Questions And Answers Flashcards
What is a possible definition of a ‘project’?
A project is an undertaking that is essentially characterised by the uniqueness of the conditions in its entirety such as:
• Objective
• Time, financial, personal or other conditions
• Elimination/distinction from other projects
• Project specific organisation
What are typical ‘project characteristics’?
• Complex
• Time limited
• Innovative and unique
• Defined target or goal
• Project specific organisation
• Limited resources
What ‘types of projects’ do you know?
• Investment project- Buying a house, Building a machine
• Organisation project- Organising an event
• Research and development project- Developing a new product
• IT project
What is the difference between ‘project’, ‘a portfolio’ and a ‘program’?
A project is a individual project with a defined goal.
A portfolio is several independent projects on the same project type.
A program or several projects with the focus on a strategic goal.
What is a possible definition for ‘project management’?
Project management is the totality of management/execution tasks, organisation, techniques and means for the execution of a project.
Project management is planning, implementation, control, monitoring and communication of complex undertakings.
What are the ‘phases of project management’? What has to be done at each phase?
- Initiation- Clarifying project characteristics, Clarifying requirements, Creating a project sketch.
- Definition- Determine goals, Analyse risks, Analyse stakeholders, Define organisation.
- Planning- Create work breakdown structure, Operating plan, Schedule plan, Determine costs and resources
- Implementation- Monitoring progress, Create reports, Manage changes, Manage contracts
- Closing- Present results, Determine lessons learned, Finish project
What are possible ‘roles of a project manager’? Please provide one example for each
• Moderator
• Organiser
• Self organiser
• Seller
• Executive
• Specialist
• Conflict manager
What are the responsibilities of a ‘project manager’?
• Responsibility for results
• Responsibility for budget
• Responsibility for appointments and deadlines
Additional responsibilities include team guidance, communication, marketing.
What are 4 relevant ‘clarification questions’?
C- what is clear?
U- What is unclear?
D- What is disputed?
K- Which key people are there?
What should be clarified before a project starts?
- Project idea
- What? Project content
- What to look for? Environment, risks, stakeholders
- For what? Project goals
- When? Phases, milestones
- With whom? Organisation or team
- How much? Budget
What is a ‘project assignment’ and what should be written in there?
A project assignment is:
• Clear presentation of a project
• Provides reasons and benefits of the project
• Often the basis for project approval
• Understandable for outside readers
• Often displayed on one page
• Can have contractor character
Also product description, project outline, project charter.
What is meant by ‘project environment’ and why it should be described? What are relevant ‘project environment aspects’?
A project environment can include:
• Laws
• Project team
• Technology
• Market
• Geography
• Climate
• Sponsor
• Regulations
• Affected persons
Project environment aspects include:
• Considering overriding goals
• Identifying external interfaces
• Preparing risk analysis
• Preparing stakeholder analysis
• Determining existing requirements
• Identifying influences on the project
What is a ‘stakeholder’ and what can be its position toward a project?
A stakeholder is a person or group with a legitimate interest in the result or course of a project.
What are possible 5 steps for ‘stakeholder analysis’?
- Collect Stakeholders- Who is involved in the project? Who is affected by the project? Who has a legitimate interest in the outcome of the project?
- Evaluate stakeholders- Three factors: Power/influence, Setting/mindset, Probability of conflict
- Analysing stakeholders- What interest does the stakeholder have in the project? What does the project want from the stakeholder?
- Define stakeholder strategies.
- Derive measures and goals.
What is a ‘goal’?
A goal is the desired state in the future.
What is the ‘SMART formula’ for formulating goals?
S- specific
M- Measurable
A- accepted/appropriate/attractive
R- Realistic
T- terminated
How goals can by classified?
Goals can be classified in two ways:
1. According to result and procedure goals
Earnings goals and procedure goals
2. After the magic triangle
Performance targets, cost objectives, target dates
What is a ‘risk’?
Risks are:
• Events with negative effects
• Occurrence of unplanned or non-occurrence of planned events
• Events that only occur with a certain probability
What could be a ‘risk analysis procedure’?
• Identifying risks
• Classifying risks
• Evaluating risks
• Define strategies
• Define measures
• Implement measures
• Check effects
• Monitor risks
How to classify risks? Please provide one example for each?
Risks can be classified using the PESTEL formula:
Political
Economical
Social
Technical
Environmental
Legal
What is a ‘steering committee’ and what is their task?
A steering committee sits above the project manager and makes decisions, prioritises tasks, approves changes, provides advice and support.
What is ‘communication’?
Communication is the exchange or transmission of information.
What is a typical ‘escalation path’ in a project?
- Project collaborators
- Sub-project manager
- Project manager
- Steering committee
What is ‘phase planning’?
Phase planning is the division of a project into clearly defined, temporal and or factual sections.
What are ‘milestones’?
Milestones are:
• Especially important defined events in the project
• Decision points for the continuation of a project
• Achievement and acceptance of a defined result
What is a ‘work-breakdown-structure’ and why is it useful?
A work breakdown structure is a complete display of all elements of a project.
What is a ‘work package’?
Properties of a work package:
• Exactly one person in charge
• Closed project area that can be distinguished from others
• Smallest unit in Work Breakdown Structure
• Achievement of a defined result by clearly identified by WBS code
• Can be further broken down into following planning steps
What ‘classification principles’ can be used for project structuring?
Classification principles are:
• Object orientation- Structuring according to objects that play a role in the project
• Activity orientation- Classification according to activities to be completed
• Phase orientation- Orientation on the project phases
What is a ‘critical path’?
- Forward calculation of the precedence diagram: Determining the earliest start and end times.
- Backwards calculation: Determination of the latest start and end times
- Calculation of the buffers
- Determination of the critical path:
○ All operations with total buffer = 0
○ Delays have an impact on the project end date
○ Provides information about bottlenecks
How can a shorter project duration be achieved?
By using a Gantt chart.
What 3 things have to planned in a project?
• Scheduling (process planning)
• Resource planning
• Cost planning
How can resources to be planned be divided?
• Personnel resources
• Material resources
• Financial resources
What cost do you know and should be thought about in project planning?
• Personnel costs
• Manufacturing costs
• Cost of capital
• Inputted costs, i.e. risks
• Material costs
What cost are relevant for the ‘overall project costs’?
Accounting X project planning costs = target costs
What is meant by ‘monitoring’ of projects?
Planning -> Monitoring (comparisons with actual targets) -> Control system (decisions and measures) -> planning
What is meant by ‘management process’?
• Situation occurs
• Recognise situation
• Analyse causes
• Are controls necessary?
• Develop measures
• Obtain decision approval
• Initiate action
• Check effects
What can be done in case of deviations from a ‘project plan’?
• Change use of resources- Hiring additional employees, arrangement of overtime, outsourcing of work packages
• Increase in productivity- I.e. training of employees, increase of motivation, reorganisation of the project
• Reduction of effort- I.e. search for technical alternatives
• Change in the scope of services- I.e. limiting quality, reducing performance, changing priorities
• Improvement of the process quality- i.e. elimination of conflict, strongest state holder involvement
What should be available at a project launch at a narrower and a broader sense?
Narrower sense:
Project preparation, rough idea and planning processes
• Exchange of first ideas
• First organisation of knowledge and documents
• Determine rough targets
• Execution of a first order clarification
Broader sense:
More detailed planning steps
• Justification of the project team
• Implementation of a kick-off meeting
• Performance of analysis on environment, stakeholders, goals
• Elaboration of requirements specifications
• Creation of a project plan
What is a project ‘kick-off’, who should take part and about what should be spoken?
A project kick-off is a information event.
Host: Client/project manager
Participants; Project team, stakeholders, line manager if applicable
Objectives: Getting to know everyone involved, bringing everyone together, information about already existing goals, risks, dates.
What a ‘final report’ should contain
A final report is a summary report at the end of a project consisting of large number of documents in including:
• Acceptance certificate
• Post calculation
• Evaluation of customer surveys
• Product and measurement data
• Personnel transition plan
What is a definition of ‘conflict’?
A conflict is a process of debate based on the different interests of individuals and social groups.
What ‘types of conflicts’ do you know?
• Relationship conflicts
• Assessment and evaluation conflicts
• Structural conflicts
• Conflict of methods
• Distribution conflict
• Conflict of goals and interests
What could be ‘signals for a conflict’?
Signals of conflict include:
• Avoiding eye contact
• Threats
• Exclusion
• Impatience
• Withholding information
How a conflict can be solved?
Standalone solution (cooperative conflict resolution)
Self clarification, change of perspective, clarification meeting.
Gain distance.
With support (mediation):
Opening, display of positions of views, clarification of background or interests, creative solution development, results back up.
Supervision or coaching.
What is a definition of ‘crisis’?
A crisis is a extreme project situation, which causes a serious deviation of the project process from the plan and threats the existence of the project.
What are reasons for a crisis?
• Acute and unforeseen events
• Unsolved problems
• Unresolved conflicts
What are signs of a crisis?
Hard signs:
• Over budget
• Missing project progress
• Unclear goals
• Serious quality problems
• Lack of decisions
Soft signs:
• Decreasing motivation in the team
• Endless or fundamental discussions
• Conflict in the team
• Greatly reduced communication
• Extremely high workload
How to manage a crisis?
- Crisis detection
- Analysis and presentation
- Crisis management
- Experience assurance
What are the target groups of ‘project documents’ and what ‘types of documents’ are available?
Target groups:
• Stakeholders
• External partners
• Project manager
• Project team
Types of documents:
• Report
• Lists
• Contracts
• Plans
What is a definition of ‘stress’?
The definition of stress is mental and physical reactions caused by specific external stimuli
What are goals of ‘time management’?
• Gain knowledge about the use of time
• Set priorities
• Delegate
• Discipline yourself
• Schedule time and reserves
• Know your own strengths and weaknesses
What is a definition for ‘motivation’?
Motivation is driving of humans for goals or desirable target objects
Motivation is a totality of motives that lead to the willingness to act.
What 2 ‘types of motivation’ you know and what they mean?
Extrinsic Motivation:
• Acting to avoid negative consequences or achieve positive consequences
• Action is a means to an end
Intrinsic motivation:
• Acting because the action itself is exciting and interesting
• The reward lies in the action itself
What is meant by ‘leadership’?
Leadership is the orientation of the actions of individuals and groups towards the realisation of set goals.
Leadership is the influence on external actions.
Leadership is the control of the individual activities in a project with regard to the project goals.
What are the ‘skills’ of a project manager?
• Responsible
• Self-confident
• Act with control orientation
• Emotionally stable
• Has integrity
• Resilient to stress
What ‘management principles’ do you know and what these are about?
Management by objectives:
• By agreement on objectives
• Determining who is responsible for which goals?
Management by exception:
• Project manager only intervenes if there are problems
Management by delegation:
• Leadership through delegation of tasks
• Complete processing of a task by an employee
What for 4 ‘management styles’ you know?
• Authority
• Advisory
• Cooperative
• Democratic
What are the advantages and disadvantages of ‘team work’?
Advantages of teamwork:
• Member support and stimulate each other
• Flexible
• Transfer of knowledge within the company
• High-quality of decisions
• Members can motivate and inspire each other
Disadvantages of teamwork:
• Teams are not immediately productive, but must first find each other
• High communication effort
• Potential for conflict due to different interests and needs
• Negative team effects
What negative team effects of teamwork you know?
• Each person adapt their opinion to the expected group opinion
• Strive for unanimity
• Deterioration of individual performance due to the presence of others
• Greater risk tolerance
What is agile Project Management and what is the difference to standard project management?
Agile project management focuses on teamwork and flexibility. The process is iterative and continuously improved well incorporating stakeholder feedback throughout.
Traditional project management, the entire project is planned upfront. All requirements are fixed but duration and costs are variable. The process is specified and linear. Stakeholder influence decreases as the project progresses.
