CIPS L4M2 Chapter 3 (3.3) Flashcards
Why do specifications fall short?
- People are inexperienced
- Lack of proper training
- Lack of information
What is an Under-specified need and the four (4) risks involved?
Under-specificed needs occur when not all of the users and their requirements have been identified and assessed
The risks of an Under-specified need are:
- Unsuitable product or service
- Waste of money - having to rectify or procure an alternative
- Customer need not satisfied
- Limited alternatives - because it is difficult or impossible to switch to a lower-cost product
What is an Over-specified need and the four (4) risks involved?
A long wish-list of needs that are not the real essentials.
The risks of an Over-specified need are:
- Greater expense - incorportae more features
- Poor competition - limited suppliers
- Variety of offers - suppliers who can provide some of the features and few that can supply the full features
- Difficult to evaluate - trade-offs between different features and attributes in the specification
What is an Misinterpreted need and the four (4) risks involved?
Wrong interpretation of users need.
The risks of an Misinterpreted need are:
- Unacceptable purchases
- Time overrun - product has to be adapted
- Increased costs - re-work to adapt the product
What is the four (4) step process for Managing risks?
- Identify the possible risks - Create a list of all the potential risks that might be assoicated with the specification
Risks from under- and over-specified and misinterpreted needs are:
- Insufficient funding - delaying procurement, require a re-tender
- Impractical Timescales - few responses becuase suppliers are given insufficient time to prepare bid
- Insufficient market research - not all potential suppliers invited to bid
- Inapproprate procurement method
- Unacceptable terms and conditions to suppliers
- Lack of confidentiality and perceived bias
- No response
What is the four (4) step process for Managing risks?
- Assess the risks: The three factors to identify and prioritise risks
- The impact of the risk if it was to ccur
- The likelihood of the risk being detected before it causes any damage
- The likelihood of the risk being eliminated
Techniquie for prioritising risks using the three factors is to give each factor a score from 1 to 10 with the scale ranging as follows:
1 (low impact) to 10 (high impact) for the effect the risk could have
1 (high probability) to 10 (low probability) for the likelihood of detecing the risk
1 (low probability) to 10 (high probability) for the likelihood of being able to eliminate the risk once it has been detected and before the impact has taken effect
Mutiplying the three scores will give a score between 1 and 1000 for each risk which can be sorted to the value of the score and mitigation activities can start for the highest scores.
What are Mitigating actions? and what are the four (4) basic ways to mitigate risks?
Actions taken to lessen the impact of a risk to people or organisations
The four (4) basic ways to mitigate risks are:
- Tolerate the risk - low risk category - if they occure then the impact is low
- Treat the risk - Take action to reduce the risk
- Transfer the risk - transferring to another party e.g. isnurance company
- Terminate the risk - adopt a different part to avoid the risk
How to Monitor risks?
Create a risk register which lists:
- the risk,
- the date the risk was identified,
- the owner of the risk,
- the description of the risk,
- the assessment of the risk,
- the action to be taken to mitigate the risk,
- the date when the risk will be next reviewed
What is a Project Initiation Document (PID) and its importance?
A document that sets out the scope of the project and is the mandate from senior managment.
It documents the key parts of the project for reference and also act as a vehicle for collecting the necessary approvals. It is very important and should precede any specification writing project.
A PID will contain:
Background information to the specification, Initial definition and scope of the specification, Any constraints or dependencies, Any assumption made, Outline business case for the specification, Identify the benefits, List the acceptance criteria
What are the metrics for Managing projects - production of a specification
- Schedule variance - completed by its due date
- Cost variance - opportunity costs - in terms of time spent
- Stakeholder satisfaction - ask stakeholder to complete survey
What are the steps for monitoring a specification writing project effectively?
- Monitoring of the project throughout its life cycle
- Measuring and Collecting the right data - too much data and over measuring
- Assign responsibility
- Identify who should receive monitoring reports
- Make strong and time bound decision
- Have open and clear communication
- Focus on people
