Terminology (M2) Flashcards
List in order, the project hierarchy.
Corporate management, project board/steering group, sponsor (if no proj board), project manager and project team.
What is the steering group responsible for? (or the sponsor if no steering group)
- Ensures the project complies with organisational governance arrangmenets.
- Escalation point from the PM for change, risk, issues and gate transition approval.
Responsibilities of the Sponsor?
- Accountable for and owns the business case
- Analyses the financial viability
- Approves PMP
- Authorises expenditure
- Approves issue resolution
- Supports the PM
- Accepts deliverables
- Signs off project completion
- Reviews delivered benefits
- Conducts benefits review
Responsibilities of Project Manager?
- Supports creation of the Business Case
- Assists in providing high level project information
- Creates and owns PMP
- Develops and manages the Project Team
- Directs and manages Project Execution
- Directs and manages the Project team
- Ensures success criteria are met
- Ensures acceptance of deliverables
- Conducts post-project review
- Captures and documents lessons learned
- Supports benefits review as required
- Provides info for benefits analysis as required.
What does the product owner do?
Acts as an on-site customer for iterative or agile project and may include iteration planning and the acceptance of incremental delivery.
What does the project team do?
They work collaboratively to achieve project objectives: participate in creating the PMP, execute the PMP, escalate risks and issues to the PM.
Who are the end users and what do they do?
They’re people or the organisation that will use the facilities produced by the project.
- communication requirements
- Expert knowledge
- Acceptance testing.
Who are the PMO?
Project management office - they’re an organisational structure that provides support to projects, programmes or portfolios.
What are the 3 basic benefits the PMO provide?
- Deployment support
- Process improvement
- Resource Flexibility
Levels/Type of PMO?
- Hub/Spoke
- Central
- Embedded.
What do the Hub & Spoke do?
Hub: the portfolio level PMO, permanent fixture.
Spoke: project and programme PMOs, temporary in nature and report into centralised portfolio level PMO.l
Who are the central PMO?
They’re a permanent fixture and put in place to support ALL projects. It’s effective where there is a portfolio of small projects, where flexibility is values more than management control.
Who are the embedded PMO?
They’re a temporary structure put in place to support ONE project. Suited to large and complex projects that need lots of support.
List the 6 functions and services of the PMO.
- Admin Support: diaries, schedules
- Specialist Support: risk, quality, planning, finance
- Assurance: audits, health check, reviews
- Information management: access to tools, services
- Centre of excellence: improving tools and techniques
- Controls and reporting: collecting, analysing and presenting progress information.
What is the business case?
The business case provides justification for undertaking a project, programme or portfolio. It evaluates the benefits, cost and risk of alternative options.
List characteristics the Business Case looks for?
- Project purpose
- Objectives and success criteria
- Benefits
- High-level requirements
- Description and key deliverables
- Project Risk
- Milestone schedule
- Financial resources and appraisal
- Stakeholder list
- Approval requirements.
Define benefits management.
Benefits management is the identification, definition, planning, tracking and realisation of benefits.
What is a benefit? Give 3 factors of a benefit.
A benefit is a positive and measurable impact of change.
- Benefits will have tangible values.
- The benefits and their value will be documented in the business case.
- The sponsor will measure, monitor and manage the benefits throughout the project and beyond the project until all benefits are realised or written off.
Define success criteria? How is it measured?
Project success is the satisfaction of stakeholder needs and is measured by the success criteria agreed at the start of the project.
- Success Criteria are agreed with stakeholders.
- Success Criteria will be documented in both the business case and PMP.
- The PM will demonstrate how the success criteria will be met through the creation of the PMP and is accountable for achievement
- The PM will measure accomplishment towards achievement throughout the project.
- Achievement of success criteria will be known at project hand over.
Give 4 reasons WHY we need success criteria?
- Ensure the PM can plan and report against specific measurable targets.
- Assists in decision making and prioritisation, planning, scheduling and risk management.
- Provides a basis for monitoring and controlling the project deployment.
- Provides unambiguous basis for declaring project success.
Purpose of the PMP?
To document and integrate the outcomes of the planning process. It demonstrates how the project intends to achieve the objectives within the business case
What are the contents of the PMP?
- Roles and responsibilities.
- Success Criteria
- Quality.
- Risk
- Time
- Procurement
- Budget/Cost
- Scope
- Resources
- Communication
Who are the stakeholders of the PMP and what do they do towards it:
- PM - owns and author of PMP
- Project Team - Contribute to creation of PMP
- SMEs - Provide expertise to creation of PMP
- Suppliers - The resources used to deploy the project
- End User - Contribute to creation of PMP through communication and eventually use outputs of PMP and project
- Sponsor - agrees the content with the PM and will approve the PMP
Define Deployment Baseline?
The deployment baseline is the starting point for progress monitoring and implementation of change control.
The 5 steps of deployment baseline
- Create - PM creates PMP during definition phase with input from users, team, resource, sme’s, stakeholders
- Agree - PM and sponsor will agree on content
- Baseline Review - an integrated baseline review may take place to provide assurance prior to approval.
- Approve - takes place at decision gate before significant expenditure. Once approved, becomes a deployment baseline.
- Baseline - deployment baseline is the starting point for progress monitoring and implementation of change control
When is deployment baseline set for a linear life cycle?
It’s set for the whole project (at the start?) and subject to change control. Linear life cycle treats scope and quality as the driver to calculate consumed time and cost.
How is the deployment baseline set for a linear life cycle?
Iterative life cycle have set resources over limited periods to deliver products over successive cycles.
Define a stakeholder.
The organisations or people who have an interest or role in the projects or are impacted by it.
What do we need to know about each stakeholder?
- Their level of power and interest
- Their attitude
- Their expectations
- Their concerns
What tool is used to help us understand the stakeholder environment? What does it provide?
The stakeholder analysis grid. The analysis provides us with info that will support appropriate engagement. Power VS interest (low + high graph)
How do we monitor accomplishments and track project deliverables? What does it do?
Through progress reporting - we report against the baseline at intervals set by organisation need and governance. This can take different formats and escalate through the management system.
It gives a status of project deliverable, current status against the baseline, control actions taking place and the estimate to complete/at completion.
What does progress reporting provide?
- A sound basis for decision making
- Stakeholder Confidence
- Basis for adjustments to priorities within a portfolio.
Does the steering group operate on equal voting principle?
Yes.
Who approves the PMP?
The sponsor.
Who owns the Business Case?
The sponsor.
Project success is the __ of ___ needs.
Project success is the satisfaction of stakeholder needs.
How do we calculate consumed time and cost in the linear life cycle?
Through scope and quality.
Which type of life cycle commits to set resources over limited periods, and is developed over successive cycles?
Iterative life cycle.
