Projects are designed to produce a specific deliverable in a specific timeframe. They are staffed with a combination of staff provided by member companies and TM Forum staff. Projects may be initiated by following the processes outlined within this document.  However, there are a few rules that should be kept in mind as follows:

Experience shows that projects are successful when they have –

• Definition, Value and Senior-level Commitment
  • A clear value proposition for what they are producing and why companies should engage
  • Clear and unified vision of what the project is trying to produce
  • At least one engaged buyer championing the work
  • Commitment of project team and their line managers to adhere to the milestones
• Committed and motivated team members
  • A mindset that success is achieving market uptake, not completing a document or code
  • A pragmatic approach to what needs to be delivered in order to solve the most critical aspects of the problem, which leads to the definition of clear milestones that allows them to ‘declare victory in stages’
  • A willingness to engage collaboratively with other contributors and participants as the work develops, to establish consensus on the direction chosen, and support for the approach
  • A ‘cabinet responsibility’ mindset – i.e. if you make a stand and you can’t carry your colleagues with you, you either quit or back the majority rather than run a guerrilla campaign
  • A willingness to engage with the market through the Forum’s numerous communications channels to champion and promote the work of the team.
  • A willingness to engage with the users of material once a release has been made. It’s critical that feedback from the user community is embraced and rapidly incorporated.
  • An open communication approach that invites others in at appropriate times, particularly when a deliverable is already being used in the marketplace
  • Respect for the skills of other participants and staff
• A clear project management methodology
  • A majority voting process that allows the teams to move on if roadblocks are reached
  • Templates for outputs and working material including meeting minutes.
• Project participants must be Corporate or Subsidiary members in good standing. Payment of all monies due to TM Forum is required to participate in a TM Forum project. Affiliate members may participate with the approval of the President or Chief Technology Officer.
• A project leader and/or team may set a date when no new participants will be accepted for a particular phase, due to the risk of jeopardizing the project’s deliverables.
• Teams are expected to scan the industry for applicable standards or similar work done by other fora and if such work exists, incorporate it into their project so as to prevent divergence and reduce confusion.

During the approval of a project charter, the staff allocated to the project will be identified.Staff will be appointed to support the project as appropriate (providing technical expertise, project management product management, and marketing expertise for example). Allocation on staff will be based on:

• strategic relevance, close linkage with the Strategic Plan
• a group of buyers championing the project and committed to using their influence to drive the project forward and to purchase against the results
• committed resources allocated from the critical member companies in order for the project to be successful
• Level of staff resource required to achieve success

If member companies cannot commit the participation of their own resources to the project, it is possible in some cases that they agree to contribute financial resources to purchase the services of appropriate consultants to deliver the project on their behalf. In this case the funds can be ring-fenced for the specific project, with full transparency to the project team.

Where Forum collaborative products already exist related to the area of interest for a particular project, it is essential that this work be used as a building block, and the new work should extend and evolve this body of work. No duplicate or conflicting work will be promoted to the marketplace. In particular:

• All business process modeling work must be done so that it can be incorporated into the TM Forum Business Process Model (eTOM), in alignment with the guidance on how to extend this material.
• All information modeling work must be done so that it can be incorporated into the TM Forum Information Framework (SID), in alignment with the guidance on how to extend this material.
• All application definition must be done so that it can be incorporated into the TM Forum Application Framework (TAM), in alignment with the guidance on how to extend this material.
• All interfaces should be in alignment with the interface framework guidelines.
• All metric development work must be done so that it can be incorporated into the TM Forum Business Metrics structure and inventory, in alignment with the guidance on how to extend this material. 

Where relevant work already exists within another industry body, it is also essential that this work be used as a building block. The industry is not well served if duplicate and/or conflicting work is created. The TM Forum maintains liaison relationships with many 3rd party organizations in order to facilitate such eventualities.