Chapter 1 Flashcards
Attributes of a project (6)
- Unique purpose
- Temporary
- developed using progressive elaboration
- needs resources
- needs primary customer/ sponsor
- involves uncertainty
project sponsor
provides direction and funding
triple constraint
scope, time, and cost. Figure out which is most important, and pursue it at the cost of the others
Project management
the application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to project activities to meet project requirements.
Stakeholders (7 examples)
people involved in or affected by project activities
-project sponsor, team, support staff, customers, users, suppliers, opponents
Project management knowledge areas (10)
Scope, time, cost, quality, human resources, communications, risk, procurement, stakeholder, integration
project management tools and techniques
tools that assist in doing work in the 10 knowledge areas. (ie. Gantt charts, project network diagrams, critical path analysis)
3 criteria of Project success
1) Met time, scope, and cost goals
2) Satisfied customer/ sponsor
3) Results met project’s main objective
Program manager
- provides leadership and direction for the project managers heading the projects within a program.
- coordinate efforts of project teams, functional groups, suppliers, and operations staff supporting the projects
program
group of related projects managed in a coordinated way to obtain benefits and control not available from managing them indiividually
project portfolio management
- organizations group and manage projects and programs as a portfolio investments that contribute to the entire enterprise’s success
- help their companies make wise investment decisions- select and analyze projects strategically (instead of tactically)
3 basic IT project categories
venture (transform business), growth (more revenues), core (necessary to run business)
leader vs manager
leader focuses on long term goals and big picture, while manager deals with specific goals
critical path
longest path through a network diagram that determines the earliest completion of a project
- shows which tasks affect the target completion date
- can change
enterprise project management software
software that integrates information from multiple projects to show the stats of active, approved, and future projects across an entire organization
gantt chart
standard format for displaying project schedule info by listing project activities and their start and finish dates in calendar form
systems thinking
describes a holistic view of carrying out projects within an organization
systems
set of interacting components that work within an environment to fulfill some purpose
systems analysis
problem-solving approach that requires defining the scope of a system, dividing it into components, and identifying and evaluating its problems, opportunities, constraints, and needs
structural frame
roles and responsibilities, coordination, control
human resources frame
harmony b/t needs of organization and needs of people
political frame
coalitions composed of varied individuals and interest groups. power
symbolic frame
culture, language, tradition, image
functinoal organizational structure
- organizational chart hierarchy
- CEO -> functional managers/ VPs -> staff
project organizational structure
- organizational chart hierarchy
- CEO -> Program managers -> staff
- for organizations who earn revenue from doing projects for other people under contract
matrix organizational structure
-organizational chart hierarcy-staff report to a functional manager AND 1+ project managers
-split time between projects
strong, weak, or balanced
-problems when project manager doesn’t have adequate control of their time
organizational culture
set of shared assumptions, values, and behaviors that characterize the functioning of an organization
10 characteristics of organizational culture
member identity, group emphasis, people focus, unit integration, control, risk tolerance, reward criteria, conflict tolerance, means-ends orientation (focus on outcomes rather than techniques), open-system focus (responding to change in environment)
champion
a senior manager who acts as a key proponent for a project (sponsor or another manager)
project feasibility
- the first two project phases
- concept and development
- focus on planning
project acquisition
last two project phases
- implementation and closeout
- delivering actual work
systems development life cycle
framework for describing phases of developing information systems
- waterfall, spiral, incremental build, etc
- predictive life cycles
predictive life cycle
- scope of the project can be articulated clearly and schedule and cost can be predicted
- spend a long time specifying requirements, and then produce design
- users can’t see a result for a while
adaptive software development
- adaptive approach b/c all requirements cannot be clearly expressed early on
- more freedom
- Agile
phase exits/ kill points
- management reviews after each phase of project
- used to gage whether a project should be continued, redirected, or terminated
advantages of virtual team
- lower costs b/c no office space/ support
- more flexibility- people working at any time of day/night
scrum
agile development method with a product owner, who creates a project backlog (wishlist), sprint planning, sprint backlog, spring, scrummaster (not the project manager)
process
- series of actions toward a particular result
- not mutually exclusive
list of 5 processes
initiating, planning, executing, monitoring/ controlling, closing
