Chapter 3: Project Life cycles and initiating projects Flashcards
Iterative and incremental development approaches
Iterative: customer provides feedback after every iteration, often done in a set amount of time “the whole evolves”
Incremental: each increment builds on top of the previous one “adding completed parts”
Project life cycles
- Is a series of phases that a project passes through form its start to its completion
- A project phase is a collection of logically projected activities that culminates in the completion of one or more deliverables
Project Management process groups
- Project management process groups progress from initiating activities to planning activities, executing activities, monitoring and controlling activities and closing activities
- A process is a series of actions directed toward a particular result
Initiating processes
include actions to begin projects and project phases
Planning processes
include devising and maintaining a workable scheme to ensure that the project meets its scope, time and cost goals as well as organizational needs
Executing processes
include coordinating people and other resources to carry out the project plans and produce the deliverables of the project or phase
=> Deliverable is a product or service produced or provided as part of a project
Monitoring and controlling processes
measure progress toward achieving project goals, monitor deviation from plans, and take corrective action to match progress with plans and customer expectations
Closing processes
include formalizing acceptance of the project or phase and bringing it to an orderly end
Characteristics of the process groups
- The level of activity and length of each PG varies for every project
=> Executing tasks require the most resources and time, followed by planning tasks
=> Monitoring and controlling is done throughout the project’s life span
=> Initiating and closing tasks => usually the shortest and require the least amount of resources and time
=> Every project is unique => so exceptions
=> Process groups apply to entire projects as well as to project phases
A phase ?
distinct stage in project development and most projects have distinct phases
The importance of top management commitment
- Without it, many projects will fail
- Some projects have a senior manager (sometimes called a champion) => acts as a key proponent for a project
- Projects are part of the lager organizational environment and many factors that might affect a project are out of the project manager’s control
- How top managers can help project managers to succeed:
- Provide adequate resources
- Approve unique project needs in a timely manner
- Encourage cooperation and deal with political issues
- Mentor and coach them on leadership issues
- Develop and enforce organizational standards
- Support a project management office (PMO)
Project managers lead efforts to
- Identify and understand project stakeholders
- Create the project charter and assumption log
- Hold a kick-off meeting
Pre-initiating processes
- After a project is approved => senior managers should meet to accomplish the following tasks:
- Determine scope, time, and cost constraints
- Identify the project sponsor
- Select the project manager
- Develop a business case for the project
- Review processes/expectations
- Determine if the project should be divided into two or more smaller projects
Scope Goals
- Investigate and document the training taken in the last 2 years by all internal employees
- Determine what courses were taken, the costs of all training, the process for approving/assigning training and the evaluation of the training by participants if available
- Survey employees to get their input on what training they believe they will need in the next 2 years, also hold focus groups to determine training needs
- Recommend how to provide the most valuable training for global construction employees in the next 2 years
- Determine the scope, time and cost goals for the development and implementation of the just-in-time training phase II project
Business Case for a project
Is a document that provides financial justification for investing in a project
Typical contents:
* Introduction/Background
* Business objective
* Current situation and problem/opportunity statement
* Critical assumptions and constraints
* Analysis of options and recommendations
* Preliminary project requirements
* Budget estimate and financial analysis
* Schedule estimate
* Potential risks
* Exhibits
Initiating processes
- Identifying project stakeholders
- Creating the project charter
- Creating the assumption log
- Holding a kick-off meeting
Identifying stakeholders
Project stakeholders => people involved in or affected by project activities
- Internal project stakeholder: include the project sponsor, project team, support staff and internal customers for the project (top management, other functional managers and other project managers)
- External project stakeholders: include the project’s customers (external to the organization) competitors, suppliers and other external groups (government officials, concerned citizens)
Contents of a project charter
- The project’s title and date of authorization
- The project manager’s name and contact information
- A summary schedule or timeline, including the planned start and finish dates; if a summary milestone schedule is available, it should also be included or referenced
- A summary of the project’s estimated cost and budget allocation
- A brief description of the project objectives, including the business need or other justification for authorizing the project
- Project success criteria or approval requirements, including project approval requirements and who signs off on the project
- A summary of the planned approach for managing the project, which should describe stakeholder needs and expectations, overall project risk, important assumptions and constraints
- A roles and responsibilities section
- A sign-off section for signatures of key project stakeholders
- A comments section in which stakeholders can provide important comments related to the project
Contents of an assumptions log
- Is a document used to record an tracks assumptions and constraints throughout the project life cycle
- Aids in communicating information to key stakeholders and avoids potential confusion
- Most projects include several assumptions that affect scope, time, cost, risk and other knowledges areas
- Important to document and validate these assumptions
Holding a project Kick-off meeting
- Crucial to get projects off to a great start
- Meeting held at the beginning of a project so that stakeholders can meet each other, review the goals of the project and discuss future plans
- Preparing:
- Invitation (date, time, venue or virtual setup)
- Agenda
- Review and/or prepare project charter
- Clarify roles
- Dress professional
Scrum Pillar and values
Based on
* Transparency
* Inspection
* Adaptation
It also emphasizes 5 values:
* Commitment
* Focus
* Openness
* Respect
* Courage
Identify key stakeholders
- Product owner: is responsible for maximizing the value of the product created by the development team by managing the product backlog
- Scrum master: responsible for promoting and supporting the Scrum process as defined in the scrum guide
- The development team (developers): professionals who do the work of delivering a potentially releasable increment of a product at the end of each sprint
Product vision Statement
- Describes the desired future state that would be achieved by developing and deploying a product
- Format: for (target customer) who (statement of need or opportunity) the (product name) is a (product category) that (key benefit, reason to buy) unlike (primary competitive alternative) our product (statement of primary differentiation)
Product strategy
- High level plan describing what the organization hopes to accomplish with its product and how it plans to do so
- Strategy is depicted in a product roadmap
Creating an initial product backlog and estimating size
- The product owner (with the team and stakeholder) creates an initial product backlog => is an emergent, ordered list of what is needed to improve the product
- Contents of the product backlog include a priority number, ID, description (user story) and an estimate
- Agile approaches to estimating are often done in terms of relative size
Product release plan
- Is a tactical document that spans only a few months and is used internally for the development teams
- Product release plans evolve based on the initials sprint and feedback from the teams and other stakeholders
