Project ID and Naming Best Practice

[kahuna]

Looking for advice on best practice guidelines on project naming conventions
that could be used for projects in the Projects 2007 and EPM.

Do you use numbers as prefix with functional area and abbrev title of
project? Or some other standards. All advice is much appreciated.

kahuna

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Kahuna --

This is a good question. As a consultant, I am required to say, "It
depends." Truthfully, the naming convention your organization should
use depends entirely on what types of enterprise projects your PMs manage.
Are your projects internal only, or are they external projects for clients?
If the projects are internal, you could consider a naming convention that
includes the department name plus the name of the project. If they are for
clients, you could include the client name plus the name of the project,
plus any other relevant information, such as some type of tracking number.
Many years ago, I worked with a client that produced all types of
blow-molded plastic bottles for customers. The client's naming convention
for enterprise projects was as follows:

Customer Name + Capacity of the Bottle in Fluid Ounces + SAP Tracking Number

I liked this naming convention because it gave the executives an easy way to
separate projects in the Project Center page in PWA. This is just an idea
for you. I trust the others in this newsgroup will have good ideas for you
as well. Hope this helps.

 

[kahuna]

Thanks Dale for a very detailed and excellent response.

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

kahuna --

You are more than welcome, my friend. I hope that others will share their
thoughts as well.

 

[nkbrgs]

Kahuna,

We use something like this.

Program name - secondary program name - version number - patch number
or
Program name - project name - version number - patch number

Really just depends on your needs. Hope this helps.

Norm