Day 5 Flashcards
What are the aspects of a benefits management plan?
Target benefits - Expected tangible and intangible business value to be
realized from the project.
Strategic alignment - How the benefits align with the organization’s business
strategies
Timeframe - When the benefits (short-term and long-term) will be realized, usually by project phase
Benefits owner - Person or group that monitors, records, and reports the
benefits
Metrics - Direct and indirect measurements of the realized benefits
Risks - Risks associated with achieving the targeted benefits
In Agile, what are Sprint Reviews/Demos?
✓At the end of each iteration or sprint, the team conducts a sprint review or
demo.
✓ In early stages, obtain the product owner’s acceptance of the story and
any feedback to enable the team to make changes to optimize business
value.
✓ Focus on completing whole user stories in each sprint.
✓ Verify that the capability is “potentially shippable”.
Sprint is 1-4 weeks, usually 2 weeks
What is release management?
In traditional projects, product release occurs at the end when everything is
complete.
However, in today’s complex business environment, where work is hardly
ever “done”, we need to factor change into our thinking about work.
Agile projects can convert highvalue capabilities into delivered
solutions early.
What are Disciplined Agile (DA) Approaches?
✓ Use DA approaches to support dynamic work environments.
✓ A Product Owner creates a minimum business increment (MBI) that defines work requirements to deliver the stated value.
✓ The MBI creates value quickly and incrementally, so the business can
start using and benefitting from it.
Advantages:
− Feature or capability assessment
− Improve organizational tolerance for change
− A time cadence for subsequent releases
How long does a sprint normally last?
Sprint are timeframes, between 1-4 weeks, usually 2 weeks
What is a Benefit Cost Analysis?
✓ Frequently used to compare potential projects to determine which one to
authorize.
✓ Select the alternative which demonstrates that benefits outweigh costs by the greatest amount.
✓ Alternative should not be chosen when costs exceed benefits.
✓ The accuracy of the estimates of cost and benefit determines the value of the benefit cost analysis.
What is the Present Value (PV) Calculation?
PV= FV/ (1+R)n
*Nth power
What is the Net Promoter Score (NPS)?
NPS is a metric used in customer experience programs to measure
customer loyalty.
Customers rate their experience with a number from -100 to +100. A higher score is desirable.
What is A/B testing?
Used in marketing, A/B testing is a method for determining user preferences.
Different sets of users are shown similar services; the difference is the independent variable.
Based on the results of the AB testing experiment, you can optimize the solution you provide to users.
What is the Monte Carlo Simulation?
Outputs are generated to represent the range of possible outcomes for the project.
Monte Carlo refers to not one single analysis method but to a wide class of techniques, mostly making use of sophisticated computers and inputs of random numbers, probabilities, and algorithms.
What they use in hurricane forcasting
How do you use Simulations?
✓Uses computer models and estimates of risks.
✓Translates uncertainties into potential impact.
✓Involves calculating multiple project durations, using varying sets of
assumptions.
How do you Use Decision Trees to Find Benefit and Value?
✓ Use to support selection of the best of several action options.
✓ Branches represent different decisions or events, each of which can have
associated costs and risks.
✓ The end-points of branches in the decision tree represent the outcome
from following that path, which can be negative or positive.
✓ Calculate the expected monetary value of each branch and select the optimal one.
What are some things to consider in the Internal Business Environment?
✓ Organizational changes can make a dramatic impact on the scope of a
project.
✓ The project manager and project sponsor need to have visibility into
business plans, reorganizations, process changes, and other internal activities.
✓ Because internal business changes might cause:
− Need for new deliverables
− Reprioritization or removal of existing deliverables
What are the aspects of the External Business Environment?
The PESTLE acronym identifies the external business environment factors
that can affect the value and desired outcomes of a project.
Others are:
✓ TECOP (technical, environmental, commercial, operational, political)
✓ VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity)
These frameworks can help you to better understand external factors that can introduce risk, uncertainty, or provide opportunities.
How do you Update Baselines in a project?
✓ In traditional project plans, the completed initial plan contains the
baseline.
✓ As changes occur in the project, you update the baseline to reflect any new
requirements.
✓ Agile projects process change continuously, in iterations or increments. Work is prioritized and updated in the product backlog or in the value stream (Disciplined Agile).
What is Backlog Reprioritization?
Product owner re-prioritizes the backlog as stories or requirements change.
Business value determines the priority of the changes.
What are some Recommended Options for Changes?
✓ When change is proposed, the product owner should focus on the intended business value of the change.
✓ Give the project team discretion to consider the change and identify
potential solution options.
A clear governance structure becomes critical when?
project changes are driven by changes in the internal or external business environments.
What is a Governance Steering Committee?
✓ ‘The Project Board’ or overall governance or steering committee that coordinates the project:
✓Might include: the project sponsor, a senior user, and PMO resources.
✓ Are responsible for: Clarifying the project charter and objectives; and allocating resources to the project.
How do you Assess the Impact on Project Backlog Based on Business Environment Changes?
- Understand the project’s organizational context.
- Understand the external factors that may impact your project.
- How is the project work prioritized?
- What is the project governance model?
What are some Organizational Cultures and Styles?
View of leadership, hierarchy and authority
Shared vision, beliefs & expectations
Risk tolerance
Regulations, policies and procedures
Code of conduct
Operating Environments
Motivation and reward systems
What are some aspects of Organizational Structures?
✓ Affect resource availability
✓ Affect how projects are conducted
✓ Main structures include functional, project-oriented, matrix, and composite.
What is a roll out plan?
✓ You need to plan for successful implementation of changes.
✓ Roll out plans enable you to define the knowledge transfer, training,
and readiness activities required to implement the change.
✓ Depending on the size, scope, and nature of the change, the plan
details might include:
– The Project team and the affected customer and users
– Training and support activities
What do you need to consider for Project Management Plan Updates?
Based on the scope of changes, you may need to update the project
management plan for:
✓ Scope
✓ Timelines
✓ Work packages
✓ Team member assignments
In agile projects, the team might remove lower-value deliverables from scope to make room for the change.
What is a training plan?
Changes to the project plan that will likely impact the training plan:
✓ Scope of the training and knowledge transfer required
✓ Roles and responsibilities of the stakeholders
✓ Timelines
What are training artifacts?
Changes to the plan and deliverable set requires changes to the training
artifacts, including:
✓ Training courseware
✓ Lab configurations and exercises
✓ Knowledge requirements and potentially credentials, if certification
of skills is expected
✓ Updates for the trainers to gain the necessary knowledge transfer required to deliver the updated training
Whether in-house or outsourced, you have to ensure these changes to training are made.
What are Demos?
✓ Changes to software solutions may require demonstration of changed
configurations, processes, workflows, and roles and responsibilities.
✓ Key customer and user stakeholders need to review the demo and provide
feedback to ensure the changes work as intended and do not impact the workflow of the solution.
✓ Early feedback allows for adaptation, while the feedback is immediately
relevant and should improve the quality of the change while reducing overall cost and risk.
How do you Recommend, Plan, and Facilitate Change?
- Establish a single change request method which includes:
− A description of the proposed change
− The business value of the change
− Any risk and risk mitigation recommendations
− Likely cost of the change - Ensure that a CCB can assess the change cost, risk, and value, other potential impacts to the project, and make recommendations.
- Check the project’s tolerance – can you can approve the change or do you need to escalate it to the governing board for review and approval?
- Follow organizational change management best practices:
− Build a compelling case for change
− Get buy-in and commitment of key stakeholders
− Communicate the change vision
− Enable other stakeholders to engage - Ensure changes are properly aligned and updates are made to relevant project artifacts – i.e. project plan, training plans, training artifacts, and software configurations or demos.
What is continuous improvement?
✓ Aim for small, incremental improvements or large breakthroughs.
✓ A business strategy that is developed at the organizational level for projects to adopt and use.
✓ Might be implemented by an organization’s PMO.
What is a culture of continuous improvement?
W. Edwards Deming’s philosophy of improving quality aims to reduce
expenses, increase productivity, and thus increase market share.
Be guided by these four concepts:
✓Better design of products to improve service.
✓Higher level of uniform product quality.
✓Improvement of product testing in the workplace and in research centers.
✓Greater sales through global markets.
What is Six Sigma?
respond to customer needs and improving processes by systematically
removing defects.
What is Kaizen?
✓ Many small changes or improvements.
✓ Small changes less likely to require major expenditures of capital.
✓ Ideas come from workers—not expensive research, consultants, or equipment.
✓ All employees should continually improve their own performance.
✓ All are encouraged to take ownership of their work to improve motivation.
What is PDCA?
Plan - Define objectives and processes
Do - Execute plan and collect data
Study (Check) - Evaluate data and compare results to expectations
Act - Identify issues and root causes, then modify to improve process
What are some Continuous Improvement Tools?
Lessons Learned Register is an important component of each project.
✓ Use it as a source of improving the processes in other projects.
✓ Avoid filing it away at the end of a project and not referring to it.
Retrospectives:
✓ Common in agile projects at the end of each iteration.
✓ Helps the team look back at an iteration and plan improvements for the next one.
Experiments provide a way to improve team efficiency and effectiveness:
✓ Some techniques include A/B testing and team feedback to identify improvements.
✓ Perform experiments one at a time to isolate the results.
What are some Update to Process and Standards?
✓ Lessons learned at the project level can apply to the organization’s continuous improvement process, in addition to the project management processes.
✓ Escalate these lessons and evaluate them for consideration at the organizational level.
How do you Execute Continuous Improvement Steps?
- Review the organization’s continuous improvement strategy.
- Develop a continuous improvement approach for your project, keeping in
mind the project goals and the expectations of the stakeholders. - Use lessons learned from your project and other projects—as sources of
continuous improvement. - For agile projects, use retrospectives to improve the next iteration.
- Use lessons learned at the project level to improve the organization’s
continuous improvement process.
What is the Agile Manifesto?
The Four Values of the Agile Manifesto
We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others to do it.
Through this work we have come to value:
1. Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
2. Working software over comprehensive documentation
3. Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
4. Responding to change over following a plan
What are the THE 12 CLARIFYING PRINCIPLES?
- Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software
- Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer’s
competitive advantage. - Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.
- Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project.
- Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.
- The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-toface conversation.
- Working software is the primary measure of progress.
- Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developer, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.
- Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility.
- Simplicity – the art of maximizing the amount of work not done – is essential.
- The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.
- At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective., then tunes and adjust its behavior accordingly
What are AGILE METHODOLOGIES?
There are over a dozen agile methodologies
No single right way
Can be tailored once a team is experienced
Most common
* Scrum (really a framework)
* Disciplined Agile
* Extreme Programming (XP)
* Lean product development
* Kanban
* Feature-driven development (FDD)
* Dynamic Systems Development Method (DSDM)
* Crystal
What is scrum?
- Framework rather than a methodology
- Scrum is one of many Agile approaches
- Can be applied to any industry
- Employs various techniques
- High-performing cross functional teams
- Iterative, incremental approach
- Iterations are known as “Sprints”
Where does the word scrum come from?
The term “Scrum” comes from rugby.
A scrum (short for scrummage) is a method of restarting play. The
players pack closely together with their heads down and attempt to
gain possession of the ball.
Where does the word scrum come from?
The term “Scrum” comes from rugby.
A scrum (short for scrummage) is a method of restarting play. The
players pack closely together with their heads down and attempt to
gain possession of the ball.
What are the THREE PILLARS OF EMPIRICISM?
- Transparency
- Inspection
- Adaptation
What is transparency in empiricism?
- Discuss product requirements
- Establish shared product vision
- Create a Definition of Done
What is inspection in empiricism?
- Assess productivity during Daily Scrum
- Burn-down chart
- Demonstrate product increment during Sprint Review
- Objective assessment based on Acceptance Criteria and Definition of Done
What is adaptation in empiricism?
- Welcome change
- React quickly to variance in order to meet Sprint goal
- Sprint Retrospective promotes continuous improvemen
What is the level of detail in a scrum?
Product vision
Product roadmap
Release Planning
Iteration Planning
Daily Planning
How do you create the product vision?
Interview stakeholders
Focus on how a product adds value
Motivates Developers
What is the product vision?
Why you’re building a product
Benefits of product
Who you’re building it for
Why you are positioned to develop it
Since scope is evolving it is important to share an understanding of what is being created
What is the Product Box – Collaboration Game?
Technique used to explain an overarching solution.
Stakeholders try to describe aspects of a solution in the same way a marketer might describe product features and benefits on a box.
Helps with understanding:
✓ Different types of users of a solution
✓ Their priorities and likes/dislikes
✓ Key aspects of a solution that drive the most critical value aspects
Who is the product owner?
- develops product vision
- serves as a voice of the stakeholders
- Collects requirements from stakeholders
- Determines value of features
- Prioritizes backlog items based on value
- Controls the budget
- Oversees return on investment
- Validates product quality
Who is a part of the scrum team?
Developers
Scrum Master
Product Owner
Who is the developer?
- Also known as the Development Team
- Self-organized
- Builds the product increments during each Sprint
- Estimates the work
- Decides what can be done during each Sprint
- Cross-functional
- Includes all skillsets such as “QA” or “Tester”
- Every necessary skillset is represented
Whi is the scrum master?
- Servant leader to Developers
- Ensures adherence to Scrum framework and roles
- Facilitates meetings
- Removes impediments (roadblocks, blockers)
- Serves as a buffer to prevent interruptions
- Provides essential tools and resources
- Coaches other team members
- Assists Product Owner with managing backlog
- Serves as Scrum “ambassador” to the organization
