Exam 2 Project Management

ROM (-25% to + 75%), Budget (-10% to + 25%), Definitive (-5% to 10%.)

Estimate Accuracy Levels

(True/False) Indirect Costs are directly attributable to the activities of the project.

False! Direct Costs are, though.

(True/False) A work breakdown structure is a foundation document that illustrates an organizational view of the stakeholders for a given project.

False. A WBS is a foundation document that provides the basis for planning and managing project schedules, costs, resources and more.

(True/False) Direct costs are costs that are not directly attributable to the activities of the project (overhead rates such as management salaries, energy costs, rents, etc.)

False. This is the Definition of Indirect Costs.

compressing the schedule by doing work in parallel

Fast Tracking

expenses whose total does not change in proportion to the activity of a business or project, within the relevant time period or scale of production (rent, insurance)

Fixed Costs

include a Roles and Responsibilities Matrix (RACI is most common), Project Organization Chart, and a Staffing Management Plan

HR Management Key Deliverables

identifying and documenting project roles, responsibilities, and reporting relationships.

Human Resource Management

provides minimum requirements for an organization to meet their quality certification standards

ISO 9000

a "cause-and-effect" tool to aid workers in discovering the true root cause for quality issues

Ishikawa Diagram

all costs incurred over the life of a product or service

Life Cycle Cost

extra money set aside to allow for future situations that are unpredictable (sometimes called unknown unknowns)

Management Reserves

prioritizes the needs that workers possess which motivates them to do their best work, including physiological, safety, social, esteem, self-actualization.

Maslow's hierarchy of needs

can be used as a benchmark for assessing different organizations for equivalent comparison

Maturity Models

includes theory x and y workers

McGregor's 2 leadership styles

appear only once (initial purchase cost of hardware and software)

Nonrecurring Costs

Standardize Measure Control Continuously Improve

OPM3: Organizational Project Management Maturity Model Stages

to increase the probability and impact of positive outcomes and decrease the probability and impact of negative outcomes

Objectives of Risk Management

A measure of the expected return on a project compared to the expected return on an alternative investment

Opportunity Costs

**(True/False) Most expensive project mistakes are made after planning has been finalized.**

**False. McConnell (1998) states that errors found "upstream" during the planning phase cost on the order of 200 times less to fix than errors found "downstream" during the building of the product.**

planning, estimating, budgeting, and control of the cost of project resources needed to complete 100% of the activities of the project

Project Cost Management

is a document used to coordinate all project planning documents. Its main purpose is to guide project execution.

Project Plan

includes the processes involved in defining and controlling what is or is not included in a project.

Project Scope Management

characterizing and analyzing risks and prioritizing their effects on project objectives

Qualitative Risk Analysis

the degree to which a set of inherent characteristics fulfill requirements

Quality

identifying which quality standards are relevant, and determining the activities needed to meet the established standards, to deliver the product fit for customer use

Quality Planning

numerically measuring the probability and consequences of risks

Quantitative Risk Analysis

appear more than once throughout the life of the project (annual hardware and software maintenance)

Recurring Costs

includes functional and nonfunctional system requirements, business rules, impacts on any other systems and/or departments, and support and training requirements.

Requirements Document/Definition

extra money included in a cost estimate to mitigate cost risk (aka buffers)

Reserves

accepting the consequences should a risk occur without trying to control it

Risk Acceptance

eliminating a specific threat or risk, usually by eliminating its causes

Risk Avoidance

determining which risks are likely to affect a project and documenting their characteristics

Risk Identification

deciding how to approach and plan the risk management activities for the project

Risk Management Planning

reducing the impact of a risk event by reducing the probability of its occurrence

Risk Mitigation

taking steps to enhance opportunities and reduce threats to meeting project objectives

Risk Response Planning

shifting the consequence of a risk and responsibility for its management to a third party internal or external to the organization

Risk Transference

Analogous Top-down Bottom-up Three-point Simulation

Schedule Estimating Methods

the unanticipated gradual growth of systems requirements during the life of the project causing budget and time overruns.

Scope Creep

is accomplished by conducting a requirements discovery and analysis exercise, the use of subject matter experts, and a stakeholder analysis.

Scope Definition

to reduce variation and thereby reduce the number of product or service defects

Six Sigma

is a Process to follow when adding or removing people from the project, in assigning work, managing different groups of workers, list of training needed and the process for scheduling and funding, ..etc.

Staffing Management Plan

cost expended that cannot be retrieved on a product or service

Sunk Cost

a combination of quality tools to achieve increased business while reducing costs and waste

TQM: Total Quality Management

includes the precedence diagram method (uses boxes to represent activities) and lines with arrows to represent the dependencies, and the activity on arrow diagramming method (Activities are represented by lines with arrows-Nodes or circles are the starting and ending points of activities)

Techniques of Activity Sequencing

the cost of a human resource including benefits, vacation, holidays, etc

Burden Rate

extra money to allow for known unknowns included in the project cost baseline

Contingency Reserves

the entire picture of costs for the project - taking into account all of the following cost categories: direct and indirect, recurring and nonrecurring, fixed and variable, and all life cycle costs

Cost Estimating/Budgeting Process

total costs incurred by an organization to prevent a faulty product or development of a system that does not meet system requirements. Costs include: assessments, rework, lost time, injury, and death.

Cost of Quality

compressing the schedule for the least incremental cost

Crashing

project scope, time, cost, quality, or resources

Effected by Risk

(True/False) A requirements definition includes both a specific acceptance criteria for each requirement or set of requirements, as well as quality requirements.

True

(True/False) As a general rule, a small amount of issues cause the most problems on a project. For example, 80% of the rework time spent on the product was caused by 20% of the requirements

True

(True/False) Building the project plan should not be done in secret or in isolation; the whole project team needs to participate.

True

(True/False) Crisis management ("fire fighting") is the opposite of good risk management - organizations find themselves trying to figure out what to do about a problem after it has occurred instead of planning for issues in advance.

True

(True/False) Deming estimated that up to 85% of all quality problems could be corrected by changes in the process and only 15% could be controlled by the workers on the line.

True

(True/False) Dependency types include Finish-Start, Start-Start, Finish-Finish and Start-Finish.

True

(True/False) Developing an estimate for a large technology project is a complex task requiring a significant amount of effort.

True

(True/False) Estimates are completed at various stages of the project and "Progressive Elaboration" takes place.

True

(True/False) Good scope planning is one of the best ways to limit scope creep.

True

(True/False) Plans should never assume the team will work overtime, at least not at the start.

True

(True/False) The greatest threat to many projects is a failure to communicate. IT projects require extra communication due to the language gap (computer jargon) that occurs on many projects.

True

(True/False) Time is the most precarious element of the triple constraint: Time has the least amount of flexibility.

True

(True/False) To reach six sigma you would have no more than 3.4 defects per million opportunities on your IT projects

True

(True/False)Developing an estimate for a large technology project is a complex task requiring a significant amount of effort.

True

change based on the activity of a business or project (project employee costs)

Variable Costs

a list of tasks executed by the project team to accomplish project objectives.

Work Breakdown Structure