Fundamentals Flashcards
Application Areas
Areas of expertise, industry, or function where project is centered. Ex.: IT, construction, health care.
Business Value
Quantifiable ROI. Can be tangible (e.g., equipment, money, market share) or intangible (brand recognition, trademarks, and reputation).
Cultural and Social Environment
Defines how a project affects people and how people may affect the project. Ex.: economic, educational, ethnic, religious, demographic composition of people affected by project.
Deliverable
Product, service, or result created by a project.
General Management Skills
Includes application of accounting, procurement, sales and marketing, contracting, manufacturing, logistics, etc.
International and Political Environment
Consideration of local and international laws, languages, communication of challenges, time zone differences, and other non-collocated issues that affect a project’s ability to progress.
Interpersonal Skills
Ability to interact, lead, motivate, and manage people.
Iron Triangle of PM
Time, cost, and scope. If any side is not balanced, project will suffer. AKA Triple Constraints of PM.
Physical Environment
Physical structure and surroundings that affect a project’s work.
Process Group
Collect of related processes in PM. Five procress groups and 49 PM processes.
Initiating, Planning, Executing, Monitoring and Controlling, and Closing.
Progressive Elaboration
Process of gathering project details. Uses deductive reasoning, logic, series of info-gathering techniques to identify details about a product, project, or solutions.
Project
Temporary endeavor to create a unique product, service, or result. End result = deliverable.
Project Benefits Management Plan
Created and maintained by project sponsor and PM. Defines what benefits project will create, when they will be realized, and how they will be measured.
Project Business Case
Created and maintained by project sponsor. Shows financial validity of why a project is chartered and launched within an org. Typically created before launch of project and may be used as go/no go decision point.
Project Environment
Location and culture of environment where project work will reside. Includes social, economic, and environmental variables project must work with or around.
Project Life Cycle
Phases that make up the project. Unique to the type of work being performed and not universal to all projects.
Project Management Office (PMO)
Central office that oversees all projects within an org. or a functional department. Supports PM through software training, templates, policies, communication, dispute resolution, and other services.
Project Portfolio Management
Management and selection of projects that support an org.’s vision and mission. Balance of project priority, risk, reward, and ROI. Senior management process.
Subprojects
Smaller project managed within a larger, parent project. Often contracted work whose deliverable allows larger project to progress.
Work Performance Data
Raw data, observations, measurements about project components. Gathered and stored in PMIS.
Work Performance Information
Processed and analyzed data to help PM make project decisions.
Work Performance Reports
Formatted communication of work performance info. Communicated what’s happening through status reports, memos, dashboards, or other modalities.
Project Initiation Context
- regulatory, legal, or social requirements
- SH request (internal, like tech. updates)
- Technological advances
- Create, improve, or fix processes, products, or services
Project Management Life Cycle
IPECC
Program Management
Multiple related projects managed together to achieve benefits. Program and project managers work together.
Three Types of PMOs
Controlling
Supportive
Directive
Controlling PMO
Compliance through a framework - specific forms and templates, governance.
Supportive PMO
Consultative role, templates, training
Directive PMO
Directly manages project as PMO owns and controls project life cycle.
Organizational Project Management (OPM)
Coordinate, manage, and control projects, programs, and portfolios in a uniform and consistent way.
Project-based Organization
Income generated by doing projects for others (e.g., construction, consulting)
Tailoring the Process
- Choose what the process looks like
- What depth processes should be
- Not every process needed in every project
- Larger project often need more processes.
Predictive Life Cycle
Plan drive. Waterfall approach. Predicts project life cycle. Changes to scope are tightly controlled. Think construction - know phases.
Adaptive Life Cycle
Change driven - agile PM. Rapid iterations or project work. Backlog of requirements - prioritized into sprints by team, no change within a sprint.
Iterative and Incremental Life Cycles
Phases repeated through iterations, which create deliverables. Changes expected - scope elaborated.
Increments - give in increments and add features.
Iterative - iterations to create final.
Phase Gate
Review of progress in a phase. Cannot move on until 100% done, approved, and accounted for.
Project Benefits Management Plan Charactertistics
Targeted benefits, strategic alignment, timeframe, metrics, assumptions, and risks.
Business Case Components
Business needs, project justification, and business strategy.
General Phase Requirements
Feasibility, design, build, test, deploy, and close
