Define and Organize the project Flashcards
Overall structure of Project Management
What is Project Management?
Project Management is the discipline of planning, organizing, and managing resources to bring about the successful completion of specific project goals and objectives.
What is the objective of defining project parameters ?
And what are the 3 key parameters used ?
The objective is to ensure precise, collective and agreed understanding of expected value of a project, as well as the key design parameters.
The following concepts will be used to do that:
- clarify the 8 design parameters of the mandate (context, objective, success criteria, constraint, scopep, decision makers, stakeholders and team)
- have the mandate formally approved by decision makers
- revise, adapt and re-approve regularly
How to define a project?
A project is a finite (having specific start and completion dates) undertaken that uses resources (money, people, material, energy, space, communication, motivation, etc.) to create a unique product or service which brings about beneficial change or added value.
What are the challenges?
- Achieve all the project goals and objectives while adhering to classic project contraint usually scope, quality, time and budget
- Optimize the allocation and integration of inputs necessary to meet pre-defined objectives
Why is clarifying the purpose of a project an absolute must ?
It can be a complete waste of time, moreover a lack of direction may lead to a lack of motivation from the implementing team as they don’t know what is the goal of their work.
What are the 8 key parameters of a project ?
- Problem/Opportunity: what it the problem that we are trying to address ? How substantial is it ? What is the opportunity to capture ? Why do we start this project in the first place ?
- Objective: what is the objective of our project ?
- Success criteria: how to measure success of the project ?Must be shared by client and team and must include relevant qualitative and quantitative measures (eg: impact and impact timing, visibility of improvement)
- Scope: what is in and out the scope of our project ? Indicates what the study will and will not include (eg: international markets, research and development activities, uncontrolled corporate costs)
- Constraints: time, people, quality considerations ? Defines the limits of the set of solutions to consider (eg: must involve organic, rather than inorganic growth)
- Decision makers: Who are the decision makers and how do we make sure they stay on board during the whole project ?
- Stakeholders: Who needs to be involved in this project ?
- Project team: Who is on the team and how to organize ourself ?
CASE STUDY: Solar Panels
- Problem: The CEO is unclear about the optimality of 10 plants
- Objective: Build a model to identify the optimal plant configuration
- Success Criteria: Have a model which is a good predictor of cost, ready in 3 months.
- Scope: A model with no implementation, including all products and plants, except plant B.
- Constraints: All clients served in 2 days, maximum investment of 2M$, compliance to food legislation.
- Decision makers: CEO, direction committee.
- Stakeholders: Plant managers, head of logistics, HR managers.
- Team: 3 members (PM, engineer, logistician).
- Problem and objective in the 8 dimensions might be a little bit confusing, what is the difference ?
- Moreover what is the difference between decision makers and other stakeholders?
- The problem defines the context of the objective, it tells us under which conditions we had to undertake this project. For instance, one’s company problem might be that sales are decreasing due to the lack of motivation from its employees, that’s the environment, but it doesn’t state what we are going to do to remediate this ? Therefore an objective might be, to bring back sales by organizing more teambuildings and enhance the company’s culture.
- Decision makers are the one who will have the last word
What is a SMART problem ?
- Specific
- Measurable
- Action-oriented
- Relevant
- Time-bound
Example of bad problem statement:
- Not specific: “better manage the business…” - this is too generic and doesn’t suggest where the greatest impact might be, how, or by when to capture it
- Not measurable: “reverse our deteriorating performance…” - without specifying what metrics (or KPIs - Key Performance Indicators) best reflect “performance”, it’s impossible to assess whether or not we’ve made progress
- Not action-oriented: “increase sales and decrease costs…” - while these are both appealing goals for any company, they have to be actionable to create impact
- Not relevant: “increase profits by raising prices…” - this sounds good, but not if the client is selling a commodity that sells at market prices. The problem statement has to be relevant to the client and their key problem(s)
- Not time-bound: “eventually increase profits by 10%…” - a specific deadline is needed to motivate people to action, hold them accountable, and know if the project was successful
What is a team?
A team is a group of people collaborating on a particular work, achieving a common goal.
What makes a team performant ?
What makes a team smart ?
Performing is the combination of high efficiency and effectiveness. Therefore a performing team follows 4 key concepts:
- In or outside regular structure
- Importance of the role of the leader
- Complementarity and exhaustiveness of skills
- Importance of sound team processes
Actually, the collective intelligence of a team depedns more of the team menbers ED rahter than on their IQ, this includes:
- Listening capabilities
- Valuing each team member contribution
- Empathy
MBTI is designed as an indicator, it is the most widely used instrument in the world for understanding normal personality differences. What are the uses ?
- Applied to value diversity
- Improve working relationships, improve communication making it easier to understand yourself and others
- Develop your own leadership style
- Enhance problem-solving strategies
- Help manage change.
Extraversion VS Introversion
Extraversion (draws energy from people) VS Introversion (draws strength from inner resources)
- Likes to focus on the outer world of people and activities >< Likes to focus on their own inner world of ideas and experiences
- Involve others and communicate >< Take the time to think, listen to others
- Prefer to Act-Think-Act >< Think-Act-Think
- Sociable and expressive >< Private and contained
Sensing VS Intuition
Sensing (lives in the present, enjoys what is there) VS Intuition (lives in the future, think about what could happen)
- Oriented to present realities >< Oriented to future possibilities
- More interested in practice than theory >< Love to theorize
- Trust experience >< Trust inspiration
- Practical, concrete, “feet on the ground’ >< Imaginative and verbally creative
What each MBTI profile brings to the project ?
How to interact with each MBTI profile ?
What is the Skill/Will Matrix and how can it help us ?
A coach should emplot a different coaching style based on the readiness of the coachee.
What are the different MBTI profiles coaching preferences ?
