Revision first week Flashcards
Six Project Variables
Scope: This defines what the project will deliver - the features, functions, and attributes of the project’s final product, service, or result. Scope creep can be a significant risk, leading to increased costs and delays.
Time: The schedule or timeline for the project, including the start and end dates, milestones, and deadlines for deliverables. Time management is crucial to ensure that project tasks are completed within the agreed-upon timeframe.
Cost: This refers to the budgetary limitations of the project, including labor, materials, equipment, and any other costs required to deliver the project. It’s about ensuring that the project is completed within the approved budget.
Quality: The criteria that measure how well the project’s deliverables meet the requirements or standards that are set out at the beginning of the project. This can include performance, reliability, and satisfaction of the end-users.
Risk: Potential events or conditions that could impact the project’s success, whether positively or negatively. Risk management involves identifying, analyzing, and responding to risk factors throughout the life of a project.
Benefits: The value that the project is supposed to deliver to the stakeholders and the organization as a whole. This can include financial, reputational, regulatory, and other types of benefits.
how might these variables help you to plan and control a project?
These variables help in establishing a project’s structure and guide the monitoring and controlling of progress. By continually measuring project performance against these variables, project managers can make informed decisions to steer the project towards successful completion.
What are two delivery approaches?
PRINCE2 with Waterfall Delivery:
The Waterfall model is a sequential design process, often used in software development processes, in which progress is seen as flowing steadily downwards (like a waterfall) through the phases of conception, initiation, analysis, design, construction, testing, production/implementation, and maintenance.
PRINCE2 with Agile Delivery:
Agile is a set of principles for software development under which requirements and solutions evolve through the collaborative effort of self-organizing and cross-functional teams.
What is a Key Performance Indictor?
A Key Performance Indicator (KPI) is a measurable value that demonstrates how effectively a company or organization is achieving key business objectives. Organizations use KPIs at multiple levels to evaluate their success at reaching targets. High-level KPIs may focus on the overall performance of the enterprise, while low-level KPIs may concentrate on processes in departments such as sales, marketing, HR, support, and others.
What is meant by a Principle?
A PRINCE2 principle represents a fundamental guideline for the methodology that should be applied to any project being managed using PRINCE2. These principles are the bedrock upon which all the other aspects of the methodology are built and are intended to be followed for the duration of any project within a PRINCE2 framework.
Seven Principles?
Continued Business Justification: There must be a clear need for the project, it must provide value for money, and there should be a clear Return on Investment (ROI). The business case is regularly reviewed throughout the project to ensure the project remains viable.
Learn from Experience: PRINCE2 project teams should continually seek and draw from previous lessons. At the start, during, and at the end of the project, the team should review performance, successes, and failures to learn and improve.
Defined Roles and Responsibilities: Everyone involved in the project should know what is expected of them and understand the structure of accountability and delegation. This principle ensures that there is a clear organizational structure that engages the business, user and supplier stakeholder interests.
Manage by Stages: PRINCE2 breaks projects into manageable stages, allowing for better control of resources and regular monitoring. This enables a project to be regularly assessed for performance and ongoing viability.
Manage by Exception: This principle provides a framework for efficient use of senior management time. It establishes defined tolerances for project objectives to be met by the project manager without the need for constant supervision. Only when these tolerances are exceeded does the project need to escalate issues to higher management.
Focus on Products: PRINCE2’s focus on the definition and delivery of products, in particular, their quality requirements, ensures that the project’s outputs, outcomes, and benefits are precisely specified and that the project remains focused on the delivery of those products.
Tailor to Suit the Project Environment: PRINCE2 is designed to be flexible and adaptable for any type and size of project. It should be tailored to suit the complexity, scope, scale, and risks of the project, rather than applying a ‘one size fits all’ approach.
7 Themes?
Business Case: This theme emphasizes the need to establish and maintain a viable business case for the project. The business case underpins the decision-making process throughout the project’s life, ensuring that the project remains aligned with business objectives and delivers value.
Organization: The organization theme focuses on defining and establishing the project’s structure of accountability and responsibilities. It ensures that the project team’s roles and responsibilities are clearly defined and that the project has the appropriate leadership and stakeholder representation to make informed decisions.
Quality: The quality theme defines the quality techniques and quality management systems that will be used to ensure that the project’s deliverables meet the requirements specified by the stakeholders. It encompasses the planning, assurance, and control of quality.
Plans: The plans theme provides the basis for effective project planning, including the design, development, and maintenance of the project’s plans. It covers not only what is to be delivered, but also how, when, and by whom, with the project broken down into manageable stages.
Risk: The risk theme focuses on identifying, assessing, and controlling uncertainty and, as a result, improving the ability of the project to succeed. PRINCE2 addresses both threats and opportunities and includes the processes of risk identification, assessment, and control throughout the project.
Change: This theme encompasses how the project manages issues that can lead to change, including how it assesses and acts upon impact on the three project constraints of cost, time, and quality. It provides a structured approach for managing changes to the baseline.
Progress: The progress theme involves the monitoring and control of the project’s performance and includes decision-making processes for approving plans, the authorization of work, and the handling of potential changes to the project’s scope or objectives. It ensures the project remains on track and provides a way to measure actual progress compared to planned progress.
7 Processes?
Starting up a Project (SU): This is the pre-project process that ensures the prerequisites for initiating the project are in place. The process involves the appointment of the project management team, the creation of initial documentation including the project brief, and the decision whether it is worthwhile to proceed with the project.
Directing a Project (DP): Executed by the project board, this process takes place from the initiation to the closure of the project. It involves making key decisions and exercising overall control while delegating day-to-day management to the Project Manager.
Initiating a Project (IP): This process is where the project is planned in detail, the business case is refined, project controls are established, the project management team structure is developed, and strategies for quality, risk, communication, and other aspects are prepared.
Controlling a Stage (CS): This process involves the assignment of work to be done, the monitoring of such work, dealing with project issues, reporting progress to the project board, and taking corrective actions to address any deviations from the plan.
Managing Product Delivery (MP): The focus here is on the acceptance, execution, and delivery of the project ‘products’ or deliverables. It ensures that work on products is authorized and agreed upon, and that completed products meet quality criteria and are approved.
Managing a Stage Boundary (SB): This process is concerned with preparing for the next stage. The current stage’s performance is reviewed, and a plan for the next stage is created, including updating the project plan and business case and producing a Stage Plan for the next stage.
Closing a Project (CP): The final process is focused on the formal decommissioning of the project, the follow-up on any remaining products, and the evaluation of the project performance against its baselines. It also includes the consideration of lessons learned for future projects.
5 Appendices?
Benefits Management approach
Business Case
Change Control Approach
Checkpoint Approach
Communication Management Approach
What is the difference between a theme and a process?
(Themes)
Themes:
Themes are aspects of project management that must be continually addressed throughout the life of the project.
They provide guidance on how the project should be managed in different areas such as risk, change, quality, etc.
There are seven themes in PRINCE2: Business Case, Organization, Quality, Plans, Risk, Change, and Progress.
Themes are knowledge areas that need to be tailored to suit the complexity of the project and are woven into every part of the project management process.
They are the “whats” of project management, describing aspects that need to be managed throughout the project.
What is the difference between a theme and a process?
(Processes)
Processes:
Processes are structured phases of the project lifecycle that provide a step-by-step progression through the project.
They describe who is responsible for taking decisions and when those decisions should be taken.
There are seven processes in PRINCE2: Starting up a Project, Directing a Project, Initiating a Project, Controlling a Stage, Managing Product Delivery, Managing a Stage Boundary, and Closing a Project.
Processes are the “hows” of project management, providing a series of actions, activities, and decisions to guide the project from start to finish.
They give practitioners a clear roadmap for the progression of the project.
What is the difference between a theme and a process? (Summary)
In other words, themes could be thought of as the philosophy of the project management framework—constant considerations that inform all actions and decisions—while processes are the actual actions and steps taken to apply that philosophy and move the project forward through its lifecycle. Themes ensure that the project is continuously aligned with its objectives, and processes make the project happen in a structured and efficient way.
A process-based approach?
A process-based approach for project management, as outlined by PRINCE2, means that the methodology is structured around a series of defined processes that cover all the activities required for successful project management. Each process provides a set of actions, responsibilities, and related inputs and outputs that guide the project team through the project’s lifecycle, from initiation to closure.
This systematic approach ensures that the management of the project is organized, controlled, and consistent. It helps to ensure that stakeholders are clear on what needs to be done, by whom, and at what time, facilitating effective governance and decision-making throughout the project.
Who uses the process called directing a project?
“Directing a Project” is primarily used by the Project Board. The Project Board is responsible for the overall direction and management of the project, operating at a strategic level and making key decisions. They are accountable for the project’s success and are typically made up of:
Executive (Project Owner or Sponsor): The single individual with overall accountability for the project, ensuring that it delivers value for money, is aligned with business strategy, and meets the necessary requirements.
Senior User(s): The representative(s) of those who will use the project’s outputs. They ensure that the project will deliver the desired benefits and meet user needs.
Senior Supplier(s): Individual(s) who represent the supplier interests and provide knowledge on the project’s technical aspects or supply resources.
What is the first process used in PRINCE 2?
The first process in PRINCE2 is “Starting up a Project” (SU). This is a pre-project process, designed to ensure that the prerequisites for initiating a project are in place. The process involves the following activities:
Appoint the Project Board: Identify and appoint the Executive and the Project Board members.
Capture Previous Lessons: Review lessons from previous projects that could apply to the new project.
Design and Appoint the Project Management Team: Identify and appoint the necessary project management roles, including the Project Manager.
Prepare the Outline Business Case: Develop an initial version of the Business Case, which outlines the reasons for undertaking the project and the expected benefits.
Select the Project Approach and Assemble the Project Brief: Decide on the project approach (how the project will deliver the desired outcomes) and put together the Project Brief.
Plan the Initiation Stage: Create a stage plan for the initiation stage.
