Exam 1 Study Guide Flashcards
PMBOK: What is a Project:
project – “a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result.
- Has defined start and end
- Unique purpose
- Organized set of work efforts
- Developed under progressive elaboration
-Requires resources from various areas
-Has project sponsor / primary customer
Difference between projects & operations
-Projects are temporary and unique
-Operations of a company are continuous efforts done to sustain the business
Project Stakeholders
stakeholders – “an individual, or organization who may affect, be affected by, or perceive itself to be affected by a decision, activity, or outcome of a project.”
Stakeholders include:
◦ the project sponsor
◦ the project manager
◦ the project team
◦ support staff
◦ customers
◦ users
◦ suppliers
◦ opponents to the project
Often represented by the project sponsor
Project Management
Project management – “the application of knowledge, skills, tools and techniques to project activities to meet project requirements.”
- Projects undertaken to accomplish specific goals
-Goals of scope & quality measure performance
Scope – “the sum of all products, services, and results to be provided as a project.”
Quality – “the degree to which a set of inherent characteristics fulfills requirements.”
- Scope + Quality subject to constraints of time and cost.
- PMs decides what takes precedence: Scope, Quality, Time + Cost
- Obstacles + Challenges often arise
- Opportunities to exceed original expectations can arise
- Tradeoffs made between
- Scope
- Schedule/Time
- Quality
- Resources
- Cost
- Risks
Soft Skills
Hard to assess, but usually people skills
Ex’s: Teamwork, patience, communication & leadership, motivator, time management, flexibility & adaptability
Hard Skills
Tangible, technical skills that are easier to assess one’s ability of, because of concrete results from them:
Ex’s: Programming knowledge, project planning, risk analysis, quality control, scheduling, & budgeting, wireframe diagramming, ERD diagramming
Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC)
Initiation/Investigation – system feasibility studies done to assist in go/no-go decision for a project
Analysis – examine business problem/processes, assess information
of a system & deliver requirements for the system
Design – technical solution blueprinting how the system will resolve the business problem
Development – Programming(coding) technical solution & Testing to verify quality & proper functionality of the system
Implementation – deploying technical solution/migrating old data
Operation & Maintenance – debugging issues, updating, & maintaining the system
Plan-Driven Project Life Cycle
Predictive or Traditional Software
Development:
- the scope & needs of the project are clearly articulated
- Therefore the schedule & cost can be predicted
Requirements & plan for completing the project can be defined to some extent prior to development
Waterfall Model:
- Planning
- Analysis
- Design
- Build
- Test
- Deliver
Agile Project Life Cycle
or Adaptive Software Development (ASD)
-requirements cannot be clearly expressed
-projects are mission driven and component based
-using time-based cycles to meet target dates
Agile Manifesto
4 Values:
- Individuals and Interactions over processes and tools
- Working software over comprehensive documentation
- Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
- Responding to change over following a plan
Calls on a softer leadership approach emphasizing on empowering people:
- Do their jobs well as flexible & adaptive processes
Working code trumps all theory
More collaborative approach
Less documentation
Scrum Roles
- Product Owner ( 1 person )
- Focuses on understanding the business requirements & processes.
- Manages Product Backlog by building PBIs and prioritizing items
- Frequently interacts with the customer/stakeholders
- Collaborates with development team to ensure effective implementation of requirements
- Scrum Master ( 1 person)
- Responsible for ensuring Scrum is understood & enacted
◦ Ensures Scrum team adheres to Scrum theory, practices & rules - Acts as Coach or Referee of the Scrum Process
-Enables cooperation across all roles and functions
- Facilitates & Schedules Scrum Ceremonies
-Is NOT a manager of the team. Only
manages the process
- Dev Team ( 3-9 persons)
-Cross-Functional Team
◦ Highly Skilled Technical Staff
◦ Software Engineers, Developers, Database Administrators
◦ Systems/Business Analysts, UX Designers, Graphic Designers
◦ QA Analysts
◦ IT specialists
◦ Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)
-Team is self-organizing
◦ No one pushes work items onto the team members
◦ Team decides what they will work on within the priorities set forth by the Product Owner
◦ Team have a high degree of autonomy & accountability
◦ In reality, this isn’t always the case
◦ And is where a Scrum Master steps in to “fill the cracks” & encourage the team as to how they could organize
Timeboxing
The act of putting strict time boundaries around an action or activity
Sets tight but realistic deadline
Focus on most important stuff first
Avoids feature creep
Sprints
Usually a fixed 1-4 week time-box:, as decided by team -Commonly is 2 weeks
-Each Sprint is like a traditional SDLC cycle in one sprint as it includes:
◦ Plan (Analyze & Design, Collect Requirements)
◦ Develop/Test
◦ Implement a deliverable; a ‘Potentially Shippable Product’
-Within a Sprint, change is rarely permitted
-However change is expected from
one sprint to the next
Scrum Artifacts
Product Backlog
Sprint Backlog
Release Backlog
Burndown Chart
Scrum Ceremonies
Sprint Planning session: meeting with the team to select a set of work from the product backlog to place into sprint
backlog & deliver during a sprint.
Daily Scrum: A short meeting for the development team to share progress, challenges & plan work for the day.
Sprint Review: A meeting in which the team demonstrates to the product owner what it has completed during the sprint.
Sprint Retrospective: A meeting in which the team looks for ways to improve the product and the process based on a review of the actual performance of the development team.
