Brainscape's Knowledge GenomeTM

Browse over 1 million classes created by top students, professors, publishers, and experts.


See full index

Project Management: People and Technology > Week 3 - Sheets & Articles > Flashcards

Week 3 - Sheets & Articles Flashcards

You may prefer our related Brainscape-certified flashcards:
People You Should Know flashcards
1
Q

What is a business case?

A

An analysis of the organizational value, feasibility, costs, benefits, and risks of the project plan. Must be complete, systematic, and objective.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
2
Q

What is the goal of a business case?

A

To provide management with the information necessary to decide whether a project should receive funding (or go to the next phase).

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
3
Q

What is the MOV?

A

Measurable Organizational Value.

The conceptualization of the purpose/goal of the project.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
4
Q

What are the 8 steps to developing a business case?

A
  1. Define MOV
  2. Form a cross-functional team
  3. Identify alternatives
  4. Define feasibility & assess risk
  5. Define TCO
  6. Define TBO
  7. Analyze alternatives
  8. Propose and support the recommendation
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
5
Q

What are the 6 steps to defining the MOV?

A
  1. Identify desired area of impact
  2. Identify desired organizational value (better, faster, or cheaper?)
  3. Develop appropriate metric (increase/decrease in $, % change, numeric values)
  4. Set a time frame for achieving the MOV
  5. Verify & get agreement from stakeholders
  6. Summarize MOV clearly & concisely
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
6
Q

What are the 4 attributes of a good MOV?

A

SMART:

  • Be measurable
  • Provide value
  • Be agreed upon
  • Be verifiable
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
7
Q

Name potential areas of impact for defining an MOV.

A

Customer (new products, services), strategic, financial, operational, social

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
8
Q

Why do you need to form a cross-functional team to develop a business case (3)?

A
  • It assures credibility. different POV’s, right people, asking the right questions
  • It assures alignment with organizational goals. How will the project help the org. achieve its overall mission and strategy.
  • Gains access to real costs. More realistic estimates, e.g. salaries, overhead, accounting, regulations etc.
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
9
Q

What are the advantages of forming a cross-functional team to develop a business case?

A
  • Ownership: better chance of reducing political problems.
  • Easier agreement when defending the case
  • Bridge building: effective tool for handling critics of the business case
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
10
Q

What are the characteristics of the people within a cross-functional business case team?

A

They may have:

  • Technical skills
  • Organizational knowledge (business)
  • Interpersonal skills
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
11
Q

Name a method for identifying alternative solutions when developing a business case.

A

Analytical Hierarchy Planning (AHP), or decision theory.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
12
Q

There are 4 types of feasibility in the book. Name them.

A
  • Economic feasibility
  • Technical feasibility
  • Organizational feasibility
  • Other feasibilities (dependent on context & organization)
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
13
Q

What is the TCO?

A

Total Cost of Ownership.
Total cost of acquiring, developing, maintaining, and supporting the product or application system over its useful life (PLM).

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
14
Q

What are the 3 types of costs in a TCO?

A
  • Direct or up-front costs; initial purchase of hard- & software, equipment, consultant fees etc…
  • Ongoing costs; support, salaries, upgrades, maintenance…
  • Indirect costs: initial loss of productivity, downtime costs, cost of learning the new system…
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
15
Q

What is the TBO?

A

Total Benefit of Ownership.
Includes all direct, ongoing and indirect benefits associated with each proposed alternative. Over the course of its useful life.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
16
Q

How should you quantify intangible benefits for the TBO?

A

By linking them directly to tangible benefits.

E.g., the cuts on paper-use and printing when moving to a digital infrastructure (tool).

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
17
Q

When should you replace an old system?

A

When the costs of maintaining the old system exceed the expected costs of the new system to implement.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
18
Q

How is Payback calculated?

A

Payback (period) = (initial) investment / cash flow
Where cash flow = benefits - costs, in a period of time (e.g. a year)
100,000 / 20,000 = 5 years when initial investment is paid back.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
19
Q

Why is payback an incomplete way of comparing alternative solutions?

A

It does not consider the time value of money or cash flows beyond this period.
It is still useful for highlighting the risk level of an investment (longer period = greater risk)

20
Q

What is the breakeven point?

A

Similar to payback, but now calculating how many units you have to sell in order to break even.

21
Q

How is ROI calculated?

A

Return of investment (%) = (expected benefits - expected costs) / expected costs
In short: expected value / expected costs.

22
Q

What are the 2 assumptions for quantitative measurement?

A
  1. It is possible to predict costs or benefits accurately

2. Benefits and costs arise as a direct result of the project

23
Q

What is the NPV?

A

Net Present Value.

It focuses on the time value of money; a project or alternative should only be considered if the NPV is positive.

24
Q

What is the discount rate?

A

The organization’s required rate of return. The minimum return a company would expect from a project. Set by management usually.
It depicts the depreciation of value over time.

25
Q

What is the NPV formula?

A

-(initial investment) + SUM(net cash flow / (1 + discount rate)^time period

26
Q

Give examples of intangible benefits.

A
  • Improved data quality
  • Better decisions
  • Improved customer satisfaction
  • Easier to innovate
27
Q

What are hidden costs?

A

Either:

  • Known costs, but budgeted too low (bad estimate)
  • Unknown costs, not budgeted at all
28
Q

Why do costs remain hidden?

A

Because the business case is used to select a project and they want to “boost” the benefits and “hide” costs so they may have a better chance at winning.
Indirect costs are really unknown.

29
Q

What is a portfolio?

A

A set of projects with varying levels of risk, technology, size, and purpose, in order to meet various organizational objectives.

30
Q

Bacon (1992) researched the use of decision criteria in selecting IS/technology investments. What are the two main concerns?

A
  • The process of how the investment decision was made

- The criteria that answer: why was the investment decision made? Financial and non-financial justification.

31
Q

What are 2 of the most common decision methods, according to Bacon (1992)?

A

NPV and Internal rate of return (IRR)

32
Q

Explain organizational learning, in context of the paper by Bacon (1992) about decision criteria.

A

Organizations should learn from previous projects & compare the historical estimates with the current project(s).

33
Q

What is the IRR and how can you find it?

A

Internal rate of return, used to estimate the profitability of potential investments.
It is discount rate in the NPV formula, so that NPV = 0.

34
Q

What are the fundamental (cost) estimation questions?

A
  • How much effort (man-hour) is required to complete a project?
  • How much calendar time is needed to complete a project?
  • What is the total cost of a project?
35
Q

Explain scope grope, creep and leap.

A

Grope: inability to define the scope
Creep: tendency to increase features (expand scope)
Leap: fundamental change in project scope

36
Q

Explain guesstimating.

A

Guess at the estimates, quick and easy but often not a good way of deriving schedule and budget.
“picking random numbers”

37
Q

Explain Delphi techniques.

A

Experts needed. Each makes an estimate and then all results are compared. Anonymous, multi-rounds. Experts are unknown to eachother.

38
Q

Explain time boxing.

A

Focus on only the most important features.

Determine how much time is needed for each task.

39
Q

Explain top-down estimating.

A

How long it SHOULD take, SHOULD cost, from a top management perspective.

40
Q

Explain bottom-up estimating.

A

Project managers make cost estimates and you add them together to determine the total duration of the project. Based on experience of PM and teams.

41
Q

Briefly explain the concept of planning poker, in steps.

A
  1. Gather a group of people who do the work (local expertise) and a moderator or product owner.
  2. Give a list of user stories
  3. Experts ask questions about the user stories
  4. Each player individually estimates the user story with one of the cards (0, 1/2, 1, 2, 3, 5…), the story points.
  5. Players show their “hands” simultaneously
  6. If estimates differ (greatly), the highest & lowest cards explain their estimate.
42
Q

What is the difference between complicated and complex?

A

Complicated implies being difficult to understand but with time and effort, ultimately knowable;
Complex describes the interactions between a large number of entities

43
Q

What is analogous estimation?

A

Developing estimates based on one’s opinion that there is a significant similarity between the current project and others. Use historic information as a basis for estimation.

44
Q

What does compositionality mean?

A

Breaking systems into smaller components, so they can be better understood and analyzed.

45
Q

There is some criticism on the use of FPA. Explain.

A
  • FPA is not universally applicable to all types of software, like real-time software
  • The formulas are difficult to interpret
  • The reasoning behind weights is not always clear
  • Largely manual process

Project Management: People and Technology (6 decks)

Brainscape helps you reach your goals faster, through stronger study habits.
© 2024 Bold Learning Solutions. Terms and Conditions