Thursday, March 11, 2010

Naming Projects

There is power in a name.

People know a project by its name.

A project name needs to (a) explain what the project is about; and (b) distinguish it from other things which are not the project.

Many projects have two names - the organisation's name and the name people use (aka colloquial name). You are seldom able to completely contral the colloquial name. Generally the colloquial name is the one which will persist. If you have sufficient influence, consider making the colloquial name the name for the project.

You can also have both a short name and a long name. The short name may be a couple of words or an acronym or some other abbreviation - this is a good way to keep the organisation's name and the colloquial name closely aligned.

Systems projects tend to be named after the system which is being built. Which is appropriate. Although confusion can sometimes occur. When the longer titles are used - The Blah Blah Project and the Blah Blah System - things are OK, but when both are shortened to Blah Blah, there can be issues. Although practically speaking this is only a minor risk.

...Geoff