Chapter 2 Flashcards
Planning the Project
Analysis Paralysis
The ongoing study of a problem to delay actually addressing the problem.
Business Objective
Defines the specific outcome the business wants to achieve.
Benchmarking
Compares one component to a similar component.
Brainstorming
Encourages participants to generate ideas about an opportunity or business problem.
Business Rules Analysis
Business rules define the internal processes to make decisions, provide definitions for operations, define organizational boundaries, and afford governance for projects, employees, and operations.
Focus Groups
A type of stakeholder analysis, usually 6-12 participants.
Functional Decomposition
Takes a large problem and breaks it down into smaller, manageable components.
Root Cause Analysis
Studying the effect that’s being experienced and then determining the causal factors of the effect.
Feasibility Study
A documented expression of what your research has told you. It helps you determine the validity or scope of a proposed project or a section of a project.
The feasibility study is divided into eight sections
-Executive Summary
-Defined business problem or opportunity
-Purpose of the study
-Options assessed
-Assumptions used in the study
-Audience impacted
-Financial obligations
-Recommended action
Executive Summary
The purpose is to draw the reader into your findings and to define the key points of your analysis.
Defined business problem or opportunity
This section describes the business problem and its effect on the organization or the opportunity the organization may seek.
Purpose of the feasibility study
To determine if an identified opportunity is valid or to determine if an identified problem can be resolved.
Options Assessed
Feasibility studies examine multiple options, often called alternative identification, for the business problem or opportunity to determine the best solution for the organization.
Assumptions used in the study
An assumption is something you believe to be true but you have not proven to be true.
Audience Impacted
The feasibility study should address issues concerning the users, capability resource gaps, and who will be affected by the implementation.
Financial Obligations
This section of the feasibility study provides an overview of the cost of the technology rather than a full blown budget.
Recommended Action
Within this section of the feasibility study, you’re ready to make your pitch for, or against, a technology to solve the problem.
Business Case
To help the organization determine whether it can justify the cost of the project in proportion to the return on investment. The business case links the value of the projects solution to the organization.
Life Cycling Costing
Describes the cost to maintain the solution; usually management wants to know the maintenance costs for the solution for each year the solution is to be used.
Benefits of the solution
This section is the primary purpose of the business case. It defines the quantified benefits of the solution, justifies the costs, and defines the ROI.
Cost of the solution
The business case should estimate the total costs of the solution.
Risk Assessment
The business case should include an initial risk assessment that defines the obvious risks in the project, the anticipated impacts and probabilities of the risks, and the risks of not doing the project.
Project Scope Statement
This document defines all of the deliverables the project will create, the boundaries of the project, and the work that the project team will need to complete in order to create the project deliverables.
Progressive Elaboration
Means that you start with a broad definition and then elaborate on the specifics of the deliverables through a series of refinements.
The Project Scope statement has six components
-Product Scope Description
-Product Acceptance Criteria
-Project Deliverables
-Project Exclusions
-Project Constraints
Product Scope
Is a description of the features and functions the customer will receive as a result of your project team completing their he project.
Product Acceptance Criteria
Defines what the project must create in order for the project to be accepted by the customer and for the project to be considered completed.
Three Constraints
-Sometimes called the Triple Constraints of project management
-Sometimes called the Iron Triangle of project management
-Time/Schedule
-Cost/Budget
-Scope
Meetings
Also called ceremonies
Documents
Also called artifacts
Product Backlog Prioritization
The product owner works with the customers, business analysts, executives, and other key stakeholders to gather , document, and prioritize all of the currently known project requirements.
Sprint Planning Meeting
At the launch of the sprint, the development team, the product owner, and the project manager (called the Scrum Master in scrum projects) plan how much work the team can do in the next iteration, called a sprint.
Sprint Backlog
The items that are selected from the product backlog to be completed in the current sprint.
Daily Scrum
Every workday, at the same time and place, the development team meets for a 15-minute ceremony.
Sprint Review
At the end of the sprint the development team demonstrates what it has completed during the sprint.
Sprint Retrospective
Allows the team to discuss what did and did not work well in the pay few weeks of the project.
Communications Management Plan
Defines all the required communications, scheduled meetings, and expected types of communications, depending on the project scenarios.
Resource Contention
Happens when two projects need the same person or resource at the same time.
Gold Plating
Consists of changes that the project manager adds without the customer’s approval, simply to eat up the project budget, or to improve the project value.
Value -added reseller (VAR)
Three ways that VARs usually bill
-Time and materials
-Fixed fee contracts
-Cost plus contracts
*As a general rule, you want to avoid cost-plus contracts.
Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
The WBS is a deliverables-oriented collection of the project. The WBS provides a true reflection of all the deliverables the project will create, and using this, you can create an accurate and complete task list.
Contingency Plan
Also called fallback plans, rollback plans, worst-case scenario plans, or disaster-recovery plans. It is a predetermined decorate will be enacted should the project go awry.
Servant Leadership is based on four principles
-Shield the team
-Remove impediments
-Keep the team vision
-Provide the things the team needs to do the work
Information Radiators
A visual approach to project status and what’s in the work queue.
Burn up chart
Shows the accumulation of tasks completed in the iteration and “burns up” toward the goal or task to complete in an iteration.
Burn down chat
Starts with the number of tasks assigned and “burns down” as tasks are completed in the project iteration.
Dashboard
A quick report of all the important topics for a project.
Kanban board
Sign boards that visualize the flow of activities in a project.
