FInal Flashcards
Statement of Work (Minimum Content) 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.
- Purpose Statement: sets out the goal and justification for the project
- Scope Statement: all work required to meet project objectives.
- Deliverables: output
- Cost and Schedule Estimates
- Measure of Success: customer acceptance criteria.
- Stakeholders: anyone who will influence the project.
- Chain of Command: organizational chart
Responsibility Matrix
RAM: Responsibility Assignment Matrix
RACI Chart: Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed)
What is it, what are its components?
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Responsibility Matrix
Document that precisely details the responsibilities of each group involved in a project
- List the major activities of the project.
- List the stakeholder groups
- Code the responsibility matrix. The code indicate the involvement level, authority role, and responsibility of each stakeholder:
a. R-Responsible for execution. This person or group will get the work done.
b. A-Approval authority. This person has the final work on decision or on acceptance of the work performed (has the final accountability for this activity).
c. C-Must be consulted. This group must be consulted as the activity is performed. The groups opinion counts, but it doesn’t rule.
d. I-Must be informed. This group just wants to know what decision are being made.
Project Charter
An announcement that the project exists. The purpose of the charter is to demonstrate management support for the project and the project manager. It is a simple, powerful tool.
How a project is defined:
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- Every project has a beginning and an end.
2. Every project produces a unique product.
Ongoing Operations
No end and they produce similar, often identical products
The Challenge of Managing Projects: 1. 2. 3. 4.
- Personnel. Every project has different personnel needs. The number of people needed and their different skills sets are different for each project.
- Estimating. In order to evaluate potential projects, organizations need accurate estimates of costs and schedules.
- Authority. Organization charts define authority within a firm, but they usually represent the ongoing operation of the firm.
- Controls. Normal accounting practices match operational budgets to operational costs on a quarterly or an annual basis. But these time frames are not sufficient to keep a project on track.
The Definition of Project Success:
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- On Time
- On Budget
- High Quality - Must Meet Customer’s Expectations
The Cost-Schedule-Quality Equilibrium
- Cost
- Schedule
- Quality
Change one or more of these variables, and the ones remaining will also be changed. This relationship is also called triple-constraint.
Success formula for project managers: 1. 2. 3. 4.
- Set realistic expectations about the cost-schedule-quality equilibrium with all the project’s stakeholders and connect these constraints to the business case used to justify the project.
- Manage expectations throughout the project. If the equilibrium changes, make sure everybody knows and accepts the new equilibrium.
- If at any point it appears that delivering to the cost-schedule-quality target will fail to meet the original business objective, re-evaluate the target.
- Deliver the promised product, on time and within budget.
Project Life Cycle 1. 2. 3. 4.
- Define - The phase begins when a project and a project manager are names in a charter, and it is completed when the project rules are approved.
- Plan - Project manager begins building the project plan.
- Execute - We are now at the stage of performing the actual work as approved in the plan. This phase probably takes 90 percent or more of the project’s effort. The execution phase is complete when the goal of the project is reached.
- Closeout
Product Life Cycle Versus Project Life Cycle
- The product development life cycle describes the work required to create the product. The project life cycle focuses on managing the work.
- A product development life cycle may contain many projects, each of which must go through the full project life cycle.
Organizing for Projects
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- Function-driven organization (PM has little power)
- Matrix organization (mixed)
- Project-oriented organization (PM has high power)
○ Program consist of many related projects, but unlike a single project, they have no specific completion date expected.
Product Scope VS. Project Scope
Product scope consists of the features and performance specification described in product design specifications.
Project scope is all the work necessary to meet project objectives.
Known Unknown
We don’t know exactly what will happen, but we do know it has a potential to damage our project and we can prepare for it
Unknown Unknown
The problems that arrive unexpectedly. These are the ones you honestly couldn’t have seen coming
Risk Management Framework 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
- Identify Risks
- Analyze and Prioritize (assign probabilities)
- Develop a Risk Response (Strategies)
- Establish Reserves (set aside additional funding should risks occur)
- Continuous Risk Management (monitor effects of changes to the project)
Defining the WBS 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.
- It identifies all the tasks in a project (Task list)
- Turns one large, unique project - into many small, manageable tasks.
- It uses outputs from project definition and risk management and identifies the task that are the foundation for all subsequent planning.
- Graphic format: paints a picture that makes it easy to understand all the parts of a project
- Outlined format: is more practical because you can list hundreds of tasks on it-far more than can be listed using graphic approach.
- Helps provide a detailed illustration of project scope.
- Monitor progress. The tasks on the WBS become the basis for monitoring progress, because each is a measurable unit of work.
- Create accurate cost and schedule estimates.
- Build project teams. Every team member wants clear work assignments and a sense of how his or her work fits into the overall effort.
WBS Summary Task
Not usually executed; rather it summarizes the subordinate work packages
WBS Work Packages
The ones that are actually executed. You need to make sure your work packages are subsets of your summary tasks
Building a WBS
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- Begin at the Top
- Name all the tasks required to produce deliverables
- How to Organize the WBS
Criteria for Successful WBS
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- The WBS must be broken down at the top. It is a top down decomposition.
- Work packages must add up to the summary task.
- Each summary task and work package must be named as an activity that produces a product. This means giving each task a descriptive name that includes a strong verb-the activity- and a strong noun-the product.
Work Package Size
The 8/80 rule. No tasks should be smaller than 8 labor hours or larger than 80. This translates into keeping your work packages between 1 and 10 days long
Realistic Schedules Include: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
- Detailed knowledge of the work to be done
- Have task sequences in the correct order
- Account for external constraints beyond the control of the team
- Can be accomplished on time, given the availability of skilled people and enough equipment
- Consider all the objectives of the project
Planning Overview
Preparing Activities:
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Planning Steps: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
Preparing Activities:
- Create the project definition. SOW
- Develop a risk management strategy
Planning Steps:
- Build a work breakdown structure (WBS)
- Identify task relationships
- Estimate work packages
- Calculate initial schedule
- Assign and level resources
Planning Step Two: Identify Task Relationships:
The sequence in which detailed tasks-work packages- are performed is determined by the relationship between the tasks. Two different ways of recording sequence constraints:
1. Predecessor table 2. Network diagram
Three great reasons to use milestones:
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- Project start and finish milestones are useful anchors for the network.
- Milestones can be used to mark input from one party to another.
- A milestone can represent significant events that aren’t already represented by a work package or summary task.
The Types of Task Relationships:
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- Finish-to-start: One task must be completed before its successor task can begin.
- Start-to-start: Start-to-start relationships allow the successor task to begin when the predecessor begins.
- Finish-to-finish: Finish-to-finish tasks can start independently of each other, but the successor cannot finish until the predecessor finishes.
Planning Step Three: Estimate Work Packages:
In order to determine the cost and duration of an entire project, it’s necessary to build a cost and schedule estimate for each work package; this is called bottom-up estimating
Cost Estimates from Four Sources: 1. 2. 3. 4.
- Labor estimates (how much human effort will be put into a task).
- Equipment estimates (Equipment requirements needed).
- Materials estimates
- Fixed-price bids (Fixed-estimate costs can replace the three previous cost sources).
Planning Step Four: Calculate an Initial Schedule: Early Start - Early Finish - Late Start - Late Finish -
- Early start - the earliest date a task can start, given the tasks preceding it.
- Early finish - the earliest date a task can finish, given the tasks preceding it.
- Late start - the latest date a task can start without delaying the finish date of the project.
- Late finish - the latest date a task can finish without delaying the finish date of the project.
Calculating the schedule to determine the early start, early finish, late start, late finish is a three-step process:
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- Step One: Forward Pass
- Step Two: Backward Pass
- Step Three: Calculate Float
Project Proposal should explain the following:
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- The core reason for the potential project
- The balance of expected costs and expenses
- The future state to be achieved if project is performed
Project proposals are used to move a project from an idea to a tangible goal
Estimating techniques 1. 2. 3 4.
- Phased Estimating: it requires cost and schedule commitments for only one phase of the project at a time.
- Apportioning: top-down estimating, it begins with a total project estimate, then assigns a percentage of that total to each of the phases and tasks of the project.
- Parametric Estimates: seeks a basic unit of work to act as a multiplier to size the entire project. It is based on historic data.
- Bottom-Up Estimating: most accurate. All the detailed tasks are estimated and then combined, or rolled up.
Scrum
A management approach designed for incremental delivery.
To deliver a product incrementally requires three activities:
- A decision about what increment of a product to deliver
- A team to build and deliver that increment quickly
- Feedback from the customer on whether the product is useful
Three most common project constraints:
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- Time: The project, as defined, won’t be finished in the time originally envisioned in the project rules.
- Money: The project can deliver the desired outcome on schedule, but the cost is too high.
- Resources: The project cost is acceptable, but the schedule calls for people, equipment, or materials that aren’t available. You could afford them, but they aren’t to hire.
Three Levels of Balancing a Project:
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- Project: Balancing at the project level requires making changes that keep the project on track for its original cost, schedule, and quality objectives.
- Business case: If the project cannot achieve its cost-schedule-quality goals, then the equilibrium among these three factors must be reexamined. The decision to change the project goals is beyond the authority of the project manager and the team.
- Enterprise: When the project and business case balance, but the firm has to choose which project to pursue, it is then balancing the project at the enterprise level. Choosing which projects to pursue is absolutely beyond the power of the project manager and the team.
