Project Management II - Quiz 1

If a company loses $5 for every $100 in revenue for a certain product, what is the profit margin for that product?

-5%

5 dysfunctions of teams

1 - Absence of trust 2 - Fear of conflict 3 - Lack of commitment 4 - Avoidance of accountability 5 - Inattention to results

3 Project Management Processes

1 - Estimating the cost 2 - Determining the budget 3 - Controlling costs

Earned value management involves calculating which three values for each activity or summary activity from a project's WBS?

1 - Planned Value 2 - Actual Cost 3 - Earned Value

3 basic types of estimates

1 - Rough order of magnitude (ROM) 2 - Budgetary estimate 3 - Definitive estimate

7 basic tools of quality

1 - cause-and-effect diagrams 2 - control charts 3 - run chart 4 - scatter diagram 5 - histograms 6 - Pareto charts 7 - flow charts

3 main processes involved in project quality management

1 - quality planning 2 - quality assurance 3 - quality control

Human resource management includes the following four processes:

1. Developing the human resource plan 2. Acquiring the project team 3. Developing the project team 4. Managing the project team

4 steps for defining and assigning work

1. Finalizing project requirements 2. Defining how the work will be accomplished 3. Breaking down the work into manageable elements 4. Assigning work responsibilities

Main outcomes of quality control

Acceptance decisions Rework Process adjustments

Rework

Action taken to bring rejected items into compliance with product requirements or specifications or other stakeholder expectations

Process adjustments

Adjustments made to correct or prevent further quality problems based on quality control measurements

Cost budgeting

Allocating the overall cost estimate to individual work items to establish a baseline for measuring performance.

Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award

An award started in 1987 to recognize companies that have achieved a level of world-class competition through quality management

Estimate at completion (EAC)

An estimate of what it will cost to complete the project based on performance to date.

User acceptance testing

An independent test performed by end users prior to accepting the delivered system

The human resource plan often includes:

An organizational chart for the project, detailed information on roles and responsibilities, and a staffing management plan.

Defect

Any instance where the product or service fails to meet customer requirements

Software defect

Anything that must be changed before delivery of the program

Run chart

Chart that displays the history and pattern of variation of a process over time

Statistical sampling

Choosing part of a population of interest for inspection

Life cycle costing

Considers the total cost of ownership, or development plus support costs, for a project.

Cost control

Controlling changes to the project budget.

_______ is a resource sacrificed or foregone to achieve a specific objective or something given up in exchange.

Cost

Why do many projects never finish?

Cost management problems cause many problems to never finish.

Computerized tools

Cost-estimating tools that use computer software, such as spreadsheets and project management software.

Intangible costs or benefits

Costs or benefits that are difficult to measure in monetary terms.

Tangible costs or benefits

Costs or benefits that can be easily measured in dollars

Indirect costs

Costs that are not directly related to the products or services of the project, but are indirectly related to performing the project.

Direct costs

Costs that can be directly related to producing the products and services of the project.

Acceptance decisions

Decisions that determine if the products or services produced as art of the project will be accepted or rejected.

________ are used for making many purchasing decisions for which accurate estimates are required and for estimating final project costs.

Definitive estimates

Conformance

Delivering products that meet requirements and fitness for use

Cost estimating

Developing an approximation or estimate of the costs of the resources needed to complete the project.

Scatter diagram

Diagram that helps to show if there is a relationship between two variables; also called XY charts

Fishbone diagram

Diagram that traces complaints about quality problems back to the responsible production operations to help find the root cause. Also known as cause-and-effect diagram or Ishikawa diagram

Ishikawa diagram

Diagram that traces complaints about quality problems back to the responsible production operations to help find the root cause. Also known as cause-and-effect diagram or fishbone diagram

Cause-and-effect diagram

Diagram that traces complaints about quality problems back to the responsible production operations to help find the root cause. Also known as fishbone diagram or Ishikawa diagram.

Management reserves

Dollars included in a cost estimate to allow for future situations that are unpredictable (sometimes called unknown unknowns).

Contingency reserves

Dollars included in a cost estimate to allow for future situations that may be partially planned for (sometimes called known unknowns) and are included in the project cost baseline.

Reserves

Dollars included in a cost estimate to mitigate cost risk by allowing for future situations that are difficult to predict.

_____ is a project performance measurement technique that integrates scope, time, and cost data.

Earned value analysis

Project quality management

Ensuring that a project will satisfy the needs for which it was undertaken

Important scope aspects of IT projects that affect quality

Functionality and Features - important to recognize the difference between necessary and optional functionality and features. System outputs - important to define clearly what the screens and reports look like. Can the users easily interpret these outputs? Performance Reliability Maintainability

Flowchart

Graphic display of the logic and flow of processes that helps you analyze how problems occur and how processes can be improved

Quality circles

Groups of nonsupervisors and work leaders in a single company department who volunteer to conduct group studies on how to improve the effectiveness of work in their department

Pareto chart

Histogram that helps identify and prioritize problem areas

Performance

How well a product or service performs the customer's intended use

Pareto analysis

Identifying the vital few contributors that account for most quality problems in a system

Quality planning

Identifying which quality standards are relevant to the project and how to satisfy them

Why is it important to define clearly the year on which the company bases its dollar amounts?

If a company bases all costs on a previous years estimates it would need to account for inflation and other factors when projecting costs and benefits in future-year dollars.

Seven run rule

If seven data points in a row on a quality control chart are all below the mean, above the mean, or are all increasing or decreasing, then the process needs to be examined for nonrandom problems

Why is cash flow important?

If top management selects too many projects that have high cash flow needs in the same year, the company will not be able to support all of its projects and maintain profitability.

________ for projects often include items like goodwill, prestige, and general statements of improved productivity that an organization cannot easily translate into dollar amounts.

Intangible costs

stress testing

It involves testing beyond normal operational capacity, often to a breaking point, in order to observe the results.

If a project is halfway completed and its schedule performance index is 110 percent and its cost performance index is 95 percent, how is it progressing?

It is ahead of schedule and over budget.

Project Human Resource Management

Making the most effective use of the people involved with a project

______ reserves allow for future situations that are unpredictable.

Management

McGregor's Theory Y

Manager's who believe in this assume that individuals do not inherently dislike work, but consider it as natural as rest or play.

Ouchi's Theory Z

Manager's who believe in this assume workers can be trusted to do their jobs to their utmost ability, as long as management can be trusted to support them and look out for their well-being.

Robust Design Methods

Methods that focus on eliminating defects by substituting scientific inquiry for trial-and-error methods

Sunk cost

Money that has been spent in the past.

Quality control

Monitoring specific project results to ensure that they comply with the relevant quality standards and identifying ways to improve overall quality

What determines the success and failure of organizations and projects?

People

McGregor's Theory X

People who believe in this assume that workers dislike and avoid work if possible, so managers must use coercion, threats, and various control schemes to get workers to make adequate efforts to meet objectives.

Quality assurance

Periodically evaluating overall project performance to ensure that the project will satisfy the relevant quality standards

______ involves allocating the project cost estimate to individual work items over time.

Project cost budgeting

Profits

Revenues minus expenses.

What can assist in improving quality?

Strong leadership, understanding the cost of quality, providing a good workplace to enhance quality, and working toward improving the organization's overall maturity level in software development and project management can all assist in improving quality.

Quality audit

Structured review of specific quality management activities that helps identify lessons learned and can improve performance on current or future projects

Cost of nonconformance

Taking responsibility for failures or not meeting quality expectations

Function points

Technology-independent assessments of the functions involved in developing a system.

Integration testing

Testing that occurs between unit and system testing to test functionality grouped components to ensure a subset(s) of the entire system works together

System testing

Testing the entire system as one entity to ensure that it is working properly

Reliability

The ability of a product or service to perform as expected under normal conditions

Overrun

The additional percentage or dollar amount by which actual costs exceed estimates.

Mean

The average value of a population

Measurement and test equipment costs

The capital cost of equipment used to perform prevention and appraisal activities

Cost of quality

The cost of conformance plus the cost of nonconformance

Appraisal cost

The cost of evaluating processes and their outputs to ensure that a project is error-free or within an acceptable error range

Prevention cost

The cost of planning and executing a project so that it is error-free or within an acceptable error range

If the actual cost for a WBS item is over $1500 and its earned value was $2000, what is its cost variance, and is it under or over budget?

The cost variance is $500, which is under budget

Who decides if quality is acceptable?

The customer.

Functionality

The degree to which a system performs its intended function

Cost variance (CV)

The earned value minus the actual cost.

Schedule variance (SV)

The earned value minus the planned value.

Maintainability

The ease of performing maintenance on a product

Yield

The number of units handled correctly through the development process

Baseline

The original project plan plus approved changes.

Budget at completion (BAC)

The original total budget for a project.

Earned value (EV)

The percentage of work actually completed multiplied by the planned cost; formerly called the budgeted cost of work performed (BCWP).

Planned value (PV)

The portion of the approved total cost estimate planned to be spent on an activity during a given period; formerly called the budgeted cost of work scheduled (BCWS).

Project cost management

The processes required to ensure that the project is completed within the approved budget.

Conformance to requirements

The project processes and products meet written specifications

Profit margin

The ratio between revenues and profits.

Rate of performance (RP)

The ratio of actual work completed to the percentage of work planned to have been completed at any given time during the life of the project or activity.

Cost performance index (CPI)

The ratio of earned value to actual cost; can be used to estimate the projected cost to complete the project.

Schedule performance index (SPI)

The ratio of earned value to planned value; can be used to estimate the projected time to complete a project.

System outputs

The screens and reports the system generates

Features

The special characteristics that appeal to users

Actual cost (AC)

The total of direct and indirect costs incurred in accomplishing work on an activity during a given period; formerly called the actual cost of work performed (ACWP).

Quality

The totality of characteristics of an entity that bear on its ability to satisfy stated or implied needs or the degree to which a set of inherent characteristics fulfill requirements

When do organizations have a history of not spending enough money and what does it impact?

They have a history of not spending enough money in the early phases of projects and it impacts the total cost of ownership.

What do organizations need if they want to be successful at implementing information technology projects?

They need to understand the importance of project human resource management and take actions to make effective use of people.

just-in-time training

Training that is given right before it is needed, so that it is fresh in the worker's mind when work begins.

staffing management plan

a document that describes when and how people will be added to and taken off a project team

hierarchy of needs

a pyramid structure illustrating maslows theory that peoples behaviors are guided or motivated by a sequence of needs

rapport

a relation of harmony conformity accord or affinity

organizational breakdown structure

a specific type of organizational chart that shows which organizational units are responsible for which work items

issue log

a tool for managing project teams where the project manager documents, monitors, and tracks issues that need to be resolved in order for the project to run smoothly

resource loading

amt of individual resources required during specific time periods.

synergy

an approach where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts

The drawback with ________ is that they are usually time-intensive and therefore expensive to develop.

bottom-up estimates

extrinsic motivation

causes people to do something fora reword or to avoid a penalty

intrinsic motivation

causes people to participate in an activity for their own enjoyment

RACI charts

charts that show Responsibility, Accountability, Consultation, and Informed roles for project stakeholders

A(n) ________ is a time-phased budget that project managers use to measure and monitor cost performance.

cost baseline

Which of the following processes of project cost management involves allocating the overall cost estimate to individual work items to establish a baseline for measuring performance?

cost budgeting

The main outputs of the ________ process are work performance measurements, budget forecasts, organizational process asset updates, change requests, project management plan updates, and project document updates.

cost control

Which of the following processes of project cost management involves developing an approximation of the costs of the resources needed to complete a project?

cost estimating

What is the ratio of earned value to actual cost and can be used to estimate the projected cost of completing the project?

cost of performance index (CPI)

The ________ is the additional percentage or dollar amount by which actual costs exceed estimates.

cost overrun

What is the earned value minus the actual cost?

cost variance (CV)

The ________ is an estimate of the value of the physical work actually completed.

earned value (EV)

legitimate power

getting people to do things based on a position of authority

referent power

getting people to do things based on an individual's personal charisma

power

getting people to do things they would not otherwise do

A company might complete a project to develop and implement a new customer service system in one or two years, but the new system could be in place for ten years. Project managers should create estimates of the costs and benefits of the project for ten years. This is an example of ________.

life cycle costing

empathic listening

listening with the intent to understand

mirroring

matching certain behaviors of the other person

responsibility assignment matrix

matrix that maps the work of the project as described in the WBS to the people responsible for performing the work as described int he organizational breakdown structure

You are preparing a cost estimate for a building based on its location, purpose, number of square feet, and other characteristics. What cost estimating technique are you using?

parametric

A ________ might provide an estimate of $50 per line of code for a software development project based on the programming language the project is using, the level of expertise of the programmers, the size and complexity of the data involved, and so on.

parametric model

subproject managers

people responsible for managing the subprojects that a large project might be broken into

deputy project managers

people who fill in for project managers in their absence and assist them as needed similar to the role of a vice president

Suppose a project included a summary activity of purchasing and installing a new Web server. Suppose further that, according to the plan, it would take one week and cost a total of $10,000 for the labor hours, hardware, and software involved. The ________ for that activity that week is, therefore, $10,000.

planned value (PV)

To increase ________, a company can increase revenues, decrease expenses, or try to do both.

profits

What are most executives concerned with more than other issues?

profits

Which type of estimate is done very early in a project or even before a project is officially started?

rough order of magnitude (ROM) estimate

What is the ratio of earned value to planned value and can be used to estimate the projected time to complete the project?

schedule performance index (SPI)

Which of the following is the earned value minus the planned value?

schedule variance (SV)

Avoid ________ when deciding what project to invest in or continue.

sunk costs

What is the main goal of project cost management?

to complete a project within an approved budget.

What is the purpose of project quality management?

to ensure that the project will satisfy the needs for which it was undertaken.

Which type of estimate uses the actual cost of a previous, similar project as the basis for estimating the cost of the current project?

top-down estimate

reward power

using incentives to induce people to do things

expert power

using one's personal knowledge and expertise to get people to change their behavior

coercive power

using punishment, threats, or other negative approaches to get people to do things they do not want to do

overallocation

when more resources than are available are assigned to perform work at a given time

5 types of power

• Coercive Power • Legitimate Power • Expert Power • Reward Power • Referent Power

Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI)

A process improvement approach that provides organizations with the essential elements of effective processes

Fitness for use

A product can be used as it was intended

Earned value management (EVM)

A project performance measurement technique that integrates scope, time, and cost data.

ISO 9000

A quality system standard developed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) that includes a three-part, continuous cycle of planning, controlling, and documenting quality in an organization

Design of experiments

A quality technique that helps identify which variables have the most influence on the overall outcome of a process

Metric

A standard of measurement

DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control)

A systematic, closed-loop process for continued improvement that is scientific and fact based.

resource leveling

A technique for resolving resources conflicts by delaying tasks.

Benchmarking

A technique used to generate ideas for quality improvements by comparing specific project practices

5 whys

A technique where you repeatedly ask the question "Why?" (five is a good rule of thumb) to help peel away the layers of symptoms that can lead to the root cause of a problem.

Unit test

A test of each individual component (often a program) to ensure that it is as defect-free as possible

Learning curve theory

A theory that states that when many items are produced repetitively, the unit cost of those items normally decreases in a regular pattern as more units are produced.

Cost baseline

A time-phased budget that project managers use to measure and monitor cost performance.

COCOMO II

A newer, computerized cost-estimating tool based on Barry Boehm's original model that allows one to estimate the cost, effort, and schedule when planning a new software development activity.

Constructive Cost Model (COCOMO)

A parametric model developed by Barry Boehm for estimating software development costs.

Histogram

A bar graph of a distribution of variables

Normal distribution

A bell-shaped curve that is symmetrical about the mean of the population

resource histogram

A column chart that shows the number of resources required or assigned to a project over time

Six Sigma

A comprehensive and flexible system for achieving, sustaining, and maximizing business success that is uniquely driven by close understanding of customer needs, disciplined use of facts, data, statistical analysis, and diligent attention to managing, improving, and reinventing business processes

Rough order of magnitude (ROM) estimate

A cost estimate prepared very early in the life of a project to provide a rough idea of what a project will cost.

Definitive estimate

A cost estimate that provides an accurate estimate of project costs.

Budgetary estimate

A cost estimate used to allocate money into an organization's budget.

Internal failure cost

A cost incurred to correct an identified defect before the customer receives the product

External failure cost

A cost related to all errors not detected and corrected before delivery to the customer

Bottom-up estimate

A cost-estimating technique based on estimating individual work items and summing them to get a project total.

Parametric modeling

A cost-estimating technique that uses project characteristics (parameters) in a mathematical model to estimate project costs.

Analogous estimate

A cost-estimating technique that uses the actual cost of a previous, similar project as the basis for estimating the cost of the current project; also called top-down estimate.

Cost management plan

A document that describes how cost variances will be managed on the project.

Maturity model

A framework for helping organizations improve their processes and systems

Control chart

A graphic display of data that illustrates the results of a process over time

Source Lines of Code (SLOC)

A human-written line of code that is not a blank line or comment.

Software Quality Function Deployment (SQFD) model

A maturity model that focuses on defining user requirements and planning software projects

Standard deviation

A measure of how much variation exists in a distribution of data

Six 9s of quality

A measure of quality control equal to 1 fault in 1 million opportunities

Cash flow analysis

A method for determining the estimated annual costs and benefits for a project.