PRELIM EXAM Flashcards
to ensure that as the project progresses, it achieves the objectives you have defined within the time and cost specified
Manage the project
Projects have five dimensions that can be flexed – the scope, ________, the time, the cost and the level of risk taken
the quality
shows how to do your project, and from it you can see how long the project will take and how much it will cost.
Project Plan
as a deliverable oriented hierarchical decomposition of the work to be executed by the project team
Work Breakdown Structure
You know from the first question what you are setting out to deliver. However, is that really everything? If you think about it, there may be other things you need at the same time, or which it is sensible to do while you are doing the work on the main project. These need to be included in your Project Definition.
WILL YOU (SHOULD YOU) DELIVER ANYTHING ELSE?
is a task with a desired endpoint
Project
Sometimes there are activities and deliverables, which for one reason or another, you want to exclude from the scope of the project, which otherwise might be thought to be included in it. It is worth being very explicit and noting these down as the scope is as much to gain an understanding of what will not be delivered as what will be.
IS ANYTHING EXPLICITLY EXCLUDED FROM THE PROJECT?
Project customer is one type of ____________
stakeholder
Planning builds on the normal human approach of breaking problems that are too large to resolve in one go into smaller chunks. This process is called _____________ by project managers.
decomposition
are useful to track progress at a high level and to communicate to people outside the project – to understand where you are in project progress without needing to know the details.
Milestones
is about reaching that endpoint predictably, which usually means to a given cost and within a planned amount of time
Project Management
We all make assumptions, if we didn’t, we would never get anything done because we would be frantically proving everything before we could move on. However, when you make assumptions in a project, you should do so consciously and note them down. The problem with assumptions is that they can be wrong.
WHAT ASSUMPTIONS (IF ANY) ARE YOU MAKING?
project you go through the lifecycle once, doing each step once
Waterfall
Almost every project has some problems and challenges to overcome – if it didn’t you might not need a project in the first place! When you start out you should note down anything significant. This is not an attempt to get a complete list of all possible problems but you should capture the ones you are aware of, as they may impact the way you do your project. What does ‘significant’ mean in this situation? A significant problem is one that will materially affect the cost or time of the project, or change the way you approach it – and which you think there is some chance will occur.
ARE THERE ANY SIGNIFICANT PROBLEMS YOU ARE AWARE OF THAT YOU MUST OVERCOME?
is to understand enough project management to apply its rigor and structure and ensure your project is successfully completed within the time and cost you require
Project Manager
A project plan sometimes called a _________ is a blueprint of the goals, objectives, and task your team needs to accomplish for a specific project.
work plan
to make sure everything produced by the project is of the quality expected and work as required
Complete the project properly
If you are starting a project, it is nice to have complete freedom as to how you do it. This is rarely true. Often your customer will have a fixed time in which it must be completed, or a maximum cost. Conditions come in many forms, for example there are rules, guidelines, regulations and legislation about the way you must do some things (such as health and safety rules and industry regulations). It is important to note you are not yet saying you can complete the project with these constraints – merely that you understand them.
HAS THE CUSTOMER, OR THE SITUATION, SET ANY SPECIFIC CONDITIONS OR CONSTRAINTS ON THE WAY YOU DO THIS PROJECT?
This needs to be a clear statement of the reason why you are doing the project – what you will be able to achieve when you have done the project that you cannot achieve now.
WHY DO YOU WANT TO DO THIS PROJECT?
your project plan should include information about your project schedule, scope, due dates, and deliverables for all phases of the _____________
project lifecycle
This is the fundamental question. You are doing a project to deliver something. This may be some tangible object like a new house, or a new product launched; it may be something less tangible, such as creating useful new software. Finally, it may be something completely intangible such as a change in people’s attitudes. (If this sounds too nebulous, consider that this is what a marketing campaign sets out to do. A marketing campaign is a project.) One way to think about your deliverables is to ask yourself ‘How will I know when the project is finished – what will I have that I don’t have now?’
WHAT WILL YOU HAVE AT THE END OF THIS PROJECT THAT YOU DON’T HAVE NOW?
Often when you start a project, you find that there is someone else doing something similar or related already. Your goal is to get something done, not to do it twice. Find out if this other project will do part of your work for you. If it will, and it will do it in the timeframe you need, you don’t need to do it as well.
ARE THERE ANY GAPS OR OVERLAPS WITH OTHER PROJECTS – OR CHANGES TO THE BOUNDARIES OF YOUR PROJECT?
