Chapter 4: Defining the Project & Stakeholder Management

Responsibility Matrix

(sometimes called a linear responsibility chart) summarizes the tasks to be accomplished and who is responsible for what on a project at either organization level and/or individual level - Clarifies the extent or type of authority exercised by each organization and/or participant - Provides a mean for all participants in a project to view their responsibilities and agree on their assignments

Work Package

- lowest level of WBS: basic unit for planning, scheduling, and controlling the project - often short duration tasks, with start/end points and associated resources/ cost Defines: - Work to be done (what) - Duration (how long) - Resources and time-phased budget (how much) - What persons are responsible for the units of work (who) - Monitoring points for measuring ongoing progress (how well)

Purposes of Project Scope Statement

-To clearly define the deliverable(s) for the end user. -To focus the project on successful completion of its goals. -To be used by the project owner and participants as a planning tool and for measuring project success

Project Scope (Step 1)

-is a definition of the end result or mission of your project - a product or service for your client/customer - Results to be achieved in specific, tangible, and measurable terms. -Also referred to as "Statements of Work (SOWs)"

Steps for developing a Communication plan

1) Stakeholder analysis: Identify the target groups 2) Information Needs: What information to whom: project status reports, deliverable issues, escalations, changes in scope, team status meetings, gating decisions, action items, milestone reports, etc. 3) Sources of information: where does the information reside? 4) Dissemination modes: hardcopy, e-mail, teleconferencing, SharePoint, database sharing programs, etc. 5)Responsibility and timing: who will send out the information and when?

Major groupings for a hierarchical WBS

1. Project (complete project) 2. Deliverable (Major deliverables) 3. Subdeliverable (supporting deliverables) 4. Lowest subdeliverable (Lowest management responsibility level) 5. Cost account (grouping of work packages for monitoring progress and responsibility) 6. Work Package (Identifiable work activities)

Core questions of project communication plan

1. What information needs to be collected and when? 2. Who will receive the information? 3. What methods will be used to gather and store information? 4. What are the limits, if any, on who has access to certain kinds of information? 5. When will the information be communicated? 6. How will it be communicated?

Most common causes of Scope Creep

1. poor requirement analysis - customers often don't really know what they want. 2. Not involving users early enough - project teams assume they know what the end user needs only to find their mistaken 3. Underestimating project complexity - complexity and associated uncertainty naturally lead to changes in scope, since there are so many unknowns yet to be discovered 4. Lack of change control- a robust change control process is needed to ensure that only appropriate changes occur in the scope of the project. 5. Gold Plating - refers to adding extra value to the project that is beyond the scope of the project

Project Scope Checklist

1. project objective 2. product scope description 3. justification 4. deliverables 5. milestones 6. technical requirements 7. limits and exclusions 8. acceptance criteria

Project Charter

A document issued by the project initiator or sponsor that formally authorizes the existence of a project and provides the project manager with the authority to apply organizational resources to project activities. -Adds such items as business case, budgets, team composition, risk limits to a brief summary of project scope

Project Priority Matrix (Step 2)

A project manager can manage project trade-offs by completing a priority matrix and identifying which requirements are: - Constrain: meeting requirement is a must -Enhance: optimize requirement, to best possible extent -Accept: OK to not meet requirement although desirable if possible

Organization Breakdown Structure (OBS) (Step 4)

Depicts how the firm has organized to discharge work responsibility - Identify the organization units responsible for the work packages - Provide a framework to track organization units work performance. - tie the organizational units into the work packages to create project element/ cost account integrating work and responsibility

Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) (Step 3)

Hierarchical outline of the project with different levels of detail - Identifies the products and work elements involved in a project - Defines the composition of the final deliverable (the project) into various sub-deliverables, and ultimately the project work packages - serves as a framework for track scope, cost and schedule performance. - Deliverables and work packages can be: tangible outcomes, process phases (for process-oriented projects), mix of both

WBS Coding System (Step 5)

Provides numerical identification for: - Levels and deliverables - Work Packages - Organization elements - Budget and cost information Allows project management reports to be consolidated: - At any level in the structure - horizontally by deliverable and vertically by organizational unit

Project Management Tradeoffs

Quality and the ultimate success of a project are defined as meeting or exceeding the expectations of the customer or upper management in terms of: - cost (budget) -time (schedule) -performance (scope)

Product scope description (2)

This step is a detailed description of the characteristics of the product, service, or outcome of the project. - the description is progressively elaborated throughout the project -answers the question "What end result is wanted?"

Technical requirements (6)

a product or service will have technical requirements to ensure proper performance. -clarify the deliverables or define the performance specifications

Acceptance criteria

are a set of conditions that must be met before the deliverables are accepted. ex) less than 1 percent defect rate

scope statements

are twofold. there there is 1-2 page summary of key elements of the scope, followed by extended documentation for each element

Deliverables (4)

define the major deliverables - the expected, measurable outputs over the life of the project.

Justification (3)

helps project team members and stakeholders know why management authorized the project - what is the problem or opportunity the project is addressing? -referred to as the "business case" for the project -usually includes cost/benefit analysis and strategic significance.

Milestones (5)

is a significant event in a project that occurs at a point in time. -shows only major segments of work; it represents first, rough cut estimates of time, cost and resources for the project -uses deliverables as a platform to identify major segments of work and an end date.

project communication plan

maps out the fl;ow of information to different stakeholders and becomes an integral part of the overall project plan. - purpose of the communication plan is to express what, who, how, and when information will be transmitted ot project stakeholders so schedules, issues, and action items can be tracked

Project objective (1)

the first step of project scope definition is to define the overall objective to meet your customer's need(s) -answers the what, when, how much, and at times where

limits and exclusions (7)

the limits of scope should be defined, failure to do so can lead to false expectations and to expending resources and time on the wrong problem.

Scope Creep

the tendency for the project scope to expand over time - usually by changing requirements, specifications, and priorities. -can have a positive or negative effect -usually means added costs and possible project delays