Chapter 11 Flashcards
What are some common reasons projects miss their delivery date?
- Manufacturing obstacles
- Shipping
- Volume
- Apple’s “curve ball”
- Changing scope
- Certifications
- Kickstarter’s infrastructure
- Overseas logistics
Describe critical chain project management?
Alternative scheduling mechanism to speed up project
delivery
Make better use of project resources
More efficiently allocate and discipline the process of
implementing projects
Based on theory of constraints (TOC)
Represents both cultural shift and change in scheduling
processes
Applies technical and behavioral elements of project
management
What is agile project management?
Agile Project Management (Agile PM) reflects a new era in project planning that places a premium on flexibility and evolving customer requirements throughout the development process
When does the waterfall model work well?
Requirements are very well understood and fixed at the outset of the project.
Product definition is stable and not subject to changes.
Technology is understood.
Ample resources with required expertise are available freely.
The project is of short duration.
What are some unique features of agile PM?
Agile PM, referred to as Scrum, recognizes mistakes of
assuming once initial project conceptualization and
planning are completed, project will be executed to
original specifications.
Example, software projects are prone to constant changes.
Flexible, iterative system designed for the challenge of
managing projects in midst of change and uncertainty
“Rolling wave” process of continuous plan executeevaluate cycle
Emphasis on adaptation, flexibility, and coordinated
efforts of multiple disciplines
What are some key terms in agile pm?
Sprint – one iteration of the Agile planning and executing cycle.
Scrum – the development strategy agreed to by all key members of the project.
Time-box – the length of any particular sprint, fixed in
advance, during the Scrum meeting.
User stories – short explanation of the end user that
captures what they do or what they need from the project under development
Scrum Master – person on the project team responsible for moving the project forward between iterations, removing impediments, or resolving differences of opinions between major stakeholders.
Sprint backlog – the set of product backlog items selected for the Sprint, plus a plan for delivering the Sprint Goal.
Burndown chart – remaining work in the Sprint backlog.
Product owner – person representing the stakeholders and serving as the “voice of the customer.”
Development team – organizational unit responsible for delivering the product at the end of the iteration (Sprint).
Product backlog – a prioritized list of everything that
might be needed in completed product and source of
requirements for any changes.
Work backlog – evolving, prioritized queue of business and technical functionality that needs to be developed into a system.
What are some of the steps in Agile?
- Sprint Planning
- Daily Scrums
- Development Work
- Sprint Review
- Sprint Retrospective
What are some problems with agile?
- Active user involvement and close collaboration of the Scrum team are critical throughout the development cycle.
- Evolving requirements can lead to potential for scope creep.
- It is harder to predict at beginning of project what the end product will actually resemble.
- Agile requirements are kept to minimum, which can lead to confusion about the final outcomes.
- Testing is integrated throughout lifecycle, which can add cost to project.
- Frequent delivery of project features puts a burden on product owners.
- If it is misapplied to traditional projects, it can be an expensive approach without delivering benefits.
What is Extreme Programming?
A more aggressive form of Scrum; a software development methodology intended to improve software quality and responsiveness to changing customer requirements.
Two guiding features of XP:
Refactoring
Pair programming
Advantage of XP is whole process is visible and accountable.
Agile PM and XP have grown out of need to combine the discipline of project management methodology with the needs of modern enterprise to respond quickly.
Describe Theory Of Constraints Methodology?
TOC Methodology
- Identify the constraint.
- Exploit the constraint.
- Subordinate the system constraint.
- Elevate the constraint.
- Repeat the process.
Describe critical chain solution to project scheduling?
Central Limit Theorem Activity durations estimated at 50% level Buffer reapplied at project level Goldratt rule of thumb (50%) Newbold formula Feeder buffers for non-critical paths
How to develop critical chain activity network?
Resource leveling is not required because
resources are leveled within the project in the
process of identifying the critical chain.
CCPM advocates putting off all noncritical
activities as late as possible, while providing each
noncritical path in the network with its own buffer.
Noncritical buffers are referred to as feeder
buffers.
Feeding buffer duration is calculated similarly to
the process used to create the overall project
buffer.
What are critical constraint buffer and drum buffer?
Capacity constraint buffer (CCP) refers to a safety margin separating different projects scheduled to use the same resource.
Drum buffers are extra safety applied to a project immediately before the use of the constrained resource to ensure that the resource will not be starved for work.
What are the steps in applying CCPM to multiple project portfolio?
- Identify company resource constraints or drum.
- Exploit resource constraints.
- Subordinate individual project schedules.
- Elevate the capacity of the constraint resource.
- Go back to step 2 and reiterate the sequence.
What are some CCPM critiques?
- No milestones used
- Not significantly different from PERT
- Unproven at the portfolio level
- Anecdotal support only
- Incomplete solution
- Overestimation of activity duration padding
- Cultural changes unattainable
