Project Managment

Kanban

is a process used to organize work for the sake of efficiency. • encourages work to be broken down into manageable chunks and uses a ______ Board to visualize that work as it progresses through the work flow. The 2 types: • Production • Withdrawal

Project Management

is the application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to project activities to meet the project requirements.

Project Lifecycle

is the series of phases that a project passes through from its initiation to its closure. - The phases are generally sequential, and their names and numbers are determined by the management and control needs of the organization. - While every project has a definite start and a definite end, the specific deliverables and activities that take place in between will vary widely with the project. - provides the basic framework for managing the project, regardless of the specific work involved.

Precedence Relationships

*Finish to Start*: Initiation of the successor activity depends upon completion of the predecessor activity *Finish to Finish:* The completion of the successor activity depends upon the completion of the predecessor activity *Start to start*: The initiation of the successor activity depends upon the initiation of the predecessor activity *Start to finish*: The completion of the successor activity depends upon the initiation of the predecessor activity

Estimate Costs

*Inputs:* Cost Management Plan Scope baseline Project schedule *Tools and Techniques:* Expert judgement Analogous estimating - Similar project Bottom-up or Rolled-up - Estimate individual activities and roll up Three point estimating - Most likely, Optimistic, Pessimistic/worst case

Project Time Management Processes

- Activity definition - Activity sequencing - Activity resource estimating - Activity duration estimating - Schedule development - Schedule control

Major Characteristics of a Project

- Has an established objective - Are Unique - Are temporary in nature and have a defined life span with a beginning and an end - Requires across - the - organizational participation - Are completed when the project goals are achieved or it's determined the project is no longer viable. - Involves doing something never been done before - Has specific time, cost and performance requirements

Managing a project typically includes, but is not limited to:

- Identifying requirements; - Addressing the various needs, concerns, and expectations of the stakeholders in planning and executing the project; - Setting up, maintaining, and carrying out communications among stakeholders that are active, effective, and collaborative in nature; - Managing stakeholders towards meeting project requirements and creating project deliverables; - Balancing the competing project constraints, which include, but are not limited to: Scope, Quality, Schedule, Budget, Resources, and Risks.

Pull Production Planning System

- Material flow is determined by the need of the downstream workstation. • When and how much output is requested? • When does the finished work move to the next station? - Control is transferred from the beginning of the line to the end - Minimize the number of items pulled at the same time to that which is only needed to manage natural variation - Ideal pull is a single piece flow

Examples of Project Stakeholders

- Project Manager - Project Sponsor - Customer - Business Partners - Executive Managers - Organizational Groups - Vendors - Functional Managers - Project Management Office - Consultants to the project

Managing Scope

- The scope of a project contains of Project Scope and Product Scope. - The *project scope* is defined as the work that must be performed to deliver the required products, services, or results with the specified functions and features. -The *product scope* is the set of functions and features that characterize a product, service, or result to be delivered by the project. *Caution:* Project scope is not the same thing as the product scope. Project scope is the work required to deliver the product scope.

The 5 Basic Project Phases

1. Initiating, 2. Planning, 3. Executing, 4. Monitoring Controlling 5. Closing

5 PMBOK process groups

1. Initiating, 2. Planning, 3. Executing, 4. Monitoring and Controlling 5. Closing.

Digital Service Plays

1. Understand what people need 2. Address the whole experience, from start to finish 3. Make it simple and intuitive 4. *Build the service using agile and iterative practices* 5. Structure budgets and contracts to support delivery 6. Assign one leader and hold that person accountable 7. Bring in experienced teams 8. Choose a modern technology stack 9. Deploy in a flexible hosting environment 10. Automate testing and deployments 11. Manage security and privacy through reusable processes 12. Use data to drive decisions 13. Default to open

PMI has grouped the 47 PM processes into

10 knowledge areas. These ten Knowledge Areas are used on most projects most of the time

Project Management Institute (PMI)

1969 Launched to Promote Project Management Profession. Five volunteers founded PMI as a non-profit professional organization dedicated to advance the practice, science and profession of project management.

Project

A Project can be defined as a *temporary* endeavor undertaken to create a *unique* product, result or service.

Project Vs Operations

An operation is different from a project in the following way: It does not create a unique product, service or a result. It does not have a definite beginning and an end.

Scope statement

Basically states what needs to be accomplished by the project: product and work to generate the product. It provides a documented basis for the following: - Developing a common understanding among the stakeholders about the project scope - Making project decisions throughout the lifecycle of the project - Measuring performance deviations from the scope

Activity Resource Estimating

Before estimating activity durations, you must have a good idea of the quantity and type of resources that will be assigned to each activity. *Duration* includes the actual amount of time worked on an activity plus the elapsed time. *Effort* is the number of workdays or work hours required to complete a task. Effort does not normally equal duration. People doing the work should help create estimates, and an expert should review them.

Stakeholder Register

Document used to store information about stakeholders -Identification -Assessment - how the stakeholder will react to different scenarios -Classification - power/interest grid, power involvement/grid, involvement/impact grid, salience model

Kanban Board

Kanban Limits - regulates WIP at each stage in the process

Types Of Project Lifecycles

Predictive Iterative & Incremental Adaptive

Who are Project Stakeholders

Project Manager Project Management Office Project Management Team Project Team Members Performing Organizations Customer/user Project Sponsor Influencers

Scrum Characteristics

Self-organizing teams • Product progresses in a series of timeboxed "sprints" • Requirements are captured as items in a list of "product backlog" • No specific execution practices prescribed • One of the "agile processes

Using Software to assist in Time Management

Software for facilitating communication helps people exchange schedule-related information. Decision support models help analyze trade-offs that can be made.

Stakeholder Management

The approach developed to deal with the stakeholders in the best interests of the project

The Triple Constraint (Iron Triangle)

The framework for evaluating the competing demands (time, cost, scope) of a project

WIP

The upper bound on the work in process (WIP) inventory is set by the number of kanban cards. - Feature of a dual-card kanban system - Enables systematic productivity improvements

Activities and Tasks

Work packages are made up of *activities* - Elements of work performed during the course of a project - Lowest level defined in the project management plan Activities typically have an expected *duration*, *cost*, *resource requirements* - Activities depend on SDLC - Map systems development activities to WBS Structure - Sequencing A *task* is a generic term for work that is not included in the WBS - Further decomposition of work by the individuals responsible for the work

Project Charter

a document that states the initial requirements to satisfy the stakeholders' needs and expectations, and it also formally authorizes the project. In simple words, it officially authorizes the project and identifies a project manager.

Scrum

a process used to organize work into small, manageable pieces that can be completed by a cross-functional team within a prescribed time period (called a sprint, generally 2-4 weeks long). • A common tool used is a _____ Board - a visual representation of the work flow, broken down into manageable chunks called "stories", with each story moved along the board from the "backlog" (the to-do list), into work-in-progress (WIP), and on to completion.

Scoring Models

evaluates projects by using a set of criteria with a weight (score) assigned to each criterion. Can assign different weights to different criteria to represent the varied degree of importance given to various criteria. - All projects are evaluated (scored) against this set of criteria, and the project with the maximum score is selected. - Set of criteria can include both objective and subjective criteria, such as financial data, organizational expertise, market value, innovation, and fit with the corporate culture. - advantage is that you have the freedom to assign different weights to different criteria in order to select projects consistent with the goals, mission, and vision of your corporation. --a disadvantage because your selection is only as good as the criteria with larger weights. Furthermore, developing a good scoring model is a difficult task that requires unbiased cross departmental feedback from different levels of the organization.

Gantt Charts

provide a standard format for displaying project schedule information by listing project activities and their corresponding start and finish dates in a calendar format.

Activity attributes

provide more information about each activity, such as predecessors, successors, logical relationships, leads and lags, resource requirements, constraints, imposed dates, and assumptions related to the activity. - Activity identifier and code - Activity description - Assumption and constraints - Predecessor and Successor Activities - Resource Requirements - Team Member Responsible for Performing the Work

Project Stakeholder

refers to an individual, group, or organization, who may affect, be affected by, or perceive itself to be affected by a decision, activity, or outcome of a project. These stakeholders may be inside or outside an organization which: - Sponsor a project - Have an interest or a gain upon a successful completion of a project - May have a positive or negative influence in project completion

product scope

the set of functions and features that characterize a product, service, or result to be delivered by the project.

Scrum and Kanban similarities

• Both allow for large and complex tasks to be broken down and completed efficiently. • Both place a high value on continual improvement, optimization of the work and the process. • Both share a highly visible work flow that keeps all team members in the loop on WIP and what's to come.

Benefits of Timeboxing

• Establishes a Work in Process (WIP) limit • Forces Prioritization • Demonstrates progress • Avoids Unnecessary Perfectionism • Motivates closure • Improved Predictability

Sprints

• Scrum projects make progress in a series of these • *Timebox *- Typical duration is 2-4 weeks or a calendar month at most • Sprints are planned to create a *forecast or commitment* • A constant duration leads to a better rhythm • Product is designed, coded, and tested during the sprint

Common dual-card kanban rules:

1. No parts are made without a production kanban 2. One kanban per container 3. Standardized containers and loads

Project Cost Management Process

1. Plan Cost Management 2. Estimate Costs 3. Determine Budget 4. Control Cost

Adaptive (Agile) Lifecycle

(also known as change-driven or agile methods) are intended to respond to high levels of change and ongoing stakeholder involvement. - are also iterative and incremental, but differ in that iterations are very rapid (usually with a duration of 2 to 4 weeks) and are fixed in time and cost. - perform several processes in each iteration, although early iterations may concentrate more on planning activities. - generally *preferred when dealing with a rapidly changing environment, when requirements and scope are difficult to define in advance, and when it is possible to define small incremental improvements* that will deliver value to stakeholders.

Predictive Lifecycle

(also known as fully plan-driven) are ones in which the project scope, and the time and cost required to deliver that scope, are determined as early in the project life cycle as practically possible. - These projects proceed through a series of sequential or overlapping phases, with each phase generally focusing on a subset of project activities and project management processes. - The work performed in each phase is usually different in nature to that in the preceding and subsequent phases, therefore, the makeup and skills required of the project team may vary from phase to phase. - When the project is initiated, the project team will focus on defining the overall scope for the product and project, develop a plan to deliver the product (and any associated deliverables), and then proceed through phases to execute the plan within that scope. - generally *preferred when the product to be delivered is well understood,* there is a substantial base of industry practice, or where a product is required to be delivered in full to have value to stakeholder groups.

Determine Budget

*Inputs:* Cost management plan Scope Schedule Activity cost estimates Resource calendars Agreements Organizational rules and tools *Tools and Techniques:* Expert Judgement Cost Aggregation - take details and roll up Reserve analysis - estimates of contingency Analogous estimates - similar projects Funding limits and estimated costs

Plan Cost Management

*Inputs:* Project Management Documents to date Enterprise & Environmental Factors Organizational Process & Policies *Tools and Techniques:* Expert Judgement Financial Strategies such as Purchasing, renting, leasing, Internal or external funding or investments

Three types of Dependencies

*Mandatory Dependencies*: Inherent to the schedule activities (e.g. software must be developed before it can be tested) *Discretionary Dependencies*: Dependencies at the discretion of the project team (e.g. acceptance test with marketing before accounting) *External Dependencies*: Involves a relationship between a project activity and a non-project activity (e.g. Windows Vista Delivered)

Sprints have a...

*consistent* duration or cadence

Project Scope Management: The Big Picture

- *Collect requirements* - Define the project and product requirements and develop a plan to manage those requirements. This will help clarify what needs to be done. - *Define scope* - Develop a detailed description of the project and the product that will determine what needs to be done. - *Create Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)* - Break down the scope into concrete, manageable components. In other words, decompose the project deliverables into manageable tasks that can be assigned to team members. - *Verify scope* - Formalize the acceptance of the completed project deliverables— that is, determine how to verify that the project scope has been executed as planned. - *Control scope* - Determine how to monitor the status of the project and product scope and monitor and control changes to the scope.

Detailed Project Scope statement Components

- *Project Objectives* :Business, technical, quality, schedule - *Project Deliverables* : Unique verifiable product, a capability to provide a service, or a result that must be produced to complete a project, a process, or a phase of the project - *Project Requirements* : Requirements on deliverables Approval Requirements Configuration Management Requirements - *Project Boundaries*: Specify what is included and what is not (e.g. is/is not technique) - *Product (Process) Description*: Product scope description defining the features of the product Process and criteria for accepting the completed project - *Initial Project Team*: Names and roles of project team members - *Scheduled Milestones* - *Cost Estimate* - *Project Assumptions and Constraints*: Quality, Resources, Scope, and Time - *Initial Risk Identification*

Elements of Project Planning (3)

- *Refining the project objectives* defined during project initiation and collecting requirements based on the stakeholder needs and expectations. - *Determining the scope* of the project. - *Determining the course of action* required to attain these objectives, which involves breaking down the scope and objectives into concrete, manageable tasks.

Project Scope Statement Purpose

- Baseline of System Requirements - Increase Stakeholder Understanding - Describes Project Deliverables -Used as input to create a WBS -Serves as a guide to do more detailed planning if necessary - Input to create the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

Business Needs and Project Origins

- Business Requirements - Legal Requirements: - Ecological Impact - Opportunities - Problems - Social Needs

Scoring Models: Benefit Contributions

- These methods are based on comparing the benefit contributions from different projects. - These contributions can be estimated by performing a cost-benefit analysis, which typically calculates the projected cost, revenue, and savings of a project. - This method favors the projects that create profit in the shortest time and ignores the long-term benefits of projects that might not be tangible at the current time, such as innovation and strategic values.

Characteristics of a Project Lifecycle

- Cost and staffing levels low @ start, peak as work is carried out, & drop rapidly as the project draws to a close. - The typical cost and staffing curve above may not apply to all projects. A project may require significant expenditures to secure needed resources early in its life cycle, for instance, or be fully staffed from a point very early in its life cycle. - Risk & uncertainty are greatest @ start of the project. These factors decrease over the life of the project as decisions are reached and as deliverables are accepted. - The ability to influence the final characteristics of the project's product, without significantly impacting cost, is highest @ start of the project and decreases as the project progresses towards completion.

Project Management Plan

- Defines, prepares, coordinates, and integrates subsidiary plans - Scope Management Plan - Risk Management Plan - Communication Management Plan - Cost Management Plan - Milestone List - Project Schedule The goal is to *develop a source of information* that will work as a *guideline* for how the project will be executed, monitored and controlled, and closed. - Varies according to project need - Systems Development Lifecycle - Processes - Complexity - Formally Controlled - Document revision process - Document revision history

Contents of a Work Package

- Description of the work product expected - The staffing requirements - Names of responsible individuals - The scheduled start and end dates - The budget assigned - The acceptance criteria

Phase 3: Execution

- During this phase, the prescribed work is performed under the watchful eye of the project manager. - Throughout this phase, the project team remains focused on meeting the objectives developed and agreed upon at the outset of the project.

Developing the Scope Management Plan

- How will you collect and document requirements? - Process for collecting and representing user requirements - How can you define the scope? - Process for preparing a detailed project scope statement - Process for creating the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) from the detailed project scope statement - How can you verify the scope? - Formalize acceptance of deliverables - How can you control the scope? - Process for controlling changes to scope

Identifying the Project Stakeholders

- Identify individuals and organizations that will influence the project and will be impacted by the project. - Document relevant information about the individuals and organizations and about their interests and involvement in the project. - Document how these individuals and organizations can influence the project and how they can be impacted by the project. - Determine their levels of importance.

Steps of Decomposition

- Identify the deliverables and the work involved by analyzing the project scope statement and the requirements documentation. - Understand the relationships among the deliverables. - Structure and organize the first level (just below the root of the hierarchical tree) of the WBS hierarchy. - Decompose the upper level into more detailed components for the lower level. - Keep decomposing to lower levels until necessary and sufficient decomposition has been achieved. - Assign identification codes to the WBS components.

Competencies of a Project Manager

- Knowledge - Performance - Personal: Personal effectiveness encompasses attitudes, core personality characteristics, and leadership, which provides the ability to guide the project team while achieving project objectives and balancing the project constraints.

Interpersonal skills of a Project Manager

- Leadership, - Team building, - Motivation, - Communication, - Influencing, - Decision making, - Political and cultural awareness, - Negotiation, - Trust building, - Conflict management - Coaching

Output of developing the Project Charter

- Project purpose or justification - Measurable project objectives and related success criteria - High-level requirements - High-level project description - High-level risks - Summary milestone schedule - Summary budget - Project approval requirements - Assigned project manager - Name and authority of the sponsor

Initiating the Project: The Big Picture

- The Business need to be met by the project emerges from the organizations business strategy. - Based on the business needs, somebody writes the statement of work (SOW) and makes the business case - The business case and SOW are starting points to develop the initial project scope and thereby determine the initial resources. - All this information becomes an input to developing the project charter, which, in turn is an input to the process of identifying stakeholders.

Phase 5: Closing

- The emphasis is on verifying that the project has satisfied or will satisfy the original need. - The project customer accepts and uses the deliverables. - Throughout this phase, the project resources are gradually re - deployed and the project finally shuts down.

Phase 1: Initiation

- The need is identified. An appropriate response to the need is determined and described. (Where the Project actually begins) - The major deliverables and the participating work groups are identified. The team begins to take shape. - Issues of feasibility (Can we do the project?) and justification (Should we do the project?) are addressed.

Project Manager

- a person assigned by the performing organization to lead the team that is responsible for achieving the project objectives. - In general, they have the responsibility to satisfy the needs: task needs, team needs and individual needs. - As project management is a critical discipline, they becomes the link between the strategy and the team.

Processes

- a set of interrelated actions and activities performed to create a pre-specified product, service, or result. - Each is characterized by its inputs, the tools and techniques that can be applied, and the resulting outputs. - ensures the effective flow of the project throughout its life cycle. they encompass the tools and techniques involved in applying the skills and capabilities described in the Knowledge Areas

What are Process Groups for

- bundle together processes that often operate around the same time on a project or with similar input and outputs. Once you've got comfortable with them they are actually a very logical way of grouping together the things you have to do.

Things to remember about a WBS

- created by a Project manager with the help of Project Management Team - Each item is assigned a unique identifier called a code of account identifier - Each work component appears once and only once - You should keep decomposing components to lower levels until necessary and sufficient decomposition has been achieved

Phase 4: Monitoring and Controlling

- progress is continuously monitored and appropriate adjustments are made and recorded as variances from the original plan. - The objective of this phase is to track, review and regulate the progress and performance of the project; identify any areas in which changes to the plan are required; and initiate the corresponding changes.

Iterative and Incremental Lifecycle

- project phases (also called iterations) intentionally repeat one or more project activities as the project team's understanding of the product increases. - Iterations develop the product through a series of repeated cycles, while increments successively add to the functionality of the product. These life cycles develop the product both iteratively and incrementally. - Each iteration incrementally builds the deliverables until the exit criteria for the phase are met, allowing the project team to incorporate feedback. - generally *preferred when an organization needs to manage changing objectives and scope, to reduce the complexity of a project, or when the partial delivery of a product is beneficial* and provides value for one or more stakeholder groups without impact to the final deliverable or set of deliverables. - *Large and complex projects* are frequently executed in an iterative fashion to *reduce risk* by allowing the team to *incorporate feedback and lessons learned* between iterations.

Phase 2: Planning

- project solution is developed in as much detail as possible. Intermediate work products are identified, along with the strategy of producing them. - Estimates are made regarding the amount of time and money needed to perform the work and when the work is to be done. - question of feasibility and justification surfaces again, as formal approval to proceed with the project is ordinarily sought before proceeding.

Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK)

- provides guidelines for managing individual projects and defines project management related concepts. It also describes the project management lifecycle and its related processes, as well as the project lifecycle. - a collection of processes and knowledge areas generally accepted as best practice within the project management discipline - an internationally recognized standard

Project Charter Inputs

-- *Business Case:* Business need and justification. Typically includes a cost benefit analysis. -- *Statement of Work (SOW):* The statement of work is a document that describes the products, services, or results that will be delivered by the project. -- *Contract:* A project for a customer who is external to the performing organization is usually done based on a contract. -- *Organizational Process Assets:* items such as templates, standard policies and procedures, knowledge about the organization. -- *Enterprise Environmental Factors:* consists of the following - -*Government and industry standards*, such as legal requirements, product standards, and quality standards relevant to the project. -*Performing organization's infrastructure*, such as facilities and equipment to do the project -*Marketplace conditions* relevant to the project

10 Knowledge Areas

1. Project Integration Management 2. Project Scope Management 3. Project Time Management 4. Project Cost Management 5. Project Quality Management 6. Project Human Resource Management 7. Project Communications Management 8. Project Risk Management 9. Project Procurement Management 10. Project Stakeholder Management.

5th Edition of PMBOK Guide Released in

2012 - provides guidelines, rules and characteristics for project management recognized as good practice in the profession

First Project Management Project

2570 BC: The Great Pyramid of Giza Completed - Ancient records show there were managers for each of the four faces of the Great Pyramid, responsible for overseeing their completion. We know there was some degree of planning, execution and control involved in managing this project.

Project Selection Methods

>*Benefit Measurement Methods* -Scoring models using weighted criteria -Benefit contributions e.g. cost benefit analysis -Economic models >*Constrained Optimization Methods* -Linear, Nonlinear, dynamic, integer, multiple objective programming -Used for complex projects >*Expert Judgment

Economic Models

>*Return on Investment* (ROI) Ignoring the time value of money, the percentage of profit from the project ROI = (Benefits - Costs) / Costs >*Internal Rate of Return* (IRR) Translates yearly cost/benefit amounts to an interest rate over the life of the project Excel IRR function >*Net Present Value *(NPV) The present value of future cash inflows (benefits) minus the present value of future cash outflows (costs) Excel NPV Function

Network Diagram

are the preferred technique for showing activity sequencing. is a schematic display of the logical relationships among, or sequencing of, project activities. Two main formats are the arrow and precedence diagramming methods.

Developing a Work Breakdown Structure

A *deliverable-oriented* hierarchical decomposition of the work that must be performed to accomplish the objectives and create the deliverables of the project Subdivides project deliverables into smaller, manageable tasks called *work packages* - This process is called *decomposition* : Excellent approach for large, complex tasks

Scrum and Kanban Differences

Focus - Where Scrum limits the amount of time allowed to accomplish a particular amount of work (by means of sprints), Kanban limits the amount of work allowed in any one condition (only so many tasks can be ongoing, only so many can be on the to-do list.) • Managing flow - Scrum uses timeboxed sprints. Sprint backlog is a prioritized list of story points that need to be completed to deliver a shippable product. - Kanban has no required time boxes or iterations, but limitations in the work flow • Roles and responsibilities - On scrum teams, there is a Product Owner, a Scrum Master, and Team Members. Team members are often cross-functional - In Kanban, no set roles are defined. Kanban work flow supports all roles doing the appropriate work. • The board itself - Both show work and its state, but Kanban board also shows the WIP limits for each state in the flow - Sprint board resets with each sprint, but Kanban board does not reset as work progresses. It will continue to flow for as long as the project continues, with new stories being added as the need arises.

The Gantt chart Developed by

Henry Gantt 1917 - One of the forefathers of project management, Henry Gantt, is best-known for creating his self-named scheduling diagram, the Gantt chart. One of its first uses was on the Hoover Dam project started in 1931. Gantt charts are still in use today and form an important part of the project managers' toolkit.

Activity Sequencing

Identifies the dependencies among the schedule activities and orders the activities accordingly A task has a dependency if it involves an activity, resource or work product which is subsequently required by another task Tasks may have dependencies because they require the same resource (Activity A is a predecessor of activity B ==> Activity B is a successor of activity A)

1958: The Program Evaluation Review Technique (PERT)

Invented for the U.S. Navy's Polaris Project - The United States Department of Defense's US Navy Special Projects Office developed PERT as part of the Polaris mobile submarine-launched ballistic missile project during the cold war. PERT is a method for analyzing the tasks involved in completing a project, especially the time needed to complete each task and identifying the minimum time needed to complete the total project.

the difference between a Knowledge Area and a Process Group

Knowledge areas cover what you needs to *KNOW*. Process Groups covers what you need to *DO*.

Importance of Project Schedules...

Managers often cite delivering projects on time as one of their biggest challenges. Schedule issues are the main reason for conflicts on projects, especially during the second half of projects. Time has the least amount of flexibility; it passes no matter what happens on a project.

1962: United States Department of Defense...

Mandate the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) Approach - The United States Department of Defense (DOD) created the WBS concept as part of the Polaris mobile submarine-launched ballistic missile project. WBS is an exhaustive, hierarchical tree structure of deliverables and tasks that need to be performed to complete a project. Later adopted by the private sector, the WBS remains one of the most common and useful project management tools.

Power/Interest Grid

Monitor with Sh1, 2, & 3 Monitor Closely with Sh4, 5, & 6 Keep Informed Sh7, & 8 then Manage with Maximum effort Sh9, 10, &11

Tools for Collecting Requirements

Observation Interviews, questionnaires, and surveys Focus groups and workshops Prototypes Expert Judgment Competitor Analysis

Schedule Control

Perform reality checks on schedules. Allow for contingencies. Don't plan for everyone to work at 100 percent capacity all the time. Hold progress meetings with stakeholders and be clear and honest in communicating schedule issues.

A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK)

Published by PMI - First published by the PMI as a white paper in 1987, the PMBOK Guide was an attempt to document and standardize accepted project management information and practices.

Reality Checks on Scheduling

Review the draft schedule or estimated completion date in the project charter. Prepare a more detailed schedule with the project team. Make sure the schedule is realistic and followed. Alert top management well in advance if there are schedule problems.

Lean Production System

a set of practices including: - Worker empowerment - Process focus - Pull production - Continuous improvement Main objective is Satisfy customer needs on the highest possible level through the elimination of *waste*

Milestones

a significant event in the project usually associated with a major work product or deliverable

Initiating the Project

defining the project, getting approval to start it, and identifying and analyzing project stakeholders. During this stage: - Initial Scope of the project is defined. - Initial resources are determined and allocated. - A project manager with an appropriate authority level is assigned. - Project Stakeholders are identified.

Expert Judgement

refers to making a decision by relying on expert advice from one or more of the following sources: Senior management An appropriate unit within the organization The project stakeholders, including customers and sponsors Consultants Professional and technical associations Industry groups Subject matter experts from within or outside of the performing organization Project management office (PMO)

Knowledge Areas

represents a complete set of concepts, terms, and activities that make up a professional field, project management field, or area of specialization. as supporting elements, provide a detailed description of the process inputs and outputs along with a descriptive explanation of tools and techniques most frequently used within the project management processes to produce each outcome.

project scope

the work that must be performed to deliver the required products, services, or results with the specified functions and features.