Cards for Shack Flashcards
In what document is a vendor’s payment schedule recorded?
The Statement of Work (not in the contract / agreement)
What is “swarming?”
When all development team members work on just one requirement at a time.
What’s the difference between the stakeholder management plan and the communication management plan?
The stakeholder management plan is about who gets what information. The communication management plan is about the mechanics of communications, independent of who gets what.
Which comes first in the change control process? Approving the change or analyzing the impact?
Analyze the impact.
What’s the difference between the contingency reserve and the management reserve?
Contingency reserve is used to react to previously identified risks. It is already a part of the cost baseline, and therefore the project manager does not need a change request to access those funds; nor does the cost baseline need to updated before using them.
By contrast, the management reserve is used to react to unidentified risks. It is not part of the cost baseline, so in order to access those funds, the project manager must first create a change request to update the cost baseline.
In what document are intellectual property rights documented?
The requirements document
(Nnot in any of the procurement documents, although this begs the question about how the vendor would know what the IP rules are…)
What is the Iron Triangle?
The triangle of schedule, scope, and cost – with quality as the fourth element, that is balanced by those three.
What does OPA stand for?
Organizational process assets
The plans, processes, policies, procedures, and knowledge bases specific to and used by the performing organization.
What is float?
The amount of time an activity can be delayed without delaying the project duration. Non critical-path steps have float; critical path steps do not. Also called “slack.”
Do critical path steps have float?
Nope
What is slack?
Another term for float.
What is Rolling Wave planning?
A type of “progressive elaboration.” Whereas “progress elaboration” just means “generally get more precise over time,” rolling wave is a bit more specific about timing of clarity, because it adds the idea that details will be provided as the work gets close, whereas future work will likely remain fuzzy.
What is a risk trigger?
An indicator that a risk is about to occur or has occurred. For example, if there’s a risk that says “Our scrum master may quit,” the moment that the scrum master actually quits is the risk trigger.
What is the Tuckerman Ladder?
A model of team cohesion, stating that teams move through five steps:
- Forming (getting started),
- Storming (fighting),
- Norming (getting used to each other),
- Performing (when everything is working well), and
- Adjourning (breaking up).
Sometimes teams get stuck in storming, and to get out of that phase, the project manager may need to create or walk the team through the team management plan, which describes (in part) how the team will work together.
What are the five process groups?
The phases of a project: Initiation Planning Executing Monitoring and Controlling Closing "I Positively Enjoy MagiC Cards"
What are the ten knowledge areas?
These are the ten areas that get their own plans as part of the project management plan: Integration management Schedule management Scope management Cost management Quality management Resource management Communication management Risk management Procurement management Stakeholder management "I Saw Silly Cats Quietly Reciting Carols in a Really Poetic Scene"
What should a project manager do with unused contingency reserve at the end of a project?
Remove it from the budget.
What is Gold Plating?
Going above and beyond for the project.
What is a Tornado Diagram used for?
Determining which variable (among many) is most important in terms of project outcomes.
What is brain writing?
A technique for generating ideas (or brainstorming). Also known as the 6-3-5 method, it means six people each write three ideas on a piece of paper (in less than five minutes). Then everyone passes their paper to the next person, for another three ideas. This is done a total of 5 times and generates 108 ideas in an hour. This has some advantages over people shouting out ideas to a moderator.
What is TCPI
To Complete Performance Index
It answers a COST question: “How are we doing overall?” by calculating “How much work is left” / “How much money do we have left?”
Anything under 1 is happy; anything over 1 is sad.
It informs the next question: ““How efficiently must we use our remaining financial resources?”
It combines four inputs: budget at completion, earned value, actual cost, and estimate at completion.
(BAC-EV) / (EAC - AC)
What is a salience model?
A way of categorizing stakeholders. Specifically, it plots their urgency, power, and legitimacy.
Typically drawn as a Venn diagram of those three topics, with the intersections being words like “dormant” and “dangerous” and “dominant” and “dependent.”
These words are an input to the the stakeholder register, which may include one of those words next to each stakeholder.
What is lead time?
The time for a process to complete, start to finish, including breaks and pauses. Elapsed time.
But contrast this with cycle time, which is just the time spent on tasks.
What is cycle time?
Cycle time is the amount of time spent actually working on a task or process.
It’s shorter than Lead Time, because it excludes (for example) the time between a process starting (order the pizza) and the time someone actually starts working on it (start making the pizza).
It also has different units, since it’s time PER TASK, not just time elapsed.
What does the Requirements Traceability Matrix track?
Scope, requirements, and deliverables.
So, for example, it answers the question “Where would I go to find the scope effect of a change request?”
Note that in Agile, this document may not exist at all, in favor of user stories that have requestor and test cases as attributes.
What are three top project management software tools?
Monday, Wrike, and Smartsheet
What is the first thing a project manager should do after a change request has been approved?
Update the change log.
What is variability risk?
Any risk were the results could go either way (e.g. higher or lower).
What does “single source” mean? How is it different from “sole source?”
Single source: there are multiple vendors who could provide the service, but you choose to work with only one.
Sole source: there is only one vendor who can provide the service.
What is the Activity Attributes document?
Provides details about each activity, including (for example), a tie back to WBS id, geographical location where the activity will be done, constraints, precedents and successors (so it overlaps with the gantt chart in some respects).
What document would you look at to see where (in the world) certain project activities will be done?
The Activity Attributes document.
The Activity List and the Activity Attributes documents are about tasks.
By contrast, the WBS and WBS Dictionary are about deliverables.
Where would you look to see what seller invoices have been paid?
Work Performance data.
Not, apparently, the SOW: that describes the payment schedule, but not actual payments.
What is the difference between Work Performance Data and Work Performance Information?
Work Performance Data raw data.
Work Performance Information is analysis.
What is RAM?
The Responsibility Assignment Matrix: a chart that shows the responsibility of people (usually across the top) to specific tasks (usually along the side). Unlike a pure RACI chart, a RAM might have verbs like “primarily responsible,” “secondarily responsible,” or “approver.”
RACI is a type of RAM (says the PMBOK)
What are the differences between a RAM, an OBS, an RBS, and a WBS?
WBS (Work Breakdown Structure): describes at an estimable level the specific deliverables a project must produce.
RBS (Resource Breakdown Structure): describes the resources (usually people) which can perform the activities.
OBS (Organization Breakdown Structure): describes the organizational relationships and constraints under which the resources within the RBS should be considered
RAM (Responsibility Assignment Matrix) : maps the specific responsibility assignments from the RBS to the WBS.
What is PMM?
Project Management Methodology: it’s how things are done in an organization, but not part of the project documentation.
What forms the basis for estimating, scheduling, executing, and monitoring and controlling project work?
Activities
What is the purpose of developing a project scope management plan?
Ensure that the project includes all of the work required.
NOT “to make sure the project will fulfill the needs for which it was begun”(!)
What are the options for dealing with positive risk?
Exploit, enhance, share, accept (NOT transfer).
What are the options for dealing with negative risk?
Avoid, Transfer, Mitigate, Accept (NOT share).
What is ADR?
Alternative Dispute Resolution: this means arbitration and mediation. Apparently it requires “claims administration.”
Does the WBS tell you who will do the work?
NO. (If you want to map activities to people, you need the Responsibility Assignment Matrix.)
In which Knowledge Area is the project charter developed?
Project Integration Management
In positive risk, what’s the difference between “enhance” and “exploit?”
In the enhance strategy you are trying to increase the probability of the opportunity happening, but in the exploit strategy you increase the probability of the opportunity to 100%.
Does a request for information result in a offer from the seller?
NO. It only results in information.
What document describes how direct and indirect costs will be handled?
The scope statement, which is part of the scope baseline.
The scope statement has three parts:
- Project justification
- Project deliverables
- Project objectives
It creates the boundaries of a project (contrast with the project charter, which authorizes the project manager to use defined resources to complete a project).
What is EMV?
Expected Monetary Value. It is a statistical technique in risk management used to quantify risks and calculate the contingency reserve.
It calculates the average outcome of all future events that may or may not happen by multiplying likelihood x impact, where impact is the financial impact.
Every risk should have an EMV calculated. EMV will be negative for negative risks and positive for positive risks.
At budget time, you add up all those positives and negatives, and that’s your contingency reserve.
What is project expeditor?
Someone who helps the project manager with logistics. This person has no decision-making power.
What is a project coordinator?
Someone who acts as a deputy of the project manager, helping to manage and control the project.
A project coordinator has decision-making authority.
Work performance information is an output of which process?
And what are the inputs, tools, and outputs of that process?
Control communication – because that’s where the data gets turned into information, apparently.
Inputs
- Project management plan
- Project communications
- Issue log
- Work performance DATA
- Organizational process assets
Tools
- Information management systems
- Expert judgment
- Meetings
Outputs
- Work performance INFORMATION
- Change requests
- Project management plan updates
- Project documents updates
- Organizational process assets updates
What is scope verification?
One of the processes: Getting the stakeholders to formally accept completed deliverables.
Inputs:
- Project scope statement
- WBS dictionary
- Project scope management plan
- Deliverables
Tools and techniques:
1. Inspection
Outputs
- Accepted deliverables
- Requested changes
- Recommended corrective actions
What the Difference between Risk Appetite, Risk Tolerance, and Risk Threshold?
Risk Appetite: “The degree of uncertainty an organization or individual is willing to accept in anticipation of a reward.”
Risk Tolerance: “The degree, amount, or volume of risk that an organization or individual will withstand.”
Risk Threshold: “The level of risk exposure above which risks are addressed and below which risks may be accepted.”
