Chapter 3

Question 1

What should project charter cover?

Answer 1

Project charter should cover the following

1. Name of project manager/project leader
2. Name of the project sponsor
3. A brief summary of what the project does
4. The objectives of the project
5. The most important basic requirements, constraints, exclusions, and assumptions
   Note: This is what the project sponsor tells you. For open issues, make an assumption and write it down in the project charter
6. The project deliverables and your approach to produce them

Here you make a list of all deliverables you are going to produce which will be tightly related to the approach you choose for the project.

E.g For a waterfall model approach, you could deliver a system specification document , system design document, code, code documentation, test cases, and test documentation.
7. Dependencies on other projects and persons
8. Starting date, end date, and important milestones
9. The procedure for handling changes

Once the project charter has been formulated and written down, don’t start the project without formal approval.

Question 2

The core of the project charter

Answer 2

Is the project objectives

Question 3

What do you know about Smart objectives

Answer 3

It is an acronym that helps you to write down project objectives, it stands for

• Specific: The objective is a precise description of what has to be achieved
• Measurable: It is possible to determine if the objective has been achieved or not
• Achievable: Every objective must be achievable
• Relevant: Concentrate on topics that are really relevant when writing down goals
• Time-based : An objective needs a certain point in time when it should be achieved

Question 4

What is the idea behind work breakdown structure?

Answer 4

It is to split your project into parts that can be worked on separately and that have only few manageable dependencies on each other.

Question 5

Three alternatives for setting up work breakdown structure are?

Answer 5

1. Phase-oriented: Your engineering approach will divide your project into several phases. You will have a top-down structure of your project such as “requirements analysis “, “system specifications “, “system design “ etc
2. Role-oriented: Your team members might have different roles, e.g “business analyst “, “programmer “. These roles can be used for top-level structuring.
3. Product-oriented: The product, i.e., the hard and software that you are going to develop will have structure of its own.

NOTE:
Product-oriented WBS is the most difficult to set up because you need deeper knowledge about your project and your business domain, but it will reduce the dependencies between your project parts the most.
It is in most cases the most helpful kind of structuring.

Question 6

Where the likely places to find Work Breakdown Structure in projects?

Answer 6

1. In status reports,
2. during cost estimation,
3. in project planning,
4. in project organization,
5. in concept paper table of contents
6. in the folder of your common file share