Project Environment - Baseline quiz [APM PFQ] - prvi test Flashcards
- Who is responsible for ensuring the project is delivered within quality, cost and time constraints?
- project manager - Which type of project life cycle will have a prioritised product backlog?
- iterative - Which of the following is the first phase in a linear project life cycle?
- concept - Which of the following is best describes project management?
- The application of processes, knowledge, skills and experience to achieve change - Which of the following reviews would take place at the end of the final phase of a project?
- Post project review - Which of the following best describes a programme?
- A unique, transient strategic endeavour to achieve beneficial change incorporating related projects and steady state activities
7. What is a portfolio? - A collection of projects and/or programmes to optimise strategic benefits
8. Which of the following could be causes of uncertainty for a project? - All
9. An end stage report and an end phase report are both: - event driven
10. Which of the following typically delivers outputs only at the end of the life cycle? - Linear life cycle
Here are a few more reasons previous learners gave:
To learn and understand the fundamentals of project management
To gain a fundamental understanding and awareness of common project management terminology
To develop a broad understanding of the principles of project management
To gain the knowledge required to make a positive contribution to any project
Project shaping
- Projects are central to how businesses function
- new words: project output, p. outcome, p. objectives, p. resources, p. start & end point
Justifying the project - before anything starter, the PROJECT SPONSOR needs to justify the project/ to give the project a clear rationale. The project sponsor is also accountable for ensuring that work is governed effectively throughout the project to meet the its identified needs.
The project rationale is typically documented in a business case. This provides the project’s benefits, costs, risks, and alternatives, and is initially created during the project’s concept phase as part of shaping the project.
Scope elements - sometimes a project is delivered to an external client in that situation, the project rationale can take the form of an invitation to bid. Scope of elements are all works and the project’s major outputs that need to be produced. ( For example, GlobalTech could be delivering a new IT system for a client. In our example, the scope elements would be all the components for the IT system and the work required to build it. The business case would include the major components and features of the IT system to be installed.)
Projects and project shaping
Here are a few of the key takeaways about projects and project shaping:
Projects bring beneficial change to organisations. The project delivers an output that will enable the user to deliver the desired outcomes and benefits. The objectives of the project are often defined in terms of cost, time, and quality.
The rationale for the project is documented in the business case. This is owned by the project sponsor during project shaping.
Project management and constraints
-A project manager makes sure the project delivers on time, on budget and to the correct quality. It’s their job to make sure it’s done as effectively and efficiently as possible. A project manager uses formal processes and procedures to increase the likelihood of the project’s success. This is proven to work across different sectors and disciplines.
-Key to a project manager’s success is controlling the triple constraints of time, cost, and quality, shown in figure one. It’s how they increase the likelihood of success.
If you want to speed a project up, you might need to compromise on cost or quality. -As these constraints have a huge impact on project success, the importance of each will be decided by the project sponsor.
Different projects will have different flexibility within each constraint.
-There are also other relevant constraints beyond these main three, such:
as scope, risk, benefit, resource, and arguably most important for many organisations, health and safety.
Six characteristics of all projects
- A project creates a specific output.
- A project always has a specific product as its output. - Project objectives are measured in time, cost, and quality.
- As you saw before, these constraints are flexible depending on the project’s needs, but any project will have these in mind when it defines its objectives. - A project has a life cycle with specific phases.
- Projects are temporary; they have a defined start and end. The phases in between depend on the life cycle of a project. More on this later. - A project is cross-functional.
- A project will draw specialists from different departments and with different expertise. They work together to deliver the project and disband after. - Changing a project costs more as you get nearer the end.
- As a project gets closer to completion, any changes become more expensive, as even a simple change has knock on effects on other parts of the project. - Risk is higher at the start of a project.
- With each step a project takes to completion, you reduce or remove uncertainty as the project progresses and things become more defined. Early on in a project’s life cycle, the opposite is true, and stakeholder influence is greater.
What about business as usual?
A project manager also needs to know what a project isn’t. In this case, we’re talking about business as usual, also called operations. This are the routine, day-to-day, repetitive activities of an organisation. After producing its output, a project ends, but operations are ongoing.
The difference between project and programme
-The programme has many projects: creating the recipe, packaging design, branding, and so on. As each project delivers, its output it closes.
-Using this example, you can summarise the difference between projects and programmes as below:
A project delivers an output and is likely to end before the benefits are realised
A programme continues beyond the delivery of the project output to make sure that the benefits are realised
What is programme management?
Programme management is about making sure you get beneficial change by overseeing the activities of projects and business as usual. A project is likely to end before an organisation feels its benefits, so it needs someone to make sure that the organisation makes use of what’s delivered and that it fits into its everyday activities.
Programme managers don’t manage projects. They co-ordinate and direct multiple related projects and manage the transition of the output into business as usual.
What makes a good programme manager?
Programme managers must be more comfortable dealing with uncertainty and change than project managers. The longer timespan of many programmes means that uncertainty and change are inevitable.
For example, a programme running over a number of years may encounter such things as changes in technology, new legislation, external market influences, or even changes within their own organisation. A good programme manager needs to reprioritise, ending and starting new projects to cope with this change and uncertainty.
Portfolio shaping and management
- A portfolio is a collection of programmes, projects.
- can be run at organisational level ( IT, HR), a functional level, a, a more of a local level ( a department that has a portfolio to manage staff education)
- Portfolios are open-ended, so they’re there to deal with all the changes, for example changes in legislation, changes in environment, and they will coordinate and direct multiple related projects, related programmes, and make sure that benefits at a strategic level are realised effectively. Because without those benefits, the projects, the programmes, really wouldn’t be viable.
Moderator: What is portfolio management and why is it important?
Jo Saunders: So when I worked for a budget airline, we had a wide range of projects and programmes happening in the business and there was no helicopter view of those. So, what we did was we put in a level of portfolio management so that we could take each of these initiatives, prioritise them, make sure they were strategically aligned to, to the corporate objectives. And the importance of that is that you’re protecting your investment, you’re making sure that only the most important pieces of work are happening, they’re happening at the right time, and that you’re using the limited resources you have intelligently.
Moderator: And what are the benefits of portfolio management?
Jo Saunders: Well, really portfolio management is, is great when you’ve got limited resource because you can make sure those resources are allocated intelligently across the pieces of work that you have, you can prioritise the projects. So, you know operational survival projects get the priority rather than, sort of, market competitiveness projects, ‘cause if you can’t survive if you can’t be in the market. And it makes sure that we’ve got a balance between risk and, and benefit, you know, we want this benefit but is it-, do we understand the level of risk that we’re going to take to get that benefit?
The differences between projects, programmes, and portfolios
Projects
Time: temporary
Cost: fixed budget
Risk: focus on project risks
Business as usual: deliver outputs into business as usual
Quality: focus on quality of outputs and project processes
Scope: scope is fixed and subject to change control
Benefits: delivers outputs for the business to realise benefits
Programmes
Time: temporary
Cost: high overall budget and subject to change
Risk: focus on aggregated project risks
Business as usual: work with business as usual to turn outputs into outcomes
Quality: focus on programme processes only
Scope: scope is flexible within recognised limits and subject to change control
Benefits: works with the organisation to realise benefits
Portfolios
Time: ongoing
Cost: varying budget
Risk: focus on risks across the organisation
Business as usual: supports business as usual to try to minimise impacts
Quality: very little focus on quality
Scope: scope is defined by boundary areas rather than a fixed list
Benefits: looks at long term benefits of combined work
Project life cycles:
The project life cycle is typically a series of phases through a project from beginning to end, where we will plan the project, plan the deliverables, and actually deliver outputs, products, that will be used by the customer. What you’ve got to think about is things like, ‘Can we plan this project up front in detail?’
- Linear life cycles
Concept.
This is when an organisation turns its idea into something concrete. From this phase you get the business case, which gives us an outline of what the project’s for and what the benefits will be, typically referred to as the ‘outline business case’.
Definition.
This step builds on the outline business case and develops it in detail, creating a detailed business case. This is also when you undertake a detailed analysis of things like the risks involved, the costs, and timescales. This provides a reference for the project often referred to as the Project Management Plan.
Deployment.
This is the step in which the outputs are built, following the plan put together in the previous phase. You can still make changes to what’s been agreed, but this must be done using the change control process, which was produced and approved during the definition phase. With a linear life cycle, the whole product is built in the deployment phase and then delivered in the transition phase.
Transition.
In this step you hand over what you’ve created to the people who’ll use it, ensuring that acceptance of the product by the customer is given formally.
Incremental life cycles - generally follow the same approach as linear same four phases, and plan the project in detail up front. With a linear life cycle, the whole product is built in the deployment phase and then delivered in the transition phase.
Here is the example of how these two cycles are different: Let’s imagine a project to deliver a series of vehicles to a customer. A linear project will produce all the vehicles in deployment, then hand them over to the customer in the transition phase, once they’re all ready. An incremental project has specific delivery points in
the deployment stage for each vehicle. This means, as each vehicle is produced, it is handed over to the customer during the deployment phase, with the transition phase providing formal project closure.
Benefits of having an incremental life cycle?
-We can deliver something to the customer before the project’s completed. This means the customer starts getting the benefits of the project earlier, which helps project buy-in and increases excitement.
Project Reviews
- There’s event-driven, and event-driven happens, sort of, at the end of a phase or the end of a stage, so it’s the end of the phase that we’re hitting that causes the, the review. Event-driven reviews happen because something else does. Event-driven reviews happen because something else does.
- time-driven, and those aren’t driven by events, they’re driven by a time. So, for example, we might do some kind of progress review on the first Monday of every month. They occur at an agreed frequency. For example, a progress report every Friday.
What are the main types of review that would take place in a project? We have 4 types
- Gate review - when you take up all your information, which will be the business case, the risk level, project plans, you know, the resource requirement, it’ll either be signed off and the gate will open and you can move to the next phase. So, gates are at the end of the phases and they’re a go, no-go decision point.
- Stage review - happen at the end of every stage. sanity check that we’re moving in the right direction. it’s based on business case risks, updating the project plans, the stage plan, making sure that the budget’s still sufficient. And, again, it’ll open a gate, so it’s a stage review that we’ll progress to the next stage.
- Project review - what we planned to do versus what we actually did, and looking at what are the differences between the two and how did that actually happen. What was the initial budget and what did we end up spending? Because it does normally grow. But it also covers things like lessons, so, you know, what have we learnt from this project that we can implement in the future. And then, after the project, during-, when we-, we’ve deployed and whatever you’re-, you’ve produced is in operation, we can do a benefits review.
- Benefits review -
Introduction to linear life cycles reviews
- At the end of the transition phase, we’ll have a post-project review. This will be a complete retrospective of the project going right back looking at how the project performed, how the team performed, how the delivery performed, how the processes and procedures worked, were they effective?
v
Introduction to Concept
How do you know if a project is viable? There are four areas you’ll cover in this section
- . First off, you’ll be looking at the business case. You’ll discover what it is, how it’s used and who writes and approves it.
- what project success looks like and how it’s measured,
- stakeholder engagement, in other words, who they are and what role they play.
- you’ll take a look at the different types of procurement and find out what goes into producing a strategy for sourcing goods, people and expertise.
The business case
-The business case is arguably the most important document in any project or programme as it shows why the project is needed (the reason or justification for the project).
Success Criteria
-All projects have stakeholders such as project managers, investors, users, and sponsors. it’s important that stakeholders agree on what success will look like as early as possible. They’ll do this by agreeing on success metrics, with the ultimate decision made by the project sponsor.
These metrics need to be formally controlled through the project’s life cycle. This is achieved by having success criteria and benefits management.
Success criteria and project life cycles
- initially agreed with stakeholders early on in the concept phase, but can be changed at any time in the project life cycle.
- success criteria needs to be flexible as the project develops. ( In a linear life cycle, success criteria are reviewed at gate and stage reviews. Any change is subject to approval through formal change control. With an iterative life cycle, changing success criteria is more flexible.)
- Two areas that needs to be highly flexible in an iterative life cycle are scope and quality, as cost and time are often fixed, resulting in cost and time being saved by descoping low priority outputs.
Managing success criteria plays an important part in a project’s success. Here are five key benefits it provides.
1) Minimising resistance to change from stakeholders allows the project manager to focus on project delivery.
2) There’s greater likelihood of acquiring the correct level of resources from resource owners (people or organisations providing resources to the project).
3) The stakeholders are consulted and listened to. This increases their acceptance of the project deliverables.
4) The project manager and stakeholders communicate more and make better decisions together.
5) There is increased confidence in the project manager because they have built a safe and trusting environment.
Stakeholder Engagement [APM PFQ]
- A stakeholder is anyone, any group, any organisation, any role, that has an interest in the project or its outcome.
- Anyone that can be impacted by a project or has an interest in that project is a stakeholder. So, stakeholders can influence projects in so many ways. Stakeholders will essentially determine whether the project is a success or not by reviewing success criteria, seeing if the project has met their needs. Investors, they will have a huge impact or influence over the project, as to whether or not they invest in the first place.
Project assurance and risk management expertise will be provided by the PMO
The completed PMP will be authorised by the sponsor
Technical advice and estimates for work packages are provided by team members
Any constraints that may affect project planning will be provided by the client/end users
Plans included in the PMP are developed by the project manager
Resources will be provided by the supply chain
Agreeing funding and financing options for project delivery would be done by the finance manager
There are a number of project stakeholders, each with different expectations, levels of importance, and influence on the project.
Stakeholders ultimately determine the success (or otherwise) of your project, so their expectations must be understood and managed. Effectively engaging them is essential to project success, and you can use a variety of methods including interviews, workshops, or previous projects to derive a list of stakeholders.
This activity focused on stakeholders directly involved in the development and maintenance of the PMP, and it is just one area of a project that requires effective stakeholder management.
Procurement
Procurement is a high-level approach to securing the goods and services required from external suppliers. There are three types of goods and services that are typically needed from external suppliers.
- Commercial ‘off the shelf’ goods and services, things like PPE or generic building materials
- Goods or services that are designed and provided specifically for the project or purchaser, for example a bespoke mould needed for a manufacturing process
- Professional advice and consultancy for projects that need expertise outside of the organisation
How and where a project gets these goods and services is part of a procurement strategy. This will take into account the legal issues around contracts and how to go about selecting and managing providers.
- a project will have its own strategy to deal with its specific needs. This procurement strategy is part of the project management plan.
The procurement strategy
A project procurement strategy needs to consider any organisational constraints as well as strategic objectives. Organisational constraints are things like ethical procurement policies, whereas strategic objectives are defined in terms of cost, time, and quality.
Stakeholders need to have a good understanding of procurement rules. Getting this wrong could cut into budgets, cause delays, or lead to legal problems.
Risk can take many shapes for procurement. The cost of material goods could rise unexpectedly during the project life cycle. Or, poor management at an external supplier could lead to project delays. A procurement strategy should identify and plan, as much as possible, for these risks.
Introduction to scope management
- product (PBS) and work (WBS) - hey help define the project scope.
- product breakdown structure (PBS) - hows the main internal products being created by the project team and the components that will form them.
- Once we understand the customer’s requirements, we look at providing products that will meet those requirements and the first type of breakdown structure is a product-breakdown structure. It can be in a diagram form, typically is, but could also be a list of components, it’s like a shopping list. What products do we need to produce so we meet the customer’s requirements? And, once we’ve got that list, we understand what we’re producing, we can go onto a work-breakdown structure, which is still hierarchical in nature, just like the product-breakdown structure is, but it will also apply the activities to those products and show us not only what we’re producing, but the work packages required to produce them.
- in other words - we have two breakdown structures, a product-breakdown structure, which just shows the deliverables, the products that need to be produced to meet the customer’s requirements, what will be produced by the project in scope, what is required but being produced outside for the project, external products, out of scope. It’s a hierarchical breakdown, but it just shows us the deliverables. We then lead onto a work-breakdown structure, where the activities are added to show how we’re going to produce those deliverables that leads us to showing each work package that needs to be executed in order to produce the deliverables that’s needed for the project.
There are two more tooles used to help scope defiition:
- Cost breakdown structures - Each work package in the WBS will have cost associated with it. The cost breakdown structure (CBS) is used to organise these costs into categories such as labour costs, expenses, contractor fees, and so on. It also shows where each cost comes from in the project budget. provides increased visibility for finance departments to monitor and control costs and ensures that costs are attributable to a specific work package.
- Organisation breakdown charts - roles and responsibilities need to be defined. An organisation breakdown structure (OBS) shows the structure of the project, communication links, and who each person reports to. This gives an overview of the levels of management and how they relate to each other. Putting this together with the WBS shows who is responsible for each work package. This is called a responsibility matrix (RAM). We sometimes call it a RACI chart from the first letter of these four roles.
Estimating
The project manager used estimates to help build a schedule ( labour) and budget (costs of materials and labour). They are also used at the start of a project to justify cost in the business case, and they play a key role in risk analysis and contingency planning.
But estimates aren’t perfect. They are predictions of the future, and, at best, educated guesses. A project manager will try to make them as accurate as possible by drawing on the expertise of the project team. The quality of these estimates has a direct effect on project success, so it pays to get as much input as possible.
t makes sense to refine estimates regularly through the project life cycle. At the start of the project there will be a wide spread of estimates, but this will narrow going forward, creating an ‘estimating funnel’ that you can see in figure one.
Reviewing estimates during the project life cycle helps keep the business case desirable, viable, and achievable. This is because it lets organisations check that the schedules are realistic and allows them to better manage costs. It also makes risk analysis more accurate and heads off any potential issues.
Methods of estimating
1) analogous (comparative) - relies on projects of a similar nature that you can use as a basis for your current project. It’s called analogous because you’re relying on some kind of story, some kind of past event.
2) Parametric - that’s all about per metre squared, per unit sold. It’s widely respected. It’s good for estimating projects of varying sizes. It can also be more accurate when the information, or the source data, has been collected over a long period of time. Making sure we have accurate prices and timings, costs, for example. But again, it does rely on accurate source data and expert knowledge.
3) analytical - he most accurate but the most time-consuming form of estimating. It relies on an accurate assessment of our work packages. It relies on using the work breakdown structure. We take that work breakdown structure, we look at the lowest level of work packages, and then we estimate for each one working up through the work breakdown structure. Very accurate, very time consuming, relies on expert knowledge.
