Project management Flashcards
What is risk reduction?
Process of directly addressing the likelihood and impact of the identified risk, often by allocating more funds or other resources to the affected area.
The Project Manager may for instance spend extra cash to hire an expert in the project area who can provide more insight into the process and delivery of a specific element of that project thereby reducing the initial risk. In some situations risk can be reduced by testing, modelling or simulating key parts of the project before they are put into actual use or by developing prototypes that demonstrate features and which can be tested for acceptability before further funds are applied. In this way problems can be identified early and solutions and procedures can be developed that prevent the subsequent activities from having a negative impact on the project
What is risk avoidance?
process of developing an alternative strategy that by-passes the identified risk and so has a higher chance of success. Such strategies, however, usually incur higher cost and may extend the duration of the whole project. Many project managers will prefer to use tried and tested, proven and existing approaches and functions rather than use new and potentially unreliable techniques, even though the new methods may demonstrate lower costs or higher levels of efficiency.
What is risk sharing?
process of joining with another party to share responsibility for the risky parts of the project. This does not reduce the actual risk but in essence dilutes and shares the
ultimate effect of the risk on to the parties involved. This sort of risk sharing is commonly the drive towards joint venturing in larger projects especially when the joint venture partner has discrete and complementary skills and experiences.
What is risk transfer?
process of moving the liability of the occurrence of a risk away from the project and onto another party usually represented by the acquisition of insurance. The purchase of insurance transfers the risk from the project to the insurance company. Insurance is most commonly used in areas that are outside the immediate control of the project team and often are used to manage unlikely but significant risks such as extreme weather, strikes, and civil unrest that are likely to significantly interrupt the project.
What is a contingency plan?
will identify which of these approaches is to be used in the situation where the risk occurs and lays out the alternative method for accomplishing a project goal. Such plans will require that a contingency fund be identified at the budget stage that can be used should it be needed to address unforeseen events that cause the project costs to increase.
What is scenario planning?
a higher level strategic planning process that envisages and, in some cases, imagines potential future situations and then urges staff to develop appropriate responses to those situations
What is the delphi method?
this is where the views on demand of individual experts as members of an expert panel are obtained, collated and fed back to the experts for reconsideration. Each iteration of this process is expected to bring the panel closer to agreement.
What is market factor index?
The approach often used with consumers is to identify market factors that are highly related to market size, and then combine these market factors into a weighted index.
What are the steps of the Delphi technique?
Step 1: Determination and formulation of questions
Step 2: Selection of experts
Step 3: Formulation of first questionnaire sent to the experts
Step 4: Analysis of the answers to the first questionnaire
Step 5: Formulation of second questionnaire sent to the experts
Step 6: Sending of a third questionnaire (following analysis of the second)
Step 7: Summary of the process and drawing up the final report
What are some examples of potential risk categories?
Technical
Cost
Info
Customer
Contractual
Environment
Competitors
Schedule
People
Skills
Reputation/brand
What is concept testing?
– this is where demand for a particular new offering is tested by presenting target customers with an approximation of the final product or service and allowing them to view or use that offering within certain limitations. User responses are collated and fed back into the product development process with the intention that the final product reflects the demands of the target users. This method has its shortcomings as users may respond differently (often less harshly) to a concept than to a finished product or service
What is test marketing?
– this is where a specific sector, geographic or demographic, is selected to have access to the new offering and the responses to that offering are then used as a
gauge to wider acceptance of that product or service in the wider market before a larger scale roll out is considered. Ideally the test market should have sufficient members of the target market within it and should also be relatively addressable so that marketing efforts to the test sector can be efficient and easily measurable.
What are some Project management frameworks?
- The PDCA cycle
- Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) (scope)
- Gantt Charts
- Critical Path Analysis (time)
- Project Evaluation & Review Technique (PERT) charts
- Agile Project Management
- The Waterfall Model
- The Action Priority Matrix
Success of any project implementation will be dependant upon a range of factors. What does this include?
- The quality of the advance planning
- Project team management
- Management of key stakeholders
- Management of change during implementation
- Effective risk management
- Quality of project reporting
- Effective communications within and from the project team
- Creation and maintenance of good records
What are Gantt charts useful for showing?
They are useful for showing:
* The start date of the project
* What the project tasks are
* Who is working on each task
* When tasks start and finish
* How long each task will take
* How tasks group together, overlap and link with each other
* The finish date of the project
