairs for the task, or any of a number of criteria. You may also want to list what is out of scope of receiving so that it will be identified at the beginning. Once all of the criteria are met, then the deliverable should be accepted. |
The Remarks section of the document should be used to note any thing dealing with acceptance or delivery of the deliverable. This can be used to note any discrepancies or additions in acceptance. |
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The document should be signed by the single representative. It is up to the signer to make sure that their team is OK with the task prior to approval. If the signer is not willing to accept the document, then it must be disapproved by the representative and noted as to the reason for disapproval. It will then be up to the delivering party to complete the task to bring it to an acceptable state. An Acceptance Document can be accepted without agreeing to the document or changes needing to be made. The signoff of the task simply identifies that the task was completed as described or designed. It is not acceptance of the content of the task. For instance, the task could be delivery of a time-line, but the timeline given is not what was expected or desired. You should still accept the document while the negotiation of the timeline may continue after it has been accepted. |