Project Management

What is leadership?

"The ability to inspire confidence and support among the people who are needed to achieve organizational goals." Project management is leader intensive* Week 8, p.137

Name some more common risks in project management next to - Financial - Technical - Contractual/Legal - Commercial - Execution

- Absenteeism - Resignation - Staff pulled away - Time overruns - Skills unavailable - Ineffective Training - Specs incomplete - Change orders Week 10, p.249

What are types of costs in a project?

- Direct vs. Indirect - Recurring vs. Nonrecurring - Fixed vs. Variable - Normal vs. Expedited - •Direct Costs and Overhead: o Direct Costs plus Overhead Charge = Total Costs Week 9, p.280,281,282

How do you make champions in a project?

- Identify and encourage their emergence - Encourage and reward risk takers - Remember the emotional connection - Free champions from traditional management Week 8, p.150/151

What is the difference between managers and leaders?

- Managers have official titles in an organization - Leaders focus on interpersonal relationships rather than administration Important differences exist between the two on: - Creation of purpose - Network development - Focus timeframe - Outcomes - Execution Week 8, p.138

What practical steps can organizations take to develop a core of project management professionals?

- Match personalities with project work - Formalize commitment to project work with training programs - Develop a unique reward system - Identify a distinct career path Week 8,p.154/155

What are problems that humans make with project evaluation and control?

- Optimistic progress reports - Level of detail - Process evaluation - Non-technical performance measurement Week 9, p.474,475

Definition (5points) of Project Management

- Specific objectives to be completed within certain specifications - Defined start and end dates - Funding limits - Human and nonhuman resources - Multifunctional focus Week 1, p.25

Name the 3 angeles how to create a project budget?

You can start from different angles, there are 3 different cases - Top-down - Bottom-up - Activity-based costing (ABC) Week 9,p.294

What are Gantt Charts?

It is a useful tool for creating a project network. - Establish a time-phased network, links project activities to a project schedule baseline - Can be used as a tracking tool, to assess the difference between planned and actual performance. Week 7, p.355

What are the 4 Project Life Cycles

- Conceptualization - the development of the initial goal and technical Specifications - Planning - all detailed specifications, schedules, schematics, and plans are developed - Execution - the actual "work" of the project is performed - Termination - project is transferred to the customer, resources reassigned, project is closed out Week 1, p.33

What are the 9 phases of risk assessment?

- Define - Focus - Identify - Structure - clarify ownership of risks - estimate - evaluate - plan - manage Week 10, p. 261

What are the implications of an organizational culture on project management process? Name 4 points

- Departmental interaction, solid supportive relationship between functional departments and project teams. Cultures that favour active cooperation between functional groups and new projects are much more successful than those that adopt a disinterest or even adversarial relationship - Employee commitment to goals, if people are willing to work extra-hours, bring their own idea's in, want to have success - Project planning, way work is estimated or how resources are assigned to projects. - Performance evaluation, how they view outcomes of projects week 3, p.83

four ways which culture affects Project Management

- Departmental interaction: back to the night club situation from Lorena and Jasmin. It's important that both parties work together and goes in the same direction. - Employee commitment to goals: the employees work hard, productive and when it's necessary they do extra hours to finish their tasks - Project planning: the employees should be scared from Lorena and Jasmin when they aren't on time with their work. It's better they come and say: "I'm sorry I couldn't finish" than they do a bad work - Performance evaluation: the project team should be honest with the result that means they write down the positive and the negative aspects on the project. Only through this way it's possible to have opportunities for further projects between these two parties. Week 2, p. 83-84

What are options for reducing the critical path?

- Eliminate tasks on the Critical Path - Convert serial paths to parallel when possible - Overlap sequential tasks - Shorten the duration on critical path tasks - Shorten o Early tasks o Longest tasks o Easiest tasks o Tasks that cost the least to speed up Week 7, p.340

What are the 4 main reasons for project termination?

- Extinction, project is stopped due to either a successful or an unsuccessful conclusion. - Addition, institutionalizing it as a formal part of the parent organization. Imagine a new hardware design at Apple Computer has been so successful that the company turns the project organization in a new operating group, so they have been promoted. The project has been terminated successfully, but it has led to its addition. - Integration, common, but complicated method for dealing with successful projects. You include the project team into your organization, in different departments etc. - Starvation, when resources come to an end, it is the worst Week 10, p.500

What are risk clusters (Gruppierungen) to identify risks?

- Financial - Technical - Contractual/Legal - Commercial - Execution Week 10, p. 248

What should effective project leaders be?

- Good communication by effective project managers - Flexibility to deal with ambiguity - Work well with project team - Skilled at various influence tactics Week 8, p.145/146

How do projects start?

- Ideas - Challenges - Goals Week 3

What are principal methods for accelerating (beschleunigen) a project?

- Improving existing resources productivity - Changing work methods - Compromise quality and/or reduce project scope - Institute fast tracking (adopt parallel task scheduling= - Work overtime - Increasing the quantity of resources Week 10, p.360

What are common sources for project costs?

- Labor (hiring and paying personnel involved in project) - Materials, equipment, etc. - Subcontractors, consultants, expertise, etc. - Equipment & facilities, when it is away from firm's home office, you need to rent something - Travel, business travel like car rentals, airfare, hotels and meals Week 9, p.279

What are problems with cost estimation?

- Low initial estimates, very often, Scope is too slim, too optimistic - Unexpected technical difficulties - Lack of definition - Specification changes (scope changes) - External factors (beyond our control) Week 9

Relationship of Strategic Elements

- Mission: be the new owner of a huge hotel in Turkey - Objectives: make a higher profit than the owner before and better work conditions for the employees - Strategy: provide special food (vegan), animation, massage and service - Goals: year 1: 5% more income, year 2: 10% more income... - Programs: hire a new chef specialised in French kitchen, create new animations programs and train the waiters for a better service Week 2, only in the slides

What are controversies in the use of networks?

- Networks can be too complex (most important, can not be too detailed, should serve as an overview - Poor network construction creates problems - Networks may be used inappropriately - When employing subcontractors o The master network must be available to them o All sub-networks must use common methods Week 7

What are the managerial considerations when crashing a project?

- Optimize time-cost trade-offs - Shorten activities on the critical path, Brazil shortened the critical part, they made 20% less - Cease (beenden, aufhören) crashing when o The target completion time is reached, you are too late, because the deadline of the project is now o The crashing cost exceeds the penalty cost, you still safe money, as it would be more expensive to continue to project, so you better pay the penalty (Strafe), it depends on the contracts Crashing is a real serious emergency, accelerating, is finding new options to finish/shorten, etc. the project Week 10

What are reasons why teams fail?

- Poorly developed or unclear goals - Poorly defined project team roles & interdependencies - Lack of project team motivation - Poor communication - Poor leadership - Turnover among project team members - Dysfunctional behaviour Week 8,p.226

What are the elements of the final project report?

- Project performance - Administrative performance - Organizational structure - Team performance - Project management techniques - Benefits to the organization and customer Week 10, p.514-515

What is project scheduling and project planning?

- Project scheduling requires us to follow some carefully laid-out steps, in order, for the schedule to take shape. - Project planning, as it relates to the scheduling process, has been defined by the PMBoK(Project Management Body of Knowledge) as: The identification of the project objectives and the ordered activity necessary to complete the project including the identification of resource types and quantities required to carry out each activity or task. Week 7, p.319

What are the Project Manager Responsibilities?

- Selecting a team - Developing project objectives and a plan for execution - Performing risk management activities - Cost estimating and budgeting - Scheduling - Managing resources Week 8

1Why are projects important

- Shortened product life cycles Example:electronics or computer, change very fast - Narrow product launch windows Timing, if the apples are ripe bring them into market, otherwise your neighbour is faster - Increasingly complex and technical products Machines and robots in companies - Emergence of global markets More competitors, more companies take place in the market, cheaper prices are available - Economic period marked by low inflation Less a problem in Europe, but in China and India more common Week 1, p.29

What does SMART mean in the statement goals need to be smart?

- Specific - Measurable - Attractive - Realistic - Time-Bound Week 3

Name some common used terms for project scheduling

- Successors - Predecessors (Vorgänger, Vorläufer) - Network diagram - Serial activities, step by step - Concurrent activities (see B&C below, they are parallel) - Node (Knoten) -> both need to be done, before you can proceed - Path - Merge activities - Burst activities - Critical Path Week 7, p.321

What are the key factors that affect culture development ?

- Technology, conversion process, how it transports inputs to outputs. Many project organizations use the project development process. - Environment, is it rapidy chaning, or may remain relatively simple and stable?Firm global with competitors worldwide or local, etc. - Geographical location, if it is always warm and sunny outside, employees tend to go more outside, leave the office earlier, some people eat late, so they work to another time etc. - Reward systems, banks give bonus to employees if the reach their goals - Rules and Procedures, are there strict rules, is it very easy-going, is there a rulebook or system of procedures? - Key organizational members, founder of the organization and key members influence culture, are they traditional, flexible. Etc. - Critical incidents (Vorfälle) what it takes to succeed in an organization, is a public expression, what a company really is like. Mostly there are stories, like when General Electric worked also on Saturday to complete a project, this shows commitment to work Week 3, p.81/82

What are the activites that has to be done to terminate a project?

- finishing the work - handing over the project -gaining acceptance for the project - harvesting benefits - reviewing how it all went - putting it all to bed -disbanding the team Week 10, p.502-506

Name internal stakeholders

- top management -acoountant - other functional managers - project team members Week 3, p.62

What is cost management?

- •Cost management encompasses data collection, cost accounting, and cost control. Is about controlling, being sure that things go in the right direction - •Cost accounting and cost control serve as the chief mechanisms for identifying and maintaining control over project costs. - •Cost estimation processes create a reasonable budget baseline for the project. Week 9

6 steps for managing stakeholders

1. Asses (einschätzen) the environment: Does Jasmin have success in the market with her hotel or not? 2. Identify the goals of the principal actors : first she tires to defuse all negative reactions like a woman as top manger in Turkey, is she able for this? second, what are the need of each stakeholders? are there hidden agendas from project teams which could have constraints (Einschränkungen) on the project? 3. Asses your own capabilities: look again on your own weaknesses. can we gain support from each stakeholder group? when not do we have another option? which are the own capacities and capabilities? 4. Define the problem: do not look just on your own problems, which could come up, but also on the problems, which could come up with the stakeholders group. Do we have a win-win situation? 5. Develop solutions: create a plan which helps you to see the needs of each stakeholder group and all relationships 6. Test and refine the solutions: think about how would the reaction of each stakeholder be with the solutions above. Is it rightly organised that the goal can be achieved? Week 2, p. 65-67

What are the 4 dimensions of Project Success Importance

1. Project Efficiency Money and Time has to be correct 2. Impact on Customer Your highest aim is to make your customer happy, you do the project for him 3. Business Success Finish your project, measure if it was a success or not (for ex. launch a new IT-System) 4. Preparing for the Future What did you learn out of your project, whether the project helps to open new markets, products etc.in IT the system change very fast, a lot copy your products, be ready for that Week 1, p. 38

What is a project charter?

A Document issued by the sponsor that formally authorizes the project. It includes goals, deliverables, risks, etc. Pinto calls "project charter" statement of work. (make clear that you have an agreement with them) Week 3, p.171, 200

12 Schein's theory

Artefacts: Einstellungen, Umgangsformen, Sprache Kleidung, Kommunikation (eher schwierig zu defnieren) Espoused values: Was wir "für gut & richtig halten", Ge- und Verbote, Verhaltensrechtlinien (teils sichtbar) Shared, tactic, assumptions: Wesen des Menschen, soziale Beziehungen, Zeit und Wahrheit, Umwelt Week 2, only on slides

What is the backward pass in a critical path?

Backward Pass Rules (LS & LF): Early or late finish? In comparison to Forward Pass, we begin at the end. The goal of backward pass is to determine each activity's late start and late finish times. - LF (Late Finish) - Duration = LS (Late Start) - LS of successor =LF predecessor - Smallest succeeding LS at a burst point becomes LF for predecessor Week 7, p.334

Project Management Offices (PMO), resources centre for four points, three levels and forms

Centralised units that oversee or improve the management of projects Resources centre for: • Technical details • Expertise (Fachkentnisse) • Repository (Aufbewahrungsort) • Centre for excellence Three levels: • level 1: offers direct support for each project • level 2: serves the need within a specific business unit • level 3: overall corporate function → it's designed to support the activities of the project manager and staff, not replace the manager or take responsibility for the project Three forms Weather station: tracking and monitoring device (Verfahren), to keep an eye on the status of the project without directly attempting to influence or control them The parents allow their son a birthday party, which he can organise on his own. However, they follow and control what he is doing, so that they could help when something would go wrong. Control Tower: skill to be protected and supported. It focused on developing methods for continually improving project management skills by identifying what is working, where the shortcomings exists and how to resolve on going problems. • Establish standards for managing projects: the parents say how long the party goes, how much it should cost, which are the risk (drunk kids) and so forth • Consults on how to follow these standards: the parents have more experience in planning parties, so they consult their boy in how doing it correctly • Enforces the standards: the parents make rules for the party. In case it will not be taken seriously, the boy has two weeks house arrest. • Improves the standards: after the party the parents explore how to make the next party better, so that the guest feel much better Resources Pool: maintain and provide a cadre of trained and skilled project professionals, as they are needed. (in level three by the support structure) The little boy has a older sister who already made parties, so the parents says to her that she must help him by the party. 2.11 four points for organisational cultures specially by project management, p. 82-83 - Unwritten: in a family the cultures norms of behaviour are not written down, they are obviously - Rules of behaviour: in the morning you greet the other member, you don't play on your phone during you eat, you start to eat when all members sit on the table - Held by some subset of organisation: in the most family are similar rules of behaviour such as washing your hands after you where on the toilet - Taught to all new members: the son marries and his wife is new a new member of the family. For example she comes from Asia and has a different culture, so she's taught with the rules of the Swiss family Week 2, p. 79-81

What are project champions?

Champions are fanatics in the single-minded pursuit of their pet ideas. Champions can be: - Creative originators - Entrepreneurs - Godfather or sponsors - Project managers Week 8, p.147

What are serial activities?

Serial activities are those that flow from one to the next, in sequence: Week 7, p.323

What is stakeholder management?

Stakeholder Management consists of formulating strategies to identify and, if necessary, manage for positive results the impact of stakeholders on the project. Week 3, p.61

What is the definition of stakeholders?

Stakeholders are all individuals or groups who have a stake in the project and can potentially impact, either positively or negatively, its development. Week 3

What are 2 common types of claims that can arise in the event of project closeout?

Two common types of claims that can arise in the event of project closeout: - Ex-gratia (ohne Verpflichtung/freiwillig) claims, often monetary - Default by the project company in its obligation under the contract. When contractual claims are defaulted due to the failure of a project to be completed and delivered, the client firm may have some legal claim to cost recovery or punitive damage. Week 10, p.513

What are Activities Linked in Parallel (Concurrent)?

When the nature of the work allows for more than one activity to be accomplished at the same time, these activities are called concurrent and parallel project paths are constructed through the network. Week 7, p.324

Project and Organisational Strategy consist of 4 points

Definition: the science of formulating, implementing and evaluating cross-functional decisions that enable and organisation to achieve its objectives 1. Developing vision and mission You organise a wedding, your vision is a celebration in a beautiful castle with an awesome band & catering service. These things motivate you for the mission which helps your weeding planning company to exists. 2. Formulating, implementing (umsetzen) and evaluating (bewerten) First of all you must formulate the weeding on it, where are strengths (great food), weaknesses (the weeding cake is not enough big for all people), opportunities (live band with power that all people dance) and threats (it could rain). Theses points must be implanted and evaluated. 3. Making cross functional decision The diverse experts (chef, singer, dancer, so on) on the weeding is spread with different characterises. For example Jasmin marries a Turkish man, so there are two different cultures which meet each other. There are two interests of the kind of weeding, so they must find a solution and corporate together. 3. Achieving objectives (Ziele) The weeding planer must achieve with the given budget the best qualitative weeding for the couple. The music must be accepted as well as the food. The guest should be happy at the end of the party. Week 2, p. 59/60

What is the forward pass in a critical path?

Forward Pass Rules (ES & EF): To determine the earliest times each activity can begin and the earliest it can be completed. Forward pass is a technique to move forward through a diagram to calculate activity duration. Backward pass is its opposite. - ES (Early Start) + Duration = EF (Early Finish) - EF of predecessor = ES of successor - Largest preceding EF at a merge point becomes ES for successor Week 7, p.331

What are methods for resolving conflicts?

Methods for Resolving conflict: - Mediate - defusion/confrontation - Arbitrate - judgment - Control - cool down period - Accept - unmanageable - Eliminate - transfer Conflict is often evidence of progress! Week 8, p.228

What are milestones in a project?

Milestones are events or stages of the project that represent a significant accomplishment. Milestones - ...show completion of important steps - ...signal the team and suppliers - ...can motivate the team - ...offer reevaluation points Week 9, p.457

What are the Differences between Project and Process Management

Process: - Repeat process or product - Several objectives - Ongoing - People are homogeneous - Systems in place to integrate efforts - Performance, cost & time known - Part of the line organization - Bastions of established practice - Supports status quo Project: - New process or product - One objective - One shot - limited life - More heterogeneous - Systems must be created to integrate efforts - Performance, cost & time less certain - Outside of the line organization - Violates established practice - Upsets status quo Week 1, p. 27

Project reflect strategy

Projects are stepping stones of corporate strategy. The firm's strategic development is a driving force behind project development A firm wishing to ....may have a project redevelop wedding dresses create new design of dresses produce not just dresses, but create a new product line also shoes Week 2, p. 60

What is a activity based consting and what are the 4 steps to do it?

Projects use activities& activities use resources. It is a budgeting method that assigns costs first to activities and then to the project based on each project's use of resources. It is based on the notion that projects consume activities and activities consume resources. Consists of 4 steps? - 1.Assign costs to activities that use resources - 2.Identify cost drivers associated with this activity - 3.Compute a cost rate per cost driver unit or transaction - 4.Multiply the cost driver rate times the volume of cost driver units used by the project Week 9, p.296

What is risk management?

Risk management - the art and science of identifying, analysing and responding to risk factors throughout the life of a project and in the best interest of its objectives. Project risk - any possible event that can negatively affect the viability of a project. Week 10, p.245

three forms of organisational structure with their strengths & weaknesses

• Functional organisation - group people performing similar activities into departments • Project organisation - group of people into project teams on temporary assignments • Matrix organisation - create a dual hierarchy in which functions and projects have equal prominence Imagination: You own a nightclub in which are every weekend parties and under the week you decorate the location elegant for private or professional events Functional Organisation Strengths Weaknesses 1. firms design maintained 1. functional siloing (silo-effect) 2. fosters development of in-depth 2. lack of customers focus knowledge 3. standard career paths 3. projects may take longer 4. project team members 4. project may be sub-optimized remain connected with their functional group You have different departments such as marketing, finance, human resources and organisation. All leaders have depth knowledge of their topics (high education and many years experience) and when one employee has a question, he gets the correct answers from his/her boss. On the other hand it's not focused on the individual customers and a project may take longer, because only one person is the leader of the department and on the same time of the project as well. Silo-Effect: the people work just in their area and don't go further. Project organisation Strengths Weaknesses 1. Project manager sole authority 1. expensive to set up and maintain teams 2. Improved communication 2. Chance loyalty to the project rather to frim 3. Effective decision-making 3. No pool of specific knowledge 4. Creation of project management experts 4. workers unassigned at project end 5. Rapid response Our club got a demand for organising a birthday party. The employees can ask either the project manger about the birthday party or the functional manger about the regularly weekend parties. They get rapid a response, which improves the communication as well. For the company is it more expensive and project manger doesn't have the specific knowledge. Matrix organisation Strengths Weaknesses 1. Suited to dynamic environments 1. Dual hierarchy means two bosses 2. Equal emphasis on project 2. Negotiation required in order to share resources management and functional efficiency 3. Promotes coordination across 3. workers caught between competing projects & functional units functional demands 4. Maximizes scarce resources Now the functional manger (Lorena) gives 2 employees (A &B) to the project manager (Jasmin), these two people have to work for the project as well as for the daily task of the nightclub. A & B have on side more time to work for the project, but on the other side they have now two bosses with different interests. Therefore, it's sometimes a difficult decision which task should they do first (this from Lorena or Jasmin). Week 2, p. 68-75

Elements of Projects (4 points)

- Complex, one-time processes - Limited by budget, schedule, and resources - Developed to resolve a clear goal or set of goals - Customer-focused Week 1, p.25/26

What are the 4 strategies for risk mitigation? How can you address risks?

- Accept - Minimize have alternatives ready - Share, getting a partner, share financial risk, make an insurance (if there is something, they will pay for it, but if you don't need the insurance, you pay the premium, Prämie) - Transfer, get a contract with someone who works for you, important you have clearly formulated rules and conditions, give the project to a company, but the you still have the end risk - Contingency Reserves o Task contingency o Managerial contingency - Mentoring - Cross training Week 10, p.254,255

What are the General Project Characteristics?

- Ad-hoc endeavors with a clear life cycle - Building blocks in the design and execution of organizational strategies - Responsible for the Newest and most improved products, services, and organizational processes - Provide a philosophy and strategy for the management of change - Entail crossing functional and organization boundaries - Traditional management functions of planning, organizing, motivating, directing, and controlling apply - Principal outcomes are the satisfaction of customer requirements within technical, cost, and schedule objectives - Terminated upon successful completion of performance objectives Week 1, p. 26

Quadruple Constraint of Project Success, what are the 4 factors leading to success?

- Budget How much can you spend for a wedding, how much money you have - Client Acceptance Are the people who marry happy with your proposal for their wedding, decoration, location? - Schedule When is the wedding, until when you need the dress, when you need to invite people - Performance How nice is the wedding, how does the decoration look like Week 1. p. 36

What are characteristics of effective project teams?

- Clear sense of Mission - Productive Interdependency - Cohesiveness - Trust - Enthusiasm - Results Orientation Week 8, p.212

seven key factors that affect cultural development

- Technology: The hotel needs a reservations system, which works very good. It's important at the moment, but also in the future when more guests will visit the hotel. - Environment: the environment is changing rapidly, so it's important to be ready for each possible situation. There were many terrorist attacks in Turkey, so the hotel had to change hotel program more to Arabic guest than Europe guest, because the Europe were scared and went to other places on holiday. - Geographical location: The Turkish hotel line has subsidiaries in Italy and Spain. During the summer 2016, the hotels in Turkey self were empty. However, the hotels in other two countries were booked out. - Reward system: The hotel in Turkey made a lot of marketing and service was trained to a better performance, so the news paper in Europe wrote a nice article. Therefore, more guest went back to the hotel in Antalya. - Rules and procedures: The hotel manger wrote down rules for all employees, specially for the behaviour to the guest. For example: in Europe is a smile = I'm friendly and in Turkey it means, I would like to go out with you. - Key organisational members: The mangers and the CEO in the hotel should life the culture and behaviour, which is written down to the employees. They are an important role. - Critical incidents: are public expressions of what rules really operate, regardless of what the company formally espouses (unterstützt). Week 2, p. 82-83

Why are projects often under funded?

- Vague goals - No sponsor - Requirements understated - Insufficient funds - Distrust between managers Week 8

What are forms of project management offices(PMO's)?

- Weather station -monitoring and tracking - Control tower -project management is a skill to be protected and supported - Resource pool -maintain and provide a cadre (Kader, Führungskräfte) of skilled project professionals Week 3, p. 77-79

What is the process of risk management?

- What is likely to happen? - What can be done? - What are the warning signs? - What are the likely outcomes? Week 10

What key information should a risk report identify to help the managers classify risks?

- What? Identify clearly the source of risk - Who? Assign a project team member direct responsible for risk - When? Establish a clear time frame, including milestones if necessary - Why? Most likely reasons for the risk: identify the cause of risk emerging - How? Create a detailed plan for how the risk is to be adapted. Week 10, p. 257-259

Name external stakeholders

- clients - competitors - suppliers - environmental, political, consumer and other intervenor groups Week 3, p.63

three key elements for organisational structure

1. Designates formal reporting relationship • number of levels in the hierarchy • span of control F 2. Identifies grouping of: • individuals into departments • departments into the total organisation → How are individuals collected into larger groups? These groups referred to as departments, may be grouped along a variety of different logical patterns. 3. Design of system for: • effective communication • coordination • integration across departments → Is the structure simple or complex? Week 2, p. 67.68

What are the benefits of Gantt Charts?

1. Easy to create and comprehend 2. Identify the schedule baseline network 3. Allow for updating and control 4. Identify resource needs Week 7, p.356

What are the stages in group development?

1. Forming - members become acquainted 2. Storming - conflict begins 3. Norming - members reach agreement 4. Performing - members work together 5. Adjourning (vertagend/aufschiebend) - group disbands Week 8, p.216

Project Stakeholder Management cycle (7 steps)

1. Identify Stakeholders: party guest 2. Gather information on stakeholders: music, food, drinks, so on 3. Identify stakeholders mission: they want to have a great party 4. Determine stakeholder strengths and weaknesses: they love dancing, so they make great atmosphere, but they are fast drunk 5. Identify stakeholders strategy: they want to have fun with good music, food and drinks 6. Predict stakeholder behaviour: they are fast drunk and then they do things without thinking 7. Implement stakeholders management strategy: don't buy strong alcohol Week 2, only on the slides

What are the 4 step approaches to initiate a project?

1. Request a project (Anfragen/anfordern) 2. Gather information and talk to stakeholders 3. Create a project charter 4. Get the approval from the management Week 3

What are the 4 stages of risk management?

1. Risk identification 2. Analysis of probability and consequences 3. Risk mitigation (Milderung) strategies 4. Control and documentation Week 10, p.248

What are 6 Project Manager Responsibilities?

1. Selecting a team Make a band: you need a drummer, singer, guitarist 2. Developing project objectives and a plan for execution What kind of music you want to do, where you play the music, which club etc. 3. Performing risk management activities You have a concert, no clients are coming, a person is sick, no one buys your CD, bad weather on a festival 4. Cost estimating and budgeting How much cost the instruments, the band room, first CD production etc. 5. Scheduling When is your album finish, when do you meet to play, concerts, tour dates 6. Managing resources Your instrument must be paid, how often you buy new ones, clothes, dress code, human resources are the people playing in the band Week 1, p. 44/45

What are the 6 criteria for IT Project Success

1. System quality System has to be userfriendly, useful in daily work, does it break down 2. Information quality Do you get all the information how to use the new IT product or is it too complicated 3. Use System has to be userfriendly, accessible, should help to solve a problem 4. User satisfaction Should help the user, so they will be happy with the new IT product 5. Individual impact System helps the people who really use the system 6. Organizational impact Needs to help in the organization, for ex. a better internal homepage for the whole company Week 1. p.39

What are the 4 elements of the control cycle? (is a general model of organizational control includes 4 components that can operate in a continuous cycle and can be represented as a wheel)

1. setting a goal 2. measuring progress 3. comparing actual with planned performance 4. taking action Week 9, p.454

Understanding the 3 Success Criteria

Factors: Cost, Quality and Time They help you to see how successful your project was, and what criteria to measure the success. There are 4 levels (from 0 to 3), you choose for every point above the right level. Then you have diverse points, which you can connect and you have a picture. Week 1, p.38

What are the 4 Effects from Project Life Cycles?

In the different Stages from the Life Cycles, the different aspects get higher and lower - Clients Interest High in the Conceptualization, enthusiasm is high at the beginning, uncertainty is also high, aso you don't know how your party will be - Project Stake Investment in the project, gets always higher and higher, because at the end you know exactly how much beverages you needed, how many people there were etc. - Resources High during the Execution, you use the resources (people from party, music, food, drinks etc.) when the party takes place Creativity - Uncertaintly Is high at the beginning, gets always less and less, like in a relationship, in the beginning you don't know what kind of person it is, will it be alright, is he trustful etc. Week 1, p. 34

four internal and four external Stakeholders & their relationship to the project

Stakeholders are all individuals or groups who have an active stake in the project and can potentially impact, either positively or negatively, its development. Situation as example: Jasmin goes from Switzerland to Turkey and take over a huge hotel, because the owner before is in prison (it said that he is a terrorist) Internal: • Top management: Jasmin is now the top manager, says the other mangers what to do for achieving the goals, she gives them the necessarily support, she wants a great success • Accounting: this position controls the budget of the project • Other functional managers: the service mangers wants still his waiters for working in the restaurant, so he must be considerate of the project • Project team members: they have the tremendous stake of the outcome, only when the waiters, the housekeeping, the chef, so on of the hotel work so how the management want, the hotel guests will be satisfied External: • Clients: the hotel guest want to have relaxed holidays without stress and the new promised offers should be available as soon as possible • Competitors: other hotels want a fair game of the new hotel owner Jasmin • Suppliers: The project manger must first look that all suppliers such as company with raw material or food get the right information. Secondly, the companies must do the right job to the given time, which must be monitored by the project manger as well. • Environmental, political, consumer and other intervener groups: these kinds of groups have only a negative or positive effect on the project when they have the capacity to intervene in it Week 2, p. 61-65

What are budget contingencies and why are they needed??

The allocation of extra funds to cover uncertainties and improve the chance of finishing on time. Contingencies are needed because - Project scope may change - Murphy's Law is present, if things are going in a wrong side you expect the worst, if something can go wrong it will go wrong - Cost estimation must anticipate interaction costs - Normal conditions are rarely encountered Week 9, p.298,299

How do you build high performance teams? What are the 3 Practical steps to set the stage for teamwork to emerge?

There are 3 Practical steps to set the stage for teamwork to emerge: 1. Make the project team tangible (that teams develop their own unique identity) - Publicity, promoting interaction - Unique Terminology & language 2. Reward good behaviour (nonmonetary methods) - Flexibility, everyone views rewards differently - Creativity - Pragmatism 3. Develop a personal touch, build one-on-one relationships with team members - Lead by example - Positive feedback for good performance - Accessibility & consistency Week 8, p.221,222

How can you do industry specific risk identification?

There are also industry specific risks, next to the risks mentioned above. To identify these risks use the following methods: - Brainstorming meetings - Expert opinion - Past history - Multiple (or team based) assessments Week 10. p. 249/250

What is merge activity?

Those with two or more immediate pedecessors. They are often critical junction points, places where two or more parallel project path converge within the overall network. Week 7, p.324

What are Burst activities?

Those with two or more immediate successor activities. All the successors can begin, when the predecessor is finished (like opposite from merge activity) Week 7, p.325