Final Flashcards
What is the defining stage?
Define Project Goals
What is DPLCC
Defining Planning Leading Controlling Completing
What happens in the planning stage
Plan how team will satisfy triple constraint
What is leading
Providing managerial guidance
What is Controlling
Measuring the project work to check progress initiate corrective action
What does a manager ensure at completion
Make sure job is done and conforms to definition of what is to be done
Three factors that help describe a project
Projects are TEMPORARY-there is a beginning and an end
Projects are UNIQUE-the work (product or process) is distinct from any other work
Projects are PROGRESSIVELY ELABORATED-it precedes in steps or stages
Define Project Management
The application of knowledge, skills, tools and techniques to project activities to meet the project requirements
9 knowledge areas of project management
Procurement Scope Time Cost Quality Human Resources Communication Risk Project Integration
Define problem scope
The definition of the problem or opportunity
Requirements
What is product scope
The features and functionality of the product
Output of Project
What is project scope
Description of the work that must be done to meet requirements of the project
What is the definition of a project
A temporary endeavour undertaken to create a unique service, product or result
What are some project time management skills
- define work activities
- sequencing work activities
- estimating duration of activities
- integrating activities into a time schedule
What is project cost management
- estimating currency cost
- cost in ‘value’ (time)
- managing resources
Why use project quality management
It is best to define quality in the terms of the customers needs (both expressed and unexpressed)
- satisfaction of product requirements
- conforming to standards and policy
- absence of product defects
- delighting the customer
Describe project human resource management
- organizational planning
- staff acquisition
- team development
What is project communication management
- information distribution
- progress reports
- administration disclosure
Project risk management
- identifying
- analyzing
- responding
What is project procruitment management
-goods and services from an outside organization
Explain ‘the project “hat” is different then the technical “hat”’
- project management is NOT technical work
- people find that if they can identify the role they are playing at ANY PARTICULAR TIME, they can select behaviour for that role
What stage is SMART used to describe
The defining stage
What does SMART stand for
S-specific M-measure A-agreed to R-realistic T-time bound
What is the product life cycle
The interval from the concept to the end of product
What is project life cycle
Interval from project initiation to project closure
What is project baseline
A cumulative of trade off decisions on delivery time, cost, requirements
-approved project plan
What is a need
Something is a need of a system cannot function without it
What is a request
An expression from one party to another that invites action
What is a requirement
A requirement is a capacity that a user needs to solve a problem or achieve an objective or a capacity that a system must possess
What is considered a good requirement
Good requirements are unambiguous and only have one interpretation
What is the best way to deal with vague requirements
Determine how the customer will verify that the project has delivered an acceptable result
How would you define customer
A person or persons who are finding the project
- requester
- buyer
What is a user defined as
A person or persons who are using the product of the project
What is a sponsor
A senior manager (on the delivery) who provides resources and visibility to the project
How do project managers handle requirements
- alert for change
- invest time
- clarify
- recognize and manage stakeholder expectations
One of the most important project management tasks is to:
:
- partition the project so that everyone agrees on what the project provide and what it is not going to provide
- includes listing (includes/excludes)
What are some ways to measure project performance
- cost and price
- product satisfies requirements
- morale
- timeline (deadline and due dates)
How do you define triple constraint
The triple constraint is a project management term for a framework consisting of three parameters of project performance
- product performance
- time schedule
- cost budget
What is product performance
Developed from the project teams capture of the products functional and performance requirements
What is time performance
Taking a list of activities, estimating their duration and analyzing the critical path
What is cost performance
Estimated cost of a project which may include Capitol expenses, computed through cost-estimating practices
What does the triple constraint do
The triple constraint describes a relationship between product performance, time schedule and money (or labor hour) budget
What is resource levelling
A term to describe adjustments of schedule to accommodate resource considerations
What is meant by rightsizing the project
Adjusting the amount of project performance for the available resources and available schedule
What is crashing
Term to describe spending more money on the project in order to speed up accomplishments of scheduled activities
How can a project manager ‘crash’ the system
By adding more resources costing more money
What is triple constraint a concept of
Baseline
What are four ideas a project team must understand
Work, time, resources, risks
What is scope creep
Adding work scope without adding resources and time
What is meant by gold plating
‘Better’ is the enemy of ‘good enough’
‘Perfecting’ is not the same as ‘meeting a requirement’
How do you test for validity of a contract
1) there is an offer by one party to provide something to another party
2) there is acceptance of the offer by another party
3) something of value must be exchanged
What is FFP (FP)
Firm fixed price
- lowest price
What is CPFF
Cost plus fixed fee
-actual cost plus a few
What is CPIF
Cost plus incentive fee
- incentive to save
What is T+M
Time and material
-most expensive
What is organized planning
1) determine where you are
2) describe your goal
3) select the approach that optimally get the project from its current situation to the required future state
4) determine your tolerance for variation from the ‘plan’ and techniques to control that variation
What steps are in integrated project planning
Project charter
Validate requirements - establish and maintain assumptions
Select project lifecycle phases - consider people issues
Baseline
What is an assumption
An educated guess
What is a strategic assumption
Affects the ‘go’ or ‘kill’ of a project
What is an estimating assumption
‘Size’ the project in terms of cost duration, quality and risk
When are assumptions necessary
Project planning, they should be documented and validated
What is the PLAN
1) identifies the important work required to complete the project successfully
2) it captures and documents assumptions and agreements
3) credible to both planners and management
4) facilitates effective communication be having an appropriate level of detail for the audience
What should the ‘plan’ include
- Project summary
- Project requirements
- Milestones
- WBS
- Network diagram of activities with schedule budget
- Project management and organizational charts
- Interface definitions including facility support
- Logistic support
- Acceptance plan
- Standards of the property control and security
- Customer organization contact points
- Nature of project review
Why does documentation have value
It forces clear thinking and makes communication more understandable
What are two types of time estimate techniques
PERT and pragmatic
What is a project managers duty regarding time estimates
Understand that time estimates inherently have some error and thus are inaccurate to some extent. A project managers job is to understand the degree of error
What must be estimated with regards to scheduling
Labor hours plus non-labor costs
Task duration
What is padding
A form of risk acceptance that involves expanding a tasks duration of level of effort to protect for the unknown
Why is padding discouraged
- hard to back out of the estimate to understand the amount of extra resources inserted (confuses estimating and budgeting)
- work expands to fill time allowed (control shifts from PM to individual)
- may lead to misidentified critical path
- may lead to potential felony charges due to false information
What does PERT stand for in regards to time estimating
Program Evaluation Review Technique
How many time estimates are required for PERT
Three
What are the three time estimates required for PERT
Tm - most likely
To - optimistic
Tp - pessimistic
How would you calculate an expected time for PERT task
Te=(To+4(Tm)+Tp)/6
What are some ways to compress a schedule
- assumption analysis • they are usually conservative
- fast tracking • overlapping phases and tasks
- crashing • apply more resources
- simplify • negotiate to remove requirements
When resource planning an PM must consider
What are the requirements?
What skills are needed?
What is the availability of each skill?
Cost estimating is often in terms of dollar amounts, what would be an example of a nonlabor cost?
Any part of the planning process, the leading process, the defining process ect
Are cost estimates accurate, explain why or why not
No there are inaccuracies, they are based off scheduling assumptions they must be expected and tolerated
What is another term for estimating
Forecasting
What are two methods to prepare cost estimates
Bottom-up
Top-down
What are reviews
They are the off-course alarms
Are reviews necessary and why
Yes, to communicate status
What are the 2 main types of reviews
Topical and periodic
What does the project manager do during a review
Ask questions
What makes a good question good
Helping attitudes
What makes a bad question bad
Threatening attitudes
What is a topical review
In A topical review, the topic will likely be a functional activity
What are three problems that typically arise during a topical review
Inaccurate information, off-topic, finger-pointing and blame
What items should be considered in a project cost system
Labor - people in your own department - other people in the company Overhead burden Non labor -Subcontracts -Travel -purchases -computer charges General and administrative burden
What is the most difficult aspect of managing a project
People
Why would many technical experts make bad project managers
Can’t deal with the intangibility of people issues
What are three things to consider when allocating resources
1) forecasted use of some key resources - may mean there will be a surplus at some point
2) avoid inherent inconsistencies - one person doing two tasks at the same time
3) execute management consistently
What is a time vs cost trade off
Less time = increased cost (crashing)
What is a risk event
It is a discrete occurrence and is describable as a cause and associated with risk consequence
“Maybe it will happen, maybe it won’t”
What is an issue
They are certainties and are evaluated and managed differently then risks
What are the ten steps for team based risk management
- prepare
- build communications with common language
- generate list of teams concerns
- classify
- analyze the risk
- prioritize Risk and issues
- plan risk responses and manage issues
- integrate responses into project strategy and document project baseline commitments
- execute and control the risk-response strategy
- learning from risk management activities
What are the steps to PREPARE for a Risk management meeting
- review some fundamental questions
- identify stake holders
- research last projects
- communicate the purpose
What are 4 forms of risk that need to be classified
Technical risk source
Logistic risk source
Programatic risk source
Commercial risk source
What are 4 generic risk strategies that the team should consider
Risk avoidance
Risk mitigation
Risk transference
Risk acceptance
What are three organizational forms
1) functional
2) project
3) matrix
How does functional organization differ from project
In functional… The hierarchy is divided into subgroups according to function: engineering, finance, sales, manufacturing ect)
In project… The subgroups are separated into individual projects: (project A, project B ect)
What is meant by the quote
“Get the right people, and get the people right”
You must have qualified people and people that can work well with others
What is the basic analysis process when staffing a project
Requirements
Competencies
Availability
