Project Management Exam Flashcards
Project Charter’s most important function
it authorizes project; shows the agreement by the key stakeholders
What’s in the Project Charter
project name, sponsor name, project manager name; simple, precise project statement; objective; scope; performance measure; major milestones; major deliverables; assumptions; constraints; business need met; signatures of authorized representatives to acknowledge approval of the project charter
when is the project charter created
in the defining/initiating stage
Checklist Purpose
method of assuring that all needed documents are written; only ensures that the actions on the list are addressed; one way of monitoring activities/tasks (do not monitor completeness); ambiguous/unnecessary items must be excluded
Checklist issue
only as good as the completeness of the items listed and the team’s attention to the work being done; only ensures that items have been addressed
statement of work
Provide more detailed descriptions of what must be planned; clarifies the actual work to be done
Statement of work: what does it define
project’s outcomes in terms of objectives, specific deliverables, acceptance criteria, technical requirements, milestones, constraints, and assumptions
Work breakdown structure
developed from project scope and statement of work, details each activity that must be completed; helps identify specific skills, training, and experience needed on the project
product scope
is used to describe the portion of the scope statement that defines the features and functions of the project outcome or deliverables; the “what”
Purpose of WBS
organizing resources; assigning responsibility to resources; identifying the interaction and contingencies of tasks and how to assign them; control points/milestones; accurate estimating of time/cost for budget purposes; confirming expectations with the customer/sponsor; providing communications platform for the team and stakeholders; validates project scope understanding
Creating the WBS
will require the team to decompose the deliverables into activities and tasks that represent the work needed to produce the deliverables; anything that will require resources to complete the project should be accounted for
The WBS is not
an exhaustive list of all tasks; a project plan, schedule, or chronological list; an organizational structure
risk appetite
the degree of uncertainty an entity is willing to take on in anticipation of a reward
risk tolerance
the degree, amount, or volume of risk that an organization or individual will withstand
risk threshold
measurements along the level of uncertainty or the level of impact at which a stakeholder may have a specific interest. Below threshold the org will accept; above the org will not tolerate
Risk Avoidance
during the planning, the team identifies the risk and sets a path to avoid
Risk mitigation
team acts to reduce the impact/likelihood of risk
risk transfer
shifts risk to a third party
risk acceptance
recognize the risk and accept as part of the project or normal business practice; often done with low impact
risk categories
organization, external, technical
PMBOK
risk breakdown structure; follows the wbs and insures that each activity and task in the WBS is reviewed for risk and opportunity documented as identifiec
Top-down estimation
initial estimates of cost (rough costs) are necessary at the proposal phase of a project for the org to determine if the project should be approved for planning/execution; often provided by someone at the org who has knowledge or experience from prior similar projects; often documented by previous lessons learned
Parametric estimation
top-down method; defining phase; ratio and reporting methods; based on the relationship between the current project and historical data
ratio method
uses experience from prior projects to estimate the overall cost of the current project; can be adopted for other project types where the historic costs can be equated to the current project
apportion method
based on ratio method but takes into consideration functionality or types of work required; requires an overall project cost be provided
bottom-up estimation
require that estimates be made at the detailed work activity level of the WBS; generated by functional experts; developed during planning phase; requires people with expertise
cost management
process of measuring how close actual costs are to the budget and then making changes in project execution as needed
padding
extra time or extra money just in case; problem with bottom up estimation; provides an inaccurate estimate to the customer; encourages waste
contingency reserve
costs included in the budget to cover situations that may occur; included in the baseline budget
management reserve
amount added to the overall budget to cover unknown risk; can only be used with approval
PERT
estimate activity duration times
CPM
used for estimating project activity durations; assumes that the estimates do not vary
CCPM
assumes resources are limited
PRINCE2
focuses on specification of the outputs
Initiating
business need and what problem the project will solve; defines the project; evaluates proposals; project selection; identifies major stakeholders; project charter
planning
documents all customer requirements/deliverables; estimating resources; finalizing project scope; finalizing project budget; finalizing project schedule; creating WBS; creating the network diagram; creating the activity list; writing a plan for specific areas
executing
acquiring project team members; training/coaching team members; communicating with stakeholders; managing stakeholders; implementing the project plan; documenting change requests; assessing team member performance; recognizing and rewarding performance
monitoring and controlling
keeping the project activities in sync; verifying that the deliverables meet scope; documenting and CR; monitoring the schedule/budget; assessing project quality; resolving issues about scope/activities/interpersonal; reporting project performance; monitoring project risk; monitoring vendor/provider performance; determining when planning is needed
closing
paying outstanding vendor invoices; reconciling vendor accounts; returning excess materials/supplies/assets; writing lessons learned; project documentation; delivering completed project to customer; receiving sign-off from customer; archiving all project documents
project sponsor
person in the project org who has authority to expend resources for projects; signs the project charter
time value of money
money is worth more today than in the future
payback period
the amount of time required to earn back the cost of doing the project
internal rate of return
recognizes the time value of money using the duration of the investment return and the return rate
net present value
total future benefits of a project minus the costs of the project
functional/departmentalized org
oldest/most basic form; lines of authority are clearly defined; SMEs are available to work on multiple projects
Matrix
less clearly defined lines of reporting; the SME reports to the PM; the functional supervisor retains admin auth/responsibility for the SME; PMs have access to a large reservoir of tech skilled people/SME; issues balancing resources; SMEs are not in daily contact with other SMEs; customer issues are met with quick response; admin personnel are not duplicated in each team; more flexible
Projectized
PM has full authority; timely decision making/responses to stakeholders are faster/clearer; must have enough work for smes
PMO
aligns project investment to corporate stategy; monitors status/availability of resources; reduces overhead; central repository for project policies, procedures, historical records, lessons learned; consistent policies/procedures
one point estimation
provides a single estimate for an activity based on their own knowledge or historical info
triangular distribution
duration = O+M+P/3
probabilistic: provides best case and worst case
beta distribution
duration = O+4M+P/6
places emphasis on the most likely estimate; probabilistic
standard deivation
p-o/6
deterministic estimate
predictable
probabilistic
uncertain
