Module 4 Work Breakdown Structure

Question 1

Integration management:

Answer 1

This process takes all subsidiary documents such as scope management plan, requirements management plan, and other project documents and integrates them into the project management plan.

Question 2

Scope management:

Answer 2

This process involves recording requirements gathered from all the stakeholders and facilitates defining scope and creating a work breakdown structure. A work breakdown structure (WBS) is a detailed breakdown of all tasks/activities required to complete the project. The scope definition and the WBS will be part of the project plan.

Question 3

Schedule management

Answer 3

During this process the project manager creates the schedule for the project, using the WBS as the source document. The project manager also establishes the sequence of all activities for the project and major milestones. The schedule management plan contains the schedule and the policies, procedures, and documentation for managing and controlling the schedule. The project plan includes all outputs of this process.

Question 4

Cost management:

Answer 4

Here costs are estimated and the budget is determined. This process is primarily concerned with establishing costs required for the resources needed to undertake the project. The project plan contains the budget, costs for each activity, resources required, and other documentation that establishes how the project costs are planned, structured, and controlled.

Question 5

Quality management:

Answer 5

This process establishes quality requirements and defines how to maintain quality standards throughout the project. Quality management will be different based on the deliverables. For example, software quality will be measured differently from construction quality. The quality management plan, also included in the project plan, contains all information regarding how quality is measured and how it will be implemented.

Question 6

Resource management

Answer 6

This is where project roles, responsibilities, and relationships are established. The project plan will contain a list of team members, reporting structure, and relationships, and skills required by the project.

Question 7

Communication management

Answer 7

Communication planning is important to the success of any project. The project plan must contain a plan on how stakeholders will communicate. Information such as documents they need to receive, how often they need to receive them, and the method with which the documents will be distributed is all part of the communication plan.

Question 8

Risk management

Answer 8

In addition to defining how to conduct the risk management activities, the project plan will also include a risk assessment, which involves creating a probability and impact matrix. This is a grid that maps out the probability of each risk occurrence and the impact it has on the project.

Question 9

Procurement management

Answer 9

A lot of projects require the purchase of materials and or services from outside the project team. The project plan will identify the need for these materials and or services and will plan the contract management and change control processes required to administer the contracts.

Question 10

Stakeholder management

Answer 10

Stakeholders are all very important to the project. It is critical that the project plan identify the people, groups, or organizations that may impact the project. Other information such as the stakeholders’ interests, involvement, dependencies, and influence to the project will be specified in the project plan.

Question 11

Purpose of project planning

Answer 11

Ensure execution phase goes smoothly.
More time planning processes, the smoother it will run and you will encounter fewer surprises. May abandon project before you start.

Question 12

What do you want to establish in the project planning phase?

Answer 12

Business requirements
Budget breakdowns
Schedules
Deliverables
All resources required
Final step = sponsor approval

Question 13

Project integration managment

Answer 13

Looks at all processes to determine how they are integrated or depending on one another.
A change in one may cause change in another.
Project management plan is a deliverable (output) for project integration management.
Need to be dynamic and flexible. Expect change.

Question 14

Project management scope

Answer 14

Includes collecting requirement, defining scope an d creating a work breakdown structure (WBS)

Question 15

WBS

Answer 15

Work breakdown structure
Breaks down requirements into smaller components and then manageable tasks called work packages. Allows you to easily identify how long a task should take to accomplish. Identify costs, resources and time.
Should be in nouns, WBS describes WHAT, not how or when.
Deliverable oriented, necessary to obtain project goals.
Deliverable-oriented grouping of work for a project.

Question 16

Outputs of project management scope

Answer 16

Scope management plan
Requirements management plan
Requirements documentation
Requirements traceability matrix
Project scope statement
Project documents updates
Scope baseline

Question 17

Scope management plan

Answer 17

Contains descriptions of the processes for preparing the scope statement.
Describes how scope is created, monitored and controlled.
Derived through meetings, consultations of experts, existing processes, surveys, existing reports and other information provided as input to the process.

Question 18

Requirements management plan

Answer 18

Contains planning, tracking, and reporting requirements, and prioritizes those requirements.
From various sources and degrees of importance.
includes how requirements will be planned, tracked, and documented. Information such as prioritizing, tracking, and applying some sort of metrics to them is identified.

Question 19

Requirements documentation

Answer 19

A variety of documents that can help identify requirements, such as checklists, notebooks, diagrams, reports, etc.

Question 20

Requirements traceability matrix

Answer 20

This document maintains the link from the source of each requirement from decomposition to implementation and verification.

Question 21

Project scope statement

Answer 21

This document should include a product scope description, product user acceptance criteria, and detailed information on all project deliverables.

Question 22

Project documents updates

Answer 22

Any project documents that need updating as more information is identified.

Question 23

Scope baseline

Answer 23

This is the approved project scope statement and its associated WBS.

Question 24

Deliverables

Answer 24

Something that the project creates.
May be one deliverable or many.
Typically include all documents such as plans, schedules, budgets, risk assessments, user guides.
Measurable and specific.
Sometimes signify that a milestone has been reached or it determines the completion of the project.

Question 25

Scope creep

Answer 25

Changes to the project that are not documented or approved by the project manager.

Question 26

Ways to collect requirements

Answer 26

Reports, people, processes, past projects, observations, and other methods applicable to the project.
Gathering this data is a tedious job, and it’s easy to go off on a tangent in terms of the needs, wants, and wishes of what should be included in the project.
However, everything should be written down as given by the stakeholders.

Question 27

Traceability matrix

Answer 27

Table that lists each requirement, source of the requirement, priority, and other attributes you’ve included.
Usually kept in PM software.
By tracking this information in software, the project manager can update the information and maintain a history of changes to the project requirements.
Process depends on size, complexity, and importance of the project.
Once the requirements have been approved, the scope statement can be created.

Question 28

WBS Dictionary

Answer 28

A WBS dictionary provides detailed information about each item in the WBS. Each item can be described in point form, or in paragraph form.
Level Code Title Description
1 0 Floor All activities concerned with the floor.
1 1 Hardwood Cleaning of hardwood floor
1 1.1 Sweep Sweep the hardwood floor
1 1.2 Wash Wash the hardwood floor
1 2 Carpet All activities associated with cleaning the carpet
1 2.1 Vacuum Vacuum the carpeting
2 0 Furniture All activities associated with cleaning furniture
2 1 Coffee table All activities associated with cleaning the coffee table

Question 29

Top down approach to WBS

Answer 29

Starting at highest level and breaking project into smaller pieces. Refines work into greater and greater detail, work becomes a single unit of work called work packages. Resources allocated based on work packages

Question 30

Bottom up approach to WBS

Answer 30

Start at requirements level (details) and group similar requirements together. Activities are aggregated into summary activities at various levels as appropriate.

Question 31

Difference between scope planning for predictive and agile projects

Answer 31

Agile projects, planning is always at a high level until the end of the project. Agile teams write down only what is necessary during the sprint to make sure everyone understands what is happening. Changes are expected so requirements can change after each iteration.

Predictive: planning done upfront in great detail.

Question 32

Backlog Refinement

Answer 32

During backlog refinement the project team and product owner review items in the backlog to ensure appropriate items are listed, each item is correctly prioritized, and the items at the top of the backlog are ready for delivery.

Question 33

Activities during backlog refinement

Answer 33

Remove user stories that are not relevant to the project
Create new user stories based on new information
Re-prioritize user stories
Estimate and re-estimate duration for each user story
Adjust user stories to meet the duration of the upcoming iterations

Question 34

Value breakdown structure (VBS)

Answer 34

Level 1 - Name of project
Level 2 - Epics
Level 3 - User stories

Question 35

Epic

Answer 35

Large story that cannot be delivered as a separate story but is further broken down into two or more user stories.

Question 36

User Story

Answer 36

User stories are short requirements or requests written from the perspective of an end-user, similar to requirements in predictive projects.

Question 37

Story card

Answer 37

Write down key requirements. Contains a title, value statement, basic requirements, size or estimation (size can be small, medium, large, etc or another estimating approach), and acceptance criteria.

Question 38

Validation

Answer 38

Formal acceptance of deliverables by the sponsor

Question 39

Requirements

Answer 39

Are conditions or capabilities that must be met by the project or present in the product, service, or result to satisfy an agreement or other formally imposed specification.

Question 40

Outputs of planning for project integration and scope management in predictive projects

Answer 40

PM plan
Scope mgmt plan
WBS

Question 41

PM plan

Answer 41

Developed by predictive project team to coordinate all other project plans

Question 42

What’s normally on the back of a story card?

Answer 42

Acceptance criteria