PM 2500 Flashcards
Operation Definition
- ongoing execution of activities
- same product / repetitive service
- standard processes or procedures
routine - never-ending projects
Project Definition
- Defined as a temporary endeavour undertaken to create a unique product, service or result
- a definite beginning and end.
- Projects are temporary but the product, service or result can exist beyond the duration of the project.
Examples of Projects
- Service - website, internet, banking
- Product - (tangible) construction, car, cell phone
- Result - (no tangible product or service) research
Examples of Operations
- Running routine reports on an organization’s dashboard
- Meeting every Mon, Wed, Fri with the clinical team
Operations Vs Projects
- Running a B & B vs. establishing a new B & B
- Assembly line producing existing models of cars vs. design of a new model of car
- Management of visiting a tourist destination (Whistler, Butchart Gardens) vs. creating a new tourist destination in Squamish.
Outcome
An end result or consequence of the process or project”. Outcomes can include outputs and artifacts, but have a broader intent by focusing on the benefits and value that the project was undertaken to deliver.
Product
An artifact that is produced, is quantifiable, and can be either an end item in itself or a component item.
Objectives of a project
- Outcomes or Products or a combination of both.
- Need to be determined at the beginning of the project.
- Documented in the project charter, must be clear and achievable.
Strategic alignment
- Should be in every project charter.
- project initiation should align with company’s strategic goals.
- More likely to be supported if they align.
Project Management definition
Application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to project activities to meet project requirements.
- Balancing constraints (scope, quality, schedule, budget, resources, HR management).
Portfolio
Collection of “projects, programs, subsidiary portfolios, and operations managed as a group to achieve strategic objectives.
- large number of projects that may or may not be related.
Program
Group of “related projects, subsidiary programs, and program activities managed in a coordinated way to obtain benefits not available from managing them individually.
- coordinated to maximize benefits and control
Project
Individual Projects that are either within or outside of a program are still considered part of a portfolio.
Projects are often used as a means for achieving the goals and objectives within an organization’s strategic plan.
Project Manager
- Responsible for ensuring project objectives are met.
- ## Person assigned to lead the project team.
Personal Effectiveness
Effective - doing the right thing at the right time.
Efficient - using the appropriate resources
Project Manager Functions
- Oversight and coordination
- Present objectives and feedback
- Facilitate and support
- Perform work and contribute insights
- Apply expertise
- Provide business direction and insight
- Provide resource and direction
- Maintain governance.
Oversight and coordination
lead, monitor, and control activities; also includes evaluation and analysis. Includes monitoring and working to improve overall well-being of project team members.
Present objectives and feedback
collaborate with customers and end users to provide perspectives and insight.
Customer
individual or group who has requested or is funding the project and the end user is the individual or group who will experience the direct user of the project deliverable
Facilitate and Support
People in this function encourage participation, collaboration and a shared sense of responsibility for outputs. Includes evaluation of performance and the provision of feedback for learning and growth.
Perform work and contribute insights
Provide the knowledge, skills, and experience necessary to product the products and realize the outcomes of the project.
Apply expertise
Subject matter experts and provide expertise in the project, offering advice and support and contribute to the project team’s learning process and work accuracy
Provide business direction and insight
Guide and clarify the direction of the project or product outcome. - Review requirements to prioritize
- Feedback allows for efficient interaction amongst stakeholders, customers and team.
Provide resource and direction
Promote the project and communicate the organizations’ vision, goals and expectations”, and are advocates. Useful for escalating issues/risks, this function pushes decisions outside the authority of the project team.
Maintain governance
Approve and support recommendations made by the project team and monitor project progress in achieving the desired outcomes.
Competencies (Hard Skills) of PMs
Skills are easily quantifiable unlike soft skills which are related to one’s personality.
- Technical PM Leadership
- Strategic and Business Management
- Knowing the business (e.g. carpenter, engineer, electrician) if applicable
Competencies (Soft Skills) of a PMs
combination of people skills, social skills, communication skills, character traits, attitudes, career attributes, social intelligence and emotional intelligence quotients among others.
- Team Building
- Motivation
- Communication
- Decision making
- Political and cultural awareness
- Negotiation
- Trust building
- Conflict management
- Coaching
Other skills
- Conflict management
- Financial Management and Accounting
- Purchasing and Procurement
- Sales and Marketing
- Unions and Collective - Agreements
- Contract and Commercial Law
- Manufacturing and Distribution
- Supply Chain Management
- Strategic Planning
- Organizational Development
- Health and Safety
4 major phases of a project
AKA project life cycle. Starting a project, organizing and preparing, carrying out the work, and ending the project.
Involve uncertainty (risks - opportunities and threats). Must produce deliverables to proceed to the next phase.
Once a project is divided into phases, each phase becomes a sub-project and will go through its own process groups. (process groups ARE NOT phases of project).
Value
worth, importance, or usefulness of something. Defined differently by groups:
- Customers: ability to use specific features or functions of a product.
- Organizations: business value as determined with financial metrics.
- Societal: contribution to groups of people, communities, or the environment.
Tangible vs Intangible Value
Tangible (Monetary assets, Stakeholder Equity, Tools, Market Share)
Intangible (Goodwill, Brand Recognition, Public Benefit, Reputation)
5 process groups
Initiating, Planning, Executing, Monitoring & Controlling, and Closing.
Each phase will follow each of of the 5 process groups.
Why have phases?
- Added control; easier to control larger projects
- Reduce or mitigate risk
- Logical sub-sets of the work – distinct focus
- Generally sequential, sometimes there may be an overlap
- Significant deliverable
- Celebrate successes between phases prior to commencing next phase
- Go-no-go, stage gates, kill points (all mean the same thing) the opportunity to the organization to close a project
Attributes of phases
- The work in the specific phase is different from other phases.
- Deliverables or objectives require processes unique to the phase.
- Closure involves the transfer of deliverable. The closure generally requires approval.
Project phase examples
- Feasibility study
- Design
- Build
- Test
- Deploy
- Close
Phase-end review
Each phase formally initatied.
During review - explicit goal of obtaining authorization to close current phase and initiate subsequent phase.
AKA: phase exits, phase gates, kill points
Kill points
stakeholders decide that the project is not worth completing in its current state. It may be restarted with different criteria.
Go/No-Go
- when a project requires a decision being made to continue with the remainder of the project or not
- If you need to pause, recheck or to re-verify in your project, then you have a no-go decision
Initiation Process Group
Processes performed to define a new project or a new phase of an existing project by obtaining authorization to start the project or phase.
- initial scope is defined
- initial financial resources are committed
- Internal and external stakeholders identified (initial list)
- PM selected
Planning Process Group
Processes required to establish the total scope of the effort, refine the objectives, and define the course of action required to attain the objectives that the project was undertaken to achieve.
- Develop the Project Management Plan
- Develop project documents
Significant changes occurring throughout the project life cycle trigger a need to revisit one or more of the planning processes and possibly some of the initiating processes.
Executing Process Group
Processes performed to complete the work defined in the PM Plan to satisfy the project requirements.
- Coordinating people and resources
- Managing stakeholder expectations
- Integrating and performing the activities of the project
- Creates planning updates and re-baselining (changes to activity durations, resource productivity and availability, and deal with unanticipated risks).
Monitoring and Controlling Process Group
processes required to track, review and regulate the progress and performance of the project; identify any areas in which changes to the plan are required; and initiate corresponding changes
The key benefit is that project performance is measured and analyzed at regular intervals, appropriate events, or exception conditions, to identify variances, so that corrective action can be taken.
- Recommending corrective or preventive action
- Monitoring the ongoing project activities against the Project Management Plan
- Monitoring the project performance measurement baseline
- Ensuring approved changes are being implemented
Preventive actions
proactive actions exercised to eliminate the cause of mistake/error and to prevent the occurrence.
Corrective actions
Actions employed to eliminate the cause of the mistake/error in order to mitigate its recurrence. Corrective actions should always be followed by a preventive action.
Closing process group
Processes performed to formally complete or close a project, phase, or contract.
- Obtain acceptance by the customer or sponsor to formally close the project or phase
- Conduct post-project or phase-end review
- Record impacts of tailoring to any process
- Document lessons learned
- Apply appropriate updates to organizational process assets
- Archive all relevant project documents in the project management information system (PMIS) to be used as historical data
- Close out all procurement activities, ensuring termination of all relevant agreements
- Perform team members’ assessments and release project resources
Project Charter
Formally authorizes the project or phase
Project Management Plan
- States how the project will be executed, monitored and controlled
- Subsidiary plans to address scope, schedule, cost, quality, etc., management
- Project Documents to address management activities across knowledge areas
Project life cycle
The series of phases that a project passes through from its start to its completion
Project phase
A collection of logically related project activities that culminates in the completion of one or more deliverables.
Phase gate
A review at the end of a phase in which a decision is made to continue to the next phase, to continue with modification, or to end a program or project.
Project management processes
A systematic series of activities directed toward causing an end result where one or more inputs will be acted upon to create one or more outputs.
Project management process group
a logical grouping of project management inputs, tools and techniques, and outputs. the project management process groups include initiating, planning, executing, monitoring and controlling, and closing. PM process groups are not project phases.
PM knowledge area
An identified area of PM defined by its knowledge requirements an described in terms of its component processes, practices, inputs, outputs, tools, and techniques.
In which Process Group do the knowledge areas Scope Management and Schedule Management occur?
Planning Process Group
Rationale: Meaningful planning is vital to the successful execution of a project.
Would “Organizing the Winter Olympics” be considered a “project” or “operations”? And provide rationale
Project: The Olympics would be a project as it has a defined start and stop. The end is reached at the end of the games. The objectives have been met.
Stakeholder Definition
An individual, group, or organizations that may:
affect, be affected by or perceive itself to be affected by a decision, activity, or outcome of a project, program or portfolio
who directly or indirectly influence a project and its performance or outcome in either a positive or negative way
Analyze and document stakeholder…
- Requirements (wants)
- Expectations (ambiguous/undefined requirements)
- Interests (do they care?)
- Involvement (if/how) good communication needed, determine timing.
- Interdependencies (who is connected)
- Influence (+ or -)
- Potential impact on project success
Stakeholders are impacted by:
A decision
An activity
Outcomes of the project, program or portfolio.
Examples of stakeholders
Customers
Sponsors
The Performing Organization
The Public
The Functional Manager
Where (documents) can you identify stakeholders
- Project Charter
- Business Documents
- Project Management Plan
- Project Documents
- Agreements
- Procurement Documents
- Enterprise Environmental Factors
- Organizational Process Assets
Groups
Groups of individuals that have no organizational title
Organizations
Groups of individuals acting with an organizational title (for example, the Health & Safety Department, WorkPlace Health, WorksafeBC)
Project balance
balance demands, needs and expectations as they all influence the project based on their amount of power.
Balance project objectives with stakeholder expectations.
Failure to identify stakeholders
- delays
- cost increases
- unexpected issues
- project cancellation
BCIT has been working on adding another coffee shop to the SW3 Building. The project has been approved and the new coffee shop will be on the main floor. A contractor has been hired to complete the project in three months. Who are the stakeholders for this project?
- Project team
- Health and Safety certification organizations
- Another coffee shop
- Instructors
- Coffee shop suppliers
- Contractors
- BCIT communications department (which class will be affected etc.?)
- BCIT custodian staff
- Finance department
- BCIT staff (administration)
- Hydro and water company (maintenance)
- Students
- Any food and beverage shop
- Patrons
- All those using SW3
- Parking
- Security
- BCIT Board of Directors
Why prioritize stakeholders?
- Saves time and resources
- Assists requirement gathering
- Allows for continuous reviews throughout the project
- Enables PM to take charge and communicate
Power interest grid
Analyze stakeholders based on level of authority (power) and their level of concern (interest) in relation to project outcome.
High power - high interest stakeholders
Decision makers. Greatest impact on project success. Must closely manage their expectations.
High power - low interest stakeholders
Keep them in loop and satisfied. Have power. May exploit their power if they become dissatisfied.
Low power - high interest
Ensure adequately informed. Can be beneficial to the specifics of project.
Low power - low interest
monitor, but don’t tire with unnecessary updates or communication.