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Praise for Head First PMP “I have been doing project management for over 30 years and am considered a subject matter expert in the PMBOK(r) Guide, Third Edition, primarily because I am the Project Manager who led the team that developed this edition.... I can honestly say that Head First PMP is by far the best PMP Exam Preparation book of all I have reviewed in depth. It is the very best basic education and training book that I have read that presents the processes for managing a project, which makes it a great resource for a basic project management class for beginners as well as a tool for practitioners who want to pass the PMP exam. The graphical story format is unique, as project management books go, which makes it both fun and easy to read while driving home the basics that are necessary for preparing someone is just getting started and those who want to take the exam.” — Dennis Bolles, PMP Project Manager for the PMBOK® Guide, Third Edition Leadership Team, DLB Associates, LLC and co-author of The Power of Enterprise-Wide Project Management “This looks like too much fun to be a PMP study guide! Behind the quirky humor and nutty graphics lies an excellent explanation of the project management processes. Not only will this book make it easier to pass the exam, you’ll learn a lot of good stuff to use on the job too.” —C arol Steuer, PMP PMBOK® Guide, Third Edition Leadership Team “This is the best thing to happen to PMP since, well, ever. You’ll laugh, learn, pass the exam, and become a better project manager all at the same time.” —S cott Berkun, author of The Art of Project Management and The Myths of Innovation “I love the brain-friendly approach used by Head First. When was the last time you heard that a PMP Prep book was fun to read? This one really is!” —A ndy Kaufman, host of The People and Projects Podcast on iTunes “Head First PMP is the PMP exam prep book for the rest of us: the people who live project management daily and want an exam prep book that is as interesting as the work we live, prepares them for the exam, and helps them become a better project manager. I’ve taken my copy of the first edition to numerous exam prep classes I have helped teach as a reference book. Students will pick it up, review several pages or topics and say, ‘That is how I learn. Can I take your copy?’ The impact and satisfaction is immediate.” —K en Jones, PMP and project manager “In today’s business world, it’s not just what you get done, it’s how you get it done. To that end, Head First PMP has just the right balance of wit and fun that makes learning the Project Management Body of Knowledge engaging and interesting.” —Jen Poisson, Director of Production Operations, Disney Online
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Praise for Head First PMP “Wow. In the beginning of March I finished and passed a four hour adventure called the PMP exam. I can honestly say that though I used a few study guides, without the help of Head First PMP, I don’t know how I would have done it. Jenny and Andrew put together one of the best ‘head smart, brain friendly’ training manuals that I have ever seen. I have to say that I am a HUGE fan and WILL be buying their new Beautiful Teams book. Anyone I meet that mentions wanting to take the exam, I send them to http://www.headfirstlabs.com/books/hfpmp/ to get the sample chapter and free test. Seeing is believing. Thanks Andrew and Jenny for putting together an exceptional study guide. Keep up the good work!” —Joe Pighetti Jr., PMP, Engineer “I think that under the fonts and formalized goofiness, the book has a good heart (intending to cover basic principles in an honest way rather than just to pass the test). Head First PMP attempts to educate potential project managers instead of being a mere “how to pass the PMP exam” book filled with test taking tips. This is truly something which sets it apart from the other PMP certification exam books.” — J ack Dahlgren, Project Management Consultant “I love this format! Head First PMP covers everything you need to know to pass your PMP exam. The sound-bite format combined with the whimsical images turns a dry subject into entertainment. The organization starts with the basics then drills into the details. The in-depth coverage of complex topics like Earned Value and Quality Control are presented in an easy to understand format with descriptions, pictures, and examples. This book will not only help you pass the PMP, it should be used as an daily reference for practicing project managers. I sure wish I had this when I was studying for the exam.” —Mike Jenkins, PMP, MBA “It is like an instructor with a blackboard in a book, and the little devil and angel over your shoulder telling you what is right or wrong. I am getting instant results from the first five chapters. An excellent guide/training tool for all those new and somewhat new to project management methodologies.” —BJ Moore, PMP Nashville, TN Amazon Reviewer “Studying for your PMP exam? Would you like the ability to carry not only an instructor but an entire classroom in your briefcase as you prepare? Then buy this book! The drawings and diagrams are reminiscent of your favorite teacher utilizing the whiteboard to step you through the key points of their lecture. The author’s use of redundancy in making the same point in multiple ways, coupled with the “there are no Dumb Questions” section, gave the feeling of being in a classroom full of your fellow PMP aspiring peers. At times I actually caught myself feeling relieved that someone else asked such a good question. This book is enjoyable, readable, and most importantly takes the fear out of approaching the subject matter. If you are testing the PMP waters with your big toe, this book will give you the confidence to dive into the deep end.” —Steven D. Sewell, PMP
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Praise for other Head First books “With Head First C#, Andrew and Jenny have presented an excellent tutorial on learning C#. It is very approachable while covering a great amount of detail in a unique style. If you’ve been turned off by more conventional books on C#, you’ll love this one.” —Jay Hilyard, Software Developer, co-author of C# 3.0 Cookbook
“I’ve never read a computer book cover to cover, but this one held my interest from the first page to the last. If you want to learn C# in depth and have fun doing it, this is THE book for you.” — Andy Parker, fledgling C# programmer
“Going through this Head First C# book was a great experience. I have not come across a book series which actually teaches you so well…This is a book I would definitely recommend to people wanting to learn C#” —Krishna Pala, MCP “Head First Web Design really demystifies the web design process and makes it possible for any web programmer to give it a try. For a web developer who has not taken web design classes, Head First Web Design confirmed and clarified a lot of theory and best practices that seem to be just assumed in this industry.” —Ashley Doughty, Senior Web Developer “Building websites has definitely become more than just writing code. Head First Web Design shows you what you need to know to give your users an appealing and satisfying experience. Another great Head First book!” —Sarah Collings, User Experience Software Engineer “Head First Networking takes network concepts that are sometimes too esoteric and abstract even for highly technical people to understand without difficulty and makes them very concrete and approachable. Well done.” — Jonathan Moore, Owner, Forerunner Design “The big picture is what is often lost in information technology how-to books. Head First Networking keeps the focus on the real world, distilling knowledge from experience and presenting it in byte-size packets for the IT novitiate. The combination of explanations with real world problems to solve makes this an excellent learning tool.” — Rohn Wood, Senior Research Systems Analyst, University of Montana
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Other related books from O’Reilly Applied Software Project Management Making Things Happen Practical Development Environments Process Improvement Essentials Time Management for System Administrators How to Keep Your Boss From Sinking Your Project (Digital Short Cut)
Other books in O’Reilly’s Head First series Head First C# Head First Java Head First Object-Oriented Analysis and Design (OOA&D) Head First HTML with CSS and XHTML Head First Design Patterns Head First Servlets and JSP Head First EJB Head First SQL Head First Software Development Head First JavaScript Head First Physics Head First Statistics Head First Ajax Head First Rails Head First Algebra Head First PHP & MySQL Head First Web Design Head First Networking
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Head First PMP® Wouldn’t it be dreamy if there was a book to help me study for the PMP exam that was more fun than going to the dentist? It’s probably nothing but a fantasy…
Jennifer Greene, PMP Andrew Stellman, PMP
Beijing • Cambridge • Kln • Sebastopol • Taipei • Tokyo
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Head First PMP® Second Edition
by Jennifer Greene, PMP and Andrew Stellman, PMP Copyright © 2009 O’Reilly Media, Inc. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. Published by O’Reilly Media, Inc., 1005 Gravenstein Highway North, Sebastopol, CA 95472. O’Reilly Media books may be purchased for educational, business, or sales promotional use. Online editions are also available for most titles (http://my.safaribooksonline.com). For more information, contact our corporate/ institutional sales department: (800) 998-9938 or
[email protected]
Series Creators:
Kathy Sierra, Bert Bates
Series Editor:
Brett D. McLaughlin
Editors:
Brett D. McLaughlin, Courtney Nash
Design Editor:
Louise Barr
Cover Designers:
Karen Montgomery, Louise Barr
Production Editors:
Sanders Kleinfeld and Rachel Monaghan
Indexer:
Angela Howard
Proofreader:
Colleen Toporek
Page Viewers:
Quentin the whippet and Tequila the pomeranian
Printing History: March 2007: First Edition. July 2009: Second Edition.
The O’Reilly logo is a registered trademark of O’Reilly Media, Inc. The Head First series designations, Head First PMP®, and related trade dress are trademarks of O’Reilly Media, Inc. PMP and PMBOK are registered marks of Project Management Institute, Inc. Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book, and O’Reilly Media, Inc., was aware of a trademark claim, the designations have been printed in caps or initial caps. While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher and the authors assume no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein. No dogs, rabbits, or bears were harmed in the making of this book. Okay, maybe one bear… but he’ll get over it. ISBN: 978-0-596-80191-5 [M] Download at Boykma.Com
To our friends and family, and the people who make us laugh (you know who you are)
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the authors
Thanks for buying our book! We really love writing about this stuff, and we hope you get a kick out of reading it…
… because we know you’re going to kick ass on the test!
Andrew
Photo by Nisha Sondhe
Jenny
Jennifer Greene studied philosophy in
college but, like everyone else in the field, couldn’t find a job doing it. Luckily, she’s a great software tester, so she started out doing it at an online service, and that’s the first time she really got a good sense of what project management was.
She moved to New York in 1998 to test software at a financial software company. She managed a team of testers at a really cool startup that did artificial intelligence and natural language processing.
Andrew Stellman, despite being raised a
Since then, she’s managed large teams of programmers, testers, designers, architects, and other engineers on lots of projects, and she’s done a whole bunch of procurement management (you’ll learn all about procurement in Chapter 12!). She loves traveling, watching Bollywood movies, drinking carloads of carbonated beverages, and owning a whippet.
and writing about Jenny and Andrew have been managing projects met in 1998. Their first project management together since they was published , ent agem Man first book, Applied Software Project both from e prais d sprea by O’Reilly in 2005 and received wide rs. rche resea working project managers and academic PMP They followed up with the first edition of Head First Teams in in 2007, Head First C# in 2008, and Beautiful the project 2009. Andrew and Jenny regularly contribute to prese nting management body of knowledge, writing articles,manageme nt at conferences, and giving back to the project to do so. community any time they have the opportunity
New Yorker, has lived in Pittsburgh twice. The first time was when he graduated from Carnegie Mellon’s School of Computer Science, and then again when he and Jenny were starting their consulting business and writing their first project management book for O’Reilly.
When he moved back to his hometown, his first job after college was as a programmer at EMICapitol Records—which actually made sense, since he went to LaGuardia High School of Music and Art and the Performing Arts to study cello and jazz bass guitar. He and Jenny first worked together at that same financial software company, where he was managing a team of programmers. He’s since managed various teams of software engineers, requirements analysts, and led process improvement efforts. Andrew keeps himself busy eating an enormous amount of string cheese and Middle Eastern desserts, playing music (but video games even more), studying taiji and aikido, having a girlfriend named Lisa, and owning a pomeranian.
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table of contents
Table of Contents (Summary)
Intro
xxv
1
Introduction: Why get certified?
1
2
Organizations, constraints, and projects: In good company
31
3
The process framework: It all fits together
59
4
Project integration management: Getting the job done
87
5
Scope management: Doing the right stuff
153
6
Time management: Getting it done on time
231
7
Cost management: Watching the bottom line
321
8
Quality management: Getting it right
391
9
Human resource management: Getting the team together
443
10
Communications management: Getting the word out
493
11
Project risk management: Planning for the unknown
543
12
Procurement management: Getting some help
603
13
Professional responsibility: Making good choices
651
14
A little last-minute review: Check your knowledge
665
15
Practice makes perfect: Practice PMP exam
699
Table of Contents (the real thing) Intro Your brain on PMP. Here you are trying to learn something, while here your brain is doing you a favor by making sure the learning doesn’t stick. Your brain’s thinking, “Better leave room for more important things, like which wild animals to avoid and whether naked snowboarding is a bad idea.” So how do you trick your brain into thinking that your life depends on knowing enough to get through the PMP exam? Who is this book for?
xxvi
We know what you’re thinking
xxvii
Metacognition: thinking about thinking
xxix
Here’s what YOU can do to bend your brain into submission
xxxi
Read me
xxxii
The technical review team
xxxiv
Acknowledgments
xxxv
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table of contents
1
Introduction Why get certified? Tired of facing the same old problems? If you’ve worked on a lot of projects, you know that you face the same problems, over and over again. It’s time to learn some common solutions to those problems. There’s a whole lot that project managers have learned over the years, and passing the PMP® exam is your ticket to putting that wisdom into practice. Get ready to
The Boss’s delivery date
change the way you manage your projects forever.
When the project will actually be done
2
Do these problems seem familiar?
2
Projects don’t have to be this way
4
Your problems... already solved
5
What you need to be a good project manager
6
Understand your company’s big picture
11
Portfolios, programs, and projects
12
What a project IS…
15
… and what a project is NOT
15
How project managers run great projects
19
A PMP certification is more than just passing a test
24
Exam Questions
26
Exam Answers
28
Organizations, constraints, and projects In good company If you want something done right… better hope you’re in the right kind of organization. All projects are about teamwork—but how your team works depends a lot on the type of organization you’re in. In this chapter, you’ll learn about the different types of organizations around—and which type you should look for the next time you need a new job.
Time
x
Cost
Scope
Resources
Quality
Risk
A day in Kate’s life
32
Kate wants a new job
33
There are different types of organizations
36
Kate takes a new job
41
Stakeholders are impacted by your project
43
Back to Kate’s maintenance nightmare
44
Managing project constraints
46
Exam Questions
54
Exam Answers
56
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3
table of contents
The process framework It all fits together
All of the work you do on a project is made up of processes. Once you know how all the processes in your project fit together, it’s easy to remember everything you need to know for the PMP® exam. There’s a pattern to all of the work that gets done on your project. First you plan it, then you get to work. While you are doing the work, you are always comparing your project to your original plan. When things start to get off-plan, it’s your job to make corrections and put everything back on track. And the process framework—the process groups and knowledge areas—is the key to all of this happening smoothly. Cooking up a project
Here’s where you put all the information t you need to do your work (like projec needs, guides for doing the work—that kind of thing).
60
Projects are like recipes
62
If your project’s really big, you can manage it in phases
64
Phases can also overlap
65
Break it down
66
Anatomy of a process
69
Combine processes to complete your project
72
Knowledge areas organize the processes
73
The benefits of successful project management
79
Exam Questions
81
Exam Answers
83
All the project work happens here. The tools and techniques take the inputs and turn them into outputs.
All the things you make during your project are outputs— documents, plans, schedules, budgets, and the actual product that you’re building.
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table of contents
4
Project integration management Getting the job done Want to make success look easy? It’s not as hard as you think. In this chapter, you’ll learn about a few processes you can use in your projects every day. Put these into place, and your sponsors and stakeholders will be happier than ever. Get ready for Integration Management.
Enterprise Environmental Factors
Organizational Process Assets
Executing Direct and manage project execution
Manage the work so it gets done efficiently.
Monitor and control project work
Monitoring and Controlling Perform Integrated Change Control
Time to book a trip
88
The teachers are thrilled... for now
89
These clients are definitely not satisfied
90
The day-to-day work of a project manager
91
The six Integration Management processes
92
Start your project with the Initiating processes
95
Integration management and the process groups
96
The “Develop Project Charter” process
98
Make the case for your project
99
Use expert judgment to get an outside opinion
100
A closer look at the project charter
102
Two things you’ll see over and over...
105
Plan your project!
108
The project management plan lets you plan ahead for problems
109
A quick look at all those subsidiary plans
111
Question Clinic: The “Just-The-Facts-Ma’am” Question
114
The Direct and Manage Project Execution process
116
The project team creates deliverables
117
Executing the project includes repairing defects
118
Eventually, things WILL go wrong...
120
Sometimes you need to change your plans
121
Look for changes and deal with them
122
Make only the changes that are right for your project
123
Changes, defects, and corrections
124
Decide your changes in change control meetings
124
How the processes interact with each other
125
Control your changes; use change control
126
Preventing or correcting problems
126
Finish the work, close the project
130
So why INTEGRATION management?
132
Exam Questions
142
Exam Answers
148
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5
Scope management
table of contents
Doing the right stuff Confused about exactly what you should be working on? Once you have a good idea of what needs to be done, you need to track your scope as the project work is happening. As each goal is accomplished, you confirm that all of the work has been done and make sure that the people who asked for it are satisfied with the result. In this chapter, you’ll learn the tools that help your project team set its goals and keep everybody on track. Out of the frying pan...
154
It looks like we have a scope problem
159
The five Scope Management processes
163
Collect requirements for your project
165
Talk to your stakeholders
166
Make decisions about requirements
167
Help your team to get creative
168
Use a questionnaire to get requirements from a bigger group of people 170
Updates
Project Scope Statement
Project Management Plan
Work Breakdown Structure
A prototype shows users what your product will be like
171
Collect requirements outputs page
172
Define the scope of the project
175
The scope statement tells you what you have to do
178
Question Clinic: The “Which-is-BEST” Question
182
Create the work breakdown structure
184
The inputs for the WBS come from other processes
185
Breaking down the work
186
Decompose deliverables into work packages
188
Inside the work package
194
The baseline is a snapshot of the plan
196
The outputs of the Create WBS process
198
Why scope changes
201
The Control Scope process
203
Anatomy of a change
204
A closer look at the Change Control System
206
Just one Control Scope tool/technique
207
Is the project ready to go?
213
Exam Questions
219
Exam Answers
224
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table of contents
6 Resource Calendar
Time management Getting it done on time Time management is what most people think of when they think of project managers. It’s where the deadlines are set and met. It starts with figuring out the work you need to do, how you will do it, what resources you’ll use, and how long it will take. From there, it’s all about developing and controlling that schedule.
Network Diagram
If the caterers come too early, the food will sit around under heat lamps! But too late and the band won’t have time to play. I just don’t see how we’ll ever work this all out!
Activity List
Activity Resource Requirements
Activity Duration Estimates
Activity Attributes
Reality sets in for the happy couple
232
Time management helps with aggressive time lines
234
Use the Define Activities process to break down the work
238
Tools and techniques for Define Activities
239
Rolling wave planning lets you plan as you go
240
Define activities outputs
243
The Sequence Activities process puts everything in order
245
Diagram the relationship between activities
246
Predecessors help you sequence your activities
250
Leads and lags add time between activities
251
Create the network diagram
253
Estimating the resources
256
Figuring out how long the project will take
258
Estimation tools and techniques
261
Create the duration estimate
264
Bringing it all together
266
Question Clinic: The “Which-comes-next” Question
268
Use the Critical Path Method to avoid big problems
271
Finding the float for any activity
274
Figure out the early start and early finish
279
Figure out the latest possible start and finish
280
Crash the schedule
288
Fast-tracking the project
289
What-if analysis
290
Other Develop Schedule tools and techniques
291
Outputs of Develop Schedule
292
Influence the factors that cause change
296
Control Schedule inputs and outputs
297
Measuring and reporting performance
299
Control Schedule tools and techniques
300
Exam Questions
311
Exam Answers
316
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7
Cost management
table of contents
Watching the bottom line Every project boils down to money. If you had a bigger budget, you could probably get more people to do your project more quickly and deliver more. That’s why no project plan is complete until you come up with a budget. But no matter whether your project is big or small, and no matter how many resources and activities are in it, the process for figuring out the bottom line is always the same!
$
$ $ $
Time to expand the Head First Lounge
322
Introducing the Cost Management processes
325
What Alice needs before she can Estimate Costs
326
Other tools and techniques used in Estimate Costs
329
Let’s talk numbers
330
The Determine Budget process
334
What you need to build your budget
335
Determine budget: how to build a budget
336
Question Clinic: The Red Herring
340
The Control Costs process is a lot like schedule control
342
Look at the schedule to figure out your budget
346
How to calculate Planned Value
347
How to calculate Earned Value
349
Put yourself in someone else’s shoes
352
Is your project behind or ahead of schedule?
354
Are you over budget?
356
The Earned Value Management formulas
357
Interpret CPI and SPI numbers to gauge your project
358
Forecast what your project will look like when it’s done
362
Once you’ve got an estimate, you can calculate a variance!
363
Finding missing information
366
Keep your project on track with TCPI
369
Exam Questions
379
Exam Answers
384
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table of contents
8
Quality management Getting it right It’s not enough to make sure you get it done on time and under budget. You need to be sure you make the right product to suit your stakeholders’ needs. Quality means making sure that you build what you said you would and that you do it as efficiently as you can. That means trying not to make too many mistakes and always keeping your project working toward the goal of creating the right product!
The Black Box 3000TM.
Lisa also inspected th blue prints for the blaeck box when they were designed.
She looked for defects in the parts as they were being made too.
What is quality?
392
You need more than just tests to figure out quality
393
Once you know what the product is supposed to do, it’s easy to tell which tests pass and which fail
394
Quality up close
369
“An ounce of prevention...”
398
Plan Quality is how you prevent defects
401
How to plan for quality
402
The quality management plan gives you what you need to manage quality
404
Inspect your deliverables
407
Use the planning outputs for Perform Quality Control
408
The seven basic tools of quality
409
Pareto charts, flowcharts, and histograms
410
Run charts and scatter diagrams
411
More quality control tools
411
Question Clinic: The “Which-One” Question
416
Quality control means finding and correcting defects
418
Trouble at the Black Box 3000
factory
421
TM
Introducing Quality Assurance
422
A closer look at some tools and techniques
423
More ideas behind quality assurance
424
The Black Box 3000
makes record profits!
429
Exam Questions
434
Exam Answers
438
TM
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table of contents
9
Human resource management Getting the team together Behind every successful project is a great team. So how do you make sure that you get—and keep—the best possible team for your project? You need to plan carefully, set up a good working environment, and negotiate for the best people you can find. But it’s not enough to put a good team together… If you want your project to go well, you’ve got to keep the team motivated and deal with any conflicts that happen along the way. Human resource management gives you the tools you need to get the best team for the job and lead them through a successful project. Mike needs a new team
444
Get your team together and keep them moving
446
Figure out who you need on your team
448
The staffing management plan
452
Get the team together
454
Develop your project team
458
Develop the team with your management skills
459
Your interpersonal skills can make a big difference for your team
460
Lead the team with your management skills
462
Motivate your team
464
Stages of team development
466
How’s the team doing?
468
Managing your team means solving problems
470
Conflict management up close
471
How to resolve a conflict
472
Question Clinic: The “Have-a-Meeting” Question
478
Exam Questions
485
Exam Answers
489
Organization Charts
Roles and Responsibilities Staffing Management Plan Download at Boykma.Com
xvii
table of contents
10
Communications management Getting the word out Communications management is about keeping everybody in the loop. Have you ever tried talking to someone in a really loud, crowded room? That’s what running a project is like if you don’t do get a handle on communications. Luckily, there’s Communications Management, which is how to get everyone talking about the work that’s being done, so that they all stay on the same page. That way everyone has the information they need to resolve any issues and keep the project moving forward.
When there are three people on the project, there are three lines of communication
Party at the Head First Lounge!
494
Anatomy of communication
496
Get a handle on communication
498
Find out who your stakeholders are
500
Stakeholder Analysis Up Close
502
Get the message?
510
More Distribute Information tools
512
Let everyone know how the project’s going
515
Take a close look at the work being done
516
Now you can get the word out
519
People aren’t talking!
521
Count the channels of communication
526
Question Clinic: The Calculation Question
530
Exam Questions
536
Exam Answers
539
Don’t forget to count the project manager!
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But add three to the project, manorde people add a LOT of pote you communication to thntial How do you get a hae project! ndle on it?
table of contents
11
Project risk management Planning for the unknown Even the most carefully planned project can run into trouble. No matter how well you plan, your project can always run into unexpected problems. Team members get sick or quit, resources that you were depending on turn out to be unavailable—even the weather can throw you for a loop. So does that mean that you’re helpless against unknown problems? No! You can use risk planning to identify potential problems that could cause trouble for your project, analyze how likely they’ll be to occur, take action to prevent the risks you can avoid, and minimize the ones that you can’t. What’s a risk?
544
How you deal with risk
545
Plan Risk Management
546
Use a risk breakdown structure to categorize risks
548
Anatomy of a risk
550
What could happen to your project?
552
Information-gathering techniques for Identify Risks
553
More Identify Risks techniques
554
Where to look for risks
556
Now put it in the risk register
557
Rank your risks
558
Examine each risk in the register
559
Qualitative vs. quantitative analysis
564
Perform Quantitative Risk Analysis
565
Calculate the Expected Monetary Value of your risks
568
Decsion tree analysis uses EMV to help you make choices
570
Update the risk register based on your quantitative analysis results
572
How do you respond to a risk?
574
Response planning can even find more risks
575
How to control your risks
581
Question Clinic: The “Which-is-NOT” Question
588
Exam Questions
593
Exam Answers
598
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table of contents
12
Procurement management Getting some help Some jobs are just too big for your company to do on its own. Even when the job isn’t too big, it may just be that you don’t have the expertise or equipment to do it. When that happens, you need to use Procurement Management to find another company to do the work for you. If you find the right seller, choose the right kind of relationship, and make sure that the goals of the contract are met, you’ll get the job done and your project will be a success.
Contract
Closed Procurements
Victim of her own success
604
Calling in the cavalry
605
Ask the legal expert
609
Anatomy of a contract
610
Start with a plan for the whole project
612
The decision is made
617
Types of contracts
618
More about contracts
621
Figure out how you’ll sort out potential sellers
622
Get in touch with potential sellers
625
Pick a partner
626
Keep an eye on the contract
633
Stay on top of the seller
634
Close the contract when the work is done
638
Kate closes the contract
640
Question Clinic: BYO Questions
641
Exam Questions
645
Exam Answers
648
Hello, this is Technical Support. How can I help you?
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table of contents
13
Professional responsibility Making good choices It’s not enough to just know your stuff. You need to make good choices to be good at your job. Everyone who has the PMP® credential agrees to follow the Project Management Institute Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct, too. The Code helps you with ethical decisions that aren’t really covered in the body of knowledge—and it’s a big part of the PMP® exam. Most of what you need to know is really straightforward, and with a little review, you’ll do well. Doing the right thing
652
Keep the cash?
654
Fly business class?
655
New software
656
Shortcuts
657
A good price or a clean river?
658
We’re not all angels
659
Exam Questions
660
Exam Answers
662
I’m sorry, I can’t accept the gift. I really appreciate the gesture, though.
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table of contents
14
1
Check your knowledge Wow, you sure covered a lot of ground in the last 13 chapters! Now it’s time to take a look back and drill in some of the most important concepts that you learned. That’ll keep it all fresh and give your brain a final workout for exam day! Here’s how to do this next section
673
Integration Questions
674
Scope Questions
675
Time Questions
676
Cost Questions
677
Quality Questions
678
Human Resource Questions
679
Communications Questions
680
Risk Questions
681
Procurement Questions
682
Great job! It looks like you’re almost ready
683
Integration Answers
689
Scope Answers
690
Time Answers
691
Cost Answers
692
Quality Answers
693
2
3
4 5
6
A little last-minute review
7
8
9
10
11 12
13
14
15 16 17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28 29 30
31 32
36
33
34
35
37 38 40
43
44 45 46
50 51
694
Communications Answers
695
Risk Answers
696
Procurement Answers
697
47
48 49
Human Resource Answers 39
41
42
52 53 54
55
56
57
Across
Down
2. In the ___________ Risk Analysis process, you assign numerical values to your risks in order to more accurately assess them. 4. In the Plan _________ and Acquisitions process, you decide what work you'll want to contract out to a seller. 6. The ___________ process group is where the team does the project work.
1. The __________ and Controlling process group is concerned with finding and dealing with changes. 2. The _____________ Risk Analysis process is where you categorize each risk. 3. The Close __________ process is where you make sure all your procurement activities are finished.
Pretty soon, this will be YOU!
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table of contents
15
Practice makes perfect Practice PMP exam Bet you never thought you’d make it this far! It’s been a long journey, but here you are, ready to review your knowledge and get ready for exam day. You’ve put a lot of new information about project management into your brain, and now it’s time to see just how much of it stuck. That’s why we put together this 200-question PMP practice exam for you. It looks just like the one you’re going to see when you take the real PMP exam. Now’s your time to flex your mental muscle. So take a deep breath, get ready, and let’s get started. What you’ll see on the PMP Exam
700
Exam Questions
702
Exam Answers
746
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how to use this book
Intro I can’t believe they put that in a PMP Exam prep book!
: er the burning question In this section, we antswthat in a PMP exam prep book?” “So why DID they pu
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how to use this book
Who is this book for? If you can answer “yes” to all of these:
You can also use this book to help you study for the CAPM exam—a lot of the concepts are really similar.
1 2
3
Are you a project manager? Do you want to learn, understand, remember, and apply important project management concepts so that you can prepare for the PMP® exam, and learn to be a better project manager in the process?
We’ll help you study for the PMP exam in a way that will definitely make it easier for you to pass.
Do you prefer stimulating dinner party conversation to dry, dull, academic lectures?
this book is for you.
Who should probably back away from this book? If you can answer “yes” to any of these: 1
Are you completely new to project management? (To qualify to take the PMP exam, you need to show a certain number of hours of experience as a professional project manager.)
2 Are you already PMP® certified and looking for a reference book on project management?
3
Are you afraid to try something different? Would you rather have a root canal than mix stripes with plaid? Do you believe that a technical book can’t be serious if project management concepts are anthropomorphized?
this book is not for you.
[Note from marketing: this boo for anyone with a credit card.] k is
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But even if you don’t have quit enough hours yet, this book can estill help you study now, so you can ready when you’ve got those houbers under your belt! Plus, the ideas help you on your job immediately...will
the intro
We know what you’re thinking. “How can this be a serious project management book?” “What’s with all the graphics?” “Can I actually learn it this way?”
And we know what your brain is thinking.
Your bra THIS is imin thinks portant.
Your brain craves novelty. It’s always searching, scanning, waiting for something unusual. It was built that way, and it helps you stay alive. So what does your brain do with all the routine, ordinary, normal things you encounter? Everything it can to stop them from interfering with the brain’s real job—recording things that matter. It doesn’t bother saving the boring things; they never make it past the “this is obviously not important” filter. How does your brain know what’s important? Suppose you’re out for a day hike and a tiger jumps in front of you, what happens inside your head and body? Neurons fire. Emotions crank up. Chemicals surge. And that’s how your brain knows... This must be important! Don’t forget it! But imagine you’re at home, or in a library. It’s a safe, warm, tiger‑free zone. You’re studying. Getting ready for an exam. Or trying to learn some tough technical topic your boss thinks will take a week, ten days at the most.
in thinks Your bran’t worth THIinS gis. sav
Great. Only 800 more dull, dry, boring pages.
Just one problem. Your brain’s trying to do you a big favor. It’s trying to make sure that this obviously non-important content doesn’t clutter up scarce resources. Resources that are better spent storing the really big things. Like tigers. Like the danger of fire. Like how you should never again snowboard in shorts. And there’s no simple way to tell your brain, “Hey brain, thank you very much, but no matter how dull this book is, and how little I’m registering on the emotional Richter scale right now, I really do want you to keep this stuff around.”
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how to use this book
er as a learner.
t” read We think of a “Head Firs
then make sure st, you have to get it, Fir ? ng thi me so rn e to lea sed on the So what does it tak ts into your head. Ba t about pushing fac no It’s it. psychology, t al ge on for you don’t ogy, and educati iol ob ur ne , ce ien sc gnitive on. at turns your brain latest research in co a page. We know wh on t tex n tha re mo learning takes a lot ciples: First lear ning prin Some of the Head and
ne, morable than words alo ages are far more me all and rec in Make it visual. Im ent 89% improvem more effective (up to e th t Pu make learning much e. understandabl o makes things more n on tha her transfer studies). It als rat to, s they relate near the gr aphic words within or to rs will be up ther page, and learne the bottom or on ano content. the to d ate problems rel twice as likely to solve zed nal and personali Use a conver satio up to ed rm rfo pe s, students style. In recent studie spoke t ten con the ning tests if 40% better on post-lear ional sat ver con , using a first-person directly to the reader, casual Use . ing tur lec ries instead of a formal tone. Tell sto ention att re mo pay style rather than tak ing . Which would you yourself too seriously language. Don’t take a lec ture? par ty companion, or to: a stimulating dinner less you ly. In other words, un think more deep der has to rea A d. Get the learner to hea ch happens in your mu ng thi no s, ron neu ms, draw conclusions, actively flex your inspired to solve proble and s, iou cur d, age exercises, and be motivated, eng you need challenges, wledge. And for that, es sid and generate new kno th bo that involve estions, and activities thought-provok ing qu le senses. of the brain and multip nt to learn this but I all had the “I really wa ’ve We . ion nt te at ion to he reader’s Your brain pays attent Get—and keep—t page one” experience. ing, tch -ca can’t stay awake past eye e, ang g, str the ordinary, interestin to be e things that are out of hav ’t esn do ic l top a new, tough, technica unexpected. Learning t. no it’s ick ly if l learn much more qu boring. Your brain wil ember that your ability to rem ions. We now know you care at wh r Touch their emot be em onal content. You rem oti em its on ent nd pe g heart-wrenching something is largely de ing. No, we’re not talkin r when you feel someth be em rem curiosity, fun, You se, ut. abo emotions like surpri his dog. We’re talking and y bo a ut puzzle, learn abo a s ve storie es when you sol ling of “I Rule!” that com fee the and , that “I’m more ” ...? ing the eth “what realize you know som or d, har is nks thi e y els something everybod sn’t. b from engineering doe Bo u” tho n tha l ica techn
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the intro
Metacognition: thinking about thinking If you really want to learn, and you want to learn more quickly and more deeply, pay attention to how you pay attention. Think about how you think. Learn how you learn. Most of us did not take courses on metacognition or learning theory when we were growing up. We were expected to learn, but rarely taught to learn.
I wonder how I can trick my brain into remembering this stuff...
But we assume that if you’re holding this book, you really want to learn about project management. And you probably don’t want to spend a lot of time. And since you’re going to take an exam on it, you need to remember what you read. And for that, you’ve got to understand it. To get the most from this book, or any book or learning experience, take responsibility for your brain. Your brain on this content. The trick is to get your brain to see the new material you’re learning as Really Important. Crucial to your well-being. As important as a tiger. Otherwise, you’re in for a constant battle, with your brain doing its best to keep the new content from sticking.
So just how DO you get your brain to think that the stuff on the PMP exam is a hungry tiger? There’s the slow, tedious way, or the faster, more effective way. The slow way is about sheer repetition. You obviously know that you are able to learn and remember even the dullest of topics if you keep pounding the same thing into your brain. With enough repetition, your brain says, “This doesn’t feel important to him, but he keeps looking at the same thing over and over and over, so I suppose it must be.” The faster way is to do anything that increases brain activity, especially different types of brain activity. The things on the previous page are a big part of the solution, and they’re all things that have been proven to help your brain work in your favor. For example, studies show that putting words within the pictures they describe (as opposed to somewhere else in the page, like a caption or in the body text) causes your brain to try to makes sense of how the words and picture relate, and this causes more neurons to fire. More neurons firing = more chances for your brain to get that this is something worth paying attention to, and possibly recording. A conversational style helps because people tend to pay more attention when they perceive that they’re in a conversation, since they’re expected to follow along and hold up their end. The amazing thing is, your brain doesn’t necessarily care that the “conversation” is between you and a book! On the other hand, if the writing style is formal and dry, your brain perceives it the same way you experience being lectured to while sitting in a roomful of passive attendees. No need to stay awake. But pictures and conversational style are just the beginning.
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how to use this book
Here’s what WE did: We used pictures, because your brain is tuned for visuals, not text. As far as your brain’s concerned, a picture really is worth a thousand words. And when text and pictures work together, we embedded the text in the pictures because your brain works more effectively when the text is within the thing the text refers to, as opposed to in a caption or buried in the text somewhere. We used redundancy, saying the same thing in different ways and with different media types, and multiple senses, to increase the chance that the content gets coded into more than one area of your brain. We used concepts and pictures in unexpected ways because your brain is tuned for novelty, and we used pictures and ideas with at least some emotional content, because your brain is tuned to pay attention to the biochemistry of emotions. That which causes you to feel something is more likely to be remembered, even if that feeling is nothing more than a little humor, surprise, or interest.
Executing 4
Direct and manage project execution
We used a personalized, conversational style, because your brain is tuned to pay more attention when it believes you’re in a conversation than if it thinks you’re passively listening to a presentation. Your brain does this even when you’re reading. We included more than 80 activities, because your brain is tuned to learn and remember more when you do things than when you read about things. And we made the exercises challenging-yet-do-able, because that’s what most people prefer. We used multiple learning styles, because you might prefer step-by-step procedures, while someone else wants to understand the big picture first, and someone else just wants to see an example. But regardless of your own learning preference, everyone benefits from seeing the same content represented in multiple ways. We include content for both sides of your brain, because the more of your brain you engage, the more likely you are to learn and remember, and the longer you can stay focused. Since working one side of the brain often means giving the other side a chance to rest, you can be more productive at learning for a longer period of time. And we included stories and exercises that present more than one point of view, because your brain is tuned to learn more deeply when it’s forced to make evaluations and judgments. We included challenges, with exercises, and by asking questions that don’t always have a straight answer, because your brain is tuned to learn and remember when it has to work at something. Think about it—you can’t get your body in shape just by watching people at the gym. But we did our best to make sure that when you’re working hard, it’s on the right things. That you’re not spending one extra dendrite processing a hard-to-understand example, or parsing difficult, jargon-laden, or overly terse text. We used people. In stories, examples, pictures, etc., because, well, because you’re a person. And your brain pays more attention to people than it does to things.
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5
Monitor and control project work
Monitoring and Controlling 6
Integrated change control
BULLET POINTS:
AIMING FOR THE EXAM
the intro
Here’s what YOU can do to bend your brain into submission So, we did our part. The rest is up to you. These tips are a starting point; listen to your brain and figure out what works for you and what doesn’t. Try new things.
cut this out and on your refrigeratstorick it . 1
Slow down. The more you understand, the less you have to memorize.
6
Speaking activates a different part of the brain. If you’re trying to understand something, or increase your chance of remembering it later, say it out loud. Better still, try to explain it out loud to someone else. You’ll learn more quickly, and you might uncover ideas you hadn’t known were there when you were reading about it.
Don’t just read. Stop and think. When the book asks you a question, don’t just skip to the answer. Imagine that someone really is asking the question. The more deeply you force your brain to think, the better chance you have of learning and remembering. 2
Do the exercises. Write your own notes.
7
We put them in, but if we did them for you, that would be like having someone else do your workouts for you. And don’t just look at the exercises. Use a pencil. There’s plenty of evidence that physical activity while learning can increase the learning. 3
Read the “There are No Dumb Questions”
That means all of them. They’re not optional sidebars—they’re part of the core content! Don’t skip them. 4
5
Drink water. Lots of it.
Listen to your brain.
Pay attention to whether your brain is getting overloaded. If you find yourself starting to skim the surface or forget what you just read, it’s time for a break. Once you go past a certain point, you won’t learn faster by trying to shove more in, and you might even hurt the process. 8
Feel something!
Your brain needs to know that this matters. Get involved with the stories. Make up your own captions for the photos. Groaning over a bad joke is still better than feeling nothing at all.
Make this the last thing you read before bed. Or at least the last challenging thing.
Part of the learning (especially the transfer to long-term memory) happens after you put the book down. Your brain needs time on its own, to do more processing. If you put in something new during that processing time, some of what you just learned will be lost.
Talk about it. Out loud.
9
Create something!
Apply this to your daily work; use what you are learning to make decisions on your projects. Just do something to get some experience beyond the exercises and activities in this book. All you need is a pencil and a problem to solve…a problem that might benefit from using the tools and techniques you’re studying for the exam.
Your brain works best in a nice bath of fluid. Dehydration (which can happen before you ever feel thirsty) decreases cognitive function. you are here 4 xxxi Download at Boykma.Com
how to use this book
Read me This is a learning experience, not a reference book. We deliberately stripped out everything that might get in the way of learning whatever it is we’re working on at that point in the book—although we didn’t take anything out that you might see on the PMP exam. And the first time through, you need to begin at the beginning, because the book makes assumptions about what you’ve already seen and learned. The chapters are ordered the same way as the PMBOK® Guide We did this because it makes sense… The PMP exam focuses on your understanding of the Guide and the inputs, outputs, tools, and techniques it references. It’s a good idea for you to understand the material the way the test organizes it. If you are cross-referencing this book with the PMBOK® Guide, it will really help you that the structure has been pretty much maintained throughout this book, too. We encourage you to use the PMBOK® Guide with this book. This book talks about the practical applications of a lot of the ideas in the PMBOK® Guide, but you should have a pretty good idea of how the guide talks about the material, too. There’s some information that’s on the test that isn’t in the guide, so we haven’t limited this book to a retread of what’s in the PMBOK® Guide at all. But it’s a great reference, and you should be cross-referencing the two books as you go. That will help you understand all of the terminology better and make sure that there are no surprises on exam day. The activities are NOT optional. The exercises and activities are not add-ons; they’re part of the core content of the book. Some of them are to help with memory, some are for understanding, and some will help you apply what you’ve learned. Don’t skip the exercises. Even crossword puzzles are important—they’ll help get concepts into your brain the way you’ll see them on the PMP exam. But more importantly, they’re good for giving your brain a chance to think about the words and terms you’ve been learning in a different context.
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the intro
The redundancy is intentional and important. One distinct difference in a Head First book is that we want you to really get it. And we want you to finish the book remembering what you’ve learned. Most reference books don’t have retention and recall as a goal, but this book is about learning, so you’ll see some of the same concepts come up more than once. The Brain Power exercises don’t have answers. For some of them, there is no right answer, and for others, part of the learning experience of the Brain Power activities is for you to decide if and when your answers are right. In some of the Brain Power exercises, you will find hints to point you in the right direction. We want you to get involved. Part of being a PMP-certified project manager is getting involved in the community and helping others out. An easy way to start doing this is to head over to the Head First web site where you’ll be able to submit your own Head Libs and see what other people have come up with, too:
http://www.headfirstlabs.com/pmp/
Check out our free PMP exam simulator online. The last chapter of this book is a full-length sample PMP exam. But we’ve also created an exam simulator online so you can see what the test will be like on exam day. It’s free and easy to use. By the time you reach the end of this book, you’ll have put a lot of new knowledge about project management into your brain, and it’ll be time to see just how much of it stuck. The simulator, like the exam in the back of the book, was developed using the official Project Management Professional Exam Specification and has 100% coverage of the exam objectives. Check it out here:
http://www.headfirstlabs.com/PMP/pmp_exam/v1/quiz.html
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the review team
The technical review team
Ken Jones
Jen Poisson
Lisa Kellner
ti
Joe Pighet
Andy Kaufman
Tequila (the fluffy dog) provided critical input, and this book would not have been possible without her valuable and thorough review. Technical Reviewers: For the second edition, we had a whole new batch of amazing tech reviewers. They did a great job, and we’re really grateful for their incredible contribution. Jennifer Poisson has more than nine years in technical project management. She is currently Director, Production Operations at Disney Online. In her spare time, she blows her retirement savings traveling the country in expensive shoes and attending fabulous concerts, while in constant pursuit of maintaining a well-balanced raw diet. Joe Pighetti has worked in Avionics Development for over eight years and is currently a Staff Engineer for Electrical Design at GE Aviation. He has a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering and is working toward a Master’s in Engineering Management from Western Michigan University. Joe attained his PMP certification in March of ’09. In his scarce spare time, Joe enjoys planning (WBS included) an amazing future with his wife and playing with his two boys. Andy Kaufman, PMP (not to be confused with the dead comedian), is a keynote speaker, author, and host of The People and Projects Podcast on iTunes. He’s a homeschooling dad of three kids who married way above himself and is convinced he has the best job in the world! Ken Jones has been a project and program manager in the semiconductor industry. He was a contributor to the first edition of the PMI Standard for Program Management and has helped teach numerous PMP exam prep sessions for both his local PMI chapter and his employer. And, as always, we were lucky to have Lisa Kellner return to our tech review team. Lisa was awesome, as usual. Thanks so much, guys! xxxiv intro Download at Boykma.Com
the intro
Acknowledgments Our editors: First of all, we want to thank our editor, Brett McLaughlin, for flying out to New York and spending days giving us a Head First boot camp. Brett was more than an editor—he was a combination sounding board and sherpa. There’s absolutely no way this book would have been written without his guidance, constant support, and interest. He really got his hands dirty on this one, and he gave us a whole lot of advice, hints, and more than a little coaching throughout this whole process. Thanks, Brett!
Brett McLaughlin The second edition wouldn’t have been possible without Courtney Nash’s editorial awesomeness. She gave us important feedback on the chapters as we were writing them and took care of all of the production and review coordination to make sure that the version you’re holding is not only updated, but improved over the first edition. Thanks, Courtney!
Courtney Nash The O’Reilly team: Lou Barr is an amazing graphic designer who went above and beyond on this one, putting in unbelievable hours and coming up with some pretty amazing visuals. If you see anything in this book that looks fantastic, you can thank her (and her mad InDesign skillz) for it. Thanks so much, Lou! Many thanks to Karen Shaner, who managed the technical review process with aplomb. And Sanders Kleinfeld and Rachel Monaghan did a great job as production editors, getting this book ready for press and basically working magic. Finally, we want to give a warm thanks to our many friends at O’Reilly, especially Kathryn Barrett (the most fabulous publicist EVER), and Mike Hendrickson and Andrew Odewahn for giving us our start at O’Reilly.
Lou Barr
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how to use this book
Safari® Books Online When you see a Safari® Books Online icon on the cover of your favorite technology book that means the book is available online through the O’Reilly Network Safari Bookshelf. Safari offers a solution that’s better than e-books. It’s a virtual library that lets you easily search thousands of top tech books, cut and paste code samples, download chapters, and find quick answers when you need the most accurate, current information. Try it for free at http://my.safaribooksonline.com/?portal=oreilly.
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1 Introduction
Why get certified? Just you wait till I have my PMP—everyone back home will be so impressed with all my successful projects.
Tired of facing the same old problems? If you’ve worked on a lot of projects, you know that you face the same problems, over and over again. It’s time to learn some common solutions to those problems. There’s a whole lot that project managers have learned over the years, and passing the PMP® exam is your ticket to putting that wisdom into practice. Get ready to change the way you manage your projects forever.
this is a new chapter 1 Download at Boykma.Com
same old, same old
Do these problems seem familiar? Kate’s boss promised a delivery date that she couldn’t possibly meet.
The Boss’s delivery date
When the project will actually be done
Then, when the project was halfway done, the customer demanded a big change. Start
1/2 Way
How Kate’s budget should have worked
Kate
Finish
$0.00 How the budget actually worked Start
Kate’s plan had the project spending exactly what was budgeted. 1/2 Way
Finish
$0.00
2 Chapter 1 Download at Boykma.Com
-$14,760.53
introduction to the pmp exam
Then, just as the project was about to be completed, someone noticed a typo, and 10,000 leaflets had to be reprinted.
One simple typo, and now the project is overbudget and dissatisfying to the customer.
Then, when it was time to fix those typos, she realized that the printer was booked for another project.
e didn’t The short timefratimme to give Kate enough plan for risks
And even though she knew there was a pretty good chance that someone else might need the printer, she didn’t have time up front to come up with a backup plan.
s going to be Now the project’dg and the late and over bu et ppy. customer won’t be ha
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PMBOK® guide saves the day
Projects don’t have to be this way It may seem like all projects have these types of problems, but there are proven solutions to them… and someone else has already done a lot of the work for you! Realizing that all projects have common problems with solutions, The PMBOK® Guide was put together to pass those solutions on to you.
The PMBOK® Guide was created by a team of experts, drawing on the collective wisdom of many project managers…
… …all around the world
Inputs
The PMBOK® Guide contains best practices for dealing with problems that happen on nearly every project. e No book contains all tth knowledge of projece it’s management, becausg…that’s constantly changin Guide. why this book is a
e is a The PMBOK® GuidPM s standard for what lps he need to know. It liar you avoid those fami problems.
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introduction to the pmp exam
Your problems… already solved Every project eventually runs into the same kinds of issues. But a project manager with good training can spot them and quickly figure out the best solutions. The PMBOK® Guide will help you: PP Learn from past projects that have run into similar problems to avoid running into them again. PP Plan and execute your projects to avoid common pitfalls.
The PMBOK® Guide has great ideas on how to estimate your tasks and put them in the right sequence to get your projects done as quickly and efficiently as possible.
er avoid these.
Common pitfalls: bett
It outlines techniques for planning and tracking your costs.
It helps you learn how to plan for and protect against defects in your project.
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core job duties
What you need to be a good project manager The PMBOK® Guide is full of practical tools that can help you to manage your projects better. But all of that doesn’t mean much if you don’t have the three core characteristics of a successful project manager. You’ve got to pay attention to all three if you want to make your project a success. This is what you’ll need if you’re going to take on the role of project manager:
Knowledge If you pay attention to what’s going on in the field of project management, you can learn from everyone’s successes and mistakes so that you can be better at your job.
Performance It’s not enough to know what you need to do—you’ve got to deliver, too. This one is all about keeping your nose to the grindstone and doing good work.
ls and This means knowing all of the too how techniques in the PMBoK® Guide and and when to use them.
You and your team will have to work hard to deliver a successful project, too.
Personal Skills Since you’re managing people, you’ve got to pay attention to what motivates them and what makes things harder on them. Your job as a PM is to make personal connections with your team and help keep everybody on the right track.
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As a PM, you’ve got to lead your team through the project lifecycle, so you need to be skilled at managing people if you’re going to be successful.
introduction to the pmp exam
Not paying attention to these characteristics is sure to give your project problems. Which of the characteristics of a successful project manager was neglected in the failed projects listed below? Sometimes, more than one will apply; just pick the one that makes the most sense to you.
The project was delivered early, but it didn’t have all of the features that the customers asked for. The VP had suggested a new requirements gathering technique, but the PM shot it down because he’d never heard of it. Neglected characteristic:
The project was late because the team couldn’t meet the company’s standards for productivity. They were always coming into work late and leaving early and taking long lunches. It seemed like the project manager just didn’t think the project was important.
The project team had so many conflicts about the project that they couldn’t work together. They made decisions that undercut each other, and in the end they couldn’t deliver anything at all. Neglected characteristic:
The project was late because the team cut corners that led to sloppy work, and they had to go back and fix all of their mistakes. Neglected characteristic:
Neglected characteristic:
The project manager thought his job was to meet the deadline above all else. So he demanded that the product be released on the date it was due, regardless of quality. The team wanted to create a high quality product, and they fought with the PM throughout the project to try to get him to change his mind. In the end, the team washed their hands of the product after it was released and refused to support it.
The project manager refused to learn to use the scheduling software and templates the company had bought for the team. Instead, he kept track of the schedule in his head and on his whiteboard. Near the end of the project, he realized that he’d forgotten about some important tasks and his ship date slipped by two months. Neglected characteristic:
Neglected characteristic:
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exercise solutions
Solution
Not paying attention to these characteristics is sure to give your project problems. Which of the characteristics of a successful project manager was neglected in the failed projects listed below? Sometimes, more than one will apply; just pick the one that makes the most sense to you.
Your project was delivered early but it didn’t have all of the features that the customers asked for. The VP had suggested a new requirements gathering technique but the PM shot it down because he’d never heard of it
The project team had so many conflicts about the project that they couldn’t work together. They made decisions that undercut each other, and in the end they couldn’t deliver anything at all.
Neglected characteristic:
Neglected characteristic:
Knowledge
Personal Skills
The project was late because the team couldn’t meet the company’s standards for productivity. They were always coming into work late and leaving early and taking long lunches. It seemed like the project manager just didn’t think the project was important.
The project was late because the team cut corners that led to sloppy work, and they had to go back and fix all of their mistakes. Neglected characteristic:
Performance
Neglected characteristic:
Performance
The project manager thought his job was to meet the deadline above all else. So he demanded that the product be released on the date it was due regardless of quality. The team wanted to create a high quality product and they fought with the PM throughout the project to try to get him to change his mind. In the end, the team washed their hands of the product after it was released and refused to support it. Neglected characteristic:
Personal Skills
This could also be a knowledge issue because the manager didn’t learn the scheduling software or templates. The differences aren’t always 100% clear-cut.
The project manager refused to learn to use the scheduling software and templates the company had bought for the team. Instead, he kept track of the schedule in his head and on his whiteboard. Near the end of the project, he realized that he’d forgotten about some important tasks and his ship date slipped by two months. Neglected characteristic:
Performance
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introduction to the pmp exam
Q:
How can the PMBOK® Guide claim to be the entire body of knowledge for project management?
A:
Actually, it doesn’t claim that at all. That’s why the PMBOK® Guide is called “A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge.” It’s a reference book that organizes a lot of information about how project managers do their jobs—but it doesn’t claim to have all the information itself. Instead, it provides you with a framework for managing projects and tells you what information you need to know. A lot of people are surprised to find out that there are a bunch of things on the PMP exam that are never explicitly mentioned in the PMBOK® Guide. (Don’t worry: we’ll cover that stuff in the rest of this book.) There’s a whole lot of information that modern project managers should know about risk management or time management or cost or quality… And you’re expected to learn more about the knowledge areas as you move forward in your career. That’s why you should never limit your study to just what’s in the PMBOK® Guide. It’s meant just as a guide to all of the knowledge areas that project managers use on the job.
Q: A:
What if I don’t do all of this stuff in my job?
The PMBOK® Guide isn’t necessarily meant to be followed like a recipe for every project. It’s a broad collection of many tools and processes that are used across the project management profession, and project managers have a lot of discretion about how they run their projects. So you shouldn’t throw out all that you’re doing at work and replace it with every single one of the tools in this book immediately. But you’ll notice as you go that some of the tools you’re learning about will solve problems for you on the job. When you do, you really should start using them. Seriously, it’s the best way to learn. You might find that your projects go better after you start using a new concept you are learning while you study.
Q:
I’ve heard that there are a whole bunch of formulas you have to memorize for the PMP exam. Will I have to do that?
A:
Yes, but it won’t be that bad. The formulas are actually really useful. They help you understand how your project is doing and make better decisions. When you read about them later in the book, you’ll focus on how to use them and why. Once you know that, it’s not about memorizing a bunch of useless junk. The formulas will actually make sense, and you’ll find them intuitive and helpful in your day-to-day work.
Q:
Aren’t certification exams just an excuse that consultants use so that they can charge their clients more money?
A:
Some consultants charge more money because they are certified, but that’s not the only reason to get certified. The best reason to get PMP certification® is because it helps you understand all of the project management concepts available to help you do your job better. If you learn these tools and apply them to your job, you will be a better project manager. Hey, if it turns out you can make more money too, that’s great. What’s more, it’s worth keeping in mind that for a project manager, being PMP®-certified is a requirement for a large amount of contracting work, especially in government, and it’s increasingly seen in job postings of all kinds. Some employers won’t even interview project managers who don’t have a PMP certification®!
Q:
Doing all of the stuff in the PMBOK® Guide seems like it will take a long time. How much of this really applies to me?
A:
That’s a great question. You might find that there are documents that are mentioned in the PMBOK® Guide that you’re not used to writing or creating for your projects and some planning steps that you’ve never taken before. That’s because the PMBOK® Guide is a framework, not a recipe for a successful project.
When you get your certification, it means that you have a solid understanding of all of the tools and techniques that are typically used by project managers to plan projects, track them, and deal with problems that come up along the way. It doesn’t mean that you follow the exact same recipe for project success every time you lead a project.
Q:
But I work for a company that always runs projects on really tight deadlines. You can’t honestly expect me to write a bunch of project documents and use all of these formulas for my projects.
A:
One of the useful things that you’ll learn in the Quality Management chapter of this book is that sometimes the processes that seem like a lot of work up front actually end up saving you time in the end.
If you find a problem in a two-hour planning meeting that would’ve cost you two weeks to fix, then that two hours you spent planning actually saved your project two weeks of time. A lot of the planning and documentation that you’ll be tested on is there to help you head off problems before they derail your project. So in the end, doing all of that work up front and writing it all down can actually make your project go faster and be cheaper than not doing it would’ve been!
The PMBOK® Guide is just a guide, but if you understand all the material in it, then you’ll ultimately be a better project manager. you are here 4 9
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know your environment
You can’t manage your project in a vacuum
Environmenta e s i r l Fa rp e t c n
It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that these factors only apply to big companies. In fact, they apply to all organizations of all sizes and types... and you need to understand them about YOUR company if you want your projects to be successful! Your company’s culture is one of its most important Enterprise Environmental Factors.
s tor
E
Even the best project managers can’t control everything that affects their projects. The way your company is set up, the way people are managed, the processes your team needs to follow to do their jobs... they all can have a big impact on how you manage your project. On the exam, all of those things are called Enterpise Environmental Factors.
People
Risk Tolerance
The skills and organizational culture where you work.
Some companies are highly tolerant of risk and some are really risk averse.
Market The way your company is performing in the market can affect the way you manage your project.
Standards
Databases Where your company stores its data can make a big difference in the decisions you make on your project.
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Some companies depend on government standards to run their business and when they change, it can have a big impact
introduction to the pmp exam
Understand your company’s big picture Your project is an important part of the work your company is doing, but you need to understand how it fits in to the higher level strategy your company is executing, too. That’s where programs and portfolios come in.
Portfolios might include programs and projects.
New
Programs are groups of projects that should be managed together
Ne w Co ns tr uc ti Re siden ti al Hom
Projects have a beginning and an end and produce something specific.
on :
es
Remod
Portfolio
A portfolio is a group of projects or programs that are linked together by a business goal. If an architecture firm was venturing into remodelling existing buildings as well as designing new ones, they might split their firm’s efforts into separate New Construction and Remodelling portfolios since the goals for each are quite different.
Program
Project
A program is a group of A project is any work that projects that are closely produces a specific result and is linked, to the point where temporary. Projects always have managing them together a beginning and an end. Building provides some benefit. The a house is a classic example of firm knows from experience a project. Projects can be part that creating huge skyscrapers of programs or portfolios, but is dramatically different than portfolios and programs can’t be building residential homes, so part of a project. residential home construction would be its own separate Projects in a program are often program.
Flip the page to learn what a project is, and what it isn’t.
dependent on each other. Program management focuses on these interdependencies.
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get with the program
Portfolios, programs, and projects Let’s take a look at a charter for a portfolio, a program, and a project for a software company called Ranch Hand Games to get a better understanding of how they break down.
Ranch Hand
Games: Portfolio Charter
A portfolio manager will monitor combined performance of all of thethe programs and projects to tell how the portfolio is doing.
Online Gaming Portfolio Project Description: The ing will not increase as fast console gaming and PC gam Market resarch shows that d has launched a number of Han ch coming fiscal year. Ran the in t rke ma ne onli the as ease our market share by 10% ne gaming market and incr programs to target the onli in the next 15 months. Proogram Charter thehOnl s: tfoli of nc mePor Gaing HainendGam Projects are partRa The following Programs and Programs: Online Arcade Program ly Project Description: The from the late 1980s and ear • Online Arcade Program n is a targeted re-write of all of our early games at the ting Campaig rke sed Ma s rela Thi be and es will ts Sal duc ing pro Gam se • Online Market. All of the 1990s for the Online Gaming of these games were • Server Upgrade Program jor trade show. Since many ma a with cide coin to time e sam er to make configuration m eth gra tog Pro ed re nag to be ma • Online Sto g shared code, they’ll need usin d ate cre s. Projects: rdinate development activitie management easier and coo • Cows Gone Wild II Projects: • Zarthak and the Flugelhorn
Portfolios contain both programs and projects You can tell if this project succeeds if the requirements are met and the product is high quality.
Your project sponsoter r. provided the char out We’ll learn more ab rs sponsors and charte in Chapter 4.
ject Charter
Ranch Hand Games: Pro
s Gone Wild II Project Description: Cow Wild title. It will include ely successful Cows Gone hug the to up w follo a is s Thi ing Portfolio. and is part of the Online Gam an online gaming component Project Requirements: ne players per team • Must allow for up to 8 onli munication between players com e voic • Real time text and s rendering • Faster, more realistic graphic y ner sce • New characters and le Summary Milestone Schedu e plet com Requirements Code complete ing Alpha release for internal test ing test l rna exte for ase Rel a Bet General Release
Mar 4 Jun 1 Jun 20 Aug 31 Nov 15
This program needs to be managed together because all of the projects in it share code. If the projects were all managed independently there would be time and effort wasted on all of the project teams trying to coordinate with one another.
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introduction to the pmp exam
You’ll need to know the difference between a portfolio, a program, and a project on the exam. Which one of those does each of the stories below describe?
A consulting company wanted to increase the amount of billable time for each consultant so they started several company-wide programs to help consultants to get more productivity out of each year.
A university wanted to build admissions web sites for all of their departments. They realized that all of the sites would be feeding into the same registration interface and decided to manage all of them together in order to save time.
A company wanted to switch from a paper-based Human Resources group to a software-based one. They spent some time looking into the best software packages for the job, and decided to manage all of the HR functions together since they needed the same people to help with all of the work.
A company wanted to build a better reporting interface so that it could have more accurate data on yearend goals.
A construction company bid on several parking garage projects at the same time. They won one of the bids and built the garage a month under schedule and $5000 under budget.
A software game company wanted to build up its online presence. So, it started several marketing and sales initiatives, created some new games, and re-wrote some old ones in order to reach more gamers online.
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exercise solutions
You’ll need to know the difference between a portfolio, a program, and a project on the exam. Which one of those does each of the stories below describe?
Solution A consulting company wanted to increase the amount of billable time for each consultant so they started several company-wide programs to help consultants to get more productivity out of each year.
A university wanted to build admissions web sites for all of their departments. They realized that all of the sites would be feeding into the same registration interface and decided to manage all of them together in order to save time.
Portfolio
Program
A company wanted to switch from a paper-based Human Resources group to a software-based one. They spent some time looking into the best software packages for the job, and decided to manage all of the HR functions together since they needed the same people to help with all of the work.
A company wanted to build a better reporting interface so that it could have more accurate data on yearend goals.
Project A construction company bid on several parking garage projects at the same time. They won one of the bids and built the garage a month under schedule and $5000 under budget.
Program A software game company wanted to build up its online presence. So, it started several marketing and sales initiatives, created some new games, and re-wrote some old ones in order to reach more gamers online.
Project
Portfolio
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introduction to the pmp exam
What a project IS… Temporary Projects always have a start and a finish. They start when you decide what you are going to do, and they end when you create the product or service you set out to create. Sometimes they end because you decide to stop doing the project. But they are never ongoing.
Operations are ongoing. If you’re building cars on an assembly line, that’s a process. If you’re designing and building a prototype of a specific car model, that’s a project.
Creating a unique result When you create the product of your project, it is measurable. If you start a project to create a piece of software or build a building, you can tell that software or that building from any other one that has been produced.
Progressively elaborated You learn more and more about a project as it goes on. When you start, you have goals and a plan, but there is always new information to deal with as your project goes on and you’ll always have to make decisions to keep it on track. While you do your best to plan for everything that will happen, you know that you will keep learning more about your project as you go.
You might also see the word “processt” run a instead of “operation.” A team mighcompany project to build software, but the ing might have an ongoing process for keep m the servers that run the software fro s keep t tha up gro the , going down. In fact “IT ed call en oft is ing those servers runn Operations.” Get it?
… and what a project is NOT Projects are NOT: always strategic or critical Projects are NOT: ongoing operations (or processes) Projects are NOT: always successful
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what project managers do
Which of these scenarios are operations, and which are projects?
7. Knitting a scarf
1. Building an extension on a house
c
Operation
c
c
Project
2. Shelving books at the library
c
Operation
c
Operation
c
Project
Operation
Project
Operation
c
Project
9. Changing your air filters every six months
c
c
Project
4. Stapling programs for a play
c
c
8. Making a birdhouse
3. Baking a wedding cake
c
Operation
c
Operation
c
10. Running an assembly line in a toy factory
c
Project
Operation
c
5. Watering your plants twice a week
11. Organizing a large conference
c
c
Operation
c
Project
6. Walking the dog every day
c
Operation
Project
Operation
c
Project
Project
12. Going to the gym three times a week
c
c
Project
Operation
c
Project
Answers on page 18.
■■
■■
Knowledge, performance, and personal skills are the three areas that project managers focus on to get better at their jobs. When you’re talking about things like the people in your organization, the market you compete in, your company’s risk tolerance, and standards that your company needs to meet (like government-imposed standards for any contractor bidding on a government project), you’re talking about Enterprise Environmental Factors.
■■
■■ ■■
■■
A program is a collection of projects that should be managed together in order to achieve a specific goal or benefit to the company. A portfolio is a collection of projects or programs. A project gathers a team together to do work that’s temporary, creates a unique result, and is progressively elaborated. An operation (or process) is work that’s done in a way that’s repeatable and ongoing, but is not a project.
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introduction to the pmp exam
A day in the life of a project manager You know what a project manager does: gets a project from concept to completed product. Usually a project manager works with a team of people to get the work done. And they don’t usually know a lot about the project when they start. When you think about it, you can categorize pretty much everything a project manager does every day into three categories.
Gather product requirements
Being a project manager almost always means figuring out what you’re going to build. It’s one of the first things you do when you start to plan the project! But as you go, you are always learning more and more. Sometimes that can mean changes to your product, while other times it’s just more detail on what you already knew.
Manage stakeholder expectations
One of t stakeholdehe most important That’s th rs is the sponsor. financial ae person who prov for the pr nd political suppo ides rt oject.
There are a lot of people involved in making most projects happen: the team that actually does the work, the people who pay for it, everybody who will use the product when you’re done, and everybody who might be impacted by the project along the way. Those people are called your stakeholders. And a big part of the PM’s job is communicating with everybody and making sure their needs are met.
Deal with project constraints
Sometimes there will be constraints on the project that you’ll need to deal with. You might start a project and be told that it can’t cost more than $200,000. Or it absolutely MUST be done by the trade show in May. Or you can only do it if you can get one specific programmer to do the work. Or there’s a good chance that a competitor will beat you to it if you don’t plan it well. It’s constraints like that that make the job more challenging, but it’s all in day’s work for a project manager.
Even though you’re constantly gathering requirements, managing stakeholders, and working within constraints, different situations can call for different tools for dealing with all of those challenges. When you think about it, all of the tools and techniques that are discussed in the PMBOK® Guide are there to help you do those three things at different points in your project’s lifecycle. That’s why the PMBOK® Guide divides the work you do on a project up into the 5 Process Groups. The groups help you organize all of the work you do as your project progresses and keep your role in the project straight.
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there are no dumb questions
Which of these scenarios are operations, and which are projects?
1. Building an extension on a house
c
Operation
c
7. Knitting a scarf Project
2. Shelving books at the library
c
Operation
c
Operation
Project
Operation
c
Project
Operation
c
Project
Operation
c
Operation
c
Project
c
c
Operation
c
Project
c
Operation
c
Project
11. Organizing a large conference
Project
c
Operation
c
Project
12. Going to the gym three times a week
6. Walking the dog every day
c
Project
10. Running an assembly line in a toy factory
5. Watering your plants twice a week
c
c
9. Changing your air filters every six months
4. Stapling programs for a play
c
Operation
8. Making a birdhouse
3. Baking a wedding cake
c
c
c
Q: A:
Do project constraints just mean restrictions on time and cost?
No. A project constraint is any limitation that’s placed on your project before you start doing the work. It’s true that project managers are really familiar with time and cost constraints, because those are really common. But there are lots of other kinds of constraints, too. Here’s an example. Let’s say that some of your team members won’t be availble for three weeks because they have to attend a mandatory training session. That’s called a
Project
c
Operation
resource constraint, because some of your project resources (people you need) are restricted. There are lots of other kinds of constraints, too: risk constraints, scope constraints, and quality constraints.
Q:
Wait a minute — a quality constraint? Shouldn’t I always run my project to build high-quality products?
A:
Of course. But quality is more important for some projects than it is for others, and as a project manager, you need to be realistic about it.
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c
Project
If you’re running a project to build a playground, quality is important. You don’t want to build unsafe playground equipment, because children could get hurt. Does that mean that you spend the highest possible portion of your budget on quality? Take a minute and think about how you’d approach quality for that project, as compared to, say, a project to build a heart monitor for a medical device company. It’s likely that quality is a much more important constraint for the heart monitor than it is for the playground.
introduction to the pmp exam
How project managers run great projects There are plenty of ways that you can run a project: people have been running projects for about as long as civilization has been around. But some project managers run their projects really effectively, while others consistently come in late, over budget, and with poor quality. So what makes the difference between a great project and one that faces challenges? That’s exactly the question that the folks at the Project Management Institute asked when they started putting together their Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge®. They surveyed thousands of project managers and analyzed tens of thousands of successful and unsuccessful software projects to come up with a structured way of thinking about how to effectively run a project. One goal of the PMBOK® Guide is to give you a repeatable way to run your projects. This is done by breaking the work down into 42 processes that describe different, specific kinds of work that project managers do. To help you think about how those processes fit together, they came up with two different ways to think about them. Each process falls into one of the five process groups, which tell you the sequence that the processes are performed on a project. But the PMBOK® Guide is also a tool for organizing knowledge about project management, so each process also falls into one of nine knowledge areas. The PMBOK® Guide is organized around these knowledge areas... and so is this book!
There are also nine at help knowledge areas th ses to organize the proces learn make them easier to and understand.
The PMBOK® Guide describes 42 processes your project will go through from start to finish.
e Head First PMP hasgeon led chapter per know the area... and so does PMBOK® Guide. oups It has five process gr r or e that show you th hade en pp s that the processe how they on a project, and other. interact with each
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try your hand
Process Group Magnets
You haven’t learned the names process groups or knowledge areof the but you can probably guess fr as yet... names how they fit together!om their
The PMBOK® Guide divides the generally recognized good project management practices into 42 processes that fall into 5 process groups. Can you figure out the order of the process groups just from their names? See if you can match the process group magnets below into the right blanks, in the right order.
These two groups operate in a cycle.
Here’s where you figure out what your project’s high-level goals are.
This is where you figure out how you will do all of the work.
This means tracking the work, looking for problems and fixing those problems before they derail your project.
This is where the work gets done.
Closing
Executing Monitoring & Controlling
Planning Initiating
Here are a bunch of magnets that fell off the fridge! They’re used to show the pro in the right order. Draw them in cess groups: above the appropriate blanks. 20 Chapter 1 Download at Boykma.Com
Here’s where you fill out all of your final paperwork and get paid for the work you’ve completed.
introduction to the pmp exam
Across all of the process groups, there are 9 knowledge areas that span all of the different kinds of information you’ll need to keep up with to manage your project. See if you can guess how each knowledge area (on the left) matches up to the description of what that knowledge area focuses on (on the right).
Risk
Defining contracts and choosing a contractor to do work on your project.
Quality
Keeping everybody working toward the same goal and dealing with changes.
Scope
Budgeting your project and tracking the money you are spending.
Procurement
Getting the people who will do the work and keeping them motivated.
Communication
Planning for things that could happen (positive or negative) and dealing with them when they do.
Time
Making sure that you build the right product and that you do it as efficiently as possible.
Integration
Figuring out who should talk to whom to keep everybody in the loop on your project.
Cost
Estimating the time it will take to complete your project and making sure you meet the deadlines you set.
Human Resources
Defining the tasks that will (and won’t) be done on the project.
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process group solutions
Process Group Magnets Solutions
The PMBOK® Guide divides the generally recognized good project management practices into 42 processes that fall into 5 process groups. Can you figure out the order of the process groups just from their names? See if you can match the process group magnets below into the right blanks, in the right order.
Looking at the outputs from the executing process group and comparing them to the plan constantly helps you make decisions about what to do to stay on track.
All of the stuff that’s produced in the executing process group is monitored in the next group.
Initiating
This process group includes processes to create and define a really preliminary version of your project’s scope.
Planning
This is where you plan for how you’ll manage all aspects of the project including scope, risk, time, cost, quality, and a few more.
Relax
Monitoring & Controlling
Executing
Here’s where all the work gets done.
The recommendations that come from comparing work to your plan and making adjustments as needed.
Closing
Once the work is done, you need to fill out all of the required paperwork so that your company will have records of what you did. You should also make sure that the team you are using gets released so they can work on other projects.
You’re going to cover all of this information in a lot more depth soon, so for now, just sit back and relax!
You’ll understand a lot more about project management if you’re not worrying about getting it all this minute. Using this book together with the PMBOK® Guide, you’re going to do much more than just learn this stuff by rote for the exam—you’re going to understand these concepts.
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introduction to the pmp exam
Across all of the process groups, there are 9 knowledge areas that span all of the different kinds of information you’ll need to keep up with to manage your project. See if you can guess how each knowledge area (on the left) matches up to the description of what that knowledge area focuses on (on the right).
Risk
Defining contracts and choosing a contractor to do work for the project.
Quality
Keeping everybody working toward the same goal and dealing with changes.
Scope
Budgeting your project and tracking the money you are spending.
Procurement
Getting the people who will do the work and keeping them motivated.
Communication
Planning for things that could happen (positive or negative) and dealing with them when they do.
Time
Making sure that you build the right product and that you do it as efficiently as possible.
Integration
Figuring out who should talk to whom to keep everybody in the loop about your project.
Cost
Estimating the time it will take to complete your project and making sure you meet the deadlines you set.
Human Resources
Defining the work that will (and won’t) be done on the project.
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what the pmp does for you
A PMP certification is more than just passing a test
Getting your PMP certification means that you have the knowledge to solve most common project problems.
It proves that you know your stuff.
Once you’re certified, your projects are more likely to succeed because:
You have the skills and knowledge to make them successful.
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introduction to the pmp exam
Meet a real-life PMP-certified project manager PMs have demonstrated that they understand the tools it takes to be successful at leading projects. They know what it means to juggle their project priorities and still have their projects come out on top. Being certified doesn’t mean you won’t have problems on your projects anymore, but it does mean that you’ll have the wisdom of many experienced and smart project managers behind you when you make decisions about how to solve these problems.
Runs successful projects
Earns more money Has an important qualification required by many companies and contracts
Has the respect of her peers
Is always willing to teach others
Enjoys PMI benefits like training,king seminars, and professional networ
Is an important part of the Project Management community
But remember, you don’t need to have a PMP certification to join e! the Project Management Institut P If you’re planning to take the PM tod exam, it’s a great idea to join theayse and start taking advantage of great benefits.
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exam questions
Exam Questions 1. The project manager for a construction project discovers that a new water line is being created in the neighborhood where he’s managing a project. Company policy requires that a series of forms for city environmental changes need to be filled out before his team can continue work on the project. This is an example of: A. B. C. D.
A portfolio A program An enterprise environmental factor A project
2. Which of the following is NOT a characteristic of a project? A. B. C. D.
Temporary Strategic Specific result Progressively elaborated
3. An energy company is investing in a series of initiatives to look for alternative energy sources so that the company can be competitive in 10 years. The initaitives are tracked and managed together because this goal is vital to the success of the company. This is an example of... A. B. C. D.
A portfolio A program A project A enterprise environmental factor
4. Which of the following is NOT a responsibility of a project manager? A. B. C. D.
Managing stakeholder expectations Managing project constraints Gathering product requirements Sponsoring the project
5. Which of the following is NOT a Process Group? A. B. C. D.
Monitoring and Controlling Gathering Requirements Initiating Closing
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introduction to the pmp exam
Exam Questions 6. Which of the following is NOT a knowledge area? A. B. C. D.
Scope Integration Procurement Initiating
7. Which of the following is NOT true about portfolio management? A. The portfolio manager judges success of the portfolio by combining data from all of its programs and projects B. A portfolio can contain projects and programs C. A portfolio is organized around a business goal D. A portfolio is always a group of programs 8. You’re managing a project to remodel a kitchen. You use earned value calculations to figure out that you’re going to run $500 over budget if your project continues at the current rate. Which of the following core characteristics of a project manager are you using to find the problem? A. B. C. D.
Knowledge Performance Personal None of the above
9. At the beginning of a project, a software team project manager is given a schedule with everyone’s vacations on it. She realizes that because the software will be delivered to the QA team exactly when they have overlapping vacations, there is a serious risk of quality problems because there won’t be anyone to test the software before it goes into production. What BEST describes the constraint this places on the project? A. B. C. D.
Quality constraint Time constraint Resource constraint Risk constraint
10. A project manager is having trouble with his project because one of his team members is not performing, which is causing him to miss an important date he promised to a stakeholder. He discovers that the team member knew about the project problem, but didn’t tell him because the team members are all afraid of his bad temper. Which BEST describes how the project manager can avoid this situation in the future? A. B. C. D.
Increasing his knowledge of the PMBOK® Guide Measuring personal performance Improving his personal skills Managing stakeholder expectations
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Answers
exam questions answers
Exam Questions 1. Answer: C
Since the project manager is filling out forms because of company policy, this is a good example of an enterprise environmental factor. 2. Answer: B A project doesn’t have to be strategic or critical. It only needs to be temporary, have a specific result and be progressively elaborated.
Look out for questions like this one on the exam. Common sense might tell you that a project sho uld want to do it, but that’s not what be important for a company to the question is asking.
3. Answer: A Since the initiatives are being managed together because of a strategic business goal, you can tell that this is a portfolio. Portfolios are 4. Answer: D
organized around iness goals and programs are organized around a shared benefibus t in managing them together.
The sponsor is the person who pays for the project. The project manager doesn’t usually play that role. 5. Answer: B The process groups categorize all of the activities that a project goes through in its lifecycle. They are Initiatng, Planning, Executing, Monitoring and Controlling, and Closing. 6. Answer: D Initiating is a process group, not a knowledge area. The process groups help you to think about all of the different stages a project goes through from the time it is first imagined until it is completed. The knowledge areas are all the things you need to think about as your project goes through those stages. 7. Answer: D Since a portfolio can be a group of programs and projects, option D is the one that’s not true. It can be a group of programs, but it doesn’t have to be.
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Answers
introduction to the pmp exam
Exam Questions 8. Answer: A
Your knowledge of Earned Value Management techniques is how you can predict that the project will be over budget. Knowing that could let you plan ahead to avoid further cost overruns. Minimally, it can help you to reset expectations with your stakeholders so they have a better idea of what’s coming. 9. Answer: C This is a resource constraint, because the project manager’s resources – in this case, the people who will be testing the software – are not going to be available to her when she needs them. Yes, this will cause problems with the quality, introduce risks, and cause schedule problems. But they’re not schedule, time or risk constraints, because there’s no outside limitation placed on the project quality, schedule or risks. The only outside limitation is the resource availability. If they were available, there wouldn’t be a problem! 10. Answer: C The way that the project manager interacts with the people on his team interfered with his work getting done. This is a good example of how a lack of personal skills can lead directly to major project problems down the line, and it’s why this particular project manager needs to work on his personal skills.
The project manager’s temper led to a disappointed stakeholder, but that doesn’t mean that the stakeholder’s expectations were out of line. This was an avoidable project problem, and better personal skills would have fixed it..
You made it through your first chapter and exam questions! How’d it go?
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2 Organizations, constraints, and projects
In good company Good news, Mr. Johnson! We’ve projectized our company. No more late nights at the office!
Great. Now what’ll I use as an excuse not to take those ballroom dancing lessons with my wife?
If you want something done right… better hope you’re in the right kind of organization. All projects are about teamwork—but how your team works depends a lot on the type of organization you’re in. In this chapter, you’ll learn about the different types of organizations around—and which type you should look for the next time you need a new job.
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time to gather status
A day in Kate’s life Morning
We just finished testing, and the product should be ready to go to test on schedule.
Lunch time
We’re halfway done updating the user manual.
Afternoon
The web site needs new graphics.
This is Kate’s job—writing status reports. Status Report Programming
t should be
ting, and the produc “We just finished tes schedule.” ready to go to test on Tech Writing
al.”
dating the user manu
up “We’re halfway done s
Information System “The web site needs
new graphics.”
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All Kate does all day is documetinntgs. what people say in status mee
organizations, constraints, and projects
Kate wants a new job Now that’s she’s working on getting her PMP® certification, Kate’s learning a whole load of new skills. And she’s even started to look for a new job—one where she does more than write down what other people say all day…
Kate’s not responsible for the success or failure of her project. She just keeps everybody informed of its progress.
All I do all day is collect status. Even if I have ideas about how to improve the project, it’s not like I have the power to actually change anything.
Kate is a project expediter right now. Kate may have the job title of “project manager,” but even though that’s what’s printed on her business cards, that’s not really her job. Kate’s job is to document what’s happening on a project, but she doesn’t have the authority to make decisions on it. The PMBOK® Guide calls this role a project expediter. She may work on projects, but she’s certainly not managing anything.
When Kate surfs over to Monster.com, what types of things do you think she should look for in a new organization?
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Kate’s dream job
Kate spilled a hot cup of Starbuzz half-caf nonfat latte on her job-hunting checklist. Can you match the notes she scribbled at the bottom of the page to what’s covered up by coffee stains?
Answers on page 52.
What would you look for in your perfect job? Does your wish list look anything like Kate’s?
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organizations, constraints, and projects
Organization Magnets
In a functional organization, which is what Kate works in, project managers don’t have the authority to make major decisions on projects. Projectized organizations give all of the authority to the PM. Can you work out which description goes with which organization type?
Functional Organization 1.
In a functional organization, the teams working on the project don’t report directly to the PM. Instead, the teams are in departments, and the project manager needs to “borrow” them for the project.
In this kind of company, the teamwho reports to the project manager, has a lot more authority.
Projectized Organization
1.
2.
2.
3.
3. Teams are organized around projects.
rs choose Project manage ers, and mb me am the te en the release them wh er. ov is project
Project managers estimate and track budget and schedule.
PMs spend half their time doing admin tasks.
PMs don’t set the budget.
rs need Project manage cisions de r jo ma to clear managers. with department
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organize your world
There are different types of organizations Kate’s got three major options when looking at the kinds of organizations she can work for. Functional organizations are set up to give authority to functional managers, projectized organizations give it to the PM, and matrix organizations share responsibility and authority between the two.
Functional nization, In this kind of orgamembers the project team a always report to er who calls functional manag all the shots.
WEAK MATRIX
BALANCED MATRIX Matrix Organizations
óó Project management decisions need to be cleared with functional managers.
óó PMs have some authority but they aren’t in charge of the resources on a project.
óó Project managers share authority with the functional managers.
óó Project managers are assistants to the functional managers in getting the work done.
óó Major decisions still need to be made with the functional manager’s cooperation or approval.
óó PMs run their people‑management decisions by the functional manager, but the functional manager runs his project decisions by the PM, too.
óó Project managers spend a lot of time doing administrative tasks and often only work as PMs part of the time. óó You’re likely to find project expediters in functional organizations.
All of the project work typically happens within a particular dep ment, and that department’s managerart is completely in charge of everythin g.
óó Project expediters (like Kate) and project coordinators can work in weak matrix organizations, too.
Project coordinators are like expediters, except that coordinators typically report to higher-level managers and have some decisionmaking ability. Expediters have no authority at all.
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Folks who work in a balanced matrix organization report to a PM AND a functional manager equally.
organizations, constraints, and projects
The Project Manager has the most authority and power in a projectized organization.
STRONG MATRIX
Projectized For the PMP exam, most questions assume that you work in a matrix organization unless they say otherwise.
óó Project managers have more authority than functional managers, but the team still reports to both managers. óó The team might be judged based on performance on their projects, as well as on their functional expertise. In a strong matrix, delivery of the project is most important.
If you’ve worked with a contractor or consulting company, they are usually organized like this.
Wait a second. Not all companies will fit into one of these five categories, will they?
óó Teams are organized around projects. When a project is done, the team is released, and the team members move to another project. óó The project manager makes all of the decisions about a project’s budget, schedule, quality, and resources. óó The PM is responsible for the success or failure of their project.
This is just one way to think about it. Most importantly, it’s the way that appears on the exam, so you’re going to need to know it.
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who’s in charge?
Q:
I’m still not clear on the difference between a project coordinator and a project expediter.
A:
They’re actually pretty similar. A project expediter is somebody who keeps track of status but has no decision-making authority on a project at all. A project coordinator is someone who does pretty much the same thing, but does get to make some of the minor decisions on the project without having to run them by the functional manager. Coordinators usually report to somebody who is pretty high up in the organization, while expediters are more like assistants to the functional manager. Both of them usually exist in weak-matrix or functional organizations.
Q:
What’s the difference between the way teams are run in a functional organization and a projectized one?
A:
Think of a major bookkeeping project being run by the Admin department. Usually the head of Admin is the one who is ultimately responsible for what happens to it. If a project manager is called in to help out, she’s just there to keep things straight for the Admin department manager. The team is made up of people who already report to the Admin manager, so nobody questions his authority. That’s an example of a functional organization. Contrast that with the way the bookkeeping project would be run if a consulting company that specialized in bookkeeping were contracted to do it. They would assemble a team of bookkeepers and assign
¢¢
¢¢
Functional managers have all the power in a functional organization. Project managers have the power in a projectized organization. If a question on the exam doesn’t state an organization type, assume it’s referring to a matrix organization. That means the PM is responsible for making budgets, assigning tasks to resources, and resolving conflicts.
a project manager to lead them. When the project was over, the team would dissolve, and the team members would go join other teams working for other project managers. That’s how a projectized organization works. The team is organized around a project and not around a job function.
Q: A:
Can I be an effective PM in a functional organization?
Since project managers don’t have much authority in a functional organization, it’s hard to have as much impact in a functional organization as you would in a matrixed or projectized one.
Of course, you can be good at your job in any kind of organization. But, for your company to really get the most out of having project managers on staff, it really pays for them to look into changing the way they balance power. The project managers who are accountable for project success or failure should also have the chance to influence the team, budget, and schedule for those projects.
Q: A:
Does the PMP exam favor any kind of organization?
When you’re taking the PMP exam, if you see a question that mentions a PM, then you should assume that the question is asking about a matrix organization if it doesn’t say up front which kind of organization is being described. Functional organizations are usually painted in a negative light because they tend to give less authority to project managers.
¢¢
¢¢
Project coordinators and expediters don’t exist in a projectized organization. A project expediter keeps track of project status only. A project coordinator has some authority, and usually reports to someone higher up in the company. Neither role has as much power or authority as a real project manager, even though an expediter or coordinator may have “Project Manager” written on their business cards.
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organizations, constraints, and projects
ere are a few excerpts from some of Kate’s job interviews. Can you figure out what kind of H organization each interviewer is representing?
Interviewer #1: We’re looking for someone who can work with our development manager to deliver our products on time. We have a good programming team; they just need a little encouragement to meet their deadlines. You’ll be expected to keep really good status meeting notes. If you run into any trouble with the team, just kick it back to the Dev Manager, and she’ll address the problem.
c Functional
c Matrix
c Projectized
Interviewer #2: We need someone who can manage the whole effort, start to finish. You’ll need to work with the client to establish goals, choose the team, estimate time and cost, manage and track all of your decisions, and make sure you keep everybody in the loop on what’s going on. We expect the project to last six months.
c Functional
c Matrix
c Projectized
Interviewer #3: We have a project coming up that’s needed by our customer service team. The project is a real technical challenge for us, so we’ve assembled a team of top-notch programmers to come up with a good solution. We need a project manager to work with the programming manager on this one. You would be responsible for the schedule, the budget, and managing the deliverables. The programming manager would have the personnel responsibilities.
c Functional
c Matrix
c Projectized
Interviewer #4: Most of the work you’ll be doing is contract work. You’ll put together three different teams of software engineers, and you’ll need to make sure that they build everything our customer needs. And don’t forget: you’ve got to stay within budget, and it’s got to be done on time! It’s a big job, and it’s your neck on the line if things go wrong. Can you handle that?
c Functional
c Matrix
c Projectized
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interviewing with different organization types
ere are a few excerpts from some of Kate’s job interviews. Can you figure out what kind of H organization each interviewer is representing?
This is just like the job Kate wants to leave. Just gathering status sounds pretty boring.
Interviewer #1: We’re looking for someone who can work with our development manager to deliver our products on time. We have a good programming team; they just need a little encouragement to meet their deadlines. You’ll be expected to keep really good status meeting notes. If you run into any trouble with the team, just kick it back to the Dev Manager, and she’ll address the problem.
c Functional
c Matrix
c Projectized
Interviewer #2: We need someone who can manage the whole effort, start to finish. You’ll need to work with the client to establish goals, choose the team, estimate time and cost, manage and track all of your decisions, and make sure you keep everybody in the loop on what’s going on. We expect the project to last six months.
c Functional
c Matrix
c Projectized
Everybody moves from project to project in this organization.
Interviewer #3: We have a project coming up that’s needed by our customer service team. The project is a real technical challenge for us, so we’ve assembled a team of top-notch programmers to come up with a good solution. We need a project manager to work with the programming manager on this one. You would be responsible for the schedule, the budget, and managing the deliverables. The programming manager would have the personnel responsibilities.
c Functional
c Matrix
c Projectized
Interviewer #4: Most of the work you’ll be doing is contract work. You’ll put together three different teams of software engineers, and you’ll need to make sure that they build everything our customer needs. And don’t forget: you’ve got to stay within budget, and it’s got to be done on time! It’s a big job, and it’s your neck on the line if things go wrong. Can you handle that?
c Functional
c Matrix
Shared authority between the PM and the functional manager.
c Projectized
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Most contractors are projectized: the PM builds the team and makes sure the work gets done.
organizations, constraints, and projects
Kate takes a new job Welcome aboard, Kate! I’m Ben, the programming manager.
Kate: Hi, Ben. I’m excited to be here. It’s such a relief to be hired as a project manager, and not just a project expediter any more. Ben: We’re excited too, since you’ll be taking care of our main software development project. It’s in maintenance mode right now. Kate: Sounds great. How do we handle that here? Ben: Well, we’re constantly getting business reports from the field, and when people think of new ideas, we just add them to the project. Kate: Umm… So how do you know when you’re done?
Ben
Ben: We’re never really done; we try to release new versions as often as possible.
Kate’s being asked to do operational work Kate’s spent a lot of time studying for the PMP exam, and the first thing she learned was that a project is temporary. When she sees ongoing work that doesn’t really have a start or a finish, it’s not a project at all. Ben asked Kate to do operational work, which has no beginning and has no end. Since there’s no way to for Kate to know when she’s done, it will be harder for her to be successful at her job. And that makes her nervous! you are here 4 41 Download at Boykma.Com
operational amplifier
Tonight’s talk: Operational Work and A Project spar over who’s more valuable.
Operational Work
A Project
I’ve been meaning to sit down and talk to you for a while. Hey, don’t knock that day-to-day work! It’s your bread and butter. If I weren’t here keeping the lights on, there’d be no chance for you to go out and build all of the flashy stuff you do. It’s thankless work keeping the buiness running, I’ll give you that, but where would you be without me?
Really? I thought you were too busy doing your day-to-day business to care too much about us projects.
There you again... “thankless work.” Give me a break. Eveybody knows that you represent all of the work the business does on an ongoing basis. You’re the work that keeps the computers running, and the paychecks flowing. You’re the systems upgrades and the maintenance... all of the work that has no definite beginning and end. You make it possible for me to break new ground. You’re a great supporting player. You make it easy for me to be a star! While I’m out there expanding the business, you’re making sure we can take care of our old stuff. Er, I mean, you’re maintaining our core work.
Don’t patronize me. I know you think you’re pretty hot because everybody wants to know when you’ll be done and how much you’ll cost. But remember, you’re temporary. When you’re done producing your product, you close down and I’ll be left to maintain the systems you create. Not only are you nothing without me, you have an expiration date. Still feel like a star?
I’m out there every day making progress, building new products, and changing the way that you do business. Yeah, I do feel like a star. I’m sorry you can’t see how important I am. I guess we’ll just never agree on this one.
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organizations, constraints, and projects
Stakeholders are impacted by your project Anyone who will be affected by the outcome of your project is a stakeholder. It’s usually pretty easy to come up with the first few people on the list of affected people. The sponsor who’s paying for the project, the team who’s building it, and the people in management who gave the project the green light are all good examples. But it can get a little tricky as your project gets going. You might start with that core group of people and find that the number keeps growing as time goes on. As a project manager, it’s your job to find all of the stakeholders who are influential in your project and keep them updated on where your project is going. Making sure that their expectations are managed can be the difference between your project succeeding and failing. I hope Kate doesn’t do anything to slow down my development team.
ink Kate might not th en wh s al go ’s about Ben r he ng ni an pl she starts d ul project, and thatrcoher. cause problems fo
Negative Stakeholders Not all of the people you’re working with are rooting for your project to succeed. Sometimes, the people you’re working with think that your project might bring negative consequences for them. Ben’s worried that bringing any kind of planning into his company will slow down his team. Kate’s going to have to manage his expectations and work with him to set goals that make sense to him if she’s going to bring him around to supporting her work. You need to know what’s motivating all of your project stakeholders if you’re going to understand the influence they’ll have over your project.
It may sound like having a negative stakeholder is a really bad thing, but if Kate can turn him around then he’ll be a great ally in the future.
Identify Stakeholders One of the first things you’ll do when you start a project is figure out who your stakeholders are and write down their goals and expectations in a Stakeholder Register. That’s part of the Identify Stakeholders Process that you’ll learn more about in Chapter 10 of this book. Even though you do that work up front, you’ll find that new stakeholders are always popping up, and you’ll need to make changes to your Stakeholder Register to include them as you learn about them.
You’ll learn more about how the “Identify Stakeholders” process helps you understand understand their goals and expectations in Chapter 10. you are here 4 43
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Kate can do better
Back to Kate’s maintenance nightmare Let’s figure out how things are working in Kate’s new organization… and start to think about how we can improve things. We release new versions all the time.
Right now, we’re handling maintenance as an ongoing process.
Release
Release
Release
Release
Release
Release
And look what that approach has left us with…
We don’t know how much we’re spending in maintenance.
Release
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Release
Release
Release Release
organizations, constraints, and projects
We never have a “final” version of the product…
… and it looks like our users are unhappy with the bugs and the uncertainty of the version stability.
The customer service department’s repo on user feedback. rt
That’s just the way our software development maintenance process has always worked. You mean there’s something we can do to make it work better?
Yes! We can definitely do better than this!
What would you do to fix this problem?
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constrained optimism
Managing project constraints When Kate thinks about solutions, she’s going to have to deal with the project’s constraints. Every project, regardless of what is being produced or who is doing the work, is affected by the constraints of time, scope, cost, quality, resources, and risk. These constraints have a special relationship with one another, because doing something to deal with one of the constraints always has an effect on the others.
e Your project will You need to managk always have to stay the scope of wor within a budget. you do for the Your project project. will need to get done on schedule.
Time
Cost
Scope
You have to have the people and t materials to ge the work done.
Resources
Quality
If you don’t manage all six constraints at the same time, you risk managing in favor of just one constraint.
For Kate’s project to succeed, she needs to think about the project constraints. If she doesn’t manage these six constraints at the same time, she’ll find that her project is either late, over budget, or unacceptable to her customers.
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If your product doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do you wont succeed. ,
Unexpect obstacles ced wreck your an project if don’t deal you this one. with
Risk
Any time your project changes, you’ll need to know how that change affects all of the constraints.
organizations, constraints, and projects
an you figure out the constraint that’s causing the biggest headache for the project manager in C each of these scenarios?
The project was running late, so the project manager decided to release it on time even though it was missing some of its features. Constraint affected:
The company didn’t have enough money to invest in the project, so they had to draft people from other departments to work part time to get the job done.
Constraint affected: The team wanted to add more testers to find defects, but the project manager overruled them.
Constraint affected:
A construction project manager assumed that the weather would cooperate with the plans to complete the job, but thunderstorms have derailed the project. Constraint affected:
About halfway through the project, the PM realized that the money was running out faster than expected. She went through the schedule to try to find ways to move up the deadline.
Constraint affected:
The project manager didn’t take software license fees into account, which caused the budget to balloon out of control. Constraint affected:
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constraints affect each other
Can you figure out the constraint that’s causing the biggest headache for the project manager in each of these scenarios?
The project was running late, so the project manager decided to release it on time even though it was missing some of its features. Constraint affected:
scope
The PM stuck to the original budget and schedule, but released a product that wasn’t complete. That means the scope was affected.
The team wanted to add more testers to find defects, but the project manager overruled them. Constraint affected:
quality
Any time you’re talking about tests and defects, you’re talking about quality..
risk
Whenever you make assumptions about a project, you’re introducing risk.
48 Chapter 2
Constraint affected:
resources
time
It’s the project manager’s job to always look after the bottom line.
Resources are people or materials that you need for your project, and when you cut corners you end up straining them.
About halfway through the project, the PM realized that the money was running out faster than expected. She went through the schedule to try to find ways to move up the deadline.
Constraint affected:
A construction project manager assumed that the weather would cooperate with the plans to complete the job, but thunderstorms have derailed the project. Constraint affected:
The company didn’t have enough money to invest in the project, so they had to draft people from other departments to work part time to get the job done.
There are lots of ways to change how long it’ll take to do your project, but sometimes there simply isn’t enough time.
The project manager didn’t take software license fees into account, which caused the budget to balloon out of control. Constraint affected:
cost These are the answers we thought fit best! Did you get different answers? That’s okay! For this exercise, a good case can be made for almost any of the constraints. Don’t worry about which answer is “right” for now – it’s more important to get some practice thinking about projects in terms of constraints. And when you get to the actual exam questions, there will always be a clear, correct, BEST answer. Download at Boykma.Com
organizations, constraints, and projects
Q:
I’ve heard project constraints referred to as the triple constraint. But there are six of them here. What gives?
A:
Some project managers focus on Cost, Scope, and Time as the main constraints of a project. But just thinking about those three constraints doesn’t give a clear picture of all of the constraints you need to account for when planning a project. The important thing here is to understand that Cost, Time, Scope, Quality, Risk, and Resources are all related to each other. You need to pay attention to all of them and if you manage your project in favor of one of them, it will affect the others.
Q:
I’ve heard of an old saying: “Faster, cheaper, better—pick two,” but doesn’t that mean that there are only two constraints that you can manage at any given time?
A:
No, that’s an old (and somewhat cynical) project management saying. When a project manager says it to a customer or stakeholder, what he is saying is that there’s no way to reduce cost, shorten the schedule, and increase quality all at the same time. At least one of those things absolutely has to give… but the saying is a little disingenuous! We already know that all six of the constraints are related to each other, and there’s almost never an easy, obvious trade-off where you can sacrifice one to improve the others.
Q:
What if I know that a change will impact just scope, but not schedule or cost or any of the other constraints. Can I go ahead and make it?
A:
Whenever you are making a change that affects the project constraints, you need to be sure that the change is acceptable to your stakeholders. They’re the people who will be impacted by your project. The term applies to your team, your customer, your sponsor, and anybody else who is affected by the change.
A lot of project management is about evaluating what a change is going to do to your project constraints, and using that impact analysis to help stakeholders make choices about what to do when changes come up. Sometimes a change that affects the quality of your product is completely unacceptable to your stakeholders, and they would rather delay the project than sacrifice the product’s quality.
Q:
I don’t quite get this whole negative stakeholder thing. Why do I care about people who aren’t helping me with my project?
A:
Think of it this way: sometimes a project might have really good overall outcome for your company, but it might make some of the people who are impacted by it uncomfortable. (Here’s a quick example: think about another project manager who won’t get to use the resources he planned on because they’re taken up by your project.) Change can be really hard for people to adapt to, and sometimes your stakeholders are not going to be happy about changes that your project is making. It’s important to know how negative stakeholders feel and understand why they’re resistant to your project.
You need to identify and manage the expectations of all of the stakeholders who have influence over your project if you’re going to succeed. So don’t take it personally if there are people out there who aren’t as enthusiastic about your project as you are. Use it as an opportunity to find out what your project can do to get buy-in from the negative stakeholders out there.
Q:
You mentioned that it’s possible to “turn around” a negative stakeholder. How does that work?
A:
Today’s negative stakeholders can become tomorrow’s advocates if you make sure their needs are met. By listening to them, taking their needs into account, and making changes to your project so that those needs are satisfied, those previously negative stakeholders will feel good about what you’re doing... and they’ll often become your closest allies in the future.
A stakeholder is anyone who is affected either positively or negatively by the cost, time, scope, resources, quality, or risks of your project. you are here 4 49
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setting project goals
Kate makes some changes… 1
She divides maintenance into releases, each with a well-defined start and a finish.
... and once Ben saw that Kate’s careful planning made the project go faster, not slower, he stopped being a negative stakeholder and started being a project advocate! 2
One BIG release.
She works with stakeholders to set scope goals that each release must meet.
All these items must be completed before the project can end.
3
She manages the budget for each release and keeps the costs contained.
Start
1/2 Way
be zero? Did you expect this to in on me Real projects rarelyr.co budget to the dolla Finish
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organizations, constraints, and projects
… and her project is a success! Now the company knows when their products will be done, how much they will cost, and that the products will satisfy their customers…
Thanks, Kate!
You’re welcome!
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exercise solutions
Kate spilled a hot cup of Starbuzz half-caf nonfat latte on her job-hunting checklist. Can you match the notes she scribbled at the bottom of the page to what’s covered up by coffee stains?
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organizations, constraints, and projects
Organization Magnets Solutions
In a functional organization, which is what Kate works in, project managers don’t have the authority to make major decisions on projects. Projectized organizations give all of the authority to the PM. Can you work out which description goes with which organization type?
Functional Organization 1.
rs need Project manage cisions de r jo ma r to clea nagers. ma with department
2.
PMs don’t set the budget.
3.
PMs spend half their time doing admin tasks.
In a functional organization, the teams working on the project don’t report directly to the PM. Instead, the teams are in departments, and the project manager needs to “borrow” them for the project.
1.
In this kind of company, the teamwho reports to the project manager, has a lot more authority.
Projectized Organization Teams are organized around projects.
2.
rs choose Project manage s, and the team member en the wh release them er. ov is t projec
3.
Project managers estimate and track budget and schedule.
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exam questions
Exam Questions 1. Which of the following is NOT a Project Constraint? A. B. C. D.
Quality Scale Time Cost
2. A project manager is running a data center installation project. He finds that his stakeholder is angry because he’s run over his budget because the staff turned out to be more expensive than planned. The stakeholder’s unhappy that when the project is over, the servers won’t have as much drive space as he needs. Which of the following constraints was not affected by this problem? A. B. C. D.
Quality Resource Time Cost
3. Which of the following is NOT an example of operational work? A. B. C. D.
Building a purchase order system for accounts payable Submitting weekly purchase orders through a purchase order system Deploying weekly anti-virus software updates Yearly staff performance evaluations
4. You’re managing a project to build a new accounting system. One of the accountants in another department really likes the current system and is refusing to be trained on the new one. What is the BEST way to handle this situation? A. B. C. D.
Refuse to work with him because he’s being difficult Appeal to the accountant’s manager and ask to have him required to take training Get a special dispensation so that the accountant doesn’t have to go to the training Work with him to understand his concerns and do what you can to help alleviate them without compromising your project
5. Which of the following is used for identifying people who are impacted by the project? A. B. C. D.
Resource List Stakeholder Register Enterprise Environmental Factors Project Plan
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organizations, constraints, and projects
Exam Questions 6. Your manager asks you where to find a list of projects that should be managed together. What is the BEST place to find this information? A. B. C. D.
Project Plan Project Charter Portfolio Charter Program Charter
7. You want to know specifically which business goal a group of projects and programs are going to accomplish. Which is the best place to look for this information? A. B. C. D.
Project Plan Project Charter Portfolio Charter Program Charter
8. A project coordinator is having trouble securing programmers for her project. Every time she asks her boss to give a resource to the project he says that they are too busy to help out with her project. Which type of organization is she working in? A. B. C. D.
Functional Weak Matrix Strong Matrix Projectized
9. A project manager is having trouble securing programmers for her project. Every time she asks the programming manager for resources for her project, he says they’re all assigned to other work. So she is constantly having to go over his head to overrule him. Which type of organization is she working for? A. B. C. D.
Functional Weak Matrix Strong Matrix Projectized
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exam answers
Answers
Exam Questions 1. Answer: B
Scale is not a project constraint. The constraints are Scope, Time, Cost, Quality, Resource, and Risk. 2. Answer: C There is no mention of the project being late or missing its deadlines in the example. The project was over budget, which affects the project’s cost. The project won’t meet the stakeholder’s requirements, which is a quality problem. And the staff was more expensive than planned, which is a resource problem. 3. Answer: A Building a purchase order system for accounts payable is a project. It’s a temporary effort that has a unique result. 4.Answer: D
When a stakeholder is negatively impacted by your project, you need to manage his expectations and help him to buy into your project. 5. Answer: B The stakeholder register is where you identify all of the people who are impacted by your project. 6. Answer: D A program is a group of projects that should be managed together because of interdependencies. A program charter fits the description in this question. 7. Answer: C A portfolio charter will give the business goal that a group of projects and programs will accomplish as part of a portfolio.
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Answers
organizations, constraints, and projects
Exam Questions 8. Answer: A
Since the project manager has to ask permission from the functional manager and can’t overrule him, she’s working in a functional organization. 9. Answer: C The Project Manager in this scenario can overrule the functional manager, so she’s working in a Strong Matrix organization. If it were a projectized organization, she wouldn’t have to get permission from the functional manager at all because she’d be the person with authority to assign resources to projects.
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3 The process framework
It all fits together We’re using process groups and knowledge areas to do our part!
All of the work you do on a project is made up of processes. Once you know how all the processes in your project fit together, it’s easy to remember everything you need to know for the PMP® exam. There’s a pattern to all of the work that gets done on your project. First you plan it, then you get to work. While you are doing the work, you are always comparing your project to your original plan. When things start to get off-plan, it’s your job to make corrections and put everything back on track. And the process framework—the process groups and knowledge areas—is the key to all of this happening smoothly.
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a birthday surprise
Cooking up a project When you cook something from a recipe for the first time, there are certain steps you always follow:
1
First
figure out what you’re going to make. My girlfriend’s gonna love coming home to my home‑baked cookies as a birthday present!
2
Then make all your plans. Make a shopping list of everything you need.
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the process framework
3
Next, it’s time to start cooking! Set the oven to a temperature of 375˚F
Cook ’em until they’re golden (around 8–10 minutes)
4
Finally, you can give the cookies to a loved one. She’s going to love these. Tonight, I’ll bask in the warm glow of her love (and the knowledge of a project well done).
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a bird’s-eye view
Projects are like recipes All projects, no matter how big, or small, break down into process groups. Process groups are like the steps you use when following a recipe.
Needs This is where you figure out what it is you need: a huge product, or maybe just some homemade cookies.
Initiating process group
Then you initiate your project—researching and deciding what you’re going to build to fulfill the project’s needs.
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Planning process group
Next, you determine what “ingredients” you already have and which ones you still need. You’ll figure out where to get those missing resources, and think about what they’ll cost.
the process framework
This is where the bulk of the project work is done.
Executing process group
This is where you actually mix the ingredients, put the dough on a cookie sheet, pop the sheet into the oven...
Monitoring & Controlling process group
Success!
Closing process group
Closing out a project means making sure you get paid... and closing out a recipe means making sure you get to eat good food!
Another large part of project management is keep an eye on everything that’s ing happening, and adjustin processes as needed. Sogas you’re mixing, you check at the consistency is right, th an d you keep an eye on the temperature while baking.oven
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just going through a phase
If your project’s really big, you can manage it in phases A lot of project managers manage projects that are big, or complex, or simply need to be done in stages because of external constraints, and that’s when it’s useful to approach your project in phases. Each phase of the project goes through all five process groups, all the way from Initiating to Closing. The end of a phase is typically a natural point where you want to assess the work that’s been done, so that you can hand it off to the next phase. When your project has phases that happen one after another and don’t overlap, that’s called a sequential relationship between the phases.
You’re managing a large web development project... Needs
Success!
The first phase is to build the main web site for a project; when it’s online and the site is up, the project manager delivers a complete result that’s ready to go, and then starts on the next phase.
Creating forums and a blog for the site required the same team, so this project has sequential phases, which means the second phase can’t start until the first one ends.
Needs
Success!
Every phase must go through all five process groups, which means the new phase needs to be initiated – just like a project!
The final phase was an online contest to promote the site.
Needs
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Each phase needs to go through the Closing processes when it’s complete. Success!
...and here’s where the project ends.
the process framework
Phases can also overlap Sometimes you need teams to work independently on different parts of the project, so that one team delivers their results while another team is still working. That’s when you’ll make sure that your phases have an overlapping relationship. But even though the phases overlap, and may not even start at the same time, they still need to go through all five process groups.
Needs
Success!
This project has two overlapping phases. In this case, they don’t start at the same time – the first phase’s team needs to get started before the team for the second phase. Since one team is planning one phase while executing another, this means the whole team (INCLUDING designers, testers, etc.) is usually working at the same time.
The first phase is set to deliver while the second is still executing... but for some projects you might have an overlapping phase that ends before the previous phase. As a result, overlapping phases can get pretty complicated to manage! That’s why overlapping phases can increase risk, because your team might have to do a lot of rework.
Needs
Success!
When the second phase begins, it needs to go through the Initiating process group independently, even though the first phase is already in the Executing processes.
Iteration means executing one phase while planning the next There’s a third approach to phased projects that’s partway between sequential and overlapping. When your phases have an iterative relationship, it means that you’ve got a single team that’s performing the Initiating and Planning processes for one phase of the project while also doing the Executing processes for the previous phase. That way, when the proceses in the Executing and Closing process groups are finished, the team can jump straight into the next phase’s Executing processes. Iteration is a really effective way to run certain kinds of software projects. Agile software development is an approach to managing and running software projects that’s based on the idea of iterative phases. Executing process group
Closing process group
While the team’s in Executing for the first phase, they’re also in Initiating and Planning for the second one. Initiating process group
This is a really good way to deal with an environment that’s very uncertain, or where there’s a lot of rapid change. Does this sound like any of the projects you’ve worked on?
When the team is done with the first phase, the second one’s already planned so they can jump right into the Executing processes!
Planning process group
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processes help you plan a trip
Break it down Within each process group are several individual processes, which is how you actually do the work on your project. The PMBOK® Guide breaks every project down into 42 processes—that sounds like a lot to know, but don’t start looking for the panic button! In your day-to-day working life, you actually use most of them already… and by the time you’ve worked your way through this book, you’ll know all of them. Taking a vacation is simple, even though there are several steps.
Relax
orty-four processes might seem like a lot to remember, but once you’ve been using F them for a while, they’ll be second nature—just like all the things you do without thinking when you go on a trip.
The PMBOK® Gui processes that thosde e steps correspond to
Stuff you do when you take a vacation 1
Figure out how much time you have off, how much money you can spend, and where you want to go.
1
Develop project charter
2
Find your flights and hotel information and put together an itinerary using a travel web site.
2
Develop project management plan
3
Take your flight, stay in the hotel, see the sights. Enjoy yourself.
3
Direct and manage project work
4
Make sure you get the seat you want on the plane, your hotel room is clean, and the sight-seeing tours are worth your money. If not, complain, correct any problems that come up, and try to get better service.
4
Monitor and control project work
Come home, pay all the bills, and write up your reviews of the trip for the hotel feedback web site.
5
Simultaneous
5
Close project
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Don’t worry about memorizing these process names now… you’ll see a lot more of each of them throughout the book.
the process framework
Process Magnets
Below are several of the 42 processes. Try and guess which process group each process belongs to just from the name. We’ve done the first two for you.
Direct and Manage Project Execution
Develop Project Management Plan
Plan Quality
Develop Project Charter
Control Schedule
Control Scope
Monitor and Control Project Work
Identify Stakeholders
Identify Risks Estimate Activity Durations
Distribute Information
Close Project
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process group answers
Process Magnets
Below are several of the 42 processes. Try and guess which process group each process belongs to just from the name!
Develop Project Charter
Identify Stakeholders
There are only two processes in the entire Initiating process group!
Develop Project Management Plan
Identify Risks
Direct and Manage Project Execution
Distribute Information
Monitor and Control Project Work
Control Schedule
Plan Quality
Estimate Activity Durations
Control Scope
This one was a little tricky, but if you keep in mind that the Executing process is where you do your work, it makes more sense.
When a process starts with “control,” it’s part of the Monitoring and Controlling group.
it’s okay to get some answers Some of these exercises are hard—and remember. wrong! Making mistakes actually helps you
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Close Project
the process framework
Anatomy of a process You can think of each process as a little machine. It takes the inputs—information you use in your project—and turns them into outputs: documents, deliverables, and decisions. The outputs help your project come in on time, within budget, and with high quality. Every single process has inputs, tools, and techniques that are used to do the work, and outputs.
Inputs
tion Here’s where you put all the informaplat es tem e you need to do your work (lik s rule and for your documents or policies kind hat that your company follows—t of thing).
All of the processes in the PMBOK® Guide work like this.
All the project work happens here. The tools and techniques take the inputs and turn them into outputs.
Outputs
All the things you make during your project are outputs— documents, plans, schedules, budgets, and the actual product that you’re building. you are here 4 69 Download at Boykma.Com
input, tool, or output?
Think of the vacation we talked about on page 66 as a project, and each of its steps as a process. Here are some inputs, tools, and outputs that could be used in each of the vacation steps. Can you look at each of the underlined words and figure out if the words represent an input, tool, or output? (Here’s a hint: some of them are an output from one process and an input for another.)
Look at each of these underlined things, and figure out if it’s an input, output and/or tool. 1. You log in and check your company’s vacation calendar to see how much vacation time you have for your trip.
c Input
c Tool
c Output
2. You create an itinerary on a travel web site. You’ll use the itinerary when you board your flight.
c Input
c Tool
c Output
3. You have some hotel reservation documents you created on the travel web site, too. You’ll use those when you check into your hotel.
c Input
c Tool
c Output
4. You use a travel web site to book the plane, hotel, and sights you’ll see on your trip.
c Input
c Tool
c Output
5. You verify your bank account balance to make sure you have enough money to pay for everything.
c Input
c Tool
c Output
6. You use a hotel feedback web site to review your stay in the hotel once you get back home.
c Input
c Tool
c Output Answers on page 80.
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the process framework
Okay, I understand how this works for vacations and cookies, but 42 processes on every project? You’ve got to be kidding me…
These processes are meant to work on any type of project. The processes are there to help you organize how you do things. But they have to work on small, medium, and large projects. Sometimes that means a lot of processes—but it also ensures that what you’re learning here will work on all your projects.
Q:
Can a process be part of more than one process group?
A:
No, each of the processes belongs to only one process group. The best way to figure out which group a process belongs to is to remember what that process does. If the process is about defining high-level goals of the project, it’s in Initiating. If it’s about planning the work, it’s in Planning. If you are actually doing the work, it’s in Executing. If you’re tracking the work and finding problems, it’s in Monitoring & Controlling. And if you’re finishing stuff off after you’ve delivered the product, that’s Closing.
Q:
Do you do all of the processes in every project?
A:
Not always. Some of the processes only apply to projectized organizations or subcontracted work, so if your company doesn’t do that kind of thing, then you won’t need those processes. But if you want to make your projects come out well, then it really does make sense to use the processes. Even a small project can benefit from taking the time to plan out the way you’ll handle all of the knowledge areas. If you do your homework and pay attention to all of the processes, you can avoid most of the big problems that cause projects to run into trouble!
Q:
Can you use the same input in more than one process?
A:
Yes. There are a lot of inputs that show up in multiple processes. For example, think about a schedule that you’d make for your project. You’ll need to use that schedule to build a budget, but also to do the work! So that schedule is an input to at least two processes. That’s why it’s really important that you write down exactly how you use each process, so you know what its inputs and outputs are.
Your company should have records of all of these process documents, and the stuff the PMs learned from doing their projects. We call these things “Organizational Process Assets,” and you’ll see a lot of them in the next chapter.
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outputs can also be inputs
Combine processes to complete your project Sometimes the output of one process becomes an input of the next process. In the cookie project, the raw ingredients from the store are the outputs of the planning process, but they become the inputs for the executing process, where you mix the ingredients together and bake them:
Mixing Process
You’ll need a tray to put g the cookie dough on durin the cooking process. The output of the mixing process—the cookie dough—becomes an input to the cooking process.
Cooking Process
The final output of the cooking process is cookies.
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the process framework
Knowledge areas organize the processes The process groups help you organize the processes by the kind of work you do. The knowledge areas help you organize by the subject matter you’re dealing with. The following nine elements of the cookie process are the PMBOK® Guide Knowledge areas.
Integration Making sure all the right parts of the project come together in the right order, at the right time
The processes are organized in two ways—the processu groups are about how yo do the work, and the knowledge areas are there to help you categorize . them and help you learn
Scope Could you have decorated the cookies? Or made more batches?
Time
Cost
Preparation and cooking time
Budgeting for the cookie project
Quality
Human Resource
Checking that the cookies look and taste right
Making sure your schedule is clear and your honey is going to be home on time
Communications
Risk
Making sure you’re not mixing metric and imperial measurements
Could you burn the cookies or yourself on the range? Are the eggs fresh?
Procurement Selecting the right store to supply your ingredients
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knowledge area magnets
Knowledge Area Magnets
Match the knowledge areas to each description. We’ve filled in a couple for you.
Time Management
Coordinating all of the work so that it happens correctly. Making sure changes are approved before they happen.
Figuring out what work needs to be done for your project. Making sure your end product has everything you said it would.
Risk Management
Human Resource Management
Figuring out the time it will take to do your work and the order you need to do it in. Tracking your schedule and making sure everything gets done on time.
Knowing how much you’re able to invest in the project and making sure you spend it right.
Procurement Management
Quality Management
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Making sure you work as efficiently as you can and don’t add defects into the product.
the process framework
Communications Management
Getting the people to work on the team and helping them stay motivated. Rewarding them for a job well done and resolving conflicts that come up.
Making sure that everybody knows what they need to know to do their job right. Tracking how people talk to each other and dealing with misunderstandings or miscommunications if they happen.
Figuring out how to protect your project from anything that could happen to it. Dealing with the unexpected when it does happen.
Finding contractors to help you do the work. Setting the ground rules for their relationships with your company.
Scope Management Integration Management
Cost Management
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what the knowledge areas mean
Knowledge Area Magnets Solutions Match the knowledge areas to each description.
ting Quality is about preven ing defects and work efficiently
This knowledge area includes processes to direct and manage project work as well as monitor and control it. Integration Management
Coordinating all of the work so that it happens correctly. Making sure changes are approved before they happen.
Time Management
Scope Management
Figuring out what work needs to be done for you project. Making sure your end product has everything you said it would.
Figuring out the time it will take to do your work and the order you need to do it in. Tracking your schedule and making sure everything gets done on time.
If you nail down your scope in the beginning, you have a much better chance of success in the end.
A lot of people think that is all a project manager does,this but it’s only one of the nine knowledge areas!
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Cost Management
Quality Management
Knowing how much you’re able to invest in the project and making sure you spend it right.
Making sure you work as efficiently as you can and don’t add defects into the product.
How well you keep to your budget can be the difference between success and failure for your project.
the process framework
ers Since the PMBOK® Guide covtal ks it s, projectized organization m tea r you about actually acquiring st mo in as a process, too. People organizations don’t get a chaennce to do that. The team is oft get determined by the time you assigned to it. Communications Management
Human Resource Management
Getting the people to work on the team and helping them stay motivated. Rewarding them for a job well done and resolving conflicts that come up.
This one is another area that a lot of PMs don’t have much experience , with. It’s all about selecting suppliers contractors, and vendors, and setting up contracts with them.
Making sure that everybody knows what they need to know to do the job right. Tracking how people talk to each other and dealing with gaps if they happen.
Risk Management
Figuring out how to protect your project from anything that could happen to it. Dealing with the unexpected when it does happen.
really Communication isofa the important part ’s job. project manager
Procurement Management
Finding contractors to help you do the work. Setting the ground rules for their relationships with your company.
Risk Management can als about making sure that yoo ube in the right position to takeare advantage of the opport that come your way. unities
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process groups are about actions
Q:
So what’s the difference between process groups and knowledge areas?
A:
The process groups divide up the processes by function. The knowledge areas divide the same processes up by subject matter. Think of the process groups as being about the actions you take on your project, and the knowledge areas as the things you need to understand. In other words, the knowledge areas are more about helping you understand the PMBOK® Guide material than about running your project. But that doesn’t mean that every knowledge area has a process in every process group! For example, the Initiating process group only has two processes, and they both show up in the Integration Management knowledge area. The Risk Management knowledge area only has Planning and Monitoring & Controlling processes. So the process groups and the knowledge areas are two different ways to think about all of the processes, but they don’t really overlap.
Q: A:
Is every knowledge area in only one process group?
Every process belongs to exactly one process group, and every process is in exactly one knowledge area. But a knowledge area has lots of processes in it, and they can span some, or all, of the groups. Think of the processes as the core information in the PMBOK® Guide, and the process groups and knowledge areas as two different ways of grouping these processes.
Q:
It seems like the Initiating and Planning process groups would be the same. How are they different?
A:
Initiating is everything you do when you first start a project. You start by writing down (at a very high level) what the project is going to produce, who’s in charge of it, and what tools they need to do the work. In a lot of companies, the project manager isn’t even involved in a lot of this. Planning just means going into more detail about all of that as you learn more about it, and writing down specifically how you’re going to do the work. The Planning processes are where the project manager is really in control and does most of the work.
Process groups and knowledge areas are two different ways to organize the processes... but they don’t really overlap each other! Don’t get caught up trying to make them fit together.
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the process framework
The benefits of successful project management
Oh, Honey, thanks for the cookies! How did you ever manage to cook them all?
Don’t thank me, thank the 42 PMBOK® Guide processes!
Take a moment to digest all this new knowledge, because you’re going to start putting it all into practice when we take a look at Project Integration Management in Chapter 4.
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input, tools, or output solution
Solution
T hink of the vacation we talked about on page 48 as a project, and each of its steps as a process. Here are some inputs, tools, and outputs that could be used in each of the vacation steps. Can you look at each of the underlined words and figure out if the words represent an input, tool, or output? (Here’s a hint: some of them are an output from one process and an input for another.)
1. You log in and check your company’s vacation calendar to see how much vacation time you have for your trip.
c Input
c Tool
c Output
2. You create an itinerary on a travel web site. You’ll use the itinerary when you board your flight.
c Input
c Tool
c Output
The itinerary was an output of the Develop Project Management Plan process but an input to the Direct and Manage Project Work process.
3. You have some hotel reservation documents you created on the travel web site, too. You’ll use those when you check into your hotel.
c Input
c Tool
c Output
4. You use a travel web site to book the plane, hotel, and sights you’ll see on your trip.
c Input
c Tool
c Output
This one was the tool you used to book your tickets and hotel reservations.
5. You verify your bank account balance to make sure you have enough money to pay for everything..
c Input
c Tool
c Output
You had to know this to know how much you could spend on your trip. It’s an input.
6. You use a hotel feedback web site to review your stay in the hotel once you get back home.
c Input
c Tool
c Output
Here’s the tool you used to give feedback about your hotel in the Close Project process.
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the process framework
Exam Questions 1. You’re a project manager working on a software engineering project. The programmers have started building the software, and the testers have started to create the test environment. Which process group includes these activities? A. B. C. D.
Initiating Planning Executing Closing
2. Which of the following is not a stakeholder? A. B. C. D.
The project manager who is responsible for building the project A project team member who will work on the project A customer who will use the final product A competitor whose company will lose business because of the product
3. A project manager runs into a problem with her project’s contractors, and she isn’t sure if they’re abiding by the terms of the contract. Which knowledge area is the BEST source of processes to help her deal with this problem? A. B. C. D.
Cost Management Risk Management Procurement Management Communications Management
4. You’re a project manager for a construction project. You’ve just finished creating a list of all of the people who will be directly affected by the project. What process group are you in? A. B. C. D.
Initiating Planning Executing Monitoring & Controlling
5. Which process group contains the Develop Project Charter process and the Identify Stakeholders process? A. B. C. D.
Initiating Executing Monitoring and Controlling Closing
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exam questions
Exam Questions 6. Which of the following is NOT a project? A. B. C. D.
Repairing a car Building a highway overpass Running an IT support department Filming a motion picture
7. A project manager is running a software project that is supposed to be delivered in phases. She was planning on dividing the resources into two separate teams to do the work for two phases at the same time, but one of her senior developers suggested that she use an Agile methodology instead, and she agrees. Which of the following BEST describes the relationship between her project’s phases? A. B. C. D.
Sequential relationship Iterative relationship Constrained relationship Overlapping relationship
8. Which of the following is NOT true about overlapping phases? A. B. C. D.
Each phase is typically done by a separate team There’s an increased risk of delays when a later phase can’t start until an earlier one ends There’s an increased risk to the project due to potential for rework Every phase must go through all five process groups
9. You’re the project manager for an industrial design project. Your team members report to you, and you’re responsible for creating the budget, building the schedule, and assigning the tasks. When the project is complete, you release the team so they can work on other projects for the company. What kind of organization do you work in? A. B. C. D.
Functional Weak matrix Strong matrix Projectized
10. You’re a project manager working in a weak matrix organization. Which of the following is NOT true? A. B. C. D.
Your team members report to functional managers You are not in directly charge of resources Functional managers make decisions that can affect your projects You have sole responsibility for the success or failure of the project
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Answers
the process framework
Exam Questions 1. Answer: C
The Executing process group is the one where the team does all the work. You’ll get a good feel for the process groups pretty quickly! 2. Answer: D One of the hardest things that a project manager has to do on a project is figure out who all the stakeholders are. The project manager, the team, the sponsor (or client), the customers and people who will use the software, the senior managers at the company—they’re all stakeholders. Competitors aren’t stakeholders, because even though they’re affected by the project, they don’t actually have any direct influence over it. 3. Answer: C The Procurement Management knowledge area deals with contracts, contractors, buyers and sellers. If you’ve got a question about a type of contract or how to deal with contract problems, you’re being asked about a Procurement Management process. 4. Answer: A People who will be directly affected by the project are stakeholders, and when you’re creating a list of them you’re performing the Identify Stakeholders process. That’s one of the two processes in the Initiating process group. 5. Answer: A The first things that are created on a project are the charter (which you create in the Develop Project Charter process) and the Stakeholder Register (which you create in the Identify Stakeholders process). You do those things when you’re initiating the project.
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exam answers
Answers
Exam Questions 6. Answer: C
The work of an IT support department doesn’t have an end date—it’s not temporary. That’s why it’s not a project. Now, if that support team had to work over the weekend to move the data center to a new location, then that would be a project!
I see—so even when something is a process and not a project, there could be projects related to it.
7. Answer: B Agile development is a really good example of an iterative approach to project phases. In an Agile project, the team will typically break down the project into phases, where they work on the current phase while planning out the next one.
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Answers
the process framework
Exam Questions 8. Answer: B
If there’s an increased risk of a project because one phase can’t start until another one ends, that means your project phases aren’t overlapping. When you’ve got overlapping phases, that means that you typically have multiple teams that start their phases independently of each other. Also, take another look at answer C, because it’s an important point about overlapping phases. When your phases have an overlapping relationship, there’s an increased risk of rework. This typically happens when one team delivers the results of their project, but made assumptions about what another team is doing as part of their phase. When that other team delivers their work, it turns out that the results that both teams produced aren’t quite compatible with each other, and now both teams have to go back and rework their designs. This happens a lot when your phases overlap, which is why overlapping phases have an increased risk of rework.
9. Answer: D In a projectized organization, the project manager has the power to assign tasks, manage the budget, and release the team. 10. Answer: D In a weak matrix, project managers have very limited authority. They have to share a lot of responsibility with functional managers, and those functional managers have a lot of leeway to make decisions about how the team members are managed. In an organization like that, the project manager isn’t given a lot of responsibility.
ely to That’s why you’re pelikditer find a project ex in a weak matrix.
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4 Project integration management
There I was with a bogie on my six and almost out of fuel, and that’s when I realized I needed to fill out a change request for more ammo.
Getting the job done Oh my, Major Biff. Your project management skills are super keen!
Want to make success look easy? It’s not as hard as you think. In this chapter, you’ll learn about a few processes you can use in your projects every day. Put these into place, and your sponsors and stakeholders will be happier than ever. Get ready for Integration Management.
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larry gets a client
Time to book a trip Everyone in the Midwestern Teachers’ Association has gotten together and planned a trip—a tour of Asia and Europe, starting with Mumbai, India and ending up in Paris, France.
Acme Travel Agency
Larry, the teachers’ travel agent
We want to go in February, and we need to stay in budget. Can you get us a good deal? Gotta run, we’ve got classes in five.
Yes, I got that: you want window, not aisle…
Joanne and Frank were “volunteered” to organize the trip by the other eight teachers in the group.
Larry’s cutting corners Larry wants to dive into the project and make his clients happy. When he sees an opportunity to save them money, he takes it! But sometimes the cheapest way to do things isn’t the way that will end up satisfying everyone.
Hmm… If I book their tickets in June instead of February, that’ll reduce the fare. I’ll bet that convinces them to change their plans. Who wouldn’t love those savings?!
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integration management
The teachers are thrilled… for now Larry convinces the teachers to travel in June because of the great price he got on tickets. But he’s not really planning for the results of that decision—and neither are the teachers. One of the keys of project management is thinking a project through before starting the work, so problems that could arise down the line are anticipated ahead of time. That’s why so much of project management is spent planning.
Larry may think this itinerary is a plan, but it doesn’t detail any of the problems that could arise on the teachers’ vacation.
FOR TRAVEL ITINERARY RS ASSN. MIDWESTERN TEACHE Record Locator Trip ID
HF184-Z
Agent ID
Larry Acme Travel
189435163
Travel Details n Flight Informatio Leg 1 Airline Flight Origin Destination Est Time
Econo Airlines 8614 St. Paul, MN Mumbai, INDIA s 17 hours 45 Minute
Departing Arriving Terminal Arriving Distance
1:45PM 1:00AM 1 June 13 7942mi
Larry changed the date to June, and now the project’s coming in way under budget.
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larry hung his clients out to dry
These clients are definitely not satisfied When the clients arrived in Mumbai, they found out why the fare was so low: June is monsoon season in India! Larry may have saved them a bundle, but it didn’t keep him from soaking his clients.
Larry never mentioned the cheaper fares were because of the rainy season!
A little warning wouldn’ve been nice. We could have packed raincoats!
itinerary Even though the ex tly got them there ifieacd, there when Larry spec deal with were no plans to the pouring rain.
Larry’s been let go From the minute they got off the plane, the clients were extremely unhappy. The senior managers at Acme Travel don’t want to lose the teachers’ business… so they’ve appointed YOU as the new travel agent. It’s your job to finish planning the trip, and make sure that the teachers leave their vacation satisfied. 90 Chapter 4 Download at Boykma.Com
integration management
The day-to-day work of a project manager Project managers make projects run well. They plan for what’s going to happen on the project. A big part of the job is watching closely to make sure the plan is followed, and when things go wrong, making sure they’re fixed. And sometimes the plan itself turns out to be inadequate! Project managers look for those kinds of problems, and fix them too. That day-to-day work is what the Integration Management processes are all about.
A bird’s-eye view of a project
First you get assigned to a project
This is done by the process in the Initiating group
Here’s where ever y project or sub-project begi ns
For a large project, you’ll often see this pattern repeated several times. Each major chunk of deliverables is treated as its own sub-project that goes through all of the process groups and processes on its own.
Then you plan out all the work that will get done
Three Executing and Monitoring & Controlling processes make sure the project runs smoothly
Every project follows the same kind of pattern. First it gets initiated, then planned, then executed (and monitored), and finally closed. That’s why the process groups are so useful—they’re a good way to think about how you do the work.
So you always need use the processes in toth Closing group, even wh e it’s a sub-project of en a larger project
Then you make sure the work is done properly, dealing with changes along the way
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the integration management processes
The six Integration Management processes The PMBOK® Guide divides Integration Management into six processes that you need to understand for the exam. They’re what people usually think of as a project manager’s “core” responsibilities.
1
Without the Project Ch arter, you don’t have the au th or to tell your team what ity to do and when to do it.
Develop Project Charter The very first thing that’s done on a new project is the development of the project charter. That’s the document that authorizes you to do your work. But you’re not always involved in making it—oftentimes it’s handed to you by the sponsor.
Develop Project Charter
The sponsor is the person who pays for the project 2
Develop
Develop Project Management Plan
Project Management Plan
The project management plan is the most important document in the entire PMBOK® Guide because it guides everything that happens on the project. It spans all of the knowledge areas.
A big part of the Project Manageme that it tells you how to handle changents Plan is when problems come up 3
D irect
and Manage Project Execution
After you’re done planning, it’s time to do the work. Your job is to make sure that everybody is doing what they should be doing, and that the products or services your project creates meet the needs of the stakeholders.
here all ofge w ’s It . e n o owled gets d e the workin all of the other kunally make r e h w ’s e r e H you’ll do ou can act the planninegs together so that oyrk that you help your areas com the day-to-day w one. stuff. It’s nd make sure gets d team do a
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integration management
4
Monitor
ching Keep everyone satisfied byle.cat problems as early as possib
and Control Project Work
A good project manager is constantly monitoring every single thing that goes on in the project. Remember, the later you find a problem, the harder and more expensive it usually is to fix.
5
Perform
Integrated Change Control
Once you catch prob you figure out how tolemfis, this is where they should be fixed at x them—or if all.
Once you’ve found problems on your project, you’ve got to work with your stakeholders and sponsors to figure out how to deal with those problems. You should also update your project management plan to reflect any extra steps you’ll need to take to complete the project. Updating the project management plan also makes sure everyone working on the project stays on the same page.
6
Close Project or Phase
Keep an eye out for potential changes. Part of your job is helping the people around you anticipate changes, and maybe even prevent them.
The last thing you do on the project is close it out. Make sure you document everything... especially the lessons you and your team have learned along the way. You can never tell when these lessons may help you out on your next project.
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start your project
Here are a few of the things you might have to deal with in working on the teachers’ vacation trip. Figure out which of the six Integration Management processes you’d use in each situation, and write down the process name in the blank.
1
It turns out that one of the teachers is a vegetarian, so some of the restaurant reservations will need to be canceled, and new reservations will need to be made at restaurants that can accomodate him.
2
You come up with a detailed description of everything that you plan to do to get the teachers where they want to be.
3
The CEO of Acme Travel sends you a document that assigns you to the project.
4
You check in with the teachers at each destination to make sure everything is going according to plan.
5
When the teachers get back, you write up everything you learned while handling the trip so other travel agents can learn from your experience.
6
You book the tickets and hotel accommodations.
Develop Project Charter
ct Develop Proje Management Plan
Direct and Manage Project Execution Monitor and Control Project Work Perform e Integrated Clhang Contro Close Project or Phase
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integration management
Start your project with the Initiating processes All you need to get your project started are the only two processes in the Initiating process group. First, the Develop Project Charter process tells everyone in the company why the project is needed, and gives you the authority you need to make it happen. Then you use the Identify Stakeholders process to figure out who is affected by the project and how to communicate with them. Information about your company
These are the two processes inonly Initiating process the grou
p.
Customer or company needs
Develop Project Charter
Everything you know about the work that needs to get done
The project charter is st the output from the fir the process and the input tooject second. It means the pru’re officially starts and yo it authorized to work on
Identify Stakeholders
Watch out! Identify Stakeholders is NOT in the Integration Management knowledge area.
The Identify Stakeholders process is part of the Communications Knowledge Area. So we’ll talk about it in more detail in Chapter 10.
Now you can start planning the scope, schedule, budget, risks, and more...
Project Charter
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the big picture
Integration management and the process groups Here is how the process groups all fit into this whole Integration Management thing. The process groups show you the order in which these things happen, and how the processes interact.
rt You always stads ee n e with th ers of your custom and clients.
Needs
Initiating 1
Develop Project Charter
Planning 2
The charter gives you the authority you need to do the work.
Develop Project Management Plan
Planning your project will make sure you’re prepared for problems and changes.
The Integration Management knowledge area brings all of the process groups together. A project manager has to integrate the work of everyone on the team through all of these major activities to keep the project on track: 1. Being authorized by the project charter to control the budget and assign resources 2. Planning all of the work that’s going to happen throughout the project. 3. Directing the work once it gets started 4. Monitoring the way the work progresses and looking for potential problems 5. Looking out for changes, understanding their impacts, and making sure they don’t derail the project 6. Closing out the project and making sure that there are no loose ends when it’s over
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integration management
d y project: you an The goal of evserare satisfied with your customer the project. the result of
Executing 3
Closing
Direct and Manage Project Execution
6
Manage the work so it gets done efficiently.
Close Project or Phase
Closing out the project makes sure you get paid—and more importantly, that you have a chance to write down all the lessons you learned along the way. 4
Monitoring and Controlling 5
Success!
Perform Integrated Change Control
Monitor and control project work
This is w constantlyhere you problems look for any in the pr oject.
You need to make sure that you make ONLY those changes that are necessary and will help your project. you are here 4 97
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develop the project charter
The “Develop Project Charter” process If you work in a matrixed organization, then your team doesn’t report to you. They report to functional managers, and might have other work to do. But when they’re on your project, you’re effectively their boss. So how do you make that happen? Well, you need some sort of authorization, and that’s what the project charter is for. It says exactly what you’re authorized to do on the project (like assign work to the team members and use the company’s resources), and why you’ve been assigned to it. But the charter isn’t just important for matrixed companies. In any kind of company, it’s really important to know who’s in charge, and what resources you have available to you when you manage a project.
The teachers’ contract said that they needed to go to Asia and Europe for $7,500 per person. You’d better make sure that shows up on the charter.
This is a de business needsc, ription of the the proejct f scope, and how strategic plan its into the .
Contract Project
(where applicable)
Business Case Statement of Work
Enterprise Environmental Factors Organizational Process Assets
e at Since this project will be dontur e cul rk wo Acme Travel, Acme’s ne ryo eve , me will affect it. At Ac so gets a two-hour lunch everydeay,that tak to d the schedule will nee into account.
Inputs
While he was writing the charter, the CEO looked at lessons learned from past trips to be sure that Acme got the best airline and hotel accommodations for the teachers’ trip .
Develop Project Charter
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integration management
Make the case for your project The Midwestern Teachers’ Association contract wasn’t the only one that Acme could have taken. They’ve got more work than they can handle right now, and occasionally they need to turn away a client. That’s where a business case comes in handy. If a project is too risky, won’t make enough money, isn’t strategic, or isn’t likely to succeed, then the senior managers at Acme could choose to pass on it. But to figure all that out, you need to do some thinking about what makes taking on this project a good idea for Acme Travel. Preparing a business case means thinking about the value of the project to business. Is there a big market for world travel packages that Acme can break into if it does this project? Should they do it just because the customer requested it? Will it help the company in other ways?
BUSINESS CASE DOCUMENT Midwestern Teacher’s Assocation World Tour Project Description: A group of teachers from Minnesota want to take a trip
around the world, starting with Mumbai, India, and ending somewhere in Europe.
Strategic Analysis: Taking on this project would give Acme Travel Agency
an edge over most of the other travel agencies in town who don’t offer travel packages to southeast Asia. The only travel agencies in the area that offer this kind of package charge about $500 more for the package than our clients are willing to pay. By offering the package at the cost the Teacher’s Association has suggested, we’ll make around $700 profit on the trip and still be able to undercut the closest competition.
Intangible Benefits: The agents who work on this trip will gain experience
booking travel in Asia and that will help us with some other prospects that have expressed interest in similar trips.
This project will make the company money.
Acme needs more Asia Travel specialists. This project will help train them.
A Business Case document says why it’s worth it to spend money on the project
Related Projects: This project is similar to the 2007 Handbell Enthusiasts
European Tour we managed. If all goes well, we should be able to use the outcome of this project as leverage to win the travel planning job for the Midwestern High School Horiticulture Club World Tour that’s coming up in 2011.
Conclusion: It’s in Acme’s best interest to do this project.
Doing this project will not only profit the company, but might win it further business.
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select the right project
Use expert judgment to get an outside opinion When you think about it, a lot of different people’s opinions can help your company come to a good decision about whether or not to get a project started. Sometimes a project sponsor will call on experts to help them decide which projects to do. At Acme Travel, the CEO called a meeting with the VP of Asia Travel to make sure that the teacher’s trip was worth doing. The VP of Asia Travel had set up trips like this one before and he knew where things could go wrong in planning them. Together, they looked at all of the project documentation to make sure that this project looked like it would make Acme enough money to be worth doing.
rt judgment You use exypoeu bring in an any time om outside of expert fr ct to give you your proje lend his or her advice or expertise.
Your company might need to talk to subject matter experts from a bunch of different departments to decide if a project will be beneficial to them. They might rely on outside consultants or industry groups to tell them how other companies have solved the same problem. All of those different opnions are called Expert Judgment. If the experts agree that the project’s business case, contract, and statement of work all add up to a product that’s going to do good things for your company, they’ll usually give the green light to write the charter.
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integration management
ere are a bunch of ways Acme evaluated the inputs for the Develop Project Charter Process. Try H to figure out which ones involve Expert Judgment and which don’t.
1. Acme Travel creates a committee to review all of the Business Case Documents that have been submitted for possible projects and compare them to figure out which projects should be funded in the next quarter. A. Yes
B. No
2. Acme hires an outside consultant to help them figure out whether or not their current strategic goals are the right ones for the company. A. Yes
B. No
3. Acme asks the VP of Asia Travel to review the business case for the Midwest Teacher’s Association trip and decide whether or not the projected costs and schedule look right. A. Yes
B. No
4. Acme installs portfolio management software to help them evaluate all of their project proposals and decide which ones are most likely to benefit the company. A. Yes
B. No
5. The travel agent who is assigned to the project writes a business case for the project. A. Yes
B. No
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project charter up close
A closer look at the project charter
Outputs
The charter is the only output of the Develop Project Charter process. We know that it makes sense to do the project—that’s what we did with the business case. And we know that it assigns authority so that you can do your job. But what else does a charter have in it?
The charter assigns you the authority to use resources, like people on your team, computers, office equipment, conference rooms—the things you need to get the job done. Project Charter vacation in 4 weeks Project Description: World und the world, starting with nesota want to take a trip aro A group of teachers from Min e contracted Acme Travel hav y The . somewhere in Europe Mumbai, India, and ending Larry should a reality. Agency to make their dream
have paid attention to this information.
Project Requirements: r coincide with good weathe • Trip should be planned to tination des of t poin h ents at eac • Need to see famous monum on request tion rma info tlife nigh and s • Restaurant recommendation er issues in transit oth and age flights, lost lugg • Need assistance for missed
r As the project charetePM , th ns sig officially as re it can be written befoed. olv inv en ev the PM is
and Authority Level: accomplish this goal Assigned Project Manager ed money and resources to icat ded use to ity hor aut the You have le Summary Milestone Schedu June 20–23—Hong Kong June 13–20—Mumbai June 30–July 4—Rome June 24–29—Shanghai July 9–14—Paris July 5–8—Barcelona
ly,
proper Business Case: it is planned and executed stment for Acme. Provided inve nd sou a be will ject This pro $700 per person in profit. we should receive around SIGNED, ___ _____________________ vel CEO, Acme Tra
one This project ha’ss OK if sponsor, but itmore than a project has one.
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This is justfathe summary o points important ness case of the busiused to that were ursue the decide to p project.
integration management
Take a look at the charter for the teachers’ trip, and write down what you think each of the following sections of a typical project charter is used for. Project Description:
Project Requirements:
Assigned Project Manager and Authority Level:
Summary Milestone Schedule:
Business Case:
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get some practice
Take a look at the charter for the teachers’ trip, and write down what you think each of the following sections of a typical project charter is used for. Project Description:
The purpose of the project
This is a high-level description of the goals of your project. It’s usually a few sentences that describe the project’s main purpose.
e customer, Anything you know that thpec ts to get ex r stakeholder, or sponso here. go uld out of the project sho
Project Requirements:
Describes the product your project has to make Assigned Project Manager and Authority Level:
Who the project manager is and what he has to do
Summary Milestone Schedule:
A list of dates that your project needs to meet
This is where you’re assigned to the project. If it’s known who is going to be the project manager, the name of that person is noted. Otherwise, you may just have a department listed that you know the PM will come from. This is also where any specific decision‑making authority you might need can be described. These are any dates that your project must hit in order to be successful. This is usually a very high‑level schedule—you haven’t assigned resources or done any planning yet, so there’s no way to know anything but really generic details when the charter is written.
Business Case:
Why your company has decided to do this project
This section lists the reasons why it makes sense for your business to do this project. You might note the return on investment, building infrastructure, goodwill with clients, or anything else that will help people understand why this project is important.
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integration management
Two things you’ll see over and over and over... There are two inputs that you’ll see repeatedly for a bunch of different processes throughout the rest of the book. Enterprise Environmental Factors are anything that you need to know about how your company does business. And Organizational Process Assets have information about your projects: how people in your company are supposed to perform them, and how past projects have gone. Enterprise Environmental Factors tell you about how your company does business. There’s a lot of information about your company that will be really useful to you when you’re planning your project. You need to know how each of the different departments operates, the market conditions you’re working in, the company’s overall strategy, any policies you need to work with, your company’s culture, and all about the people who work at the company.
Enterprise Environmental Factors
One of the Enterprise Environmental Factors you’ll use in the Integration Management processes is the work authorization system, which determines how your company assigns work to people and ensures that tasks are done properly and in the right order.
Organizational Process Assets tell you about how your company normally runs its projects. Every company has standards for how to run their projects. There are guidelines and instructions for managing projects, procedures you need to follow, categories for various things you need to keep track of, and templates for all of the various documents that you need to create. These things are usually stored in some sort of library.
Organizational Process Assets
One of the most important organizational process assets is called lessons learned, which is how you keep track of valuable historical information about your project. At the end of every project, you sit down with the project team and write down everything you learned about the project. This includes both positive and negative things. That way, when you or another project manager in your company plans the next project, you can take advantage of the lessons you learned on this one.
Can you think of how these would be useful for starting and planning your project?
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no dumb questions
Q: A:
I’ve never had a project charter. Is it really necessary?
Yes, definitely. Have you ever been on a project where you didn’t feel like you had enough authority to do your job? The project charter gives you the authority to manage your project. Every project should have a charter, and writing the charter is the first thing that should happen on any project.
Q:
Wait a minute! How can I be the one writing the charter, when it’s what gives me all of my authority and I might not even be assigned to the project yet?
A:
Right, you’re not usually going to write a charter. The charter is usually handed to you. The project sponsor usually writes the charter. And it’s always easy to tell who the project sponsor is: the sponsor is the person who pays for the project, and comes up with the project’s overall goals.
Q:
I’m still not sure I get the idea behind a business case document. How’s that different from the project charter?
A:
The business case is a description of what your company is trying to get out of the project—like how much money you’re planning on making from the project, how it will benefit parts of your organization, and future business you might gain from the project.
The project charter is a high-level description of your project. It tells you—and anyone else who needs to know about your project—what you’ll be delivering, including a really high-level description of what it is that you’ll build. A really important difference between them is that the project charter is what authorizes the project manager to do the work, while the business case helps give justification for the project. You can think of the business case as the background research that had to be done in order to make sure the project was worth doing, and the project charter as the thing that formally announces the decision to do it.
Q:
I’m still not clear on who the sponsor is. How’s that different than the customer?
A:
The sponsor is the person (or people) paying for the project.
The customer is the person who uses the product of the project. Sometimes the customer is the same person as a sponsor. This is often true in consulting companies. For the teachers’ project, the two sponsors are the CEO and VP of Asia Travel, and the customers are the teachers. But it’s possible that in another travel agency, the teachers themselves would be the sponsors. This happens a lot in contracted work. For the exam, you’ll need to be careful about this. Sometimes you’ll see the word “customer” in a question that’s asking you about the sponsor. You might even see the word “client”—a word that only appears in the PMBOK® Guide twice! (It’s usually used when you’re talking about procurement.) When you see this, you should assume that the question is asking you about a consulting situation, where the sponsor, customer, and client are all the same person.
The CEO and VP of Asia Travel are paying for this project in the sense that they’re providing funding for the project team at the travel agency and cutting checks to the airlines, hotels, tour groups, etc. The customers are definitely paying Acme Travel, but they’re not paying out the budget for the specific work that has to be done to complete the project.
Q:
Wait a minute. My project sponsors are really important people in my company. I can’t imagine them actually typing up a project charter.
A:
Good point. That’s why the project sponsor will often delegate the actual creation of the charter to the project manager. For the exam, though, keep in mind that the sponsor is ultimately responsible.
The sponsor of a project is responsible for creating the project charter. The sponsor of a project pays for the project. The PM manages the project.
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integration management
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In matrixed organizations, your team doesn’t report to you, so the charter gives you the authority to put them to work.
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r The project charte o to shouldn’t be ouldn’t detailed. You sh the have to update me you charter every ti about change something it to your project for stay accurate.
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The project charter officially sanctions the project. Without a charter, the project cannot begin. The sponsor is the person (or people) responsible for paying for the project and is part of all important project decisions. Develop Project Charter is the very first process performed in a project. The project charter gives the project manager authority to do the project work, and to assign work or take control of project resources for the duration of the project. It also gives the project manager authority to spend money and use other company resources. The business case tells everyone why the company should do the project. The project charter tells everyone that the project actually started, explains what it’s going to deliver, and authorizes the project manager to do the work. The project charter does not include details about what will be produced or how. Instead, it contains the summary milestone schedule. Two inputs to Develop Project Charter are the contract and the statement of work. The contract is what you agreed to do, although not all projects have a contract. The statement of work lists all of the deliverables that you and your team need to produce. Enterprise Environmental Factors tell you how your company does business. An important one is the work authorization system, which determines how work is assigned, and makes sure that tasks are done in the right order. Organizational Process Assets tell you how your company normally runs projects. One of the most important assets is lessons learned, which is where you write down all of the valuable historical information that you learn throughout the project to be used later.
Asia Travel At Acme, the CEO and VP ofthe r travel ano at were the sponsors. But as just ld cou nne agency, Frank and Joa the y’re the e sinc t, jec easily sponsor the pro customers. When you’re taking the PMP® exam, be careful when you see a question that asks you about the customer or client. There’s a good chance that the question is asking you about a consulting or procurement situation where the customer or client is also the sponsor.
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build your plan
Plan your project! Planning the project is when you really take control. You write a plan that says exactly how you’re going to handle everything that goes on in the project. The Develop Project Management Plan process is where you organize all of the information about your project into one place, so everyone knows exactly what needs to happen when they do the project work—no matter what their jobs are.
the highThis lists all ofents for level requirem your project
Project Charter
All of the planning processes in chapters 5-12 will have you make plans. Those plans all go into the Project Management Plan. Organizational Process Assets
Ouputs of Planning Processes
This is where you’ll find your company’s personnel management guidelines and stakeholder risk tolerance.
Inputs Enterprise Environmental Factors
Develop Project Management Plan
there’s onlysame , in a g a e c On d it’s the one tool aen for Develop as the onCharter. Project
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Expert Judgment
integration management
The project management plan lets you plan ahead for problems Outputs
The Planning process group is where you figure out how you’re going to do the project—because you need to come up with a plan before you bring the team in to do the work. This is where you think about everything that will happen on your project, and try to plot a course to completing it with as few errors as possible. And it’s where you figure out how you’ll handle changes—because every project has plenty of problems, but not all of those problems mean that you need to change course. If you plan well, your project will make only the right changes.
The project management plan is a collection of other plans The project management plan is a single document, but it’s broken into a bunch of pieces called subsidiary plans. There’s one subsidiary plan for each of the other knowledge areas: scope management, time management, cost management, quality management, human resource management, communications management, risk management, and procurement management.
ement The project mant agplanning plan is all abou d having for problems, an you need to the information oblems when correct those pr they occur.
If you take over a project that’s already under way, but there isn’t a project management plan or it’s out of date, the first thing you need to do is get a current, accurate plan written up.
The projecntt manageme only plan is the the output of oject Develop Prnt Manageme ss. Plan proce
The project m agement plan is ac a whole bunch an tually of “subsidiary plans, documents called ” each dedicated knowledge area an to a could happen rela d the problems that ted to that area .
Project Management Plan
There’s a sub-plan for Risk Management. We used it when we took out traveler’s insurance for the teachers’ trip. That means if bags or cash are stolen, we’ll have a plan for dealing with it.
Communications Management is another knowledge area. In that plan, we’ve got important numbers for the trip, like the U.S. Embassy... and we can help Frank get his passport replaced. The project management plan also has baselines. baseline is a snapshot ofA the scope, schedule or budget that you can use for planning. You’ll learn all about baselines in the next three chapters! you are here 4 109
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the plan contains other plans
Isn’t a project plan just something I get out of Microsoft Project?
No. The project management plan is not the same thing as a project schedule. You’ll use a tool like Microsoft Project when you’re doing Time Management to build the project schedule. (It’s also useful for other knowledge areas as well.) But you’ll use your project management plan as a guide to help you develop that schedule. It will tell you what tools to use when you develop it, and how changes will be handled.
Relax
Don’t worry about memorizing all of the subsidiary plans.
You’re going to learn about all of the knowledge areas throughout the book, so don’t worry about memorizing all of these subsidiary plans right now. Just know that the project management plan has plans within it that map to each of the knowledge areas.
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A quick look at all those subsidiary plans You’ll be learning about each of the knowledge areas throughout this book, and you’ll learn all about the subsidiary plan that goes with each area. But let’s take a quick look at what each subsidiary plan focuses on.
The scope, schedule and cost management plans are all as part of this Develop Prdeveloped oject Management Plan process. Th other subsidiary plans actua e their own processes, which lly have you’ll learn about later on.
Project Management Plan—Subsidiary Plans and Baselines The scope management plan describes how scope changes are handled—like what to do when someone needs to add or remove a feature to a service or product your project produces. The requirements management plan describes how you’ll gather, document, and manage the stakeholders’ needs, and how you’ll meet those needs with the project deliverables. The schedule management plan shows you how to deal with changes to the schedule, like updated deadlines or milestones. The cost management plan tells you how you’ll create the budget, and what to do when your project runs into money problems. The quality management plan deals with problems that could arise when a product doesn’t live up to the customer or client’s standards. You use the human resource plan to deal with changes in your staff, and to identify and handle any additional staffing needs and constraints you might have in your specific project. The communications management plan lists all of the ways that you communicate with your project’s team, stakeholders, sponsors, and important contacts related to the project. The risk management plan is about detailing all the bad things that might happen and coming up with a plan to address each risk when and if it occurs. The procurement management plan focuses on dealing with vendors outside of your company. There are three baselines in the project management plan. The scope baseline is a snapshot of the scope, which helps you keep track of changes to the work that you’ll be doing and the planned deliverables you’ll be building. The schedule baseline does the same for the project schedule, and the cost performance baseline does the same for the budget.
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which plan do you use?
elow is a whole crop of problems that the teachers are running into. Write down which subsidiary B plan you’d look in to get some help. If you’re not sure, just reread the descriptions of each subsidiary plan on the last page, and take your best guess.
1. The teachers want to go Bali, but Acme Travel doesn’t book flights there so you need to subcontract one leg of the travel to another travel agency.
2. The teachers are having so much fun that they want to stay at a better hotel. They tell you to increase their budget by 15% to do that.
3. Just as you’re about to mail off the teachers’ tickets, you notice they’ve been printed incorrectly.
4. The teachers might run into more bad weather, and you’ve got to figure out what contingencies you can put into place if that happens.
5. The teachers are concerned that they won’t be able to get in touch with you when they’re away.
6. One of the teachers realizes that he needs to come back earlier, and you want to make sure the budget reflects his lessened costs.
7. You find out that you need to get the tickets out earlier than expected, because the teachers’ contract requires that all trips be preapproved by the superintendent of their school district.
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integration management
Q:
How far should I go when trying to anticipate every possible problem and list it in the project management plan?
A:
It’s really important to think about everything that could go wrong on your project, so that you can have plans for what to do when problems crop up. An unexpected change can sometimes derail a project, and doing some planning up front can keep issues like that to a minimum. Planning can help you avoid problems in the first place, which is a lot better for everyone than reacting to them when they happen. So think of everything you can; the extra time you spend planning could be what keeps your project a success.
Q:
Does the project manager create the project management plan all by himself?
A:
No, it should be a group effort between the PM and the stakeholders. Everyone on the project team and all of the stakeholders need to agree that the plan is acceptable.
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¢¢
¢¢
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Q:
What about things that I don’t think about? And sometimes, I know there could be problems in a certain area, but I’m not sure what they’ll be until the project gets going.
A:
You’re never going to think of everything that could go wrong. To help keep your plan flexible, you should add an Open Issues section to the plan. You can write down any open issues or concerns in this section, and deal with them as they come down the line. However, you have to have all your project requirements complete before starting the project—you should never have any requirements in your Open Issues section.
Q:
I still don’t get what Enterprise Environmental Factors are.
A:
Your company’s Enterprise Environmental Factors are all of the information you have about its policies, processes, departments, and people. You need to know how your company does business in order to do a project. For example, you need to know about the different departments in your company if you’re managing a project that will be used by people in them.
Remember that the project management plan is formal—which means that it’s written down and distributed to your team. You may get a question on the exam that asks what to do when you encounter a change. You always begin dealing with change by consulting the project management plan. The work authorization system is a part of your company’s Enterprise Environmental Factors, and it’s generally part of any change control system. It defines how work is assigned to people. The project management plan includes baselines: snapshots of the scope, schedule, and budget that you can use to keep track of them as they change.
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Question Clinic: The “Just-The-Facts-Ma’am” Question A great way to prepare for the exam is to learn about the different kinds of questions, and then try writing your own. Each of these Question Clinics will look at a different type of question, and give you practice writing one yourself. A lot of questions on the exam are pretty straightforward—but it’s the answers to those questions that can really hang you up. Here, take a look:
Take a little time ou chapter for this Quet of the Clinic. It’s here to gi stion brain a break and thve your something different. ink about
27. Which of the following can be found in the Project Charter? A. Business Case Document
Some answers will clearly be wrong. The Business Case Document is one of the tools and techniques from Develop Project Charter.
B. Expert Judgment
Some answers are a little misleading! This is part of the Develop Project Charter process—but it’s from the tools and techniques, not a part of the Project Charter itself.
C. Authorization for the project manager
Here’s the right answer! The project manager’s authorization is included in the project charter.
D. Project Management Information System
You haven’t seen this one yet—it’s part of Enterprise Environmental Factors, an input to the Develop Project Charter Process, but not in the charter itself. .
When you see a “Just-The-Facts-Ma’am” question, read the question really carefully! If you don’t, it’s easy for a wrong answer to look right.
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HEAD
LIBS
Fill in the blanks to come up with your own “Just-The-Facts-Ma’am” question. You are managing a project. You are using (an industry) and (an input) (an input) to create a . What process are you performing? (an output) A. B. C. D.
(the name of the wrong process) (the name of the right process) (a made-up process that sounds like a real process) (the name of a tool and technique from the right process)
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projects make deliverables
The Direct and Manage Project Execution process Once you have a project management plan, your project is ready to begin. And as the project unfolds, it’s your job to direct and manage each activity on the project, every step of the way. That’s what happens in the Direct and Manage Project Execution process: you simply follow the plan you’ve put together and handle any problems that come up.
t the most importanild is an pl t en em ag an m The project ur team what to build, how to bu it, input: it tells yo t to deliver your product. and when you’re se
Inputs
Approved Change Project Management Plan Request
Enterprise Environmental Factors
Organizational Process Assets
Direct & Manage Execution Here’s where you’ll find scheduling and configuration management information
Expert Judgment
Project Management Information System
These are the other three outputs lumped together. We’ll talk about them in a couple of pages.
Outputs
Work Performance Information
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Change Requests, Project Document and Plan updates Deliverables
integration management
The project team creates deliverables The work you’re doing on the teachers’ project creates lots of things: airline reservations, hotel reservations, invoices, defect reports, and customer comments (to name a few). These things are all your deliverables, and they are one of the five outputs of the Direct and Manage Execution process. Another output is work performance information, and that’s what we call the reports Acme’s running on the project. These reports track how many negative versus positive customer comments the project gets, and how well the project is doing at meeting its cost estimates. In fact, a project manager should figure out a way to measure how well the processes from each knowledge area are being performed.
Your job is to direct the work, but you need to do more than deliver the results. You also need to keep track of how well your team performed—and that’s what the work performance information output is about.
Work Performance Information
Project Management Plan
Since you create the project management plan during th project, it’s actually a deliverable itse elf However, it’s a special case, sin . still requires you to use changece it when you need to update or chacontrol nge it.
Direct and Manage Execution process Deliverables
ect Any time your prhioj in the produces somet etnghing” is a plan, that “som ur project. deliverable of yo
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dealing with defects
Executing the project includes repairing defects The Direct and Manage Execution process has a bunch of inputs and outputs—but most of them have to do with implementing changes, repairs, and corrective action. If there’s a defect repair that’s been approved, this is where it happens. Once the defect is repaired, the result is an implemented defect repair. The same is true for changes and corrective actions; once they’re approved, they become process inputs, and then they can be implemented and become process outputs.
The three components of the Direct and Manage Project Execution process:
1.
Use the plan to create deliverables
2.
Repair defects in deliverables
3.
s the project plan changes, A make sure those changes are reflected in the deliverables
Deliverables include everything that you and your team produce for the project The word deliverable is pretty self-explanatory. It means anything that your project delivers. The deliverables for your project include all of the products or services that you and your team are performing for the client, customer, or sponsor. But deliverables include more than that. They also include every single document, plan, schedule, budget, blueprint, and anything else that gets made along the way... including all of the project management documents that you put together.
Deliverables
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Any time you have to correct a mistake or make a repair in a deliverable, you’re fixing a defect.
Deliverables are anything you produce in the course of doing your project activities. Your Quality Manageme focuses on catching defentctsplan you go, so you can repair th as em as soon as possible.
This is different from fixing defects. A defect means that the plan was right, but your deliverable was built wrong.
The Direct and Manage Execution Process is where you and your team actually do the project work to produce the deliverables.
integration management
Here’s a list of things produced by some typical projects. Some of them are deliverables, and others are work performance information produced by running reports. There’s also a list of changes, some of which affect the project management plan, and some of which just affect the project deliverables. It’s up to you to figure out which is which.
1. The software project team builds software.
c Deliverable
c Work performance information
2. A builder hangs a door.
c Deliverable
c Work performance information
3. A wedding photographer sends the photo proofs to the client.
c Deliverable
c Work performance information
4. The cable repair technicians takes an average of four hours per job.
c Deliverable
c Work performance information
Sometimes something 5. The construction crew worked 46 hours of overtime in March. that looks like a defect in a c Deliverable c Work performance information deliverable is really a change 6. The construction crew built the six houses required by the plan. that you need to make to c Deliverable c Work performance information the plan.
c Defect in deliverable
c Change to project management plan
8. A bride asks the photographer to stop asking her mother for permission to make changes.
c Defect in deliverable
c Change to project management plan
9. A construction crew used the wrong kind of lumber in a house.
c Defect in deliverable
c Change to project management plan
Answers on page 140.
7. A software test team finds bugs in the software.
10. A photographer’s prints are grainy.
c Defect in deliverable
c Change to project management plan
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handling unexpected problems
Eventually, things WILL go wrong... Even if you work through all the processes you’ve seen so far, things can still go wrong on your project. In fact, the teachers are already letting you know about some issues they’re having: This sucks... they lost Frank’s luggage, and I got my wallet stolen! I can’t find my passport. What am I going to do?
... but if you keep an eye out for problems, you can stay on top of them! e It’s a good thing yoeu’vproject. th been monitoring t not Otherwise you migh t their have found out abou help. problems in time to
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You called just in time! We’ve run into some serious problems. You can help us, right?
integration management
Sometimes you need to change your plans
Executing
Take a minute and flip back to page 97. Notice how there’s a loop between the Executing and the Monitoring & Controlling processes? That’s because when your team is executing the plan and working on the deliverables, you need to keep a constant lookout for any potential problems. That’s what the Monitor and Control Project Work process is for. When you find a problem, you can’t just make a change... because what if it’s too expensive, or will take too long? You need to look at how it affects the project constraints—time, cost, scope, resources, risks, and quality—and figure out if it’s worth making the change. That’s what you do in the Perform Integrated Change Control process.
4
Direct and manage project execution
5
Monitor and control project work
Monitoring and Controlling 6
Integrated change control
The Monitor and Control Loop Up Close
1 3
Once the changes and repairs are approved, you send them back to the team to put them in place.
Direct and Manage Execution
Perform Integrated Change Control A change control board (CCB) is a group of people—usually including the sponsor—that approves or rejects changes. Any time a change goes l, through Integrated Change Contro the CCB decides whether or not it should be made. When they approve the change, you send it on to the team to implement.
You start with information about how the work is being performed.
2
Monitor and Control Project Work
Next you figure out any changes that have to be made to the plans, and repairs that have to be made to the deliverables.
Here, you let stakeholders know about the changes, and make sure everyone is in the loop with what you’re doing.
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monitoring and controlling
Look for changes and deal with them You need to stay on top of any possible changes that happen throughout your project, and that’s what the Monitor and Control Project Work process is for. Usually the work is progressing just fine. But sometimes you find out that you need to change something, and that’s when you use the Perform Integrated Change Control process to see if the change is worth the impact it will have on your project.
Enterprise Environmental Factors
Inputs Project Management Plan Performance Reports
Organizational Process Assets
Monitor and Control Project Work
Expert Judgment
Outputs
Project Document Updates
Change Requests
Project Management Plan Udpates
We’ll take a closer look at these outputs in a minute... 122 Chapter 4
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integration management
Make only the changes that are right for your project The Monitor and Control Project Work process is where you find the changes that you may want to make. The Perform Integrated Change Control process is where you decide whether or not to make them. But you’re not the one actually making that decision – a big part of Perform Integrated Change Control is that you need to get your changes approved by the Change Control Board.
Inputs Enterprise Environmental Factors Work Performance Change Requests Information Project Management Plan
Perform Integrated Change Control
Organizational Process Assets
Expert Judgment Change Control Meetings
Outputs
After Integrated Change Control, we go back to the Direct & Manage Project Execution process to put the approved changes in place
Project Document Udpates Project Management Plan Updates Change Request Status Updates
Each change request’s status is updated. Changes that are OK’d are given the status “Approved” to become Approved Change Requests. you are here 4 123 Download at Boykma.Com
changes versus defects
Changes, defects, and corrections You’ve already seen how a project can change as it goes along. When the teachers asked for their hotel to be upgraded, you took the request through the change control process at Acme, and when the change control board approved the change, you directed the agents to make the booking for the group. But sometimes, things go wrong with what you intended to have happen in the first place. When your quality department told you that you had booked the teachers on the flight to Rome without putting them in the same row, you quickly fixed the reservation. But you intended for the teachers to sit together in the first place, so that’s not a change, it’s a defect. In the process, you realized that your team wasn’t reading your documentation carefully, which is why they screwed up the airline reservations. To fix the way your team is working, you need to take corrective action. That’s when you need to change the way you’re doing the work on your project. Got all that?
When the team is repairing defects to deliverables, they still need to go through change control.
Decide your changes in change control meetings Sometimes a change you make will have a direct impact on other teams and projects, and it’s a good idea to be sure that everybody who will be impacted knows that it’s coming and thinks that it’s worth it before you make the change. You can’t always know everything that might happen as a result of a change, and that’s why it’s a good idea to get buy-in from key people in your company before you go through with it. And that’s what a change control meeting is all about! Usually, a change control meeting will be a regularly scheduled thing, where people representing the affected areas of the company will get together to review proposed changes and decide whether or not to make them. A change control board is never made up of just the people on your team. A change control meeting is all about getting people with different perspectives together to talk about the pros and cons of changes before deciding whether to approve or reject them. As a project manager, it’s your job to know the impact of requested changes to your project and prioritize them for the change control board. Once you’ve done that, the change control board can make informed decsions about whether or not to approve them.
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integration management
How the processes interact with each other While monitoring the teachers’ trip, you notice that they all ask for non-smoking rooms every time they check into a hotel. But some hotels don’t have enough non-smoking rooms available, and the teachers aren’t too thrilled about that. After talking it over with the teachers it’s clear that it’s worth splitting up the group over multiple hotels to make sure they all are in non-smoking rooms—and some hotels are more expensive than you’d planned. The cost change will put you over budget, so the cost management plan needs to be updated. Time to take the request to change control:
Here’s where you notice a problem.
tly So you write down exouacld be sh what that change CCB. and send it to the
Monitor and Control Project Work
You use the Change Control System to evaluate the merits of the requested change and decide to approve or reject it.
Integrated Change Control Change Request
If the Integrated Change Controlyou process says it’s OK to go ahead, make the change. The important thing to remember is that the r change requests come from Monito and Control Project Work, but are actually made during Direct and Manage Execution.
I was dying in those smoky rooms; it’s well worth the extra cost.
Approval
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change control system
Control your changes; use change control
There’s a beautiful hotel across the street, and we want to transfer. Increase the budget by 15%, and book us there.
Your project management plan should detail how you deal with changes that happen during your project.
Any time you need to make a change to your plan, you need to start with a change request. This is a document that either you or the person making the change needs to create. Any change to your project needs to be documented so you can figure out what needs to be done. Once you have a change request, that then kicks off your project’s set of change control procedures.
The key here is PROCEDURE— change control is about how your company handles changes. You may use a computer system to monitor and document changes, but that’s just one part of your change control system.
Project Management Plan
This means you need to write down exactly what needs to be changed and put it in something called a change request. That’s a form that you fill out to send a change through change control.
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Change control is how you deal with changes to your project management plan. A change control system is the set of procedures that let you make those changes in an organized way.
integration management
This is Acme’s change control system. It’s specific to their company, but it contains all of the steps you’d see in a typical change control system. Acme Travel Change Control System
The first thing you do with any change is to consult the proper management plan
Next, you document e change, and submit it to the boarth d if the change will be im that decides plemented.
Cost Management Plan
The teachers want increase their budg to you look at their coet, so management plan. st
Acme Travel Agency
Change Request
Change Control Meeting
Not every change gets approved, but this one did—and now the project management plan can be updated.
Approval
B) is rol board (CCider nt co e ng a ch A ple who cons a group of peaopproval. Not every changes for rol system has one, change cont . but most do Thanks! We love the new place. The views are magnifique!
Project Management Plan
At Acme, the plan is updated using the configuration management system, a part of the PMIS that tracks all of the changes.
Project Management Information System
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preventive versus corrective
Preventing or correcting problems When you monitor your project, you might be checking the actual time it’s taking you to do scheduled work versus the amount of time you planned, or you might be gathering information on the number of defects you have found versus the number you expected. In both cases, it’s possible that you might find problems. If you do, you have to change the way you do your work and keep your project from being dragged down. When you make a course change on your project, that’s taking corrective action. It’s also possible that you might see problems that are going to occur even though they haven’t happened yet. If you do, you will want to take preventive action, or steps that you take to avoid potential problems. In both corrective and preventive action, you always need to submit your proposed change and put it through the Integrated Change Control process—and only if it is approved will you implement it. If your recommended action makes it through, you need to change the plan and any of your baselines to include it. The documented scope, schedule, and cost baselines are in the Project Management Plan are called the Performance Measurement Baseline.
When people predict problems on projects before they happen, it’s called a forecast. A forecast can be a good reason to make a change too!
We’ll learn more about the eline performance measurement bas in upcoming chapters.
ere is a list of actions that are recommended by a project manager. Which are preventive and H which are corrective? 1. A software project is running late, so a software project manager looks to find slack time and reassign resources to get things done more quickly.
c Preventive action
c Corrective action
2. A caterer notices that the crudités are all gone and assigns a chef to make more.
c Preventive action
c Corrective action
3. A photographer brings an extra camera body to a shoot, in case one breaks down.
c Preventive action
c Corrective action
4. A consulting company assigns extra resources to a project to compensate for possible attrition.
c Preventive action
c Corrective action Answers on page 138.
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integration management
Q:
Sometimes my team members come to me and tell me that the project could have problems later. What do I do with that?
A:
For some project managers, it seems natural to dismiss these “negative Nellies” who seem concerned with problems that could go wrong in the future. But this is one of the best ways you can satisfy your stakeholders. When someone makes an estimate or prediction of a future condition that could lead to trouble, it’s called a forecast, and that’s very valuable information. You should distribute it along with your work performance information, and try to think of ways to avoid the problem—which is what preventive action is all about.
A big part of your job as a project manager is to figure out how to prevent changes. This might seem a little weird—how can you prevent changes before the project is implemented? One way to do this is plan as well as possible, because a lot of changes happen because of a lack of planning. But it also means talking to stakeholders throughout the project and keeping an eye out for potential problems. When you take the PMP exam, if you see the phrase “Influencing factors that cause change,” this is what it’s referring to.
Q: A:
Who approves changes?
Usually there’s a change control board (CCB) that approves changes. That’s a group of people, most often including the stakeholders and sponsor, who look at the benefits of a change and figure out if it’s worth the cost. If there’s a CCB, your change control system will include a procedure that mentions it. But not every company has a
CCB, and there is no requirement in the PMBOK® Guide that you have one.
Q:
What if there’s a problem outside my project, and I’m not sure that it affects me?
the bottom line or the end product. In these cases, change control wastes time and resources, rather than helping your project.
Q:
Now, what’s a performance baseline again, and what do I do with it?
A:
A:
Q:
Every time a change is approved, that means the plan has changed. So you have to update your baseline to include the new work (or cost, or schedule).
You should still consider its potential impact when you’re monitoring your project’s work. It’s important that you’re always on the lookout for potential problems. If you’re not sure whether something could impact your project, it’s your responsibility as a project manager to bring it to the attention of your stakeholders. And if you can make a change on your own that doesn’t impact the project constraints (scope, cost, time, quality, risk, or resources), then it’s completely within your rights as a project manager to do it.
Once a change is approved, what do I do with it?
A:
You change your project management plan to incorporate the change. This can mean that you create a new baseline with the new project management plan. For example, say you forgot to add a stakeholder to the change control board, so your project plan now describes the wrong process for making changes. You’ll need to fix that, and you’ll need to go through change control to do it.
Q:
What about changes that don’t affect the project constraints?
A:
If you evaluate the impact of a change and find that it won’t have an impact on the project constraints, then you can make the change without going through change control. Sometimes you need to change resources or move tasks around, and you can make those changes without affecting
A performance baseline is a snapshot of your project’s scope, schedule, and cost. When you plan out the work you’ll do on a project, you write it down all of the activities you’ll need to do and save that understanding as your scope baseline. You’ll do the same with your understanding of the project’s schedule and its cost. That way, you can always compare your actual performance to your plan.
You always have the authority to make changes to your project if they don’t affect cost, schedule, or scope. you are here 4 129
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close the project
Finish the work, close the project Close Project or Phase
You can’t finish the project until you get paid! Most projects start with contracts, and when they do you need to make sure the terms are met. Acme signed a contract with the Midwestern Teachers’ Association when the project started, and now it’s time to make sure all of the parts of that contract are met. And that’s part of what you do in the Close Project or Phase process. But an even more important part of this process is that you create the lessons learned and add them to your company’s Organizational Process Assets. That way you and other project managers can learn from this historical information in the future. The inputs to the Close Project or Phase process include the project management plan, organizational process assets, enterprise environmental factors, work performance information, and deliverables, along with any contract you have for the work (if there is one). And you use the same familiar tools and techniques list that you’ve seen all chapter. In this case, there’s just one: expert judgment. The deliverables get accepted
The most important output of the Close Project or Phase is the final product that you deliver to the customer!
in the Verify Scope process. You’ll learn about it in Chapter 5.
Inputs Accepted Deliverables
Organizational Process Assets
Project Management Plan
Expert Judgment
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The PM Plan plans out all of the work that will be done as part of project closing. The project manager makes sure that all the work is done, and that each deliverable has been accepted by the stakeholders.
integration management
You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here The teachers have gone through their entire itinerary. They’re now on their way to Paris, which is the final leg of their tour. They’ve had a great time, and now it’s time for you to finish up. Every project needs to end, and that’s what the Close Project or Phase process is all about. You want other travel agents at Acme to learn from anything new you’ve discovered. Remember how you had to scramble with the nonsmoking room request? Maybe your friends at Acme can learn from that, and ask new clients up front what they want! That’s why you write down your lessons learned, and that’s a big part of closing the project.
Even if your project ends early, you still need to follow the Close Project or Phase process.
Outputs You’ve seen the Organizational Process Assets input a bunch of times now. But where does it really come from? It turns out that it comes from other project managers just like you. Every time a project is closed, you update those assets so that you can use them later. And new project managers will be able to learn from everything that’s happened on your project.
Lessons learned are finished in Close Project or Phase, but written down throughout the entire project. And it’s not just by the project manager — the whole team writes down lessons learned.
The final product of your project is the thing your customers will remember most.
Organizational Process Assets
Final Product
Think about a major project you’ve heard of that did not end well, like one that was shut down before the work was done. What lessons could have been learned from that project? How can the project manager use the Close Project or Phase process to make sure that something good comes out of early termination?
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so that’s what it means!
So why INTEGRATION management? The Integration Management knowledge area has all of the processes that you do in your day-to-day work as a project manager. So why are they called “Integration Management” processes? Well, think about what it takes to run a project: you need people and other resources from all around your company; knowledge about how your company does its business; standards, templates, and other assets that you’ve gathered from other projects; and the ability to put it all together—that’s what a project manager does. And that’s where the “integration” part comes in. This is especially important when you need to work with consultants, because your job is to procure services for the project. And you need to plan for all of it at the beginning—which is when you integrate all of these things together into a single plan. It’s your job to make sure that every one of the 42 processes in the PMBOK® Guide is addressed in the plan, even if you’re not going to use it (for example, if you don’t need contractors or consultants, you won’t use Procurement processes). I get it! When I’m putting together my project management plan, I need to look at every single process and figure out how it’s integrated into my project. So that’s what “Integration Management” means.
Integration Management means making sure that all of the processes work together seamlessly to make your project successful.
What else is there? Huh... It seems like we covered the whole project, right? You got authorized to do the work, you planned the project, you executed it, you corrected problems along the way, and you closed it out. Isn’t that everything? Well, of course not! There’s a whole lot more planning that you have to do, and many skills that you need to have. Luckily, we’ve got the PMBOK® Guide to help us figure out exactly what we need to know to manage projects effectively.
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integration management
Project Integration Management Magnets These inputs, outputs, and processes are all scrambled up on the fridge. Can you reconstruct them so that the processes go under the correct process groups, and the inputs, outputs, and tools go in the right categories?
Initiating
Planning
Executing
Monitoring and Controlling
INPUTS / OUTPUTS
Work Performance Information
Develop Project Charter
Close Project or Phase
Closing
Tools
Direct and Manage Execution
Develop Pr oject Management Plan
Monitor an d Control Project Wo rk
nt Expert Judgme al Organization ts se As Process Change Control Meetings
grated Perform Inte l ro Change Cont
Contract
Approved Change Requests Project Management Information System
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get some practice
Project Integration Management Magnets Solution These inputs, outputs, and processes are all scrambled up on the fridge. Can you reconstruct them so that the processes go under the correct process groups, and the inputs, outputs, and tools go in the right categories?
Initiating
Planning
Executing
Monitoring and Controlling grated Perform Inte l ro Change Cont
Develop Pr oject Management Plan
Develop Project Charter
Closing
Close Project or Phase
Direct and Manage Execution
Monitor an d Control Project Wo rk INPUTS / OUTPUTS
Tools
al Organization ts se As Process
Work Performance Information
Approved Change Requests
Project Management Information System
nt Expert Judgme
Change Control Meetings Contract
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integration management
Integration Management kept your project on track, and the teachers satisfied By using all of the Integration Management processes, you kept the project on track. You handled all of the problems that came up, made some important changes in the process, and the teachers got to all of their destinations on time and on budget.
Thanks so much! We had a great trip, and we’ll definitely be using Acme again next year.
Ah, mon dieu! Quel projet magnifique! Hey, Joanne’s right… Acme really did us right on this trip.
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satisfied customers
Integrationcross Untitled Puzzle
Take some time to sit back and give your right brain something to do. It’s your standard crossword; all of the solution words are from this chapter.
1
Heade Heade
Across
2
4. Fixing problems that have already happened is called ______________ action.
3
7. A problem in a deliverable that shows that it does not do what you meant for it to do. 4
5
9. The Project Management Plan is a collection of ____________ plans. 10. When you watch what’s happening in your project to look for changes, corrective, and preventive actions you are in the ___________ and Control Project Work process.
6 7
11. __________ information is an important organizational process asset that comes from documenting lessons learned. 8
Down
9
1. When you ask someone who has experience to help you figure something out you are using the __________ Judgment tool and technique.
10
2. The ______________ Process Group contains the processes that help you start your project. 3. The things your project produces.
11
5. Work culture and company policies are called Enterprise _______________ Factors.
Down
6. A record of all of the decisions you have made and their consequences that you write when you close your project is called ___________ learned.
The Project __________ is a document that gives dy happened isAnswers on page 1. 141. When you ask 8.the someone who project manager authority over has the team.experience help you figure something out you are using the 136 Chapter 4 shows that it does __________ Judgement tool and technique. Download at Boykma.Com 2. The ______________ Process Group contain
integration management
Here are a few of the things you might have to deal with in working on the teachers’ vacation trip. Figure out which of the seven Integration Management processes you’d use in each situation, and write down the process name in the blank.
1
Perform Integrated Change Control 2
You come up with a detailed description of everything that you plan to do to get the teachers where they want to be.
Develop Project Management Plan 3
The CEO of Acme Travel sends you a document that assigns you to the project.
Develop Project Charter 4
You check in with the teachers at each destination to make sure everything is going according to plan.
Monitor and Control Project Work 5
When the teachers get back, you write up everything you learned while handling the trip so other travel agents can learn from your experience.
Close Project or Phase 6
Develop Project Charter ct Develop Proje Management Plan
It turns out that one of the teachers is a vegetarian, so you need to change your plans to include vegetarian meals on the airlines and find restaurants that accommodate him.
You book the tickets and hotel accommodations.
Direct and Manage Project Execution
Direct and Manage Project Execution Monitor and Control Project Work grated Perform Inte Change Control Close Project or Phase
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exercise solutions
ere are a bunch of ways Acme evaluated the inputs for the Develop Project Charter Process. Try H to figure out which ones involve Expert Judgment and which don’t.
1. A.Yes
B. No
2. A. Yes
B. No
3. A. Yes
B. No
4. A. Yes
B. No
5. A. Yes
B. No
ere is a list of actions that are recommended by a project manager. Which are preventive and H which are corrective?
1. A software project is running late, so a software project manager looks to find slack time and reassign resources to get things done more quickly.
c Preventive action
c Corrective action
2. A caterer notices that the crudités are all gone and assigns a chef to make more.
c Preventive action
c Corrective action
3. A photographer brings an extra camera body to a shoot, in case one breaks down.
c Preventive action
c Corrective action
4. A consulting company assigns extra resources to a project to compensate for possible attrition.
c Preventive action
c Corrective action
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integration management
elow is a whole crop of problems that the teachers are running into. Write down which subsidiary B plan you’d look in to get some help. If you’re not sure, just reread the descriptions of each subsidiary plan on the last page, and take your best guess.
1. The teachers want to go Bali, but Acme Travel doesn’t book flights there so you need to subcontract one leg of the travel to another travel agency.
Procurement management plan 2. The teachers are having so much fun that they want to stay at a better hotel. They tell you to increase their budget by 15% to do that.
Cost management plan 3. Just as you’re about to mail off the teachers’ tickets, you notice they’ve been printed incorrectly.
Quality management plan 4. The teachers might run into more bad weather, and you’ve got to figure out what contingencies you can put into place if that happens.
Risk management plan 5. The teachers are concerned that they won’t be able to get in touch with you when they’re away.
Communications management plan 6. One of the teachers realizes that he needs to come back earlier, and you want to make sure the budget reflects his lessened costs.
Cost management plan
7. You find out that you need to get the tickets out earlier than expected, because the teachers’ contract requires that all trips be preapproved by the superintendent of their school district.
Schedule management plan
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exercise solutions
Here’s a list of things produced by some typical projects. Some of them are deliverables, and others are work performance information produced by running reports. There’s also a list of changes, some of which affect the project management plan, and some of which just affect the project deliverables. It’s up to you to figure out which is which.
1. The software project team builds software.
c Deliverable
c Work performance information
2. A builder hangs a door.
c Deliverable
c Work performance information
3. A wedding photographer sends the photo proofs to the client.
c Deliverable
c Work performance information
4. The cable repair technicians takes an average of four hours per job.
c Deliverable
c Work performance information
5. The construction crew worked 46 hours of overtime in March.
c Deliverable
c Work performance information
6. The construction crew built the six houses required by the plan.
c Deliverable
c Work performance information
7. A software test team finds bugs in the software.
c Defect in deliverable
c Change to project management plan
8. A bride asks the photographer to stop asking her mother for permission to make changes.
c Defect in deliverable
c Change to project management plan
9. A construction crew used the wrong kind of lumber in a house.
c Defect in deliverable
c Change to project management plan
10. A photographer’s prints are grainy.
c Defect in deliverable
c Change to project management plan
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integration management
Integrationcross Solution Untitled Puzzle Take some time to sit back and give your right brain something to do. It’s your standard crossword; all of the solution words are from this chapter.
1
2
E
3
I
D
X
N
E
P
I
E
T
L 4
I
C
O
V
E
C
T
T L
7
R
D
E
A
S
B
S
L
O
E
N
S
R
6
E
9
R
U
B
S
F
E
C
I
V
D
I
N
T
V
I
I
N
R
G
O
T
C
N
H
M
A
R
Y
E
R 10
M
O
N
I
T
N O
R
T
E 11
H
I
S
T
O
E
A
8
I
5
R
A I
C
A
L
Down
at have already happened is 1. When you ask someone who has e ___ action. [corrective] help you figure something out you are iverable that shows that it does __________ Judgement tool and tec nt for it to do. [defect] [Expert] gement Plan is a collection of 2. The ______________ Gro you are hereProcess 4 141 Download at Boykma.Com s [subsidiary] processes that help you start your pro
exam questions
Exam Questions 1. You’ve just received a change request. This means: A. The project charter is complete, but the work cannot begin yet because you need to make a change to the scope baseline B. You are in the Direct and Manage Execution process, and you can implement the change now C. The change needs to be approved before it can be implemented D. There is a defect in a deliverable that must be repaired 2. Which of these is not an input to Develop Project Charter? A. B. C. D.
Enterprise environmental factors Project Management Plan Contract Project statement of work
3. What is the output of Direct and Manage Execution? A. B. C. D.
Approved change requests Project management processes Deliverables Forecasts
4. You’re managing a graphic design project. One of your team members reports that there is a serious problem, and you realize that it will cause a delay that could harm the business of the stakeholders. Even worse, it will take another two days for you to fully assess the impact—until then, you won’t have the whole story. What is the BEST way to handle this situation? A. Create a change request document and submit it to the change control meeting B. Pull out the project charter and show them that you have authority to make decisions C. Meet with the stakeholders and tell them that there’s a problem, but you need two more days to get them the information they need D. Update the lessons learned and add it to your organizational process assets 5. You’re a project manager on a construction project. The electrician has started laying out the wiring, when the client comes to you with a change request. He needs additional outlets, and you think that will increase the cost of the electrical work. What is the first thing you do? A. Refuse to make the change because it will increase the cost of the project and blow your budget B. Refer to the project management plan to see how the change should be handled C. Consult the contract to see if there is a clause D. Make the change, since the client requested it
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integration management
Exam Questions 6. The work authorization system: A. Ensures that every work package is performed at the right time and in the proper sequence B. Authorizes the project manager to spend money on work C. Is a set of processes and tools that aids project manager in effectively guiding the project to completion D. Is a formalized, written description of how to carry out an activity 7. You’re the project manager at a telecommunications company. You recently had stakeholders approach you with changes. You figured out that the changes would cost additional time and money. The stakeholders agreed, you were given additional time and budget, and the changes were approved. Now you have to incorporate the changes into the project. What do you do next? A. Modify the project charter to include the changes B. Use the work authorization system to make sure the work is performed C. Make sure to track your changes against the project’s baseline so you know how much they eventually cost D. Incorporate the changes into the baseline so you can track the project properly 8. You are a project manager on a software project. When you planned the project, your Enterprise Environmental Factors included a policy that all changes that cost over 2% of the budget need to be approved by the CFO, but smaller changes could be paid for by a management contingency fund. One of your stakeholders submitted a change request that requires a 3% increase in the budget. Your company has an outsourcing effort, and you believe that a small change to the way that the change is requested could allow you to take advantage of it and cut your costs in half. What is the BEST way to handle this situation? A. B. C. D.
Work with the stakeholder to figure out how to reduce the cost of the change by a third Request approval from the CFO Refuse the change because it is over 2% of the budget Document the change request, since all changes must be documented
9. You’re on the project selection committee. You’re reviewing a document that describes the strategic value of a potential project and its benefits to the company. What’s this document called? A. B. C. D.
Project Charter Business Case Benefit measurement method Contract
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exam questions
Exam Questions 10. One of your team members has discovered a defect in a deliverable and has recommended that it be repaired. Which of the following is NOT true: A. B. C. D.
The project charter has authorized you to perform the work Your project is in Monitor and Control Project Work process The defect repair must be approved before the deliverable can be repaired You must update the project management plan to document the defect
11. You are holding a formal, approved document that defines how the project is executed, monitored, and controlled. You are holding: A. B. C. D.
The project management plan The performance measurement baseline The project charter The work breakdown structure
12. You are the project manager for a software project, when the sponsor pulls the plug and cancels the project. What do you do? A. B. C. D.
Give the team the day off to recuperate from the bad news Create a budget summary for the remaining unspent budget Follow project closure procedures to close the project and update lessons learned Find new assignments for any people previously assigned to your project
13. You are managing a software project, when you find out that a programming team who you were supposed to have access to has been reassigned to another project. What is the first thing that you should do? A. Figure out the impact that this will have on your project B. Bring a copy of your project’s charter to the other manager, and explain that you need that team for your own project C. Go to your sponsor and demand the team D. Figure out a way to compress the project schedule so that you can work with the team if they become available 14. You are a project manager on a software project. There are several changes that need to be made, and you need to decide how to apply project resources in order to implement them. What do you do? A. Decide the priority of the changes and announce them to the team B. You should call a team meeting and invite the stakeholders, so that everyone can reach a consensus on the priority C. Deny the changes because they will delay the project D. Consult the Change Prioritization Plan for guidance on prioritizing new changes
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integration management
Exam Questions 15. You’re a project manager on a software project. Your team is busy executing the project and creating the deliverables, but there have been several changes requested by stakeholders over the past few weeks. Each time you got one of these changes, you called a meeting with your team and the stakeholders to discuss it. Why did you do this? A. B. C. D.
Every change needs to be evaluated by a change control board You’re delegating the work of evaluating changes You do not have a good change control system in place You are using a work authorization system to assign the work
16. You are the project manager on a construction project, and you have just received a change request. You consulted the project management plan, and followed the procedures laid out in the Change Control System. You are in the process of reviewing the change and documenting its impact. Your manager asks you why you are doing this. What are you doing by reviewing the change and documenting its impact? A. B. C. D.
Perform Integrated Change Control Monitor and Control Project Work Manage Requested Changes Direct and Manage Execution
17. Which of the following is NOT true about the project charter? A. B. C. D.
The project charter defines the requirements that satisfy customer needs The project charter defines the work authorization system The project charter makes the business case that justifies the project The project charter includes the milestone schedule
18. You have just verified that all of the work on your project is completed. Which of these things is NOT part of the Closing process? A. Update historical information by documenting lessons learned B. Document the work performance information to show the deliverables that have been completed and record the lessons learned C. Verify that all of the deliverables have been accepted by the stakeholders D. Follow the project closure procedure 19. Which of the following is NOT true about the Project Management Plan? A. B. A. A.
The project management plan contains the scope management plan The project management plan gives authority to the project manager The project management plan contains the quality baseline The project management plan contains the performance baseline
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exam questions
Exam Questions 20. Which of the following is NOT an output of Direct and Manage Project Execution? A. B. C. D.
Work performance information Deliverables Implemented change requests Forecasts
21. You are a project manager starting a new project. Your manager warns you that previous projects ran into trouble. Which of the following would be BEST for you to rely on to help plan your project: A. B. C. D.
Our project management expertise Historical information The change control system Forecasts
22. Which is NOT true about the project charter: A. B. C. D.
The project manager must be consulted before the charter is finalized The charter is issued by the project sponsor The project manager’s authority to manage the project is granted by the charter The charter gives a summary milestone schedule
23. Which of the following is NOT an input to the Develop Project Management Plan process? A. B. C. D.
Outputs of the planning processes Project Charter Expert judgment Enterprise environmental factors
24. You are the project manager on a network engineering project. Two weeks ago, your team began executing the project. The work has been going well, and you are now a day ahead of schedule. Two stakeholders just approached you to tell you that they have an important change that needs to be made. That change will put you behind schedule. What do you do? A. Implement the change because you’re ahead of schedule B. Refuse to make the change because the stakeholders did not take it to the change control board C. Refuse to make the change until the stakeholders document it in a change request D. Make sure the stakeholders know that you’re open to change, and tell them to talk to the project sponsor
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integration management
Exam Questions 25. Which of the following is NOT an output of Perform Integrated Change Control? A. B. C. D.
Approved change requests Rejected change requests Validated defect repair Recommended change requests
Start thinking about the kinds of question you’re seeing. Some have extraneous details—s we call them “red herrings.” Others are abou inputs and outputs. That will definitely t make the exam more familiar and easier. Oh, I see. Sometimes the details of the question don’t matter. They’re just there to throw you off track.
Exactly, watch out for those red herrings. Take some time to go over the answers to these questions and if they did throw you off track, reread the question to understand why.
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exam answers
Answers
Exam Questions 1. Answer: C
This is really a question about inputs and outputs. There’s only one process that takes “requested changes” as an input, and that’s Integrated Change Control. That’s where your changes get approved. The other answers all refer to other processes: A is about building a baseline (which is part of Develop Project Management Plan), while B and D are both about Direct and Manage Execution. 2. Answer: B The project management plan is created in the Develop Project Plan process, which happens after Develop Project Charter. Develop Project Charter is the very first process on any project, and the inputs in answers A, C, and D exist before the project started. The Project Managemet Plan is created during the project.
This is a “which-is-not” question. When you see a question asking you to choose which input or output is not associated with a process, one good strategy is to try to think of what it is that process does.
3. Answer: C The whole reason for the Direct and Manage Execution process is to actually do the project work, and the deliverables are the products or services that are created by the project. Don’t get fooled by answer D—even though the work is performed in “Direct and Manage Execution,” the information about how that work is performed is turned into forecasts in “Monitor and Control Project Work.” 4. Answer: C When you get a question about communication, look for the answer that provides the most complete, honest, and up-front information, even if that information won’t necessarily solve the problem or make everyone happy. 5. Answer: B All changes must be handled using the change control system, which is a set of procedures that is contained in the project management plan. There is no way to tell from the question what specific steps will be in that change control system— answers A, C, and D are all possible ways to deal with changes, depending on the situation. The only way to know for sure what to do is to follow the change control procedures in the project management plan.
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That makes sense. You need to monitor the work to figure out how well it’s being performed.
Answers
integration management
Exam Questions 6. Answer: A
This is a “just the facts” question, and answer A is the actual definition of the work authorization system from the PMBOK® Guide. After you’re done with these questions, look it up—it’s on page 452. Underline or highlight it, and then read it out loud. Once you’ve read about it in the chapter, answered this question about it, and then looked up the definition, you’ll never forget it! 7. Answer: D The first thing you do after a change is approved is to update the baseline. If you chose answer C, don’t feel bad—it’s easy to get a little mixed up about what a baseline is used for. The whole purpose of the baseline is to figure out whether your project has deviated from the plan. But a change isn’t a deviation from the plan! A deviation is accidental, while a change is done on purpose. That’s why it’s so important to get the change approved: that way, everyone knows about it, which means that you can plan for it. And updating the baseline is how you do that planning. the baseline
to protect You use yourself from nasty surprises… and an approved change is not a surprise.
8. Answer: B
When your company has a policy, you need to follow it and not try to work around it. Also, don’t get fooled by answer D—the question said that a change request was submitted, so it’s already documented. The exam could contain tricks like that!
The important stuff in is all in the first sententhis question outsourcing detail is a ce. The red herring.
9. Answer: B
This is a Business Case—it describes the benefits of doing a project and can be used to decide whether it’s worth it for your company to do the work. Sometimes the benefits will be about gaining capablities, not just money.
There will be questions on the exam where there are two valid answers but only one BEST answer.
10. Answer: D
Defects do not need to be documented in the project management plan. Take a look at the other answers—do you understand why they are correct? Answer A is simply the definition of the project charter; it doesn’t have anything to do with the defect, but it’s still true. When you’re performing the Monitor and Control Project Work process, you need to make sure defect repairs are approved before you change the deliverables, so answer B is true as well. And as far as answer C goes, that’s the whole purpose of the Integrated Change Control process: to approve defect repairs, changes, and preventive and corrective actions!
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exam answers
Answers
Exam Questions 11. Answer: A
This is the definition of the project management plan! 12. Answer: C Even when a project is terminated, you still need to close it out.
A question like this needs you to actually think about what you’d do—it’s not just about applying a rule that you’ve learned.
13. Answer: A
If a resource is not available to you, it doesn’t matter what’s in your project charter or what your sponsors and stakeholders want. You need to figure out how to move forward from here, and the first step in doing that is evaluating the impact that this new problem will have on your project.
There’s no such thing as a Change Prioritization Plan! Keep an eye fake artifacts and processes. out for
14. Answer: A
The project manager must decide the priority of the changes. If the changes need to be made, that means that they were approved. So you can’t simply deny them. And you can’t call the team in for a meeting, because they need to do the work. Some people may think that the stakeholders need to be involved—but since the change was already approved, you’ve gotten their buy-in. Now it’s up to you to decide the order in which they’re implemented. 15. Answer: C
This is NOT a good change control board because a Change Control Meeting doesn’t usually include the whole team!
When you get a change request, you need to consult the project management plan and follow the procedures defined in the change control system. It is generally not a good idea to involve the entire team in evaluating each change that comes in—there may be many changes, and if you pull your team off the job for each one, they’ll never get their job done!
e the right Doesn’t C seemdlikit’s not a answer? Too ba real process!
16. Answer: A
Once a change is requested, all of the work that you do with it falls under Perform Integrated Change Control, right up until it’s approved and you can implement it.
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Answers
integration management
Exam Questions 17. Answer: B
The work authorization system is defined by the company, and it’s external to the project. You can think about it as the rules that you are told to follow in order to assign work in your company. They are part of the Enterprise Environmental Factors, an input to Develop Project Charter. Remember 18. Answer: B The work performance information is documented as part of Direct and Manage Execution. By the time the project closes, it’s too late to use the work performance information! That’s why it’s an input to Monitor and Control Project Work—so you can take corrective action if the work is not being performed well. 19. Answer: B
We’ll learn about ope Management in thSc e next chapter.
The Project Charter authorizes the project manager. 20. Answer: D You’ll learn about forecasts in Chapter 7—they’re used to help predict whether the project will come in on time and within budget. If not, preventive or corrective actions will be needed! But you don’t need to know that to know they’re not an output of Direct and Manage Project Execution.
that lessons lea are documented throughoutrnethd project, not just at the end! e That’s why they’re part of Wo rk Performance Information. ocess or When you close atoprmake sure phase, you need has been each deliverable stakeholders. accepted by the It seems like historical information is an important concept. I’ll bet there will a question or two about it on the exam.
21. Answer: B Historical information is an important input into Develop Project Charter, which is the first process that you perform when you start a new project. Historical information is very important, because it’s how you learn about past projects’ successes and failures. It’s not actually listed as its own input. It’s a part of Organizational Process Assets—and it really is a huge asset to any organization!
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exam answers
Answers
Exam Questions 22. Answer: A
The project manager may be consulted when the project charter is created, but that’s not always the case. It’s possible that the project manager for a project is not even known when the charter is created! 23. Answer: C While you may employ good judgment in developing your project management plan, Expert Judgment is not an input. It’s a tool/technique used in the various processes. 24. Answer: C
Rejecting changes means that sometimes you need to say no to people to make them happy in the end—they might not like it, but they’ll end up satisfied when the project goes well.
Didn’t D look like a good answer
?
The first step in handling any change is to document it. That’s why Change Requests are an input to Perform Integrated Change Control: the change control process cannot begin until the change is written down! 25. Answer: D If you’re having trouble remembering what the inputs and outputs are for Monitor and Control Execution and Perform Integrated Change Control, one way to think about it is that change control is all about deciding whether or not to do something. Monitor and Control Execution is where you spot the problems—that’s why all of the RECOMMENDED actions and changes are outputs of it, and inputs into Perform Integrated Change Control. Perform Integrated Change Control is where those recommendations get evaluated turned into APPROVED actions and changes. The ones that are not approved are REJECTED. Then they go back to Direct and Manage Project Execution, where they are IMPLEMENTED, because that’s project work and all project work happens in that process.
Remember, this is how you handle changes: Find it… evaluate it… fix it.
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5 Scope management
Doing the right stuff Gee, Billy, didn’t Mom say we should stop horsing around and get back to our homework?
Confused about exactly what you should be working on? Once you have a good idea of what needs to be done, you need to track your scope as the project work is happening. As each goal is accomplished, you confirm that all of the work has been done and make sure that the people who asked for it are satisfied with the result. In this chapter, you’ll learn the tools that help your project team set its goals and keep everybody on track.
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the ranch hand games story
Out of the frying pan... The people at Ranch Hand Games have been working hard for a over a year on the sequel to their most successful title, Cows Gone Wild. It seemed like the project would never end…
I need a break! Every time I thought we were done, someone would come up with something else to add.
I haven’t seen my girlfriend in two weeks... and now this game is ENORMOUS.
Amy’s the creative director. She’s in charge of the story and the artwork.
Brian’s the developmentnaging manager. His job is mas and the team that build tests the software.
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scope management
... and right back into the fire Since it took so long to get this version out, it’s already time to start working on the next version. But nobody wants to see that project spin out of control the way it did last time.
We can’t lose control of the project this time around. Can’t we hire someone to help us keep CGW III on track?
They’re wondering what they can do to get this new project started off on the right foot.
The Cows Gone Wild II team ran into a lot of changes throughout the project. Could they have done something to avoid that problem?
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why the last project went off the rails
Cubicle conversation
It took way too long to get Cows Gone Wild II out the door.
Brian: The project rocked in the beginning. We brought in some really talented programmers so that we could handle all of the technical challenges that might come up. We spent all that time whiteboarding and working our way through the technical issues in design. It really felt like this game was going to be amazing and fun to build. What went wrong? Amy: We got sidetracked all over the place. Remember what happened with the web site? We spent months making that site look just like the game. It got to the point where it actually looked a lot better than the game did. Brian: Yeah, you’re right. And there were all these changes along the way—the story got updated like a thousand times. It was nuts. Amy: I remember that. What a mess. Brian: Totally. Oh man, and that time we realized you had to redraw all the artwork for the Haymaker level? We all slept in the office for like a week! Amy: Right... Um, so what’s gonna keep that from happening this time?
Wild II project Maybe the Cows Gottneer if they’d had a would have gone be board... project manager on
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scope management
ow would you solve these problems that happened in Cows Gone Wild II so they don’t cause the H same kind of trouble on CGW III?
Just write down a for each of these. short sentence
1. The web site got larger and larger and took almost as much time to build as the game itself.
rework a bunch The team had touse the game of artwork beca story changed. 2. Last minute story changes.
3. Artwork changes that caused rewrites at the last minute.
4. The game was over a year late.
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how would you solve scope problems?
Here are some answers that are good for dealing with these scenarios.
1. The web site got larger and larger and took almost as much time to build as the game itself.
Keep the team from doing unnecessary work. You can’t depend on the team to figure out what to do along the way. You need to scope out the work from the very beginning.
2. Last minute story changes.
Luckily, if you nail do the scope up front, yown team won’t waste timeurdo unnecessary work later. ing
Plan ahead and avoid late-breaking changes.
Writing down all of the work it and the effort required to do will help everyone understand the impact of their changes. 3. Artwork changes that caused rewrites at the last minute.
lier If the creative team figured out s,earthe that they’d need to make changeon parts programmers could have worked at would that weren’t going to change. Th have been a lot more efficient.
Get started on the art work changes sooner. It’s easier to figure out what’s going to have to change if everyone is in sync on the scope.
ause the scope kept Sounds like this game was lateldbec e fixed this. changing. Better planning cou hav
4. The game was over a year late.
Start planning sooner. Figure out what the team is going to do before they start.
Knowing what you’re going to build BEFORE you build it means you can do a better job predicting how long it will take.
Doing more planning at the start of the project helps you prioritize so that the most important work gets done efficiently.
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scope management
It looks like we have a scope problem All of the major problems on Cows Gone Wild II were scope problems. The web site was bloated with features that were added on late in the project. The creative team kept realizing that they had to do a lot more work. These are classic scope problems.
When people talk about scoping out their products, a lot of times they’re talking about figuring out the features of the product, not the work that goes into it.
l The product scope is all about the finaes. product—its features, components, piec
Product scope means the features and functions of the product or service that you and your team are building.
When we talk about scoping out a project, we mean figuring out all of the work that needs to be done to make the product.
Project scope is all of the work that needs to be done to make the product.
THIS is a big part of wh project manager is conc at the erned with… the work the team has to do. This means changes that just went in without anyone bothering to figure out what effect they’d Scope creep means uncontrolled cost, changes that cause the team to do extra have on the project’s time, es. resourc or risk, scope, quality, work.
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product versus project scope
Here are some attributes of Cows Gone Wild III. Which are project scope and which are product scope?
2. 34 levels in the game
1. Programming
c Project Scope
c Product Scope
3. Graphic design
c Project Scope
c Project Scope
c Product Scope
c Project Scope
c Project Scope
c Product Scope
6. Testing
c Product Scope
7. Mac and PC compatible
c Product Scope
4. Four playable characters
5. Great graphics
c Project Scope
c Project Scope
c Product Scope
8. A “boss battle” milk fight level at the end
c Product Scope
c Project Scope
c Product Scope
Answers on page 216.
Q:
Does the scope include all of the stuff that I make, like a project schedule or a budget? What about things that are used to build the product but not actually delivered to the people who use it?
A:
Yes, the project scope includes every single thing made by you and the team, and that includes the project plan and other project management documents. There are plenty of things on a project that are deliverables, but which the people who use the product will never see... like a project schedule, specifications, blueprints, and budgets. And while some of these things are made by the project manager, there are a lot of them that aren’t, and it’s not your job to figure out what goes into them. You just need to make sure they get done.
Q:
Won’t the team care more about what they are making than how they are making it?
A:
Yes, definitely. It’s your job as project manager to worry about all of the work the team does to build the product, so that they can focus on actually building it. But that doesn’t mean you don’t need their cooperation to make sure you’ve written down all of the work, and nothing else.
Q:
Does that mean the project manager doesn’t care about the product scope at all, just the project scope?
A:
No, you still need to think about your project’s final product. You can never ignore product scope, because most projects have
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changes to the product scope along the way. You’ll have to change your product scope to include the work that’s caused by product scope changes. Changes like that will probably have an impact on time and cost, too. Here’s an example: If somebody asks for a new feature in Cows Gone Wild III, the first thing the team needs to do is understand how much work is involved to accommodate it, and what that scope change will do to the cost and schedule. As a project manager, your main concern is understanding that impact, and making sure everyone is OK with it before the change gets made. It’s not your job to decide which is the best feature for the product, just to help everybody involved keep their priorities in mind and do what’s best for the project.
scope management
You’ve got to know what (and how) you will build before you build it You always want to know exactly what work has to be done to finish your project BEFORE you start it. You’ve got a bunch of team members, and you need to know exactly what they’re going to do to build your product. So how do you write down the scope? That’s the goal of the five scope management processes. They’re about figuring out how you will identify all of the work your team will do during the project, coming up with a way to make sure that you’ve written down what work will be done (and nothing else!), and making sure that when things change on your project, you keep its scope up to date so that your team is always building the right product.
Scope management meanTs figuring out what’s OUat’s OF scope, not just wh part of it
Can’t I just have my team spend a day brainstorming a list of every possible thing they might have to do?
That’s a good idea. But what happens if they miss something? It often seems like you should just be able to get everyone in the same room when the project starts and just hash all this stuff out. But it’s really easy to miss something, and it’s even easier for a team to get sidetracked.
Scope Management Plan
You need to write down exactly how you’re going to do all of those things in the scope management plan.
This is why the scope management plan needs to say how you’re ng to keep unnecessary work out goi of the project.
It’s way too easy for people to go off track and start doing things that don’t really contribute to the project—like building the web site for a video game instead of building the game itself.
The scope management plan describes how you write down the scope, make sure it’s right, and keep it up to date. you are here 4 161 Download at Boykma.Com
why we manage scope
The power of scope management When you take control of your project’s scope, you’re doing more than just planning. It turns out that when projects have scope problems, the results are actually pretty predictable. Take a look at these problems that the Ranch Hand team ran into. Do any of these sound familiar to you? Many project managers run into similar problems on their own projects.
1
The team had trouble getting the project off the ground. Everyone on the team was good at their individual jobs, but it seemed like nobody knew how to get the project started.
They’d sit around in meetings talking about what they wanted to build, but it seemed like weeks before anything started getting done.
2
There were a lot of false starts. Just when they thought they were getting the project under way, it seemed like something would shift and they’d be back to square one.
3
The sponsor and stakeholders were unpredictable. There were three different times that Amy and Brian thought they were done. But each time, a stakeholder found a problem that sent them back to the drawing board.
The worst part about this was that there was no way to know when they were done with the project without asking for the sponsor’s opinion… and it seemed like that opinion was always changing.
4
There were a whole lot of changes. They were always scrambling to keep up with shifting priorities and ideas, and they never knew for sure what they’d be working on each week.
lay down the law The team was tempted tobut a lot of those and forbid any changes… good ideas. changes were necessary, and
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scope management
The five Scope Management processes Each of the Scope Management processes was designed to help you avoid the kinds of scope problems that cause a lot of projects to go off track. One of the best ways to remember these processes for the exam is to understand why they’re useful, and how they solve the kinds of problems that you’ve seen on your own projects.
Collect Requirements In this process, you find out all of the stakeholder’s needs and write then down so that you know what to build and your requirements can be measured and tracked. Requirements Document
Define Scope Here’s where you write down a detailed description of the work you’ll do and what you’ll produce.
When you do this right, the stakeholders are never unpredictable because you already understand their needs.
Project Scope Statement
Create WBS The work breakdown structure (or WBS) organizes all of your team’s work into work packages—or discrete pieces of work that team members do—so that you can keep the momentum of the project going from the start. Work Breakdown Structure
Control Scope
Pay attention to the WBS—there will be a lot of questions about it on the exam.
We already know how important it is to control changes on your project. When scope changes aren’t controlled, it leads to the most frustrating sort of project problems. Luckily, you already know about change control, and now you can use it to manage your project’s scope. Change Requests
Verify Scope
Remember Integrated Change Control from the last chapter? Now you’ll see it in action.
Once the work is complete, you need to make sure that what you’re delivering matches what you wrote down in the scope statement. That way, the team never delivers the wrong product to the customer. Accepted Deliverables
On the exam, “customer” can mean the same thing as “client” and “sponsor.”
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the pm is here to help
Cubicle conversation Meet Mike, the new project manager at Ranch Hand Games
It looks like I got here just in time.
Brian: So we finally hired a project manager. Welcome aboard! Amy: I’m glad they brought you in to help fix this mess. Brian: So what are you gonna do to help us? Because I don’t see what you can really change. Mike: Thanks for the vote of confidence. Look, I might not be able to fix everything, but we should be able to keep this scope under control. Brian: Sure, you say that now. But we all thought the last project would go fine too, and that one was a real pain! Mike: Well, did you gather the requirements for your last project? Amy: No, but we’ve built video games before and we knew basically what we needed to do when we started out. Mike: It sounds like that wasn’t enough.
What’s the first thing Mike should do to make sure that Cows Gone Wild III goes well?
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scope management
Collect requirements for your project Gathering requirements is all about sitting down with all of the stakeholders for your project and and working out what their needs are, and that’s what you do in the Collect Requirements process. If your project is going to be successful, you need to know what it will take for all of your stakeholders to agree that your project has met its goals. You need to have a good idea of what’s required of your project up front, or you’ll have a tough time knowing whether or not you’re doing a good job as you go. That’s why you need to write down all of your project and product requirements with enough detail that you can measure your team’s progress. The stakeholder
register is a people you the list of all of k out wor to need to talk the for ts the requiremen project.
.
Stakeholder Register
You only saw this briefly in Chapter 4, but you’ll learn a lot more about it later in the Communications Management chapter.
Inputs
Project Charter
The Project Charter tells you at a summary level what the project is supposed to accomplish
hese two inputs were outputs from processes in the Initiating Process Group. Write down which T process created each of them. 1. Project Charter: 2. Stakeholder Register:
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where to find requirements
Talk to your stakeholders The Collect Requirements process involves talking to the people who are affected by your project to find out what they need. All of the tools in this process are focused on getting your stakeholders to tell you about the problem that the project is going to solve. Sometimes that means sitting down with each of them one-on-one, and other times you can do it in a group setting. One of the most important things to understand about requirements is that every requirement fulfills a specific stakeholder need. Lucky for you, a lot of those needs are already written down—in your Business Case Document. But that’s not the only place you’ll find requirements, so here are three really useful tools and techniques to help you gather requirements:
Interviews are important ways to get your stakeholders to explain how they’ll use the product or service your project is creating. By talking to people one-on-one, you can get them to explain exactly what they need so that you can be sure that your project can meet its goals.
Focus Groups are another way to get a group
of people to discuss their needs with you. By letting a group discuss the end product together, you can get them to tell you requirements that they might not have thought of by themselves.
Facilitated Workshops are more structured group conversations where a
moderator leads the group through brainstorming requirements together. In facilitated workshops, misunderstandings and issues can get reconciled all at once because all of the stakeholders are working together to define the requirements.
Requirements Up Close All your requirem ents fill Gamers have been asking for an underwater level.
stakeholders’ need many start with a s,neand that you identified ed Business Case Documin your ent.
Business Case 1
You start with the stakeholders for your project. They have a need that your project can meet.
2
Next you figure out how those needs benefit your company and write a business case for them.
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If you’ve ever do Application Designne(Ja Joint where users and the AD) session team work together development requirements, it’s co to define Facilitated Worksho nsidered a p.
e Your requirements aryour om fr e a direct lin to your stakeholder’s needs project.
Requirements Document 3
When you write down your requirements, you’re saying exactly how those needs will be met.
scope management
Make decisions about requirements A big project usually has a lot of stakeholders, and that means a lot of opinions. You’ll need to find a way of making decsions when those opinions conflict with each other. There are four major decision-making techniques you can choose from.
Unanimity means everyone agrees on the decision. Majority means that more than half the people in the group agree on the decision.
Plurality means that the idea that gets the most votes wins.
Dictatorship
is when one person makes the decision for the whole group.
ou’ll need to know the difference between the four different decision techniques for the Y exam. Here are the minutes from a Facilitated Workshop that the CGW team held with all of its stakeholders. Identify which of decision-making technique was used in each case. 1. The group voted on the CCG (cud-chewer gun) five times but decided not to include it because they couldn’t get everyone to agree on it.
3. There were 10 new scenery suggestions up for approval, but only 5 could make it into the game. The team chose the top 5 in a general vote.
c Unanimity c Plurality
c Unanimity c Plurality
c Majority c Dictatorship
c Majority c Dictatorship
2. The VP of Engineering told everyone that they had to come up with a new character for Team Guernsey. Since he’s the highest-ranking person in the room, nobody argued with him.
4. Over half the group wanted to see a new story that involved Farmer Ted. So that requirement was recorded as an absolute necessity.
c Majority c Dictatorship
c Unanimity c Plurality c Majority c Dictatorship Answers: 1. Unanimity 2.Dictatorship 3. Plurality 4. Majority
c Unanimity c Plurality
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information to follow here
Help your team to get creative Getting your team to think creatively can help you create a better product from the start. Group Creativity Techniques are all about getting those creative juices flowing while you gather your requirements.
Mind Maps
are a good way to visualize the way your ideas relate to each other. When you’ve finished working through an idea, it sometimes helps to create a map of how you got there and show which ideas can be grouped together.
chnique, The name, DelphiOTeracle at comes from the Delphi.
the Here’s the mindmapfrom CGW team madeing session. their brainstorm
Delphi Technique
is a way of letting everyone in the group give their thoughts about what should be in the product while keeping them anonymous. When you use the Delphi Technique, everybody writes down their answers to the same questions about what the product needs to do and then hands them into a moderator. The questions could be about specific features that the product should have. When the CGW team used the Delphi Technique, here were a few of their questions:
CGW III Delphi Questionnaire ¢¢
What new levels would you like to see in the game?
¢¢
What new abilites should Bessie have?
¢¢
What should the story for CGW III be about?
e can The Delphi Techniatque the m be used to esti ll need work the team wing it to do and how lo will take too!
The moderator keeps everybody’s names to himself but shares the ideas so that everyone can learn from them and think of new ones. After everybody discusses those ideas, they’re given a chance to adjust their original answers to the questions and hand them back in to the moderator. These iterations continue a few times until the group settles on a list of requirements for the product.
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scope management
This kind of diagram is also called a KJ Diagram (or a Kawakita diagram) because they were invented by a really smart guy named Jiro Kawakita.
Affinity Diagrams are great when you have a lot of ideas and you need
to group them so you can do something with them. A lot of people make affinity diagrams using Post-it notes on walls. That way you can move the ideas around and change the groupings when you think of new areas to explore. Sometimes just putting requirements in categories will help you to find new ones.
Brainstorming is one of the most commonly used ways of collecting
requirements. Whenever you sit a group of people down to think of new ideas, you’re brainstorming.
Nominal Group Technique is a form of brainstorming where you write
down the ideas as you find them and have the group vote on which ones they like the best. You then use the votes to rank all of the ideas and separate the ones that aren’t important from the ones you want to delve into deeper.
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everyone likes a prototype
Use a questionnaire to get requirements from a bigger group of people The Cows Gone Wild development team needed to talk to the people who play their games to figure out what would make them happy in the next version. They obviously couldn’t go around to all of their customer’s houses asking questions, so they wrote a questionnaire about new possible features for the game that they sent to gamers after they registered the game. When it was time to start collecting requirements for the new version, they started with all of the data they’d gathered from those surveys and did some analysis on them to figure out which features were most important to the gaming comunity. Here’s an excerpt from their survey results: Survey Results Cows Gone Wild II Registration e Wild II three months ago. Since Gon s released Cow The Cows Gone Wild series has ,000 have been of the game. Of those sales, 350 then, we’ve sold 500,000 copies ts collection survey. onded to the CGW III requiremen registered and 100,000 have resp Here are the results: Artwork: w-up to the game? you like to see included in a follo Which new environments would Under Water Spaceship Lair Farmer Brown's Evil Supermarket Casino Albany, NY 0
20000
40000
60000
80000
Obser vation can help you see things from a different point of view Sometimes observing the people who will use your product while they work with it will give you a better idea of how to solve their problems. People don’t always know what to say when you ask them for requirements, so watching them deal with the problem your product is going to address can help you to find requirements that they might not tell you about on their own.
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scope management
A prototype shows users what your product will be like Sometimes the best way to get your stakeholders to give you an opinion on what your product should be is to show it to them in a prototype. Prototypes are models of the product that you’re going to build that let your stakeholders get a better idea of what your team is thinking. Sometimes users who are experimenting with a prototype will come up with a brand new requirement that they never thought of before. If you can get them to find it in the prototype, it’s a lot easier to deal with than if you wait until the end of the project to show to them. When you’re making a really complicated product, it can make sense to prototype it as part of the requirements collection process so that you can find changes that your users will ask for early on. Prototypes are a great tool if your project is being developed using iterative techniques. If you’re using Agile software development processes or defining requirements in phases, prototypes are a great way to keep your stakeholders involved in the project and get their feedback on changes that might be needed.
Q:
In my company, business analysts collect the requirements, not project managers. Why do I need to know all this stuff?
A:
Good point. A lot of project teams will have a Business Analyst who will work on gathering requirements for the project and writing specifications for it. As the Project Manager, though, you are responsible for making sure that the needs of all of the stakeholders are met. So it’s a good idea for you to stay on top of the requirements collection process and be an active participant in it. Some organizations even divide up the requirements-gathering activites into Project Requirements and Product Requirements. The Project Requirements would be things like staying within the budget, meeting specific deadlines, and using a certain number of resources, while Product Requirements would be about features of the product. Even if you are lucky enough to have a Business Analyst on your project to help you gather requirements, you’d better understand both the project and product requirements if you’re going to keep your project on track.
Q:
Can I just skip these requirements-gathering tools and jump straight into code? We do iterative development where I work. That means I can jump right in and plan the work as it’s happening, right?
A:
it’s going to be for you to plan out your project. Even iterative projects must plan out their requriements for each phase up front. Now, it’s true that you should be able to get through the Collect Requirements process more quickly if you’re only gathering requirements for a small phase of your project, but it doesn’t mean that you can skip requirements altogether.
Q: A:
How do I know when I’m done collecting requirements?
That’s a good question. Your requirements need to be measurable to be complete. So it’s not enough to write down that you want good performance in your product. You need to be able to tell people what measurement counts as good performance for you. You have to be able to confirm that all of your requirements are met when you close out your project, so you can’t leave requirements up to interpretation.
You know your requirements are complete when you’ve got a way to verify each of them once they’re built.
The short answer is no. The more you know up front, the easier you are here 4 171 Download at Boykma.Com
where your requirements live
Collect requirements outputs page The outputs of the collect requirements process are the Requirements Document, the Requirements Management Plan, and a Requirements Traceability Matrix so you can follow them from the document through implementation and verification.
Outputs CGW III Requirements Do
This requirement is measurable. If the end product has puzzles that involve swimming, the requirement will pass its test. If not, it will fail.
cument 1. Introduction CGW II was a huge hit. We ’ve done some market resear ch and some internal brains compiled these requirements torming and for Cows Gone Wild III: Th e Milkening which will be rele time for the holidays. ased next year in 2. Organizational Impact This product will have an imp act on many departments at Ranch Hand Games, includ Development, Marketing, Dis ing Research and tribution, Shipping, Administr atio n, Finance, and Customer 3. Functional requiremen Service. ts Name RU001 - Include Underwater levels Summary The cows will need to be abl e to move around under wa ter Rationale Underwater enivronment wa s the single biggest reques t from polled gamers. Requirement Cows will nee d to be able to swim and und erwater puzzles will need to developed that require swimm be ing. 4. Nonfunctional requirem Name
Here, you can load the levels and time it to figure out if the product meets its requirements.
Summary Rationale Requirement
ents
...
RNF001 - Performance as
good or better than CGWII The new functionality cannot slow down game play Gamers were very happy wit h the performance upgrades in CGWII. We cannot be seen as losing that improvement in the nex t version. All levels must load in under 15 seconds. All Online lev els mu st load in under 25 seconds over a cable connection at 256k
The Requirements Document needs to list all of the functional and non-functional requirements of your product. Functional requirements are most of the kinds of things that you think of right away; new features, bug fixes, new or different behavior. Non-functional requirements are sometimes called “quality attributes” because they’re things that you expect from your deliverables, but aren’t specific features. Some examples of non-functional requirements are: performance, reliablity, error handling, and ease of use. 172 Chapter 5 Download at Boykma.Com
scope management
ix
CGW III Requirements Traceability Matr
y-S1, Internal- I Origin codes: Business Case - BC, Suve irements Document Requ with rence s-refe Cros Nos: ent Requirem rence with WBS -refe cross ed, ment Work Module: Where imple of experiments n desig with ence refer cross ed, verifi Test: Where ___ ____ ____ ____ ________________ Requirements for Underwater Levels
Module 3.3.1
Test TC01-TC57
BC1
Requirement RU001 RU002
3.4.1
TC101TC350
S3
RU003
3.6.2, 3.7.1
TC2
Origin S1
This document shows where the requirements come from, where they get implemented, and how they get verified. It’s a great way to take a quick high-level look at all your requirements and make sure they’re mapped to specific test cases.
¢¢
We’ll be talking more ou t what a WBS is and how to ab bu ild one in just a few pages. ¢¢
CGW II Requirements Management The Requirements Collection Process: requirements elicitation: The following techniques will be used for 1. Questionnaires and Surveys 2. Facilitated Group Workshops 3. Delphi Technique 4. Focus Groups 5. Interviews 6. Observation allignment with CGW They will be prioritized based on strategic III’s Business Case Document. Requirements will be managed as part control once approved.
¢¢
¢¢
of integrated change ¢¢
The Requirements Management Plan tells how requirements will be gathered and analyzed.
Once the Requirements document is approved by the stakeholders, any changes to it need to be approved using Integrated Change Control.
Product scope means the features and functions of the product or service being built. Project scope means the work that’s needed to build the product. Functional Requirements are the behavior of the product. Non-Functional Requirements are implicit expectations about the product. Scope management is about figuring out all of the work that’s going to be needed for the project, and making sure only that work is done—and nothing else. The Scope Management Plan is created as part of the Project Management Plan. It defines the process you’ll use for defining scope and managing changes to it. You’ll need to know the order of processes for the exam. A good way to remember them is to understand how the output of one process is used as the input for another.
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define scope process inputs
rite down the Collect Requirements Tool or Technique that’s being used in each one of these W scenarios.
1. The team got together to come up with ideas that for the game. As they thought of them, they grouped them on different colored index cards and used thumb tacks to arrange them on a bulletin board by type.
2. Ranch Hand Games put a list of questions for people visiting the website to answer in exchange for a game promo coupon.
3. The team got together to brainstorm and periodically voted to rank requirements and separate the least important from the most important.
Answers: 1. Affinity diagram, 2. Questionairre, 3. Facilitated workshop Now that Mike’s gathered the requirements, what do you think he should do with them? How can he make sure they actually get implemented in the game?
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scope management
Define the scope of the project Now that the Ranch Hand team has a project manager, everything will go smoothly, right? Well, not exactly. Just assigning a project manager isn’t enough to get the scope under control. That’s why you need the Define Scope process. Even the best project managers need to rely on things from the company and the people around them. That’s why the inputs to Define Scope are so important. They contain everything you need to know before you can begin to break the project down into the work that the team members will do.
You’ll need this because it tells you the business needs, and who your sponsor and stakeholders are.
All of those requirements you collected are an input to Define Scope.
Just like with the scope management plan, templates and forms will help save you time.
Project Charter
Organizational Process Assets Requirements Documents
Inputs
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define scope process tools
These are the four tools & techniques of Define Scope.
How do you define the scope?
You already got a head start on defining the project scope when you wrote down the requirements. But now you need to go a lot further and write down all of the work that you and your team are going to do over the course of the project. Luckily, the Define Scope process tools and techniques are there to help guide you through creating the project scope statement (which you’ll learn about in a minute).
Facilitated workshops
You need to figure out what the stakeholders need so you can deliver it to them. We need to improve customer satisfaction.
When you do Faciliated Workshops with your stakeholders, figure out what they need, and write it all down. The reason you do this is because you need to make sure that what you’re delivering really meets the needs of the stakeholders. This keeps the team from delivering a poor product. That’s An important part of stakeholder analysis is doing your best to set quantifiable goals. That means writing down specific project goals that you can measure, which makes it a lot easier for the team to plan for the work they have to do.
a great goal, but it’s not quantifiable.
We need to reduce support calls by 15%
VS.
Product analysis Remember product vs. project scope? People naturally think about the product they are making when they start to define the scope. This tool is all about turning those things into project work that needs to be done. Once the work is complete, you’re going to have to make sure that what you’re delivering matches what you put in your requirements. The better your product analysis is at the start of the project, the happier your stakeholders will be with the product, and the less likely it is that you’ll discover painful, last-minute problems at the end. 176 Chapter 5 Download at Boykma.Com
storyboards
Everybody can shoot for that.
The game needs this…
scenery great graphics
… so Amy does this. storyboarding sessions drawing the scenery designing the graphics
scope management
Alternatives identification
Designing the graphics: alternatives
Think of other ways that you could do the work. Exploring different ways to do the work will help you find the one that is most efficient for the project. It’s always possible that you might find a better way of doing things and need to change your original plan.
A.
Hire a graphic designer
B.
Send the design work to an outside studio
C.
License artwork that already exists
Expert judgment You’ve seen this one before! Bring in an expert to help you figure out what work needs to be done.
Q:
Is product analysis the same as requirements gathering?
A:
Not exactly. When people gather requirements, they’re trying to understand what needs the product should fill. Requirements are the contents of the product. When you use product analysis to define the scope of the work to be done, you’re figuring out what deliverables the team needs to work on in order to build your scope statement. So product analysis is concerned with how the work will be done, not what’s in it.
Expert Judgment
Q:
What if there is only one way to do something? Do I still need to do alternatives identification?
A:
There aren’t too many things out there that can only be done one way, but if you happen across one, then you don’t have to spend much time on alternative identification because there aren’t any alternatives to identify.
Q:
What if a stakeholder can’t tell me how to measure his needs?
A:
That can get kind of tricky. Sometimes stakeholders know that they want things to get better, but they don’t know how to tell when they’ve succeeded. You need to work with them to find something that can be measured in their ideas about project success. Without a way to measure your success, you won’t know whether or not you are accomplishing your goals.
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the scope statement
The scope statement tells you what you have to do After you have done your scope planning, figured out as much as you could using stakeholder and product analysis, and identified all of the possible ways of doing the work, you should be ready to add any new findings to the scope statement.
Outputs
All the project objectives need to be measureable.
Even though you probably can’t fit ALL of the requirements here, there should be enough detail to let you keep on planning and refer back to it later. This means looking for all the work the project DOESN’T include.
The deliverables listed here are EVERYTHI the project creates, NG including project management stuff. Constraints are known limitations. Assumptions are things you think are true.
Cows Gone Wild III: The
Milkening
Project Scope Statement
Project Objectives: The pro ject team must release Cows Gone Wild III within the nex The project must return at t year. least a 5% revenue increase over Cows Gone Wild II. Product Scope Description: The product must contain 34 levels, 4 playable characters and must be created for bot , h Mac and PC platforms.
Project Requirements: The product must meet its schedu le so that it can be release the 14th annual gaming con d at vention in San Francisco. The product must meet establish quality standards to be con ed sidered ready to release. Project Exclusions: This project does not include a companion web site. That be done by another project will need to team. Project Deliverables: The Game Design Documents Contract
deliverables for this project Test Plan Test Reports Budget
are:
Source Code Schedule Defect Reports Change Requests Project Management Plan
Product Acceptance Criter ia: The product must not hav e an adverse impact on exi systems. All defects found sting must be judged of low eno ugh priority and severity to acceptable to all stakehold be ers. Project Constraints: Artwo Project Assumptions: The
rk from the previous games
cannot be used.
developers will not be asked
the This is the other outputtoofdo s process, and and it ha ’ll get with change control. We out the to that when we talk ab Control Scope process.
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to work on any other projec
ts.
Scope Management Plan Updates
scope management
Here are a few things that Mike left out of the CGW III scope statement. Can you figure out where each of them should go?
1. The game must have fewer than 15 defects per 10,000 lines of code. 2. There will be four graphic designers reporting to the art director, and six programmers and four testers reporting to the development manager. 3. No more than 15 people can be allocated to work on the game at any time.
A. Project objectives
B. Project deliverables
C. Project constraints D. Initial project organization
4. Scenery artwork. 5. The product shall reduce tech support calls by 15%. 6. The game needs to run on a machine with 1 GB of memory or less.
E. Project requirements
F. Product acceptance criteria Answers on page 217.
The project scope statement tells what work you are—and are not—going to do to do in the project.
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requirements versus scope
Tonight’s talk: Requirements Document and Project Scope Statement spar over what’s important in scope management
Requirements Document:
Project Scope Statement:
I’m glad we’re finally getting a chance to chat in person. Really? I never got the impression that you had much respect for me. I wouldn’t say that! It’s just that, well, I think it’s not hard to see why I’m such a critical part of scope management. Typical. Everything’s about you. Well, it ought to be. I mean, you wouldn’t even exist if it weren’t for me. How do you figure? There’s no work to do if there’s no product and without me, nobody knows what to build. So without me, really, who needs you? Now that’s just not fair. You think that just because people get together and talk about you in focus groups and brainstorming sessions, you’re something special. Without me, people would be arguing over your requirements forever. I’m the one who puts limits on all of this stuff. But they still need me to tell them what to build. I tell everybody what the product needs to be.
That’s true. And it’s no wonder that so many projects have problems. But the more you know up front, the easier it is to plan for what might happen along the way.
That may be true, but think about it for a minute. Your requirements almost always change from the time you start the project until it ends. You’re so high-maintenance. You hardly ever hear of a project where the team gets all of the requirements right from the beginning. And when you change, I have to change too. It’s so obnoxious.
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scope management
Requirements Document:
Project Scope Statement:
I guess that means that knowing the project scope up front is pretty important too, now that I think about it.
That’s exactly my point. We’re both useful, but I’m the one everyone thinks of first when they think about managing scope.
But you’re so broad. I mean, if you really want to know what’s getting done a project, you have to look at me. I represent the need the project is filling; without me it never would’ve happened in the first place.
Here we go again with your attitude. Trust me, without me, no one would know how those needs were going to be met. I’m just as important as you are.
That seems almost as important as my job to me. I guess we’re never going to see eye-to-eye on this.
ou’ll need to know the difference between defining the scope and collecting the project’s Y requirements for the exam. Which of these things is part of the Project Scope Statement, and which is part of the Requirements Document? 1. The work required to create the graphics
5. A description of how the WBS is created
c Requirements Doc c Scope Statement
c Requirements Doc c Scope Statement
2. New characters in the game
6. How the software will be tested
c Requirements Doc c Scope Statement
c Requirements Doc c Scope Statement
3. 33 new levels
7. How the stakeholders will verify the deliverables
c Requirements Doc c Scope Statement
c Requirements Doc c Scope Statement
4. The performance requirements for the product
8. A list of all artwork that will be created
c Requirements Doc c Scope Statement
c Requiremnts Doc c Scope Statement
Answers: Requirements Doc: 2, 3, 4, 8 Scope Statement: 1, 5, 6, 7 you are here 4 181 Download at Boykma.Com
Question Clinic: The “Which-is-BEST” Question When you’re taking any sort of exam, the more familiar you are with it, the more relaxed you’ll be. And one way to get familiar with the PMP exam is to get to know the different kinds of questions you’ll see. One important sort is the “Which-is-BEST” question.
The Which-is-BEST question sometimes starts with a sentence or two talking about a particular situation.
those questions This is one ofmer” is used in where “custo nsor.” place of “spo
ing r for a build e g a n a m t with the projec a meeting le u d e h c 36. You are s u m project. Yo to give the rs e ld o h contracting e k at mer and sta s of the project. At th to s u c r u o d y e progres rables nee e th v n li e o d te a in a d an up ich that cert cepted. Wh ey tell you c a th , e g b n n ti a e c e m they ged before eed? to be chan you to proc r fo y a w T o is the BES they have n t a th rs e ld e stakeho les are A. Inform th decide what deliverab authority to se it to show acceptable u d n a r e rt a ch ed the project the authoriz re a u o B. Consult y t a lders th the stakeho ager t you project man fixed so tha e b to s d e e ut what n deliverables C. Figure o team how to make the can tell the u s so that yo acceptable e g n a h c d te s nt the reque ntrol D. Docume h change co g u ro th m e can put th
n Aha! Here’s the BEST answer! Eve t, rec cor though C was technically D is a much better description of how change control actually works.
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Okay, now you ha information to anvesw enough question. What do er the when you find out you do certain deliverable that s need to change?
Some of the answers will simply be wrong. You should be able to eliminate them first. This one sounds good… That’s what the project charter is for, right? But wait a minute! What does the charter have to do with the scope of the work? seems right—you Okay, this actualthlyat. But is it really do need to do er? the BEST answ The Which-is-BEST question may have more than one good answer, but it only has one BEST answer.
The BEST answer
HEAD
LIBS
Fill in the blanks to come up with your own “Which-is-BEST” question.
You are the project manager for . At the end (an industry or the name of a project) of , you ran into a problem. You find (a Scope Management process) out that was not performed by (a tool or technique that is part of that process) correctly. Which is the BEST way for you to proceed? (the team member or person who is supposed to do that tool or technique)
A. B. C. D.
(an obviously wrong answer where the person or project manager uses the tool or technique incorrectly) (an answer that sounds correct, but isn’t the BEST answer) (the BEST answer that describes exactly how to use the process properly) (an answer that says something that’s true about an irrelevant process, like one from Chapter 4)
Join the Head First PMP community at http://www.headfirstlabs.com/PMP You can add your Head Libs answer, and see what Head Libs other project managers came up with!
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what’s in the scope statement?
Create the work breakdown structure The Create WBS process is the most important process in the Scope Management knowledge area because it’s where you actually figure out all the work you’re going to do. It’s where you create the Work Breakdown Structure (or WBS), which is the main Scope Management output. Every single thing that anyone on the project team—including you—will do is written down in the WBS somewhere.
Collect Requirements
Define Scope
The outputs from Collect Requirements and Define Scope become inputs to the Create WBS process.
Create WBS
This isn’t the only output of the Create WBS process, but it’s the most important one. We’ll take a closer look at this in a minute.
Work Breakdown Structure
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scope management
The inputs for the WBS come from other processes You’ve already seen all of the inputs that you need to create the WBS. It shouldn’t be too surprising that you need the requirements document, project scope statement, and organizational process assets before you create the WBS. When you’re developing these things, you’re learning what you need to know in order to decompose the project work.
When you’re building these, you’re doing the research and making the contacts you need to build the WBS. Project Scope Statement
Requirements Documents Organizational Process Assets
The forms and templates here will be really useful!
Inputs
Hey, I get forms and templates from my organizational process assets. So I don’t have to start my WBS from scratch?
That’s what they’re there for! On the next page, you’ll see what a WBS looks like. When you go to build one yourself for your next project, you don’t need to start from nothing. You’ll usually start with a template that you get from the organzational process asset library. you are here 4 185 Download at Boykma.Com
work breakdown structure
Breaking down the work One way to get a clear picture of all of the work that needs to be done on a project is to create a work breakdown structure. The WBS doesn’t show the order of the work packages or any dependencies between them. Its only goal is to show the work involved in creating the product.
This WBS breaks the project work down by phase; the one on the right breaks them down by deliverable.
Cows Gone Wild III
1. Project Mgmt
1.1 Initiating
2. Design
1.2 Planning
3. Construction
1.3 Executing
1.1.1 Create project charter
1.2.1 Develop
1.3.1 Direct
PM plan
work
1.1.2 Review project charter
1.2.2 Create
1.3.2 Make
scope statement
approved changes
1.2.3 Create scope baseline 1.2.4 Develop
WBS
This picture helps everybody to see the magnitude of the work that needs to be done and sometimes catches work packages that you might not find in a document.
4. Testing
This WBS only shows the Project Management tasks we have learned so far. The WBS for this whole project would show all aspects of product development.
This list is hierarchical. that is considered part Only work management and also pa of project executing can appear he rt of re.
The WBS doesn’t try to establish the order that the team will perform each work package. Work packages can be listed in any order as long as they are in the right category. For example, creating the baseline happens AFTER the WBS, even though they’re not listed here in that order.
Why would you break the project down by phase rather than deliverable? Why would you want to break it down by deliverable?
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scope management
Break it down by project or phase A WBS can be structured any way it makes the most sense to you and your project team. The two most common ways of visualizing the work are by deliverable or by phase. Breaking down the work makes it easier to manage because it means you are less likely to forget work packages that need to be These are the same included. This is the same project as the one on phases we talked the left, but this time, it’s broken down about in Chapter 3. Cows Gone by deliverable. Wild III
1. Project Mgmt
1.1 Project
2. Artwork
1.2 PM Plan
Charter
1.3 Scope Baseline
1.1.1 Create project charter
1.2.1 Develop
1.1.2 Review project charter
1.2.2 Develop
oject There are many livprerables management de in this not mentioned of the WBS, but some ready ones we have alre. covered are he
3. Source Code
PM plan
1.3.1 Collect Requirements
scope management plan
1.3.2 Create scope statement
1.2.3 Develop
1.3.3 Create
time management plan 1.2.4 Develop
WBS 1.3.4 Create
WBS Dictionary
cost management plan 1.2.5 Develop
risk management plan
4. User Docs
esn’t This WBS isn’t done—itredo ed to lat rk wo show any of the would ose Th t. uc creating the prod before this t ou need to be filled chart could be finished.
We haven’t talked t. about this one yeup next. g in But it’s com Every work package in the WBS has a unique number, usually an outline number like in your word processor . You use the number to identify eac work package and its category. h Each of these things is called a work package. It’s a unit of work that you and your team use to organize the stuff you’re going to have to do to get the project done. The work package is the lowest level on a WBS; the higher levels are used to categorize the work packages. When you roll them all up into one big WBS, you get a complete picture of everything that the team will do over the course of the project. you are here 4 187
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decomposing work packages
Decompose deliverables into work packages Creating the WBS is all about taking deliverables and coming up with work packages that will create them. When you do that, it’s called decomposition, and it’s the main tool you use to create a WBS.
Artwork and Packaging
Start with a major deliverable. Organize the project based on how you work
Then begin breaking down the project into smaller and smaller pieces.
So you need to talk to the team. Are they satisfied that you’ve given them enough detail to do the job?
This means you should begin to think about how you’re going to estimate the work packag when you’re decomposing them.es We’ll talk more about this in the next chapter.
Make sure the team has enough information about the work package to get the job done
Each work package has to be compact enough to make it easy to organize
osition, At the end of decobumpnch of you end up with aat add up work packages th erable. to the major deliv
Package Artwork Into Files
Write Story
Sketch Characters
Inspect Boxes
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Create Scenery
Get CDs, Manuals, and Cardboard Boxes Printed
scope management
You won’t find any solutions for this, because there aren’t any right or wrong answers! It’s your chance to take a minute to think things through—that’ll get it into your brain. You’ll need to understand decomposition for the exam. Here are a few deliverables from Cows Gone Wild III. Based on what you’ve seen so far, decompose them into work packages. There are no right or wrong answers—this is practice for thinking about decomposition. Software
Artwork
Marketing materials
Throwing a party for the team
Online play promotional events
Game add-ons
Support forums and message boards.
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create work breakdown structures
Project Scope Management Magnets
Understanding how to build a work breakdown structure is very important for the exam—it’s one of the most important parts of the Scope Management knowledge area. Here’s your chance to create a WBS for Cows Gone Wild III: The Milkening. There are two ways you can break down the work. See if you can use decomposition to do it! On this page, create a work breakdown structure broken down by project phase. Cows Gone Wild III: The Milkening
Project Management
Construction
Design
Testing
Write Story
Package Artwork Into Files
Create WBS
We’ve filled in a few u work packages to get yo started.
Use these magnets to fill in the blank WBS.
Create Scenery
Programming
Scope Planning
Beta-Test Video Game
Software Design
Develop Scope
Get CDs, Manuals, and Cardboard Boxes Printed
Create Schedule
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Test Software
Sketch Characters
Inspect Boxes
scope management
More Magnets
Oops! Looks like the magnets fell off the fridge. Here’s your chance to practice breaking down the work to create a different WBS using the same magnets as before. But this time, instead of decomposing project phases into work packages, break the project down by deliverable. On this page, create a work breakdown structure broken down by deliverable. Cows Gone Wild III: The Milkening
Artwork and Packaging
Project Management
Software
Write Story
Develop Scope
Software Design Sketch Characters
Package Artwork Into Files
Get CDs, Manuals, and Cardboard Boxes Printed
Beta-Test Video Game
Inspect Boxes Create WBS
Programming
Create Schedule
Scope Planning
Create Scenery
Test Software
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completed work breakdown structures
Project Scope Management Magnets Solutions You can break down the work for a project in any number of ways. Cows Gone Wild III: The Milkening
Project Management
Construction
Design
Testing
Programming
Test Software
Software Design
Package Artwork Into Files
Beta-Test Video Game
Create WBS
Sketch Characters
Get CDs, Manuals, and Cardboard Boxes Printed
Create Schedule
Create Scenery
Scope Planning
Develop Scope
Write Story
Inspect Boxes
eating cided that, say, cr de u yo if uction, ay tr ok ns ’s co It der un e ag ck pa k or w is to scenery is a portant thing hemree design. im he T . gn si de t ga no BS, not video learn about the W
an you think of a reason that Mike would break Cows Gone Wild III work down by phase? C Can you think of why he’d break it down by deliverable?
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scope management
This WBS has the same packages, but they’re brwork oken down differently. Cows Gone Wild III: The Milkening
Project Management
Scope Planning
Develop Scope
Create WBS
Create Schedule
Artwork and Packaging
Write Story
Create Scenery
Sketch Characters
Package Artwork Into Files
Software
Software Design
Programming
Test Software
Beta-Test Video Game
Get CDs, Manuals, and Cardboard Boxes Printed
Inspect Boxes
Did you notice how the project management work packages are the same in both WBSes? You could break them down into more detailed project management deliverables, and then you’d see a difference. you are here 4 193 Download at Boykma.Com
the wbs dictionary
Inside the work package You’ve probably noticed that the work breakdown structure only shows you the name of each work package. That’s not enough to do the work! You and your team need to know a lot more about the work that has to be done. That’s where the WBS Dictionary comes in handy. It brings along all of the details you need to do the project work. The WBS Dictionary is an important output of the Create WBS process—the WBS wouldn’t be nearly as useful without it.
This is one of the WBS Dictionary entries for the Cows Gone Wild III project. It goes with the “Test Software” work package in the WBS.
The WBS Dictionary contains the details of every work package. It’s a separate output of the Create WBS process.
Test Software
WBS Dictionary Entry
Each work package has a name, and in many WBSes the work packages will also have ID numbers.
me: 3.2.4 – Test Software
Work Package ID and Na Statement of Work:
This is just a description of the work that needs to be done.
Gone Wild III is to verify that the Cows ting tes re twa sof of l goa e Th uirement will be fully the requirements. Each req software implements all of engineers. tested by a team of quality QA Team on: Ranch Hand Games Responsible Organizati Schedule Milestones:
• • •
delivers software 4/26 – Programming team graphics testing completed and 6/18 – Functional testing re for beta testing 8/10 – QA approves softwa
Quality Requirements:
Ranch Hand requirements defined by the The software must meet the QA Standards.doc”) standards document (“RHG Games QA team’s quality r: RHG-236
Don’t forget that the WBS doesn’t show dependencies among work packages.
Code of Account Identifie
d Cost Estimate:
Required Resources an
• • •
,500) d and two QA analysts ($8 Test planning – One QA lea 6,000) ($3 s ter ds, 3 analysts, 11 tes Functional testing – 2 lea 0) ,00 ds, 1 analyst ($6 Monitor beta testing – 2 lea
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Here’s what the WBS entry would look like with this ID number.
3.2.4 – Test Software
Each work package should be small enough to make cost and resource estimates. *This account identifier is important—it’s how you hook your WBS into your company’s accounting system. That way you can make sure all of the work is paid for.
Here’s another chance for you Putting it down on paper helps tothethink things through. cognitive process.
scope management
It will help you on the exam to know why all of the outputs are important, and the WBS is one of the most important ones. Write down as many reasons for using a WBS as you can think of.
Q:
Does the work breakdown structure need to be graphical? It looks like a lot of work. Can’t I just write out a list of tasks?
A:
Yes, the WBS has to be graphical. The WBS needs to show all of the work packages, and how they decompose into phases or deliverables. When you look at a simple WBS, it might seem like you could manage your work packages just as efficiently using a simple list. But what if you have a large team with dozens, hundreds or even thousands of work packages? That’s when you’ll be really happy that you know how to decompose deliverables into a hierarchy.
Q:
What if one work package depends on another one?
A:
There are definitely dependencies among work packages. For example, the Ranch Hand QA team can’t begin to test the software until the programming team has finished building it. But while this information is important, the WBS isn’t where you figure out the dependencies.
The reason is that you need to figure out what work needs to be done before you start to figure out how the work packages depend on each other.
Q:
What if I don’t know enough to estimate the cost of a work package? What do I add to the WBS Dictionary?
A:
The WBS Dictionary should only contain information that you can fill in when you create it. A lot of the time, you’ll know all of the information that needs to go into it. If you have an estimate and know the resources that should be used, then put it in. But if all you have is a statement of work and an account code, then that’s all the information you’ll be able to add to the entry.
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scope baseline
The baseline is a snapshot of the plan As the project goes on, you will want to compare how you are doing to what you planned for. So, the scope baseline is there to compare against. It’s made up of the scope statement, the WBS, and the WBS Dictionary. When work gets added to the scope through change control, you need to change the baseline to include the new work packages for that work, so you can always track yourself against the plan.
The scope baseline is a snapshot of the plan, and it’s an important output of Create WBS.
The plan
WBS Dictionary
Project Scope Statement
Project Scope Statement
So, if someone wants to add or remove work packages, that’s a change?
Putting together a baseline just means making copies of your project documents so you can compare them with later versions after you put your project through change control.
Yes. When there’s a change you need to take a new snapshot. Whenever a change is approved through change control, the baseline needs to be updated. Approved changes are changes to the scope management plan also, so it’s important that you re-baseline your project when they are approved. That way, you’ll always be comparing your performance to the most updated plan.
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scope management
Q:
A:
Let’s say you said it would take you 12 months to build Cows Gone Wild III, and a wrong technical decision creates a two-week delay. You can use the baseline to figure out the impact of that change to all of the different plans you have made, and then explain to everybody the impact of the change.
It could be that the initial technical design is inadequate or buggy. Or maybe you just think of a better way to do things while you’re working. In either case, you have to determine the impact to the schedule, the budget, the scope, and the quality of the product and put the proposed change through change control. That’s what it means to look at the project constraints every time there’s a change.
You can think of the baseline as a way of keeping track of the project team’s understanding of their goals and how they are going to meet them. If the goals change, then the understanding of them needs to change too. By telling everyone who needs to approve the two-week delay about it, you make sure that the goals change for the team as well. Then you change the baseline, so you can measure your team against the new deadline of 12 and a half months.
What happens if I need to change the scope?
You need to put it through change control – just like a change to the product scope. As you’re building the product, it’s always possible that some work will pop up in an unexpected place.
Once everyone understands the impact and approves the change, you need to go back and adjust your scope baseline to include the new work. If your budget or schedule are affected, you’ll need to change those baselines too and integrate all of them into the project management plan. But we’ll talk more about that in later chapters.
Q:
Do I really need to create a baseline?
A:
Yes. It might seem like a formality in the beginning, but the baseline is a really useful tool. As you are building your project, you will need to refer back to the baseline if you want to know how you are tracking against stakeholders’ expectations.
Q:
Wait a minute. Doesn’t that mean I need to do change control and update the baseline every time I make any change to the document while I’m writing it? That’s going to make it really hard to write the first version of anything!
A:
Don’t worry, you don’t have to go through change control until the scope baseline is approved. And that goes for ANY document or deliverable. Once it’s accepted and approved by all of the stakeholders, only then do the changes need to go through change control. Until it’s approved, you can make any changes you want. That’s the whole reason for change control—to make sure that once a deliverable is approved, you
run all of the changes by a change control board to make sure that they don’t cause an unacceptable impact to the schedule, scope, cost, or quality.
Q:
front?
How can you know all of this up
A:
You can’t. Even the best planned projects have a few surprises. That’s why the scope planning cycle is iterative. As you find out something new about your scope of work, you put it through change control. When it’s approved, you need to add it to your scope management plan, your scope statement, your WBS, and your WBS Dictionary.
It’s also possible that you might find new things that the team should do when you’re making your WBS or your scope statement. So all of the scope planning documents are closely linked and need to be kept in sync with one another.
Q:
What if I come up with new work for the team later on?
A:
You use change control to update the scope baseline. Your project can change at any time, but before you make a change you need to figure out how it will affect the project constraints—and make sure your sponsors and stakeholders are okay with that impact. That’s what change control does for you.
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create wbs outputs
The outputs of the Create WBS process The Create WBS process has three major outputs: the Work Breakdown Structure, the WBS Dictionary, and the Scope Baseline. But there are others as well. When you create the WBS, you usually figure out that there are pieces of the scope that you missed, and you may realize that you need to change your plan. That’s what the project document updates are for.
This means changes to the project management plan and other project documents.
We’ve already seen the most important ones .
Outputs
Work Breakdown Structure
Scope Baseline
When you’re creating th e WBS, you often disc ov er missing pieces of the sc ope. You’ll need to go back an plan for them. That kic d off the planning cycle ks again.
Project document updates WBS Dictionary
Make sure you finalize the WBS Before your WBS is done, you need to finalize it. You do this by establishing a set of control accounts for the work packages. A control account is a tool that your company’s management and accountants use to track the individual work packages. For example, Mike gets a list of control accounts from Ranch Hand Games’ accounting department, so they know how to categorize the work for tax purposes.
: AIMING FOR THE EXAM ¢¢
¢¢
¢¢
The Create WBS process is a really important process on the PMP exam.
¢¢
The WBS is created by decomposing large work products into work packages.
¢¢
To finalize the WBS, control accounts are established for the work packages.
The WBS Dictionary is a description of each work package listed in the WBS. The inputs to WBS creation are the outputs to the Define Scope and Collect Requirements processes: the Requirements Document, and the Project Scope Statement.
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¢¢
As you decompose the work, you find new information that needs to be added to the Requirements Document and the Project Scope Statement. That information is treated as a change and goes through change control. Once it’s approved, it can be added into the document, and that kicks off the planning cycle again.
scope management
Q:
How do I know if I should use phases or deliverables for my WBS?
Q:
How do I know when I have decomposed the work to a small enough work package?
A:
A:
If people do it different ways from project to project where you work, then you might make your decision based on how people think about the work you are about to do.
You need to be careful when you come up with the work packages for your WBS. If you decompose to the most granular level, you could end up wasting everybody’s time trying to figure out exactly how much effort goes into, say, “writing up meeting minutes” for each and every meeting in your project.
It really depends on the project. You want to present the information so that it allows the management in your organization the ability to visualize and control your project. So, if most people in your organization divide it by phases, then you should, too.
The short answer is that you should decompose that work until it is manageable.
The point behind the WBS is to help other people see the work that is necessary to get the project done, so if your management thinks of projects in terms of phases and understands them best that way, then it’s better to divide your project work along those lines.
So, you should break down the work to small enough packages that everybody can understand what’s being done and describe it in the dictionary… and no further.
It could be that the work you are doing is anxiously awaited by a lot of people who will look at the WBS to understand the project, and, in that case, it probably makes sense to divide your work up by deliverable.
I know how to make scope changes during planning. What do I do if I run into scope changes during execution?
We’ve planned the scope and we’ve broken down the work for Cows Gone Wild III. Now we’re ready to begin the project!
Q:
A:
Any time you run into a change to your scope, regardless of where you are in the process, you put it through change control. Only after examining the impact and having the change approved can you incorporate the change.
Q:
Can you back up a minute and go over the difference between the Scope Management Plan and the Project Management Plan one more time?
A:
Remember how the Project Management Plan was divided into subsidiary plans? The Project Management Plan tells you how manage all of the different knowledge areas, and it has baselines for the scope, schedule and budget.
The Scope Management Plan is one of those subsidiary plans. It has really specific procedures for managing scope. For example, Mike’s Scope Management Plan tells him which stakeholders he needs to talk to when he’s gathering requirements. It lists what tools and techniques he’s planning to use when he uses Scope Definition to define the scope (for example, it says that he needs to consult with specific experts when he does alternatives analysis). And when there’s an inevitable change—because even the best project manager can’t prevent every change!—it gives him procedures for doing Scope Management. So even though the Scope Management Plan is created in the Develop Project Management Plan process, it’s used throughout all of the Scope Management processes. So definintely expect questions about it on the exam! you are here 4 199 Download at Boykma.Com
the artwork change
Cubicle conversation Everything is great. The project is rolling along, and there are no problems with the scope… until something goes wrong.
Something’s not right with the artwork…
Brian: At first I thought we could use the same five backgrounds over and over, but it’s starting to look really stale. Amy: Huh, I guess you’re right. It looks like we need to create more scenery. Mike: Why were we trying to limit the backgrounds in the first place? Amy: I think they were worried about disk space. Brian: Yeah, but that’s not so much a concern right now. Amy: Great! Let’s just change the artwork, then. Mike: Not so fast, Amy. There are a couple of things we need to do first...
What homework do you need to do before you make a change to the scope by adding or removing project work? Why?
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This is work thatfor, was not planned WBS. and isn’t in the That means it’s a scope change.
scope management
Why scope changes Sometimes something completely unexpected happens. Say, a really important customer asks for a new feature that nobody saw coming and demands it right away. Or, a design for a feature just isn’t working, and you need to rethink it. Or, new stakeholders come on board and ask for changes. The scope can change while you are working for a lot of reasons. Some changes are good for your project, while others will definitely reduce your chance of success. Change control is there to help you to see which is which.
Good change A good change makes the product better with very little downside. It doesn’t cost more time in the schedule or more money from the budget, and it doesn’t destabilize the product or otherwise threaten its quality.
Good changes happen pretty rarely and nearly EVERY t change has some impact tha ore should be fully explored bef you go forward.
Bad change A bad change is one that might seem from the outside like a good idea but ends up making an impact on the project constraints. Here are a couple of examples:
Scope Creep
The way to avoid scope creep is to plan your changes completely.
This happens when you think you know the impact of a change so you go ahead, but it turns out that that change leads to another one, and since you are already making the first change, you go with the next. Then another change comes up, and another, and another, until it’s hard to tell what the scope of the project is.
Gold plating Sometimes people think of a really great improvement to the product and go ahead and make it without even checking the impact. In software, this can happen pretty easily. A programmer thinks of a way to make a feature better, for example, and just implements it, without talking it over with anybody. This may sound good, but it’s not—because now you have to pay for these features you never asked for.
Be on the lookout for p and examples of scope creeam. gold plating on the exvery bad Both are considered ne. and should never be do
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gold plating or scope creep
ere’s the WBS that you created for the Cows Gone Wild III project, and below that are some H changes that the team has asked Mike to make since the work started. All of them are bad changes. Check either scope creep or gold plating for each one.
1. W e need to create a screensaver to market the game. Let’s kill two birds with one stone and test out a brand new graphics engine on it. Oh, and we’ll need a story for the screensaver, so we should write that too. Of course we have to recruit some killer voice talent for the screensaver. Memorable names sell more games.
c Scope Creep c Gold Plating 2. Testing the most recent build, I just noticed that if the player presses x–x–z–a–Shift–Shift–Space in that order, Bessie does the Charleston—it’s really funny.
c Scope Creep c Gold Plating
3. We should add a calculator for tracking gallons of milk collected in the game. It will be really easy. We could even release the calculator as a separate add-in, and we could probably make it full‑featured enough for the folks developing the game down the hall to use it too.
c Scope Creep c Gold Plating 4. The printer just told us that she could also do silk screen T-shirts for everybody as a ship gift. Let’s get our design team to do some special artwork for them. We can have everybody’s names written in cows!!! Then we could use the same artwork on posters that we put around the office—oh, and coffee mugs for new people, too
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scope management
The Control Scope process There’s no way to predict every possible piece of work that you and your team are going to do in the project. Somewhere along the way, you or someone else will realize that a change needs to happen, and that change will affect the scope baseline. That’s why you need the Control Scope process. It’s how you make sure that you make only those changes to the scope that you need to make, and that everyone is clear on what the consequences of those changes are.
You’ll also use s Organizational Procesre . Assets as an input he
Inputs Project Management Plan Requirements Documents
Work Performance
Traceability Matrix
This came straight out of the Direct & Manage Project Execution process from the last chapter. It tells you how well the team’s been doing the job.
Control Scope Process
Variance Analysis
We’ll take a closer look at this tool in a minute.
There’s only one tool in the Control Scope process: Variance Analysis. This is where you constantly compare the information that you’re gathering about the way the project’s going to your scope baseline.
Outputs
These updates are how you react to necessary scope changes that are approved through change control. Work Performance Measurements
Updates to Organizational Process Assets
Project Document Updates
Updates to the Project Management Plan
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how to make a scope change
Anatomy of a change Let’s take a closer look at what happens when you need to make a change. You can’t just go and change the project whenever you want—the whole reason that you have a baseline is so you can always know what work the team is supposed to do. If you make changes, then you need to change the baseline... which means you need to make sure that the change is really necessary. Luckily, you have some powerful tools to help you manage changes: 1
2
A change is needed
Every change starts the same way. Someone realizes that if the project sticks with the plan, then the outcome will lead to problems. I know we’re under pressure to get the game out the door, but we need to make a change. We only planned on making four meadows on level 3 and reusing them for level 6, but it’s just not working for us. We’ve got to change this if we want the game to sell.
Create a change request
Before a change can be made, it needs to be approved. That means that it needs to be documented as a requested change. The only way to get a handle on a change is to write it down and make sure everyone understands it. We’ll write up a change request, and then put it through Integrated Change Control to get it approved.
A change can come fr an ywhere – the project manager,oma te member, even a stakeholder!am
3
Get the change approved
Remember Integrated Change Control from the last chapter? That’s the process where the project manager takes a requested change and works with the sponsor and stakeholders to get approval to put it in place.
Requested Change
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Think of Integrated Change Co kind of machine that converts ntrol as a changes into approved changes. requested
Integrated Change Control Approved Change Request
scope management
4
Do variance analysis
Take a look at the baseline and see how the change will affect it. This is where you decide whether you need to take some sort of corrective action. You compare the scope baseline against the change that you want to make, and figure out just how big the change really is.
You’re weighing the change against the baseline to see if it’s going to require a big change to your plan.
5
Replan the work
Now it’s time to go back to the scope documentation and update it to reflect the change.
Updates
Project Scope Statement
Project Management Plan 6
Create a new baseline
Now that you’ve figured out that you need to change the scope, it’s time to update the baseline. Go back to the scope statement, WBS, and WBS Dictionary, and update them so that they reflect the change that needs to be made.
Work Breakdown Structure
Work Breakdown Structure
Don’t forget to update the WBS Dictionary, too. The change is done!
Now you can move on with the project using the new baseline that you saved and distributed to the team.
This will come in handy when you go back to put together the lessons learned!
Project Scope Statement
Project Management Plan
Project Management Information System you are here 4 205 Download at Boykma.Com
manage your changes
A closer look at the Change Control System One of the most important tools in any Monitoring & Controlling process is the Change Control System. Let’s take a closer look at how it works. Since the folks at Ranch Hand need a change to add more scenery to Cows Gone Wild III, Mike takes a look at the scope management plan to understand the impact before forwarding it to the change control board. Once they approve the change, he updates the project management plan, checks it into the configuration management system, and changes the WBS and WBS Dictionary to include the new work packages.
“We need more scenery”
Scope Management Plan
The first step is to check the scope management plan to figure out how to handle the change. Once the change is approved, you need to update all of the relevant plans and baselines to include the changed work.
“We need to add more scenery” Change Request
Approval
Project Management Plan
WBS Dictionary
Change Control Board
e The PMIS is where thme nt ge na configuration ma d ge an ch system is, so the plans go here.
Make the Change! Project Management Information System
Work Breakdown Structure
Remember this from the last chapter? It’s exactly the same change control system tool that we already learned about.
Since the change has been approved it’s time to update the WBS and WBS Dictionary.
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scope management
Just one Control Scope tool/technique There’s just one tool/technique in the Control Scope process. It’s pretty intuitive: just take a minute and think of what you would need to do if you had to make a change to your project’s scope. You’d need to figure out how big the change is, and what needs to change. And when you do that, it’s called variance analysis.
Variance Analysis This means comparing the data that can be collected about the work being done to the scope baseline. When there is a difference between the two, that’s variance. This tool of Control Scope is all about analyzing the difference between the baseline and the actual work to figure out if the plan needs to be corrected. If so, then you recommend a corrective action and put that recommendation through change control.
The goal of Control Scope is updating the scope, plan, baseline, and WBS info.
There’s no “right order” for the Control Scope and Scope Verification processes If you’ve got a copy of the PMBOK® Guide handy, take a look at how it presents the Scope Management processes. Did you notice how the section on the Verify Scope process comes before Control Scope? We’re putting these processes in this book in a different order, and it’s the only time we deviate from the order of the PMBOK® Guide. That’s not because the PMBOK® Guide is wrong! We could do this because there is no “right” order: Control Scope can happen at any time, because project changes can happen at any time. Verify Scope (the next process you’ll learn about) is usually the last Scope Management process that you’ll do in a project. The trick is that sometimes you’ll find a scope problem while you’re verifying the scope, and you’ll need to do Control Scope and then go back and gather new requirements, rebuild the WBS, etc. So the Control Scope process can happen either before or after Verify Scope. So why did we change the order? Because thinking about how the two processes relate to each other will help you remember this for the exam!
A lot of things can happen along the way during a project, especially when you have a lot of changes. What happens if the deliverables you and the team build don’t quite match up to what your stakeholders expect?
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what’s control scope about?
Q:
Is Control Scope always about work and project scope? Can it ever be about deliverables and product scope?
A:
No. The Control Scope process is always about the work that the team does, because the whole Scope Management knowledge area is about the project scope, not the product scope. In other words, as a project manager, you manage the work that the team is doing, not the things that they’re making. Now, that doesn’t mean you should never pay attention to deliverables. You still need to pay attention to the scope of the product, too, since the two are pretty closely related. For example, in the CGW III project, anytime somebody wants to add a new feature to the game, a programmer will need to program it, an artist will need to make new artwork, and a tester will have to test it. Any time you make changes to the project scope, it affects the product scope, and vice versa.
Q:
What if a change is really small? Do I still have to go through all of this?
A:
Yes. Sometimes what seems like a really small change to the scope—like just adding one tiny work package—turns out to be really complex when you take a closer look at it. It could have a whole lot of dependencies, or cause a lot of trouble in other work packages. If you don’t give it careful consideration, you could find yourself watching your scope creep out of control. Each and every change needs to be evaluated in terms of impact. If there is any impact to the project constraints—time, cost, scope, quality, resources, or risk—you HAVE to put it through change control.
Q:
How can you do variance analysis without knowing all of the changes that are going to happen?
A:
You do variance analysis as an ongoing thing. As information comes in about your project, you constantly compare it to how you planned. If you’re running a month behind, that’s a good indication that there are some work packages that took longer than your team estimated—or that you missed a few altogether. Either way, you need to take corrective action if you hope to meet your project objectives.
Waiting until all possible changes are known will be too late for you to actually meet your goals. So you need to constantly check your actuals versus your baseline and correct where necessary (after putting your recommended actions through change control, of course!).
Q:
I thought the Configuration Management System was part of the Project Management Information System from the Integration chapter. What does that have to do with change control?
A:
When you write and modify documents throughout your project, you need to make sure that everybody is working with the same version of them. So you check them into a Configuration Management System, and that way everybody always knows where to go for the latest version.
Since you are checking all of your documents in, that’s where you will keep your work performance information also. The most recent version of the schedule, any reports you have gathered on defects, and individual work performance should all be there. So, when you want to figure out what’s going on in your project, you look there first. It follows that you would modify your documents and check them back into the CMS after any change has been approved too.
Every scope change goes through the Control Scope process.
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scope management
Control Scope Process Magnets
Whenever you make a scope change, you need to go through all of the steps of change control. So what are those steps? Arrange the magnets to show the order that you handle changes to the scope. 1.
5.
2.
6.
3.
7.
4.
8.
Compare the change against the baseline
Store the update d baseline in the configurat ion management system
You figure out to that you have make a change
can Now the team y wa e change th work they do the
Create a change req uest Go back and plan for the Update the new work baseline
We put the finishing touches on the artwork…
Get approval to make the change
Good work!
… and construction and testing are done.
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how change control works
Control Scope Process Magnets Solutions Arrange all of the activities you do to control scope in the right order.
1.
2.
3.
4.
You figure out to that you have make a change
Create a change req uest
Get approval to make the change
Compare the change against the baseline
5.
Go back and plan for the new work
6.
Update the baseline
7.
Store the update d baseline in the configurat ion management system
8.
can Now the team y wa change the work they do the
The whole idea behind change con you start by figuring out that a trol is that to be made, you make sure the chachange needs worth making, and then you updatenge is really baseline so you can keep track of your it.
Scope Remember, Contrgeols to the an is all about ch scope baseline.
Hold on, it seems like we keep going around in circles with all of these changes. How do I know when the project is done?
Ask the stakeholders. You need to go back to the stakeholders and get formal acceptance. That’s what the Scope Verification process is for, and it’s coming up next.
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scope management
Make sure the team delivered the right product When the team is done, what happens? You still have one more thing you need to do before you can declare victory. You need to gather all the stakeholders together and have them make sure that all the work really was done. We call that the Verify Scope process.
Inputs Requirements Documents
Traceability Matrix
Deliverables
Verify Scope Process
Project Management Plan
These are validated deliverables, which means they’ve been through Perform Quality Control. You’ll learn about that in Chapter 8.
There’s only one tool in the Verify Scope process: inspection. This is where the stakeholders actually look closely at the what the team did and make sure that every single piece of work was completed.
Outputs
If the team did the work right, then the stakeholders will formally accept the deliverables (which means they do it in writing).
Accepted Deliverables
Change Requests
Project Document Updates
If they DON’T think that all the work was done, then you’ll need to make some changes. Back to change control!
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verifying the scope
The stakeholders decide when the project is done As you deliver the stuff in your scope statement, you need to make sure that each of the deliverables has everything in it that you listed in the scope statement. You inspect all of your deliverables versus the scope statement, the WBS, and the Scope Management Plan. If your deliverables have everything in those documents, then they should be acceptable to stakeholders. When all of the deliverables in the scope are done to their satisfaction, then you’re done.
… against these check this…
using this
Requirements Documents
Why do you think you need the Requirements and the traceability matrix to verify your scope?
Inspect the deliv that each of theeracables and confirm in the scope statem ceptance criteria ent is met.
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scope management
Is the project ready to go? Once the deliverables are ready for prime time, you inspect them with the stakeholders to make sure that they meet acceptance criteria. The purpose of Scope Verification is to obtain formal, written acceptance of the work products. If they are found to be unsatisfactory, the specific changes requested by the stakeholders get sent to change control so that the right changes can be made.
If the deliverables are not acceptable, the project goes back to change control.
No
EVERY deliverable should be inspected, including all project management documents and everything produced by the team.
Yes
Change control
Change Requests
Inspection just means sittin wn with the stakeholders and lookingg do at deliverable to see if it’s accept each able.
Ship it
Project Docuement Updates
Here’s a list of what wasn’t acceptable about the product. Once these are addressed, we should be all set.
YAY!
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Untitled Puzzle
H H
scope crossword
1
2
3
Scopecross
4
5
Take some time to sit back and give your right brain something to do. It’s your standard crossword; all of the solution words are from this chapter.
6
7
8
10
9
11
12
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Across 2. Bob used an _______ Diagram to get a handle on all of the ideas he collected from stakeholders.
Across 4. The details of every work package in the WBS are 2. Bob used_____________. an _______ Diagram to stored in the WBS
Down
Answers on page 218.
Downon get a handle 1. A JAD session is an example of a ____ all of the ideas he collected from stakeholders 1. A JAD session Workshop is an example of a _________ Workshop. 5. The process where you the project 4. The details of write every work scope package in the WBS are 3. Looking closely at the product to see if 3. Looking closelycompleted at the product to you completed statement called Scope. storedis in the___________ WBS _____________ allseeofif the work. all of the work. 5. Theoutprocess whereis you write the project scope 4. When you're making a WBS, you can b 7. Figuring how big a change by comparing it to the statement is called ___________ Scope worka down bycanphase orwork ____________ 4. When you’re making WBS, you break the down by baseline is called ____________ analysis. 7. Figuring out how big a change is by comparing it 6. A version of the Scope Management Pl phase or ____________. 8. When oncbaseline change leads another ____________ and another and to the istocalled analysis. Breakdown Structure, and Product Scope 6. A version of thewill Scope Management Plan,project Work Breakdown another, it’s called scope _____________. 8. When onc change leads to another and another compare your to is called the s Structure, and Product Scope that you will compare your project and another, it's called scope ____________ 10. Getting work packages out of deliverables. to is called the scope ____________. 10. Getting work packages out of deliverables. 9. ____________ scope means the featur 12.12. Exploring all of the ways that you can do the work Exploring all of the ways that you can do 9.the functions of the thing or service ____________ scope means the features or functions of the that you a so work that youso canthat find the bestcan way to do the work in your you find the best way to do thing the or work 11. A good way to gather requirements is service that you are building. project is called ______________ identification. in your project is called ______________ _________ how the people who will use y 11. A good way todeliverables gather requirements is to _________ how the perform their jobs 13.identification A quantified and documented need or expectation of a people who will use your deliverables perform their jobs 13. Acustomer quantified documented need or sponsor, or otherand stakeholder. expectation of a sponsor, customer or other stakeholder 214 Chapter 5
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scope management
The project is ready to ship! There were a few unexpected changes to the scope along the way. But, for the most part, everything went according to plan. The stakeholders and the CEO got together with the team and went through everything they did—and it’s ready to go. Great job, guys!
We verified the scope and we’re ready to roll.
There were a couple of bumps in the road along the way, but this was WAY better than last time.
Wow! I can’t believe we got it out the door so fast.
The team fin Gone Wild III. ally finished Cows CEO—and thenPizza’s on the cracking on CG it’s time to get W IV!
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exercise solutions
Here are some attributes of Cows Gone Wild III. Which are project scope and which are product scope?
2. 34 levels in the game
1. Programming
c Project Scope
c Product Scope
3. Graphic design
c Project Scope
c Product Scope
c Project Scope
c Product Scope
6. Testing
c Project Scope
c Product Scope
7. Mac and PC compatible
c Product Scope
4. Four playable characters
5. Great graphics
c Project Scope
c Project Scope
c Project Scope
c Product Scope
8. A “boss battle” milk fight level at the end
c Product Scope
c Project Scope
c Product Scope
This will help you on the exam. Knowing that one process’s output is another’s input makes it a lot easier to remember the order of the processes. hese two inputs were outputs from processes in the Initiating Process Group. Write down which T process created each of them.
1. Project Charter: 2. Stakeholder Register
Develop Project Charter Identify Stakeholders
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scope management
Here are a few things that Mike left out of the CGWIII scope statement. Can you figure out where each of them should go?
1. The game must have fewer than 15 defects per 10,000 lines of code. 2. There will be four graphic designers reporting to the art director, and six programmers and four testers reporting to the development manager. 3. No more than 15 people can be allocated to work on the game at any time.
A. Project objectives
B. Project deliverables
C. Project constraints D. Initial project organization
4. Scenery artwork 5. The product shall reduce tech support calls by 15%. 6. The game needs to run on a machine with 1 GB of memory or less.
E. Project requirements
F. Product acceptance criteria
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Across
exercise solutions
Scopecross Take some time to sit back and give your right brain something to do. It’s your standard crossword; all of the solution words are from this chapter.
Untitled Puzzle
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. Bob used an _______ Diagram to get a handle on 1. A JAD session is an example of a _________ l of the ideas he collected from stakeholders Workshop [facilitated] affinity] 3. Looking closely at the product to see if you . The details of every work package in the WBS are completed all of the work. [inspection] ored in the WBS _____________ [dictionary] 4. When you're making a WBS, you can break the . The process where you write the project scope work down by phase or ____________ [deliverable] atement is called ___________ Scope [Define] 6. A version of the Scope Management Plan, Work . Figuring out how big a change is by comparing it Breakdown Structure, and Product Scope that you 218 Chapter____________ 5 o the baseline is called analysis. will compare your project to is called the scope ariance] ____________ [baseline] Download at Boykma.Com . When onc change leads to another and another 9. ____________ scope means the features or
scope management
Exam Questions 1. Which of the following is TRUE about a work breakdown structure? A. B. C. D.
It contains work packages that are described in a linear, unstructured list Each item in the WBS represents a feature in the product scope The WBS represents all of the work that must be done on the project The WBS is created by the product sponsor and stakeholders
2. Which is NOT an output of a scope management process? A. B. C. D.
Business Case WBS Dictionary Requested changes Accepted deliverables
3. Which of the following is NOT TRUE about a work breakdown structure? A. B. C. D.
It describes processes to define the scope, verify work, and manage scope changes It contains a graphical, hierarchical list of all work to be performed It can be broken down by project phase or deliverable It is an important element of the scope baseline
4. What is the correct order of the scope management processes? A. B. C. D.
Define Scope, Create WBS, Collect Requirements, Scope Verification Collect Requirements, Control Scope, Create WBS, Scope Verification Collect Requirements, Define Scope, Create WBS, Scope Verification Collect Requirements, Scope Baseline, Define Scope, Control Scope
5. You are managing a software project. Your team has been working for eight weeks, and so far the project is on track. The lead programmer comes to you with a problem: there is a work package that is causing trouble. Nobody seems to know who is responsible for it, the accounting department does not know what cost center to bill it against, and it’s not even clear exactly what work should be performed. Which of the following would BEST help this situation? A. B. C. D.
Alternatives Analysis WBS Dictionary Scope Management Plan Scope Verification
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exam questions
Exam Questions 6. The goal of Verify Scope is: A. B. C. D.
To inspect the scope statement for defects so that it is correct To gain formal acceptance of the project deliverables from the sponsor and stakeholders To get everyone in the project working together towards a common goal To verify that all PMBOK® Guide processes are complied with
7. Historical information and lessons learned are part of: A. B. C. D.
Organizational process assets Enterprise environmental factors Project management information system (PMIS) Work performance information
8. You’ve taken over as a project manager on a highway construction project, and the execution is already underway. Your sponsor tells you that moving forward, all asphalt should be laid down with a 12” thickness. The scope statement and the WBS call for 9” thick asphalt. What is the BEST course of action? A. B. C. D.
Look for a cheaper supplier so the cost impact is minimized Tell the sponsor that the work is already underway, so you can’t accommodate his request Refuse to alter the plans until the change control system has been used Tell the team to accommodate the request immediately
9. Which of the following BEST describes the purpose of a traceability matrix? A. It describes how WBS Dictionary entries are traced to work packages, and how work packages are decomposed from deliverables B. It’s used to make sure that all of the sub-plans of the Project Management Plan have been created C. It helps you understand the source of each requirement, and how that requirement was verified in a later deliverable D. It’s used to trace the source of every change, so that you can keep track of them through the entire Control Scope process and verify that the change was properly implemented 10. It’s the end of execution for a large highway construction project. The work has been done, and the workers are ready to pack up their equipment. The project manager and project sponsor have come by with specialists to check that each requirement has been met, and that all of the work in the WBS has been performed. What process is being done? A. B. C. D.
Control Scope Verify Scope Scope Testing Define Scope
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scope management
Exam Questions 11. You have just been put in charge of a project that is already executing. While reviewing the project documentation, you discover that there is no WBS. You check the Scope Management Plan and discover that there should be one for this project. What is the BEST thing for you to do: A. B. C. D.
Immediately alert the sponsor and make sure the project work doesn’t stop Stop project work and create the WBS, and don’t let work continue until it’s created Make sure you closely manage communications to ensure the team doesn’t miss any undocumented work Mark it down in the lessons learned so it doesn’t happen on future projects
12. A project manager on an industrial design project finds that the sponsor wants to make a change to the scope after it has been added to the baseline, and needs to know the procedure for managing changes. What is the BEST place to look for this information? A. B. C. D.
WBS Scope management plan Change request form template Business Case
13. You have just started work on the Project Scope Statement. You are analyzing the expected deliverables, when you discover that one of them could be delivered in three different ways. You select the best method for creating that deliverable. What is the BEST way to describe what you are doing? A. B. C. D.
Alternatives Analysis Decomposition Define Scope Stakeholder Analysis
14. You’re the project manager on a software project. Your team has only completed half of the work, when the sponsor informs you that the project has been terminated. What is the BEST action for you to take? A. B. C. D.
Verify the deliverables produced by the team against the scope, and document any place they do not match Call a team meeting to figure out how to spend the rest of the budget Work with the sponsor to see if there is any way to bring the project back Tell the team to stop working immediately
15. You are managing an industrial design project. One of your team members comes to you with a suggestion that will let you do more work while at the same time saving the project 15% of the budget. What is the BEST way for you to proceed? A. B. C. D.
Tell the team to make the change because it will deliver more work for less money Refuse to make the change until a change request is documented and change control is performed Refuse to consider the change because it will affect the baseline Do a cost-benefit analysis and then make sure to inform the sponsor that the project scope changed
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exam questions
Exam Questions
16. You are the project manager for a telecommunications project. You are working on the project scope statement. Which of the following is NOT included in this document? A. B. C. D.
Authorization for the project manager to work on the project Requirements that the deliverables must meet A description of the project objectives The list of deliverables that must be created
17. Which of the following is NOT an input to Control Scope? A. B. C. D.
WBS Dictionary Approved change requests Requested changes Project scope statement
18. Which of these processes is not a part of Scope Management? A. B. C. D.
Scope Identification Collect Requirements Control Scope Scope Verification
19. You are the project manager for a new project, and you want to save time creating the WBS. Which is the BEST way to do this? A. B. C. D.
Make decomposition go faster by cutting down the number of deliverables Use a WBS from a previous project as a template Don’t create the WBS Dictionary Ask the sponsor to provide the work packages for each deliverable
20. The project manager for a design project is using the Define Scope process. Which BEST describes this? A. B. C. D.
Creating a document that lists all of the features of the product Creating a plan for managing changes to the scope baseline Creating a document that describes all of the work the team does to make the deliverables Creating a graphical representation of how the phases or deliverables decompose into work packages
21. You are the project manager for a construction project. You have completed project initiation activities, and you are now creating a document that describes processes to document the scope, decompose deliverables into work packages, verify that all work is complete, and manage changes to the baseline. What process are you performing? A. B. C. D.
Develop Project Management Plan Define Scope Create WBS Develop Project Charter
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scope management
Exam Questions 22. You are a project manager working on a project. Your sponsor wants to know who a certain work package is assigned to, what control account to bill it against, and what work is involved. What document do you refer her to? A. B. C. D.
Scope Management Plan WBS WBS Dictionary Scope Statement
24. You are the project manager for a software project. One of the teams discovers that if they deviate from the plan, they can actually skip one of the deliverables because it’s no longer necessary. They do the calculations, and realize they can save the customer 10% of the cost of the project without compromising the features in the product. They take this approach, and inform you the following week what they did during the status meeting. What is the BEST way to describe this situation? A. B. C. D.
The project team has taken initiative and saved the customer money A dispute is resolved in favor of the customer The team informed the project manager of the change, but they should have informed the customer too The team did not follow the Control Scope process
25. Which of the following BEST describes the purpose of the project scope statement? A. B. C. D.
It describes the features of the product of the project It is created before the scope management plan It decomposes deliverables into work packages It describes the objectives, requirements, and deliverables of the project, and the work needed to create them
26. A project manager at a cable and networking company is gathering requirements for a project to build a new version of their telecommunications equipment. Which of the following is NOT something that she will use? A. B. C. D.
Specific descriptions of work packages that will be developed One-on-one interviews with the senior executives who need the new equipment for their teams An early working model of the telecommunications equipment to help get feedback from stakeholders Notes that she took while being “embedded” with the team that will eventually use the equipment being developed
27. Which of the following is NOT an output of Collect Requirements? A. B. C. D.
Requirements Observations Requirements Traceability Matrix Requirements Documentation Requirements Management Plan
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exam answers
Answers
Exam Questions 1. Answer: C
The work breakdown structure is all about breaking down the work that your team needs to do. The WBS is graphical and hierarchical, not linear and unstructured. Did you notice that answer B was about product scope, not project scope? 2. Answer: A There are two ways you can get to the right answer for this question. You can recognize that the WBS Dictionary, Change Requests, and Accepted Deliverables are all Scope Management process outputs. (You’ll see Change Requests in every knowledge area!) But you can also recognize that the Business Case was created by the Develop Projct Charter which is part of the Initiating process group. 3. Answer: A Did you recognize that answer A was describing the scope management plan? Once you know what the WBS is used for and how to make one, questions like this make sense. 4. Answer: C You’ll need to know what order processes come in, and one good way to do that is to think about how the outputs of some processes are used as inputs for another. For example, you can’t create the WBS until the scope is defined, which is why A is wrong. And you can’t do change control until you have a baseline WBS, which is why B is wrong. order 5. Answer: B
for Scope Verification ght” “ri no ’s ere th w ho t, so out ab ink Take a minute and th could have a scope change at the beginning of the prot,jectoo! If jec u and Control Scope. Yo e first. But a change could happen late in the pro redo it. Control Scope would com the project after the scope’s verified, you need to there’s a major change to
An important tactic for a lot of exam questions is to be able to recognize a particular tool, technique, input, or output from a description. What have you learned about that tells you who is responsible for a work package, what control account to associate with it, and describes the work associated with it? That’s a good description of the WBS Dictionary. 6. Answer: B
the Inspection isn’t just done at the end ofever y on project. You do Scope Verification team . the single deliverable made by you and
There are some questions where you’ll just have to know what a process is all about, and this is one of them. That’s why it’s really helpful to know why Verify Scope is so helpful to you on a project. You use Verify Scope to check that all of the work packages were completed, and get the stakeholders and sponsor to formally accept the deliverables.
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Answers
scope management
Exam Questions 7. Answer: A
It’s easy to forget that Organizational Process Assets is more than just an input. It’s a real thing that’s part of your company. Take a second and think about what assets are in your organization that help you with carry out each process. Get it? Good! So what is historical information, anyway? It’s stuff like reports and data that you or another project manager wrote down on a previous project and stored in a file cabinet or a database. That’s an asset you can use now! What are lessons learned? Those are lessons you wrote down at the end of a previous project and stuck in a file cabinet or a database. And now those lessons are another asset you can use.
These inputs and outputs make sense when I think about how I’d use them on a project. Organizational Process Assets are just things that my organization keeps track of to help me do my job, like information from old projects and procedures that help me do my job.
is stuff The PMBOK® Guide saysknthowledge e is stored in a “corporat other word base,” but that’s just an lder on your for a file cabinet or a fo network
8. Answer: C One thing to remember about change control is that if you want to make the sponsor and stakeholders happy with the project in the end, sometimes you have to tell them “no” right now. When you’re doing Control Scope, the most important tool you use is the change control system. It tells you how to take an approved change and put it in place on a project, and there’s no other way that you should ever make a change to any part of the baseline. That means that once everyone has approved the scope statement and WBS, if you want to make any change to them, then you need to get that change approved and put it through the change control system. 9. Answer: C The Requirements Traceability Matrix is a tool that you use to trace each requirement back to a specific business case, and then forward to the rest of the scope deliverables (like specific WBS work packages), as well as other parts of the project: the product design (like specific levels in Cows Gone Wild) or test strategy (like test plans that the Ranch Hand Games testers use to make sure that the game works).
ble The idea is that you’re tracing a delivera way from its initial description all the so that through the project through testing,deliverable you can make sure that every single meets all of its requirements.
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exam answers
Answers
Exam Questions 10. Answer: B
When you’re getting the sponsor and stakeholders to formally accept the results of the project, you’re doing scope verification. There’s only one tool for it: inspection. That means carefully checking the deliverables (in this case, what the workers built on the highway) to make sure they match the WBS.
11. Answer: B
Answer D is a good idea, but it’s as important as creating a new WBnot S.
This question is a little tricky. The most important thing about a WBS is that if your Scope Management Plan says it should be there, then your project absolutely cannot be done without it. And a general rule is that if you ever find that there is no WBS, you should always check the Scope Management Plan to find out why. 12. Answer: B This is another question that is testing you on the definition of a specific document, in this case the Scope Management Plan, which is one of the subsidiary plans of the Project Management Plan. Think about what you use a Scope Management Plan for. It gives you specific procedures for defining the scope, breaking down the work, verifying the deliverables, and managing scope changes—which is what this question is asking. All of the other answers don’t have anything to do with managing changes. 13. Answer: A Here’s another example of how there are two correct answers but only one BEST one. Answer C is true – you are doing scope definition. But is that really the best way to describe this situation? Alternatives analysis is part of scope definition, and it’s a more accurate way to describe what’s going on here. 14. Answer: A
When you look at a few ys to create a deliverable and then dewa cid e best one, that’s alternatives on the analysis.
This question is an example of how you need to rely on more than just common sense to pass the PMP exam. All four of these answers could be good ways to handle a terminated project, but there’s only one of those answers that corresponds to what the PMBOK® Guide says. When a project is terminated, you still need to complete the Verify Scope process. That way, you can document all of the work that has been completed, and the work that has not been completed.
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That way, if I need to restart the project later or reuse some of its deliverables, I’ll know exactly where my team left off when it ended.
Answers
scope management
Exam Questions 15. Answer: B
Are you starting to get the hang of how this change control stuff works? The baseline isn’t etched in stone, and you need to be able to change it, but you can’t just go ahead and make changes whenever you want. You need to document the change request and then put that request through change control. If it’s approved, then you can update the baseline so that it incorporates the change. You defi
nitely ca the change and inn’fot just make sponsor later. All chrm the to be approved. anges need
16. Answer: A
When a question asks you about what a particular document, input, or output contains, be on the lookout for answers that talk about a different document. What document do you know about that gives the project manager authorization to do the work? That’s what the project charter is for. 17. Answer: C Sometimes Control Scope is easiest to think about if you think of it as a kind of machine that turns approved changes into updates. It sucks in the approved changes and all of the other Scope Management stuff (the Scope Statement, WBS, and WBS Dictionary), does all the stuff that it needs to do to update those things, and then spits out updates. And sometimes it spits out new requested changes because when you’re making changes to the WBS or Scope Statement you realize that you need to make even more changes. 18. Answer: A Scope Identification is a made-up process. It didn’t appear in this chapter, and even though it sounds real, it’s wrong. 19. Answer: B WBS templates are a great way to speed up creating the WBS, and the easiest way to create a template is to use one from a previous project. It is not a good idea to cut out deliverables, skip important outputs like the WBS Dictionary, or make the sponsor do your job for you.
I think of Perform Integrated Change Control as a machine that turns change requests into approved changes, and Control Scope as the machine that turns approved changes into updates to the scope baseline.
You can also use ea scope template for th . management plan
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exam answers
Answers
Exam Questions 20. Answer: C
This question asked you about the Define Scope process, but all of the answers describe various outputs. Which of these outputs matches Define Scope? Well, the main output of Define Scope is the Scope Statement, and answer C is a good description of the scope statement. 21. Answer: A
Did you guess “Create WBS” because it was a Scope Management process and the questio n decomposing deliverables into work pac mentioned kages?
This question asked you where you defined the procedures for doing all of the Scope Management Processes. Where do you find those procedures? You find them in the Project Management Plan—specifically, the Scope Management Plan sub-plan. And you build that in the Develop Project Management Plan process. 22. Answer: C There’s only one document you’ve seen that shows you details of individual work packages and contains a control account, a statement of work, and a resource assignment. It’s the WBS Dictionary. 23. Answer: D Here’s another question where you need to know how to describe an important tool. In this case, you need to know what the change control system is used for. Luckily, answer D is a pretty good description.
Hey, I’ll bet a good way to study for the exam is to look at answers A, B, and C in question 23 and figure out what each of them is describing. It’ll be great practice identifying an output from a description!
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scope management
Exam Questions 24. Answer: D
When you read the question, it looks like the team really helped the project, right? But think about what happened: the team abandoned the plan, and then they made a change to the project without getting approval from the sponsor or stakeholders. Maybe they discovered a useful shortcut. But isn’t it possible that the shortcut the team found was already considered and rejected by the sponsor? That’s why change control is so important.
25. Answer: D
on made it sound like the team Did you notice how the quengstiControl Scope and making changes did a good thing by ignori? that were never approved
Some questions are just definition questions. When that definition is a “Which-is-BEST” question, there could be an answer that makes some sense, and it’s tempting to stop with it. In this case, answer A sounds like it might be right. But if you read answer D, it’s much more accurate. 26. Answer: A The question asked about the tools and techniques for Collect Requirements, and answer A is the only answer that has to do with the Create WBS process. The rest of the answers were descriptions of Collect Requirements tools and techniques: Interviews (answer B), Prototypes (answer C), and Observations (answer D). 27. Answer: A The three outputs of Collect Requirements are Requirements Documentation, the Requirements Management Plan, and the Requirements Traceability Matrix. “Requirements Observations” isn’t really an output.
The easiest way to make sure you get like this right is to think about how questions outputs are actually used later in theeach of those project.
Keep an eye out for questions that describe an input or output and then ask you to name it. Look at each answer and think up own descriptions for them—one of them will match the question.
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6 Time management
Getting it done on time Time management makes all of our cocktail parties a success! Now that we know how to sequence our activities and build our schedules, we always have time to limbo before we’ve had too many martinis.
Time management is what most people think of when they think of project managers. It’s where the deadlines are set and met. It starts with figuring out the work you need to do, how you will do it, what resources you’ll use, and how long it will take. From there, it’s all about developing and controlling that schedule.
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a june wedding
Reality sets in for the happy couple Rob and Rebecca have decided to tie the knot, but they don’t have much time to plan their wedding. They want the big day to be unforgettable. They want to invite a lot of people and show them all a great time. But just thinking about all of the details involved is overwhelming. Somewhere around picking the paper for the invitations, the couple realize they need help…
Everything has to be perfect! But it seems so huge. I don’t know where to start.
Rebecca’s been dreaming of the big day since she was 12, but it seems like there’s so little time to do it all. She needs some help.
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They’ve always dreamed of a June wedding, but it’s already January.
Don’t worry. My sister’s wedding planner was great. Let me give her a call.
time management
Meet the wedding planner
Take it easy, guys. I’ve got it under control.
Rob: We want everything to be perfect. Rebecca: There is so much to do! Invitations, food, guests, music… Rob: Oh no, we haven’t even booked the place. Rebecca: And it’s all got to be done right. We can’t print the invitations until we have the menu planned. We can’t do the seating arrangements until we have the RSVPs. We aren’t sure what kind of band to get for the reception, or should it be a DJ? We’re just overwhelmed. Rob: My sister said you really saved her wedding. I know she gave you over a year to plan.
Kathleen, planner the wedding
Rebecca: But I’ve always dreamed of a June wedding, and I’m not willing to give that up. I know it’s late, but can you help us?
What should Kathleen do first to make sure they have time to get everything done?
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looming deadline
Time management helps with aggressive time lines Since there are so many different people involved in making the wedding go smoothly, it takes a lot of planning to make sure that all of the work happens in the right order, gets done by the right people, and doesn’t take too long. That’s what the Time Management knowledge area is all about. Initially, Kathleen was worried that she didn’t have enough time to make sure everything was done properly. But she knew that she had some powerful time management tools on her side when she took the job, and they’ll help her make sure that everything will work out fine.
We’ve got a lot of people and activities to get under control. You guys really should have called six months ago, but we’ll still make this wedding happen on time.
To-Do Lis t
• Invitati ons
ne There’s a lot to getleedon’s going before June… Kath t what to need to figure oune before work needs to be do e. she does anything els
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• Flowers • Weddin g cake • Dinner menu • Band
time management
Time Management Magnets
You need to know the order of the time management processes for the exam. Luckily, they are pretty intuitive. Can you figure out the order?
1
chedule Control S
Estimate Activi ty Durations
2
Develop Schedule 3
Sequence Activities
4 ties Define Activi
5
Estimate Activity Resources 6
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the time management processes
Time Management Magnets Solution
Here are the correct order and the main output for each of the time management processes.
1
2
ties Define Activi
First you come up with a list of all of the activities that will need to be completed.
Network Diagram
Activity List
Next, you figure out which activities need to come before others and put them in the right order. The main output here is a network diagram, a picture of how activities are related.
Knowing the stuff that needs to happen and the sequence is half the battle. Now you need to figure out who will do the work.
The activity list is the basis for the network diagram that you create in the next process.
3
Sequence Activities
4
Estimate Activity Resources
Estimate Activi ty Durations
First you estimate the resources you’ll need to do the job, and create a list of them... Resource Requirements
Once you have the network diagram, you can start to figure out who and what are needed to get the project done.
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...and then estimate the time it will take to do each activity.
Activity Duration Estimates
You can use lots of different estimation techniques to determine how long the project will take.
time management
5
Develop Schedule
6
chedule Control S Finally, you monitor and control changes to the schedule to make sure that it is kept up to date.
Then you build a schedule from all of the estimates, and the resource and activity information you’ve created.
Keeping track of the issues that require schedule changes and dealing with them is as important in Time Management as it was in Scope Management.
The schedule pulls all of the information together to predict the project end date.
The first five Time Management processes are in the Planning process group because they’re all about coming up with the schedule—and you need that before you can start executing your project.
The last process, Control Schedule, is in the Monitoring & Controlling process group.
Time Management is all about breaking the work down into activities, so you can put them in order and come up with estimates for each of them. What do you need to know before you can figure what activities are needed for a project?
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defining activities
Use the Define Activities process to break down the work Define Activities uses everything we already know about the project to divide the work into activities that can be estimated. The inputs for this process all come from the processes in the Scope Management and Integration Management knowledge areas. The first step in time management is figuring out how the project work breaks down into activities—and that’s what the Define Activities process is for.
The WBS and WBS Dictionary have the work explained to the work package level. That’s more detailed than the scope statement, but still too high to estimate well.
WBS
Project Scope Statement
Organizational Process Assets
You might want to look at all of the lessons from similar projects your company has done to get a good idea of what you need to do on the current one.
The project scope statement is still the main place to go to figure out what the project is supposed to produce.
Inputs
Enterprise Environmental Factors
You’ll need the project management information system (PMIS), because that’s where you store information about your activities. But that’s not the only thing you need to know about your working environment. Can you think of other environmental factors that influence the way you break down the work? 238 Chapter 6 Download at Boykma.Com
time management
Tools and techniques for Define Activities Kathleen sat down and wrote down everything she knew about the project. She used the Activity List from her last wedding as a guide and then thought about the things that Rob and Rebecca wanted that were different from her past projects. She broke those things down into activities and pulled everything together into an activity list.
This “Tools” icon means we’re showing you the tools and techniques for the process. Get the picture?
Decomposition This means taking the work packages you defined in the scope management processes and breaking them down even further into activities that can be estimated.
Templates If your organization has done other projects similar to this one, you can probably use a template to come up with many of the activities that are necessary.
Expert judgment Ask somebody who has done this before to give their opinion on what activities will be needed to get the job done.
Rolling wave planning When you plan this way, you decompose only the activities that you need to plan for because they’re coming up soon first. You leave everything else planned at the milestone level until it gets closer to the time when you’ll do it
Flip the page for an example of this tool!
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plan as you go
Rolling wave planning lets you plan as you go Sometimes you start a project without knowing a lot about the work that you’ll be doing later. Rolling wave planning lets you plan and schedule only the stuff that you know enough about to plan well. If Kathleen were using rolling wave planning, she might write a schedule for only the tasks it takes to do the invitations and leave the planning for the menu and the seating up in the air until she knows who will RSVP. Rob and Rebecca probably wouldn’t be happy hearing that Kathleen was only going to plan for the invitations to be sent, though. They want to know that their wedding is going to happen on time. That’s why rolling wave planning should only be used in cases where it’s not possible to plan any other way. Think back to the definition of a project in Chapter 2. Remember how projects are progressively elaborated? Rolling wave planning takes advantage of the fact that you know more about the project as you go to make plans more accurate.
Q: A:
How would you use experts to help you define tasks?
A wedding is something that a lot of people have experience with, but some projects are not as easy to get a handle on. If you were asked to manage a project in a new domain, you might want to ask an expert in that field to help you understand what activities were going to be involved. Even in Kathleen’s case, access to a catering expert might help her think of some activities that she wouldn’t have planned for on her own. It could be that you create an activity list and then have the expert review it and suggest changes. Or, you could involve the expert from the very beginning and ask to have an Define Activities conversation with him before even making your first draft of the activity list.
Q: A:
I still don’t get rolling wave planning.
One way to develop a project is to divide it up into phases of work, and gather requirements for each phase as the previous one is completed. Sometimes projects are done iteratively, where you divide the work up into phases and then plan out each phase before you execute on it. Rolling wave planning is all about committing to planning out one portion of the work that you’ll do, executing it, and then moving on to the next portion. Software projects using Agile methodologies use a form of rolling wave planning to make sure that everything they sign on to do gets done. They might do user stories for a release of the software up front, build it, and deliver it, and then gather more requirements based on the users’ ideas after working with the released version.
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time management
Activity Magnets
Here is part of a WBS. Arrange the activities underneath the WBS to show how the work items decompose into activities.
This is part of the WBS that Kathleen made for the wedding project.
This is one work package from the wedding WBS. How does it decompose into activities?
Wedding
Food
Invitations
Bridal
1.
1.
1.
2.
2.
2.
3.
3.
3.
4.
4.
Shop for Shoes
Mail the Invitations
Shop for Dress
Create the Guest List
Tailoring and Fitting
Find Caterer
Finalize the Me nu
Print the Invitations
Cater the Wedding Choose Bouquet Wait for the RS VPs
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exercise solution
Activity Magnets Solution
Here is part of a WBS. Arrange the activities underneath the WBS to show how the work items decompose into activities.
Wedding Food
Invitations
Bridal
1.
Find Caterer
1.
Create the Guest List
1.
2.
Finalize the Me nu
2.
Print the Invitations
2.
Shop for Shoes
3.
Cater the Wedding
3.
Mail the Invitations
3.
Choose Bouquet
4.
Wait for the RS VPs
4.
Tailoring and Fitting
There are lots of other activities that could be defined for the three work packages in Kathleen’s WBS. The important thing to remember about activities, though, is that they are broken down to the level at which they can be estimated accurately.
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Shop for Dress
time management
Define activities outputs The main output of this process is the activity list. It’s the basis for all of the estimation and scheduling tasks you will do next. But there are a few other outputs that go along with it and help to make the estimates more detailed and accurate.
Outputs
Activity List This is a list of everything that needs to be done to complete your project. This list is lower-level than the WBS. It’s all the activities that must be accomplished to deliver the work packages.
Activity List
Activity Attributes Here’s where the description of each activity is kept. All of the information you need to figure out the order of the work should be here, too. So any predecessor activities, successor activities, or constraints should be listed in the attributes along with descriptions and any other information about resources or time that you need for planning.
Activity Attributes
Milestone Lists Some milestones for the wedding: * Invitations sent * Menu finalized * Church booked * Bridesmaids’ dresses fitted
All of the important checkpoints of your project are tracked as milestones. Some of them could be listed in your contract as requirements of successful completion; some could just be significant points in the project that you want to keep track of. The milestone list needs to let everybody know which are required and which are not.
Milestone List
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program problems
We just got the programs back from the printer, and they’re all wrong!
Rob: The quartet cancelled. They had another wedding that day. Rebecca: Aunt Laura is supposed to do the reading at the service, but after what happened at Uncle Stu’s funeral, I think I want someone else to do it. Rob: Should we really have a pan flute player? I’m beginning to think it might be overkill. Rebecca: Maybe we should hold off printing the invitations until this stuff is worked out. Kathleen: OK, let’s think about exactly how we want to do this. I think we need to be sure about how we want the service to go before we do any more printing.
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time management
The Sequence Activities process puts everything in order Now that we know what we have to do to make the wedding a success, we need to focus on the order of the work. Kathleen sat down with all of the activities she had defined for the wedding and decided to figure out exactly how they needed to happen. That’s where she used the Sequence Activities process. The activity attributes and the activity list she had created had most of the predecessors and successors necessary written in them. Her milestone list had major pieces of work written down and there were a couple of changes to the scope she had discovered along the way that were approved and ready to go.
This includes information about each activity, including known predecessors and successors.
Activity List
Activity Attributes
Knowning the full scope of the project helps Kathleen be sure she’s got all of the activities needed to do the work
Project Scope Statement Milestone List
Rob and Rebecca had asked that the invitations be printed at least three months in advance to be sure that everyone had time to RSVP. That’s a milestone on Kathleen’s list.
Organizational Process Assets
Kathleen looked through past project files to find one that might help her sequence the activities for Rob and Rebecca’s wedding.
Inputs
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invitation network diagrams
Diagram the relationship bet ween activities One way to visualize the way activities relate is to create a network diagram. Kathleen created this one to show how the activities involved in producing the invitations depend on one other. For example, the calligrapher is the person who’s hired to write the addresses on the invitations, so Rob and Rebecca need to pick a calligrapher before the invitations can be addressed. But they also need to be printed before they can be addressed, because otherwise the calligrapher won’t have anything to write on! See how predecessors can get all complicated? Luckily, a diagram makes sense of them! Showing the activities in rectangles and their relationships as arrows is called a Precedence Diagramming Method (PDM).
This kind of diagram is also called Activity on Node (AON).
This arrow shows a finish‑to‑start predecessor between the “pick calligrapher” and “address” activities. address invitations
pick calligrapher
start
Picking a calligrapher and a printer have no predecessors. Printing depends on designing the invitations.
pick printer
design invitations
The successor to print is “address.”
send invitations
print invitations finish
print menus
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The menus need be printed and to invitations sent the before we’re don e.
time management
Net work diagrams put your tasks in perspective Just looking at the way all of these tasks relate to each other can help you figure out what’s important at any time in the project. Once Rob and Rebecca looked at the network diagram below, they realized they needed to get online and start looking for a venue for their wedding right away, even before they’d figured out their budget and guest list.
Rob and Rebecca needed to pick a date before they did anything else. That’s why there’s no predecessor here.
choose dates
Once they knew when the wedding was going to be, they had to figure out how many people were coming and how much they’d spend on the venue. finalize guest list and budget
After they knew who they were inviting, it was time to pick a place that most people could get to easily.
choose neighborhood
start call venues for availablity research venues online
Next, it’s time to call the venues to set up appointments.
It’s never too early to do a little online research! No predecessor here either.
visit venues
Once they had appointments, they could go and check the places out.
select a venue
give deposit
Think of a few problems that having a diagram like this might solve. finish!
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network diagram drawings
You’ll need to know how to turn a table of nodes into a network diagram, so here’s your chance to get some practice! Here’s a list of nodes for a PDM network diagram. Try drawing the diagram based on it:
Name
Predecessor
Start
—
A
Start
B
A
C
B
D
Start
E
D
F
B
G
C
H
D
I
E, H
Finish
F, G, I
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time management
Now try another one!
Name
Predecessor
Start
—
1
Start
2
1
3
2
4
Start
5
3
6
Start
7
6
Finish
7, 4, 5
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predecessor types
Predecessors help you sequence your activities The most common kind of predecessor is the Finish to Start. It means that one task needs to be completed before another one can start. There are a few other kinds of predecessors, though. They can all be used in network diagrams to show the order of activities. The three main kinds of predecessor are Finish to Start (FS), Start to Start (SS), and Finish to Finish (FF).
It’s called Finish to Start because the first activity’s finish leads into the second activity’s start.
Finish to Start (FS) print invitations
address
Start to Start (SS)
This is a little less common, but to sometimes you need coordinate activities so they begin at the same time.
When you think of predecessors, this is what you usually think of—one thing needs to end before the next can begin.
Finish to Finish (FF)
give toasts
play “Here Comes the Bride”
In the PMP exam, you might see this two-letter abbreviation.
serve cake
bride walks down the aisle
These two finish at the same time.
External predecessors Sometimes your project will depend on things outside the work you are doing. For the wedding, we are depending on the wedding party before us to be out of the reception hall in time for us to decorate. The decoration of the reception hall then depends on that as an external predecessor.
Discretionary predecessors Rob and Rebecca really want the bridesmaids to arrive at the reception before the couple. There’s no necessity there—it’s just a matter of preference. For the exam, know that you should set discretionary predecessors based on your knowledge of the best practices for getting the job done.
Mandatory predecessors You can’t address an invitation that hasn’t been printed yet. So, printing invitations is a mandatory predecessor for addressing them. Mandatory predecessors are the kind that have to exist just because of the nature of the work. 250 Chapter 6 Download at Boykma.Com
time management
Leads and lags add time bet ween activities Sometimes you need to give some extra time between activities. Lag time is when you purposefully put a delay between the predecessor task and the successor. For example, when the bride and her father dance, everybody waits a while before they join them. Lead time is when you give a successor task some time to get started before the predecessor finishes. So you might want the caterer preparing dessert an hour before everybody is eating dinner.
lag
lead
book the reception hall
serve dinner
set up the reception hall
prepare dessert
A lag means making sure that one task waits a while before it gets started. Kathleen books the hall months before it’s time to set it up for the wedding.
Q:
Where do you get the predecessor information to figure out your network diagram?
A:
Your activity attributes should list the predecessors and successors for each activity. As you build the network diagram you might discover new predecessors as well. Your project team will determine the predecessors necessary for each of the activities.
A lead is when you let a task get started before its predecessor is done.
Q:
What about Start to Finish predecessors?
A:
It’s possible for activities to require that a task has been started before it can finish. An example might be that singing couldn’t start until after the music had started. But tasks like that are pretty rare and almost never show up in network diagrams.
Q:
My scheduling software makes network diagrams for me. Why do I need to know this?
A:
Most scheduling sofware does create one of these diagrams automatically. But spending the time to think through your predecessors and examine them visually can really help you find places where you might need to give some tasks more priority if you want to get your project done on time. So you should know how to make them too. you are here 4 251
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all at once?
But I do all this stuff at the same time. Why do I need all these sequence diagrams?
You should still think of things in sequence. For the test, it’s important to know the order of these processes. And, even though you might do it all at once, you probably spend some time thinking about each of these things.
What’s the advantage of thinking about Define Activities and sequencing separately?
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time management
Create the net work diagram As you sequence the activities, you will find new activities that need to be added and new attributes for activities that you didn’t know about. So, while the main product of this process is the network diagram, you also produce changes to some of the Define Activities documents.
Outputs
Sometimes sequencing will show that two tasks rely on each other. If you find new predecessors or successors, their attributes will need to be changed.
Schedule Network Diagram
Activity List Updates
Activity Attributes Updates
Risk Register Updates
If you find a new activity while sequencing, updates need to be made to the activity list.
All of these updates are called Project Document Updates in the PMBOK® Guide.
When you sequence your activities, you can find activities that carry a lot of risk to the project. Any risks you find in the process need to be added to your risk register. You’ll read more about that in Chapter 11.
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projects need resources
Rob and Rebecca have resource problems Getting a handle on all of the tasks that have to be done is a great start. But it’s not enough to know the tasks and the order they come in. Before you can put a schedule together, you need to know who is going to do each job, and the things they need available to them in order to do it! Those are resources, and getting a handle on them is a very important part of time management.
We’ve got so much to do! Invitations, catering, music... and I’ve got no idea who’s going to do it all. I’m totally overwhelmed.
Rebecca’s worried about human resources
And it’s not just people— we need food, flowers, a cake, a sound system, a venue! How do we get a handle on this?
Rob realizes that t all resources are peno ople
Resources are people, equipment, locations, or anything else that you need in order to do all of the activities that you planned for. Every activity in your activity list needs to have resources assigned to it.
!
What do you need to know about a project before you can assign resources?
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time management
What you need to estimate resources Good news: you’ve already seen most of the inputs to the Estimate Activity Resources process already! Before you can assign resources to your project, you need to know which ones you’re authorized to use on your project. That’s an input, and it’s called Resource Calendars. You’ll also need the activity list that you created earlier, and you’ll need to know about how your organization typically handles resources. Once you’ve got a handle on these things, you’re set for resource estimation.
You probably already guesse that these two inputs wouldd be here—they show up for mo these planning processes! st of
e resources You need to know what’s th at these wh are going to do! That u created them are for—good thing yo ities. earlier in Define Activ
Resource Calendar Activity Attributes
Enterprise Environmental Factors
Activity List Organizational Process Assets
Inputs
Resource Calendars When you plan out a project, you need information about what resources you can use for various activities, and when they’re available to you. That’s what resource calendars are for. Don’t forget that some resources, like consultants or training rooms, have to be scheduled in advance, and they might only be available at certain times. You’ll need to know this before you can finish planning your project.
How could policies, les ns learned, and historical informaso tio n assign resources to your help you project? A June wedding is harder to plan than one in December, because the wedding halls are all booked up. That’s a resource constraint!
Resource Calendars are the only new input to the Estimate Activity Resources process. You’ve already seen the rest of the inputs. you are here 4 255 Download at Boykma.Com
resource estimation tools and techniques
Estimating the resources The goal of Estimate Activity Resources is to assign resources to each activity in the activity list. There are five tools and techniques for the Estimate Activity Resources process. Some of them have technical‑sounding names, but they’re all actually pretty sensible when you think about it. They should all make sense to you when you think about what you have to do when you have to figure out what resources your project needs. Expert Judgment means bringing in experts who have done this sort of work before and getting their opinions on what resources are needed.
Alternatives Analysis means considering several different options for how you assign resources. This includes varying the number of resources as well as the kind of resources you use.
Published Estimating Data is something that project managers in a lot of industries use to help them figure out how many resources they need. They rely on articles, books, journals, and periodicals that collect, analyze, and publish data from other people’s projects.
Project Management Software like Microsoft Project will often have features designed to help project managers play around with resources and constraints and find the best combination of assignments for the project.
Bottom-Up Estimating is a technique that you may have used before without even knowing it! It means breaking down complex activities into pieces, and working out the resource assignments for each of those simpler pieces using the other four tools and techniques.
Q:
In my company, I’m given my resources—I don’t get to assign them myself. How do these tools help me?
A:
When you work in a functional organization or some matrixed organizations, you don’t have as much freedom in selecting resources as you do in a projectized organization. But that doesn’t mean these tools aren’t important! Whoever is doing the resource selection and assignment should be using them. And they’ll be on the PMP® exam, so you need to understand them all.
Q:
Is choosing a consultant, contractor, or vendor to do project work part of resource estimation?
A:
When you’re working with a resource outside your company, like a contractor or consultant, you consider that resource the same way you consider any other resource. But actually negotiating the contract and selecting the vendor is not part of the Estimate Activity Resources process. There’s a whole other knowledge area for that—Procurement Management.
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Q:
What if I need a resource that isn’t available when my project needs it?
A:
This is one of the reasons that project management is a tough job! When you need a resource that isn’t available, you need to negotiate for it. Think about it... your project depends on getting this resource, and without it your project won’t get done. You need it, or you’ll face delays! You have to do whatever you can to get that resource for your project.
time management
You’ll need to understand the different Estimate Activity Resources tools and techniques for the exam. Look at each of these scenarios and write down which of the five Activity Resource Estimation tools and techniques is being used.
1. K athleen has to figure out what to do for the music at Rob and Rebecca’s wedding. She considers using a DJ, a rock band, or a string quartet.
2. The latest issue of Wedding Planner’s Journal has an article on working with caterers. It includes a table that shows how many waiters work with various guest-list sizes.
3. There’s a national wedding consultant who specializes in Caribbean-themed weddings. Kathleen gets in touch with her to ask about menu options.
4. K athleen downloads and fills out a specialized spreadsheet that a project manager developed to help with wedding planning.
5. There’s so much work that has to be done to set up the reception hall that Kathleen has to break it down into five different activities in order to assign jobs.
6. K athleen asks Rob and Rebecca to visit several different caterers and sample various potential items for the menu.
7. K athleen calls up her friend who knows specifics of the various venues in their area for advice on which one would work best.
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estimate activity durations
Figuring out how long the project will take Once you’re done with Estimate Activity Resources, you’ve got everything you need to figure out how long each activity will take. That’s done in a process called Estimate Activity Durations. This is where you look at each activity in the activity list, consider the scope and the resources, and estimate how long it will take to perform.
Estimate Activity Resources
It makes sense that these got updated because you learned more about them while doing the resource estimation
Resource Calendar
You shouldn’t be surprised to see these inputs by now. They show up in most of the planning processes!
Take a minute and follogew. Can the arrows on this pauts of you see how the outp sources Estimate Activity Re ate become inputs to Estim Activity Durations?
Enterprise Environmental Factors
Organizational Process Assets
Activity List Project Scope Statement
Activity Attributes
Activity Resource
This is the Requirements main output of Estimate Activity Resources. It’s a list of resources that you need for each activity.
Estimate Activity Durations
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time management
ou’ll need to understand the various inputs and outputs for each process for the exam. Write down Y what you think each of the inputs to the Estimate Activity Durations process will be used for when you actually sit down and estimate how long each activity will take. 1. Activity List and Activity Attributes
2. Activity Resource Requirements
3. Resource Calendar
4. Project Scope Statement
5. Enterprise Environmental Factors
6. Organizational Process Assets
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what the inputs are used for
ou’ll need to understand the various inputs and outputs for each process for the exam. Write down Y what you think each of the inputs to the Estimate Activity Durations process will be used for when you actually sit down and estimate how long each activity will take. You ne
ed thes goal of this preocbecause the estimate the dur ess is to 1. Activity List and Activity Attributes ation of Contains information about the activities that are being estimated each activity.
2. Activity Resource Requirements
The more resources you add to an activity, the less time it takes.
Shows which resources are assigned to each activity
But sometimes adding people won’t get the job done any faster! Remem ber , women can’t have a baby in one mo nine nth.
You need to know when the resources are available, because that’s going to impact the final estimate for the activity.
3. Resource Calendar
Shows the availability, capabilities, and skills of each human resource, or the quantity and availability of equipment and other resources
4. Project Scope Statement
Lists constraints and assumptions for each activity 5. Enterprise Environmental Factors
You’re probably not the first person in your company to do this sort of project. Information from people around you will be very valuable when you’re creating estimates.
Other people or databases in my company can help with estimation 6. Organizational Process Assets
This input is always about looking elsewhere in your organization for information.
Contains historical information and records from past projects
Any time you see this, think about historical information and project records!
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t how The more you know abthoue more past projects went, es will be. accurate your estimat
time management
Estimation tools and techniques Estimating the duration of an activity means starting with the information you have about that activity and the resources that are assigned to it, and then working with the project team to come up with an estimate. Most of the time you’ll start with a rough estimate and then refine it (maybe a few times!) to make it more accurate. You’ll use these five tools and techniques to create the most accurate estimates. Expert Judgment will come from your project team members who are familiar with the work that has to be done. If you don’t get their opinion, then there’s a huge risk that your estimates will be wrong!
Analogous Estimating is when you look at activities from previous projects that were similar to this one and look at how long it took to do similar work before. But this only works if the activities and the project team are similar!
Parametric Estimating means plugging data about your project into a formula, spreadsheet, database, or computer program that comes up with an estimate. The software or formula that you use for parametric estimating is built on a database of actual durations from past projects.
Three-Point Estimates are when you come up with three numbers: a realistic estimate that’s most likely to occur, an optimistic one that represents the best-case scenario, and a pessimistic one that represents the worst-case scenario. The final estimate is the average.
Reserve Analysis means adding extra time to the schedule (called a contingency reserve or a buffer) to account for extra risk.
A contingency buffer) is moneyreserve (or aside to deal wit you set you haven’t planneh stuff d for.
1. Kathleen comes up with three estimates (one where everything goes wrong, one where some things go wrong, and one where nothing goes wrong) for printing invitations, and averages them together to come up with a final number. 2. There will be two different catering companies at the wedding. Kathleen asks the head chef at each of them to give her an estimate of how long it will take each of them to do the job. 3. There’s a spreadsheet Kathleen always uses to figure out how long it takes guests to RSVP. She enters the number of guests and their ZIP codes, and it calculates an estimate for her. 4. Kathleen’s done four weddings that are very similar to Rob and Rebecca’s, and in all four of them it took exactly the same amount of time for the caterers to set up the reception hall.
Answers on page 305.
ach of these scenarios describes a different tool or technique from Estimate Activity Durations. E Write down which tool or technique is being described.
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pert and perky
Three-Point Estimates Up Close PERT (Project Evaluation Review Technique) is the most common form of three-point estimation. It’s a technique that was developed in the 1960s by consulting firms working with the U.S. Government as a way of getting more accurate project duration predictions up front. To do a PERT estimate, you start with three estimates—pessimistic, most likely, and optimistic estimates. Since the pessimistic and optimistic estimates are less likely to happen than the the normal estimate, the normal estimate is weighted (by multiplying it by 4) and added to the optimistic and pessimistic estimates, and then the whole thing is divided by 6 to give an expectued duration. The formula looks like this:
(
Optimistic Duration +
4
Most likely Pessimistic Duration + Duration
) ÷6 =
Expected Duration
Kathleen used a PERT estimate for the all of the wedding planning activities to make sure that she could get it all done in time for Rob and Rebecca’s big day. They only have six months until the wedding, so all of the planning needs to be done within the month to leave enough time to actually get everything done. She wrote down the assumptions she made for the each estimate, coming up with all of the reasons she could think of that she took into account when coming up with her sion estimates. assumption is a deci
An count for that you make toknacow when things you don’t mate. you make an esti Pessimistic = 30 days Nobody RSVPs and many bring guests unannounced
When Kathleen assumed the best case scenario, these assumptions (9 + 4(15) + 30) ÷ 6=16.5 led her to her 9 day estimate.
Optimistic = 9 days All guests RSVP early
The couple settles on the first venue they visit The printer can get the invitiations done in 2 weeks
Most Likely = 15 days Half of the guests won’t RSVP until the very last week, a few won’t RSVP at all but will still show up They’ll visit four or five and spend weeks negotiatiing with venue operators They’ll want to talk to a few printers and most of them will ask for at least a month
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They’ll comb the neighborhood and visit every possible place for weeks All the printers will be booked up and we’ll have to use somebody from out of town and it’ll take six work weeks (30 business days)
time management
ere are some examples of three-point estimates. Use the formula to figure out the expected time H for each of these.
1. A software team gathered estimates for all of the work they’d have to do to build the next major release of their flagship product. Last time it took them around 45 days, but they’re hoping that the lessons learned from the past release could bring the time down to 30 days. However, the infrastructure team needs to upgrade their servers, and they are concerned that procurement delays could potentially extend the project out to 90 days. Expected Duration = __________ Optimistic Duration = __________ Most Likely Duration = __________ Pessimistic Duration = __________ 2. A construction team gathered estimates for all of the work they’d have to do to build a garage. In general, they can build a garage in 20 days, but rain or cooler temperatures could stretch the project out to 30 days. If, however, the forecast is correct, warm, sunny weather might bring the duration down to just 12 days.
3. A project manager used data from past projects to come up with an estimate for an upcoming software system replacement project. She felt confident about a 25-day duration, but also noted that adding an extra resource could bring the schedule down to 10 days. The test team felt that the complexity of some completely new features would add additional test cases adding a few weeks for a 40-day estimate. Expected Duration = __________ Optimistic Duration = __________ Most Likely Duration = __________ Pessimistic Duration = __________
Answers on page 310.
Expected Duration = __________ Optimistic Duration = __________ Most Likely Duration = __________ Pessimistic Duration = __________
4. A project manager in charge of a big civil engineering project came up with an estimate for a highway re-paving project. The worst case scenario was 82 days, but the team felt more certain based on past experience that they could get it done in 49 days. If all went well with their equipment and materials, it might be done in 33 days instead. Expected Duration = __________ Optimistic Duration = __________ Most Likely Duration = __________ Pessimistic Duration = __________
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creating the estimate
Create the duration estimate You’ve got a list of activities, you know what resources are needed to actually do each activity, and you’ve got your estimation tools and techniques... now you have enough to create the estimates! That’s the whole point of the Estimate Activity Durations process, and it’s also the main output.
Outputs
You don’t always know exactly how long an activity will take, so you might end up using a range (like 3 weeks +/- 2 days)
The Activity Duration Estimates are estimates of how long each activity in the activity list will take. The estimate can be in hours, days, weeks... any work period is fine, and you’ll use different work periods for different jobs. A small job (like booking a DJ) may just take a few hours; a bigger job (like catering—including deciding on a menu, ordering ingredients, cooking food, and serving guests on the big day) could take days. You’ll also learn more about the specific activities while you’re estimating them. That’s something that always happens—you have to really think through all of the aspects of a task in order to estimate it. So the other output of Estimate Activity Durations is updates to the Activity Attributes. You may have guessed from the name that the Activity Durations Estimates are always duration estimates, not effort estimates, so they show you calendar time and not just person-hours.
Q:
When you use parametric estimation, how does the program or formula know how much to estimate?
A:
When someone designs a system for parametric estimation, they collect a lot of data from past projects and condense it into a table or a database. And then they come up with a heuristic (like a rule of thumb) that lets you boil your estimation down into just a few parameters that you need to enter. Most successful parametric estimation systems need a lot of time to develop.
Activity Duration Estimates
Activity Attributes
Q:
Since reserve analysis lets me use buffers, why can’t I just put everything I don’t know about into the reserve?
A:
The idea behind reserve analysis is that there are always unknowns on any project, but you can account for these unknowns by taking your best guess at what’s going to go wrong and inserting a buffer. But you can’t just make an enormous reserve, because then there’s no reason to ever do any estimation! The entire project becomes one big unknown, and that’s not particularly useful to anyone.
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The Activity Duration Estimate consists of estimates for each activity. It’s the main output of the Estimate Activity Durations process.
Q:
Wait a minute! I don’t quite get the difference between a duration estimate and an effort estimate. Can you explain?
A:
Duration is the amount of time that an activity takes, while effort is the total number of person-hours that are expended. If it takes two people six hours to carve the ice sculpture for the centerpiece of a wedding, the duration is six hours. But since 2 people worked on it for the whole time, it took 12 person-hours of effort to create!
time management
Back to the wedding Kathleen’s really got a handle on how long things are going to take, but that’s not enough to get the job done. She’s still got some work to do before she’s got the whole project under control. Rob and Rebecca know where they want to get married, and they’ve got the place booked now.
If the caterers come too early, the food will sit around under heat lamps! But too late, and the band won’t have time to play. I just don’t see how we’ll ever work this all out.
But what about the caterer? They have no idea who’s going to be providing the food.
And what about the band that they want? Will the timing with their schedule work out?
It’s not easy to plan for a lot of resources when they have tight time restrictions and overlapping constraints. How would you figure out a schedule that makes everything fit together?
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develop the schedule
Bringing it all together The Develop Schedule process is the core of time management. It’s the process where you put it all together—where you take everything you’ve done so far and combine it into one final schedule for the whole project. A lot of project managers consider this the most important part of their job. The There schedule is your most important tool for managing a project.
you’ll are some assets thate a lik need for your scheduorle,holidays. calendar of shifts
Network Diagram
Resource Calendar
Organizational Process Assets Activity List
Activity Attributes
Activity Resource Requirements
Enterprise Environmental Factors
Activity Duration Estimates
Look in here for important constraints. They’ll include drop‑dea dates you absolutely d have to meet, and ot important milestones. her
Inputs
mes This is where it all ecothe ar together. These in the outputs you made d now other processes, anbuild you’ll use them to your schedule.
Develop Schedule
Project Scope Statement
Develop Schedule brings everything you’ve done so far together into one final schedule. All of the outputs from the other time management processes are inputs to Develop Schedule.
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time management Hold on! I don’t really work like that all the time when I’m managing projects! I figure some things out, then I go back and make changes. Like what if I’m working on the schedule and I realize I need to change my resources? This says I should have figured that all out by now, right?
Don’t worry, even though you’re done with the Estimate Activity Resources process, you’re not done with the resources. You’re never going to have the complete resource picture until you’re done building the schedule. And the same goes for your activity list and duration estimates, too! It’s only when you lay out the schedule that you’ll figure out that some of your activities and durations didn’t quite work.
That’s why the processes have the word “Estimating” in their names! Because you’re taking an educated guess, but you won’t know for sure until you’ve actually developed the schedule.
You’re not done with activity attributes yet. When you estimate resources, you’ll learn more about some activities and update their attributes.
Sequence Activities
You created this in Define Activities, but you learned more about it in Sequence Activities. Since the Activity List is updated, it’s also an output to the process!
Estimate Activity Resources
Each of the processes allows updates to an output from a previous one, so when you discover changes, you can include them in the schedule.
Estimate Activity Durations Develop Schedule
You won’t know everything about the resources until you actually develop the schedule, so you’ll have to keep updating the Resource Requirements. Activity List
Activity Attributes
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Question Clinic: The “Which-comes-next” Question If you want to pass the PMP exam, you’ll need to have a good feel for the order that the processes are performed in, because you’ll be asked a lot of “Which-comes -next” questions! These are questions that quiz you on how the processes fit together into one big framework. These questions aren’t hard, but they can be a little misleading.
Don’t be thrown if the estion asks ok lo ab ’t out an industry you doqu sn oe d on ti es qu n’t is th – e on th d of Hol much about. All projects know out the order co ab follow the ng ki as ’s es it m e lik same processes. ch hi W of t lo a processes! But describe a situation and next questions u’d do. ask you what yo
The Milestone List is an input that you’ve seen before.
The question described the Define Activities process, so you’ve already performed it.
truction nager for a highway cons ma ct oje pr the e u’r Yo . 27 ne the work that has to be do project. You’ve analyzed th tivities. You consulted wi ac of t lis a th wi up me co and nt der to find out any importa the project sponsor in or thing to meet. What’s the next milestones that you need that you do? dule A. Create the project sche ities process B. Perform the Define Activ t nagement plan to figure ou C. Consult your project ma changes how to handle any schedule cies between activities and D. Figure out the dependen ity network. create a diagram of the activ
In other words, you’ve used decomposition and created an activity list. These are part of the Define Activities process.
Did you notice the question said “diagram of the activity network” and not “project network diagram”? The exam might not use the exact same phrasing as the PMBOK® Guide. That’s why you’re learnin these things are used, and not just memorizing their names. g how
This answer describes Sequence Activities, which happens after Define Activities and takes the Activity List and Milestone List as inputs. That’s the right answer.
The Which-comes-next question doesn’t always look like it’s asking about the order of the processes! Keep an eye out for questions that describe inputs, outputs, tools, or techniques and ask you what you’re supposed to do next.
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The Develop Schedule process needs more than an activity list and resource availability.
You only do this during Control Schedule, but since there’s no schedule yet, there’s nothing to control.
HEAD
LIBS
Fill in the blanks to come up with your own “Which-comes-next” question! Start by thinking of a process to be the correct answer, and then figure out which process came right before it—that’s the one you’ll describe in the question!
You are managing a . You’ve finished creating the (an industry or the name of a project) , you’ve come up with (an output from the previous process) (another output from the previous process) and you’ve just finished . What’s the next thing you do? (a tool or technique from the previous process)
A. B. C. D.
(the correct answer – a brief description of what happens during the process) (a description of a different process) (the name of a tool or technique that’s part of a totally different process) (the name of an irrelevant process)
Join the Head First PMP community at http://www.headfirstlabs.com/PMP You can add your Head Libs answer, and see what Head Libs other project managers came up with! 269 Download at Boykma.Com
discovering problems
One thing leads to another
Aunt Laura is a vegetarian. That won’t be a problem, right?
Rebecca: Well, let’s see. What menu did we give to the caterers? Rob: We didn’t give it to them yet, because we won’t have the final menu until everyone RSVPs and lets us know which entrée they want. Rebecca: But they can’t RSVP because we haven’t sent out the invitations! What’s holding that up? Rob: We’re still waiting to get them back from the printer. We can’t send them out if we don’t have them yet! Rebecca: Oh no! I still have to tell the printer what to print on the invitations, and what paper to use.
Rob thought this was just a little problem...
Rob: But you were waiting on that until we finished the guest list. Rebecca: What a mess!
... but it turns out to be a lot bigger than either Rob or Rebecca realized at first! How’d a question about one guest’s meal lead to such a huge mess?
Can you think of a situation where a delay in an activity early on in a project can lead to a problem in a later activity, which leads to another problem in another activity, leading to a cascade of problems that makes the project late?
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time management
Use the Critical Path Method to avoid big problems The Critical Path Method is an important tool for keeping your projects on track. Every network diagram has something called the critical path. It’s the string of activities that, if you add up all of the durations, is longer than any other path through the network. It usually starts with the first activity in the network and usually ends with the last one. The reason that the critical path is, well, critical, is that every single activity on the path must finish on time in order for the project to come in on time. A delay in any one of the critical path activities will cause the entire project to be delayed.
Create the Guest List
Print the Invitations
Mail the Invitations
A delay here...
The Critical Path is the string of activities that will delay the whole project if any one of them is delayed.
Wait for the RSVPs Finalize the Menu Cater the Wedding
How does knowing your critical path help?
...will cause problems here!
Knowing where your critical path is can give you a lot of freedom. If you know an activity is not on the critical path, then you know a delay in that activity may not necessarily delay the project. This can really help you handle emergency situations. Even better, it means that if you need to bring your project in earlier, you know that adding resources to the critical path will be much more effective than adding them elsewhere.
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finding the critical path
How to find the critical path It’s easy to find the critical path in any project! With a little practice, you’ll get the hang of it. Of course, on a large project with dozens or hundreds of tasks, you’ll probably use software like Microsoft Project to find the critical path for you. But when it does, it’s following the same exact steps that you’ll follow here. 1
Start with an activity network diagram.
Look for paths by starting here and moving to the right.
4 7
Activity A
Activity B
Start
Finish
3
5
Activity D
Each time you see a branch the activity diagram, that meinans you’ve found another path! Find all of the paths in the diagram. A path is any string of activities that goes from the start of the project to the end.
2 Activity C
3
2
You’ll usually write the duration above each node in the diagram.
Activity E
Two branches means two additional paths.
Start
Activity A
Activity B
Finish
Start
Activity A
Activity C
Finish
Start
Activity D
Activity E
Finish
Find the duration of each path by adding up the durations of each of the activities on the path. Start
Activity A
Activity B
Finish = 4 + 7 = 11
Start
Activity A
Activity C
Finish = 4 + 2 = 6
Start
Activity D
Activity E
Finish = 3 + 5 = 8
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This path has a duration of 11, wh longer than the oticheh is two (6 and 8). So it r the critical path! ’s
time management
You may get questions on the exam asking you to identify the critical path in a network diagram. Here’s some practice for doing that! Find the critical path and duration for this PDM.
4
3
1
B
C
2
A
Start
4
6
E
F
5
G End
2
D
4
I
H
Critical Path Duration of Critical Path Total Number of Paths
6 2
C
3
A D
4 B
End
Start
2
7
F
E Critical Path Duration of Critical Path Total Number of Paths
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find the float
Finding the float for any activity Once you’ve figured out the critical path, there’s all sorts of useful stuff you can do with it. One of the most useful things you can do is calculate the float. The float for any activity is the amount of time that it can slip before it causes your project to be delayed. You might also see the word “slack” – it’s the same thing. Luckily, it’s not hard to figure out the float for any activity in a network diagram. First you write down the list of all of the paths in the diagram, and you identify the critical path. The float for every activity in the critical path is zero.
The goal is to find the float for each activity. We’re not really concerned with finding a total float for each path—we’re looking at the activities independently.
1
3
7
Activity B
Activity A
Activity C
Start
Finish
4 3 Activity D
1
Activity E
There are three paths in this network: Start → A → B → C → Finish = 11
2
Start → D → E → Finish = 7 Start → D → F→ G - Finish = 8
The path with the longest duration is the critical path! 2
The float for each of the activities on the critical path is zero.
3 Activity A Start
2 Activity G
Activity F
1 Activity B
7 Activity C Finish
Float=0 Float=0
Float=0
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time management 3
Find the next longest path. Subtract its duration from the duration of the critical path, and that’s the float for each activity on it.
Start
That’s ho out how low you figure activities cng any of its they delay an slip before the projec t.
4 Activity D
Finish
2 Float=3
2
The duration for this path is 8, and for the critical path it’s 11. So the float is 11 - 8 = 3.
Float=3
Activity F
Float=3
This is why you figure out the length of each path before you start. 4
Activity G
Do the same for the next longest path, and so on through the rest of the network diagram. Pretty soon, you’ll fill in the float for every activity!
Since we already float for activitycaDlculated the step, we leave it alon in the last way, we calculate thee. That particular and deliber float in a ate order!
Start
You can use this method to find the float for every activity in a network diagram. Another word for float is slack. Finish
4 3 Activity D
Since this duration was already filled in, you don’t want to replace it... because that’s how long this activity can slip!
Activity E
Float=3 Float=4
is 7, The duration for this paththit’s 11. and for the critical pa = 4. So the float is 11 - 7
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extra time
Float tells you how much extra time you have Once you know the float, you know how much play you have in your schedule. If an activity has a float of 2 days, it can slip by that much without affecting the end date.
The float for activities A, B and C is zero because any delay in them will cause the projec t to be late!
A → B → C is the tal critical path, with to = 14. duration 4 + 3 + 7
3
4
Activity B
Activity A Start
2
The duration for the last path D → E → G is 2 + 3 + 5 = 10.
The duration for the middle path D → E → F is 2 + 3 + 6 = 11
Activity D
without Activities D or E can slip by 3mor e Any e. lat t making the projec will F → E → D h than that and pat h! pat l ica crit the take longer than
7
Activity F has a float of 3 because that’s how much it can slip without causing path D → E → F to delay the project.
Activity C Finish
6 Activity F
3 Activity E
So D and E both have a float of 3.
To find the float for an activity, figure out how much it can slip before it makes the project late. The float for any activity on the critical path is ZERO! 276 Chapter 6 Download at Boykma.Com
5 Activity G
Activity G has a float of 4 because that’s how long path D → E → G can be delayed before it becomes the new critical path.
time management
You’ll need to be able to calculate the float of an activity in a network diagram for the exam. Take another look at this PDM from the last exercise. Can you calculate the float for each activity?
4
3
1
B
C
A
Start
4
6
E
F
5
2 G End
2
D
4
I
H
1. What is the float for each activity on the critical path? ____ 2. What is the total duration for path A → B → C → G? ____ 3. What is the total duration for path A → B → F → G? ____ 4. What is the total duration for path D → E → F → G? ____ 5. What is the total duration for path D → H → I? ____ 6. Which path is the critical path? ____ → ____ → ____ → ____ 7. Write down the float for each activity: A ____
B ____
C ____
D ____
F ____
G ____
H ____
I ____
E ____
Hint: First fill in the float for the critical path activities. Then move on to the next-longest path, and then the next-longest one, filling in any float that hasn’t been filled in yet. Answers on page 307. you are here 4 277
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no dumb questions
Q:
Where do the duration numbers come from on each activity?
A:
A lot of people ask that question. It’s easy to forget that everything you do in Sequence Activities builds on the stuff you did in the other Time Management processes. Remember the estimates that you came up with Estimate Activity Durations? You used techniques like Three Point Estimates, Analogous Estimating, and Parametric Estimating to come up with an estimate for each activity. Those are the estimates that you use on your network diagrams!
Q:
What if there’s a path that’s not critical, but where even a small slip in one activity would delay the project?
A:
This is exactly why it’s important to know the float for each of your activities. When you’re managing your project, it’s not enough to just pay attention to the activities on the critical path. You need to look for any activity with a low float. And don’t forget that there may be some activities that aren’t on the critical path but still have a float of zero! These are the ones where you really want to pay attention and watch out for potential resource problems.
I see—so when I created the network diagram in Sequence Activities, I was building on what I did in Define Activities. It all ties together!
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time management
Figure out the early start and early finish Coming up with the float for each activity is useful, but you can actually do better! When you have a long critical path, but the other paths in your network diagram are short, then you have a lot of freedom in when you can start and finish each of the activities that are not on the critical path. You can use early start and early finish to get a handle on exactly how much freedom you have in your schedule.
ion ath has a durat The critical p7 = 18. of 6 + 5 + 6
5 7
Activity B
Activity A
The other path has of 2 + 7 = 9. It’s a duration shorter than the cra lot so there should be a itical path, play in those activit lot of ies.
Activity C
Start
Finish
2
Even if Activity D starts really late, since the path it’s on is so much shorter than the critical path, the project will still be on time.
Activity D
That mean and early fsinthe early start really early— ish for D are sooner than they can end a lot will free up A, B and C, which you to use. their resources for
Early start Is the earliest time that an activity can start. An activity near the end of the path will only start early if all of the previous activities in the path also started early. If one of the previous activities in the path slips, that will push it out.
Early finish Is the earliest time that an activity can finish. It’s the date that an activity will finish if all of the previous activities started early and none of them slipped.
When you find the early start and early finish for each task, you know exactly how much freedom you have to move the start dates for those activities around without causing problems. you are here 4 279
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starting late
Figure out the latest possible start and finish It’s also important to know how late any activity can run before it delays the project. That’s what late start and late finish are for! They let you figure out how late you can start a certain task and how much it can slip before it delays your project.
This is the same networ diagram from the last k page
.
5
6
7
Activity B
Activity A
Activity C
Start
Finish
2
This path is much shorter than the critical path, so you should be able to start Activity D very late and still complete the project on time!
The path Activity D is on has a much shorter duration than the critical path. So even if it has a long delay, it still won’t harm the project.
Activity D
Late start Is the latest time that an activity can start. If an activity is on a path that’s much shorter than the critical path, then it can start very late without delaying the project – but those delays will add up quickly if other activities on its path also slip!
Late finish Is the latest time that an activity can finish. If an activity is on a short path and all of the other activities on that path start and finish early, then it can finish very late without causing the project to be late.
Figuring out the late start and late finish will help you see how much “play” you have in your schedule. An activity with a large late start or late finish means you have more options.
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time management
Add early and late durations to your diagrams Early start and finish the upper corners. Writego in name of the activity abovthe and the duration and flo e it, at inside the box.
You can use a method called forward pass to add the early start and finish to each path in your network diagram. Once you’ve done that, you can use backward pass to add the late start and finish. It makes your network diagrams look a little more complicated, but it gives you a lot of valuable information.
ecial You can use thistwspork node in your ne down diagram to writete the early and la . start and finish
The early start for this activity is 4.
The early finish for this activity is 8. There’s no way it can end before day 8.
Design Invitations
8
4
Duration = 5 Float = 3
Write the late start in the low erlefthand corner. As long as the invitation design starts by y 7, it won’t delay the critical patda h.
7
The late finish for the Design Invitations activity is 11, which means the latest it can finish without delaying the schedule is on day #11. If it hasn’t finished by then, Kathleen should worry!
11
Take a forward pass through the network diagram.
Start at the beginning of the critical path and move forward through each activity. Follow these three steps to figure out the early start and early finish!
6 Start
Activity A
5
Activity B
7 Activity C Finish
1
The ES (early start) of the first activity in the path is 1. The EF (early finish) of any task is its ES plus its duration minus one. So start with Activity A. It’s the first in the path, so ES = 1, and EF = 1 + 6 - 1 = 6.
2
Now move forward to the next activity in the path, which is Activity B in this diagram. To figure out ES, take the EF of the previous task and add one. So for Activity B, you can calculate ES = 6 + 1 = 7, and EF = 7 + 5 - 1 = 11.
3
Uh-oh! Activity C has two predecessors. Which one do you use to calculate EF? Since C can’t start until both B and D are done, use the one with the latest EF. That means you need to figure out the EF of Activity D (its ES is 1, so its EF is 1 + 2 – 1 = 2). Now you can move forward to Activity C and calculate its EF. The EF of Activity D is 2, which is smaller than B’s EF of 11, so for Activity C the ES = 11 + 1 = 12, and EF = 12 + 7 – 1 = 18.
5 B 2
7 C
D
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backward pass
Take a backward pass to find late start and finish You can use a backward pass through the same network diagram to figure out the late finish and start for each activity. The backward pass is just as easy as the forward pass. Start at the end of the path you just took a pass through and work your way backward to figure out the late start and finish. Activity B Activity A
1
7
6
Duration =5
Duration =6
Start
?
11
?
?
?
12
2
18
Duration =7
?
Activity D
1
Activity C
We’ve already figured out the ES and EF, so they’re filled in here!
?
Finish
Duration =2
?
Start with the critical path.
You’re calculating the latest any activity can start and finish, so it makes sense that you need to start at the end of the project and work backward—and the last activity on the critical path is always the last one in the project. Then do these three steps, working backwards to the next-longest path, then the nextlongest, etc., until you’ve filled in the LS and LF for all of the activities. Fill in the LF and LS for the activities on each path, but don’t replace any LF or LS you’ve already calcualted.
?
1
Start at the end of the path, with Activity C. The LF (late finish) of the last activity is the same as the EF. Calculate its LS (late start) by subtracting its duration from the LF and adding one. LS = 18 - 7 + 1 = 12
2
Now move backwards to the previous activity in the path—in this case, Activity B. Its LF is the LS of Activity C minus one, so LF = 12 - 1 = 11. Calculate its LS in the same way as step 1: LS = 11 - 5 + 1 = 7.
3
Now do the same for Activity A. LF is the LS for Activity B minus one, so LF = 7 - 1 = 6. And LS is LF minus duration plus one, so LF = 6 - 6 + 1 = 1.
4
Now you can move onto the next-longest path, Start-D-C-Finish. If there were more paths, you’d then move on to the next-longest one, etc., filling in LF and LS for any nodes that haven’t already been filled in. Activity B
Activity A
1
7
6
Duration =5
Duration =6
Start
1
11
7
6
11
Activity C
12
18
Duration =7
12
They’re the same if . there’s only one path But with more paths, ! things get interesting
18
Activity D
First do the forward pass for both paths. When you do that, you get a different LF for Activity B, which makes all the numbers cha nge!
1
2
Duration =2
10
11
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ate We use Activity D to calculaus e the LF for Activity C bec it has the lower LS.
Finish
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Let’s take some time out to walk through this! Calculating the ES, EF, LS, and LF may seem complicated, but it only takes a little practice to get the hang of it. Once you walk through it step by step, you’ll see that it’s actually pretty easy!
All of this critical path stuff seems pretty serious, right? It’s one of the toughest concepts on the exam. But don’t sweat it, because it’s actually not hard! It just takes a little practice. Once you do it yourself, you’ll see that there’s really nothing to worry about.
4
There are four paths in this network diagram. Fill in each of the activity names and durations for each of the paths.
3
4
B
C
A
Start
8
7
E
F
5 D
End
4 6
H
G
Start
Start
Start
Start
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__
__
__
__
__
__
__
__
__
__
__
__
__
Put an asterisk (*) next to the critical path. Finish
Finish
Finish
Finish
We’re not done yet! There’s more on the next page...
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critical path practice
Take a forward pass through each of the four paths in the diagram and fill in the early starts and early finishes for each activity. Start with the first one.
4 Start
Remember, the start of the firseatrly activity in a path is one.
A
3
4
B
C
ES=__
ES=__
ES=__
EF=__
EF=__
EF=__
The early finish of an activity is its ES plus its duration minus one.
The early start of an activity is the finish of the previous activity plus early one.
Let’s move on to the second path.
Start
Finish
4
3
7
A
B
F
Finish
ES=__
ES=__
ES=__
EF=__
EF=__
EF=__
The next path isn’t as straightforward as it looks. Start by filling in its values.
Start
5
8
4
D
E
H
Finish
ES=__
ES=__
ES=__
EF=__
EF=__
EF=__
Now take another look at it, and how it mixes with the last path. It includes activity H, which was also in the last path. H will have a different ES depending on 5 which path you use! So which predecessor Start D do you use – E or G? The idea here is that you use the ES=__ predecessor with the EF=__ larger EF value when you calculate the ES for activity H (because you want the latest possible start date).
8 E ES=__
4
EF=__
H
6 G ES=__ EF=__
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Finish
Wait up! These two aren’t so EF=__ ? straightforward. Once you have the EF for both activities E and G, you can use the bigger one to come up with the ES for activity H. ES=__ ?
time management
You’ve calculated the ES for each activity. Use that information and take a backward pass through the paths, starting with the first two paths. First start with the critical path. Take the EF of the last activity in the critical path and use it as the LF for the last activity in every path. If you take a minute to think about it, it makes sense to do that. The point of LF is to figure out the absolute latest that the activity can end without making the project late. And as long as every non-critical-path activity ends before the last activity in the critical path, then they won’t be late. We’ll start by giving you the LF of critical path, Start-D-E-H-Finish, which is 17.
Start by filling in the LF of the last activity in each path, which is the same as the EF of the last activity in the critical path. Start
The LF for each activity is the LS of the next one on the path minus one.
Move backwards through path, filling in the LS by the subtracting the duration the LF and adding one. Wefr’veom filled in the first two for you .
4 C
4
3
LF=__
A
B
LS=__
Finish
LF=__
LF=__
7
LS=__
LS=__
F
For activity B, you have a choice – you can calculate the LF using the LS from either activity C or F. Use the lower value, subtract one, and fill it in.
Finish up by calculating the LS and LF for the last two paths! Activities B and D have two possible choices for which LS to use for the calculation. For activity B, do you use the LS of C or the LS of F? And for activity D, do you use the activity E or G? The answer is that you always use the lowest value of LS to calculate the LF. The reason is that you’re trying to find the latest possible start date that won’t make the project late. If you use an activity with a later LS, and the activity really is delayed by that much, then it’ll cause a delay in both following activities. And that will make the one with the lower LS start too late.
LF=__ LS=__
8 E
Start
5
LF=__
4
D
LS=__
H
LF=__
6
LF=__
LS=__
G
LS=__
Activity D is another one where you have to chose which LS to use in order to calculate the LF. You can either use the LS from activity E or activity G. Use whichever is lowest, subtract one, and fill it in.
Finish
LF=__ LS=__
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exercise solutions
’t If you got a few of these wrong, don and ion, ulat calc one worry. It’s easy to miss h. pat le who the on blem that leads to a pro Activity A
1
4
Duration =4
Start
4
7
For the exam, you’ll only have to do one or two of these calculations, not a whole string of them like this. You’ll definitely be able to handle the exam questions now!
Activity B
5
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Duration =3
8
10
Activity C
8
11
Duration =4
14
17
Activity D
Activity E
Activity F
1
6
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5
Duration =5
1
5
Now you know that activity G can start as late as day 8 of the project (assuming the units are days) – or it could finish as early as day 11.
13
Duration =8
6
13
Activity G
6
11
Duration =6
8
13
14
Duration =7
11
17
Activity H
14
17
Duration =4
14
17
Wait a minute... I’ve never had to do this for my projects at work! I’ve got projects with dozens of activities, and this would take all day!
You won’t have to do this kind of thing on the job... that’s what computers are for! Project management software like Microsoft Project will do these calculations for you. But you need to know how to do it yourself, because when the computer is doing critical path analysis, this is exactly how it figures it out!
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Finish
time management
Q:
Would I really use this critical path stuff in real life, or is it just something I need to memorize for the PMP exam?
A:
Yes, critical path analysis really is important in real life! Sure, for a small project with a dozen or so activities, it’s pretty easy to figure out which activities are critical and which can slip by a little bit. But what happens if you’ve got a project with dozens of team members and hundreds of activities? That’s where critical path analysis can come in very handy. For a project like that, you’d probably be using project management software rather than calculating the critical path yourself, and the software will be able to highlight that path for you. Pay special attention to all of the activities that are on the critical path—those are the ones that could potentially delay the project.
Q: A:
What about the other numbers? How do I use float?
Float is a very powerful planning tool that you can use to figure out how well your
¢¢
¢¢
¢¢
¢¢
project is going, and to predict where your trouble spots might be. Any activity with a low or zero float absolutely must come in on time, while the people performing an activity with a larger float have more freedom to slip without delaying the project. So you might want to assign your “superstar” resources to the low-float activities, and those people who need a little more mentoring to the ones with higher float.
one of your team members wants to plan a vacation right at the time that the activity will start. Do you need to find someone to fill in for him? If he’ll be back before the late start date, then your project won’t be late! But that comes at a cost – you’ll have used up the extra slack in the schedule.
Okay, but what about late start, early finish, and those other numbers? Do those do me any good?
A:
Q:
A:
Early and late start and finish numbers are also very useful. How many times have you been in a situation where you’ve been asked, “If we absolutely had to have this in two months, can we do it?” Or, “How late can this project realistically be?” Now you can use these numbers to give you real answers, with actual evidence to back them up. Here’s an example. Let’s say you’ve got an activity in the middle of your project, and
The critical path is the path that has the longest duration. You should be able to figure out the number of paths in a project network diagram, and the duration of each path. The float for an activity is the amount that its duration can slip without causing the project to be delayed. The float for any activity on the critical path is zero.
¢¢
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Q:
I can see how the critical path is useful on its own, but what does it have to do with the rest of time management?
If you start putting together your schedule but the activities are in the wrong order, that’s really going to cause serious problems... and sometimes doing critical path analysis is the only way you’ll really figure out that you’ve made that particular mistake. That’s why you need to pay a lot of attention to the Sequence Activities tools and techniques. If you’ve come up with an inefficient or inaccurate sequence, with too many or incorrect predecessors and dependencies, then your entire critical path analysis will be useless.
You may see a PDM (or activity-on-node) diagram with special nodes that have extra boxes in the corners for the ES, EF, LF, and LS. Don’t forget that when two paths intersect, you have to decide which ES or LF value to take for the calculation in the next node. For the forward pass, use the larger value; for the backward pass, use the smaller one.
You’ll need to know how to calculate the early start, late start, early finish, and late finish for an activity in a network diagram using the forward pass and backward pass. This is the core of critical path analysis.
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crashing costs more
Crash the schedule There are two important schedule compression techniques that you can use to bring in your project’s milestone dates…but each has its own cost. When you absolutely have to meet the date and you are running behind, you can sometimes find ways to do activities more quickly by adding more resources to critical path tasks. That’s called crashing.
A lot more people RSVP’d than we expected!
No problem! We’ll just add more cooks and waiters to serve more people.
Hmm. That’ll cost more…
Crashing the schedule means adding resources or moving them around to shorten it. Crashing ALWAYS costs more and doesn’t always work!
Yeah, but what if you’re at the budget limit and can’t afford extra resources?
Then you can’t crash the schedule. There’s no way to crash a schedule without raising the overall cost of the project. So, if the budget is fixed and you don’t have any extra money to spend, you can’t use this technique.
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time management
Fast-tracking the project Another schedule compression technique is called fast-tracking. Sometimes you’ve got two activities planned to occur in sequence, but you can actually do them at the same time. On a software project, you might do both your UAT testing and your functional testing at the same time, for example. This is pretty risky, though. There’s a good chance you might need to redo some of the work you have done concurrently. We can save time by having the florist work on the reception hall flowers while we figure out the rest of the decorations.
If the decorations don’t match the flowers well enough, we’ll have to do some rework.
On the exam, if you see something about “overlapping activities,” it’s talking about fast-tracking.
Crashing and fast-tracking are SCHEDULE COMPRESSION tools.
ach of these scenarios describes a schedule compression technique. Pick which are E examples of fast-tracking and which are crashing. 1. Kathleen guesses that 70% of the invitees will RSVP. Instead of waiting for all of them to come in, she goes ahead and reserves the tables and chairs now.
c Fast-tracking
c Crashing
2. Rebecca is taking a really long time to choose the decorations so Kathleen brings in a professional decorator to help, even though it will cost more.
c Fast-tracking
c Crashing
3. Kathleen needs to get the invitations out quickly, so she hires two temps to come in and help her stuff envelopes for a few days.
c Fast-tracking
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anything can happen
What-if analysis It’s always a good idea to think about all of the things that could go wrong on your project in advance. ¢¢
What if the limo breaks down?
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What if the florist cancels at the last minute?
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What if the dress doesn’t fit?
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What if the band gets sick?
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What if the guests get food poisoning?
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What if there’s a typo in the church address on the invitation?
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What if the bridesmaids don’t show up?
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What if the cake tastes horrible?
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What if we lose the rings?
That way, you can figure out how to deal with any problems that might come your way. Sometimes there’s no way to still meet your dates and deal with these scenarios. But it always makes sense to try to understand the impact they will have on your schedule.
Monte Carlo Analysis This is a specific kind of what-if analysis where you model uncertainty using a computer. There are some packages that will help to calculate risk using random numbers and Monte Carlo algorithms. While this is not a commonly used technique, there might be a question or two about it on the PMP exam, and you should know what it is.
Scheduling Tool Using a project management software package to create a model of the schedule and adjust various elements to see what might happen is another technique for analyzing network diagrams.
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time management
Other Develop Schedule tools and techniques There are just a few more tools and techniques in the Develop Schedule process that you should know.
Performance Reviews One of the most common ways to do this is to use the critical chain method. In this method, resource dependencies are used to determine the critical path. Then, buffers are added working backwards from the delivery date into the schedule at strategic points, and the project is managed so that each milestone is hit on time.
Resource Leveling Sometimes only one resource can do a given activity. If that resource is busy doing another activity on the critical path, the path itself needs to change to include that dependency. That’s the point of resource leveling. It evaluates all of the resources to see if the critical path needs to change to accommodate resource assignments.
Adjusting Leads and Lags If you made any mistakes in your leads and your lags, you might be able to adjust them to change the projected end date.
And don’t forget...
Schedule Compression and Schedule Net work Analysis The last two tools and techniques in the Develop Schedule process are the ones you just learned over the last few pages: schedule compression and schedule network analysis.
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Develop Schedule outputs
Outputs of Develop Schedule Of course, the main product of Develop Schedule is the schedule. But there are a few other supporting documents that help you understand how the work will get done as well.
Outputs
Project Schedule
Schedule
The reason you go thro that what-if analysis isugh all of sure everybody agrees thto make schedule is achievable! at this
All of that analysis and modeling should produce a schedule that everyone can get behind. After thinking your way through everything that can go wrong and assigning resources, you should have a pretty accurate prediction of the work required to complete the project.
Milestone List
Milestone List
Technically, the milestone list is a part of the project schedule (so they’re really all part of the same output), but it’s very important. All of the major chunks of work can be marked with milestones to track their completion. Usually this list is published for other teams or stakeholders who are depending on parts of the work to be accomplished by a certain time.
The main thing to remember hered is that milestones are usually used by to track stuff that will be use people outside the project.
Schedule Data
Schedule Data
The schedule data is a colletion of information about your schedule. It will include things that you’ll need to analyze your schedule later on in the project: alternative schedules, specific requirements for resources, milestone charts, bar charts, project schedule netowrk diagrams, and other data and metrics about your schedule
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time management
Before you can do change control, you need requested changes. Once the change is approved, you can update the baseline!
This is just like the Scope Baseline in the last chapter.
Activity Requirements
Calendar
Schedule Baseline When the Develop Schedule process is complete, a baseline is created so that actual progress can be compared to the plan.
Activity Attributes
Any of these project documents can get updated when your schedule changes.
Project Document Updates
Updates and Requested Changes In the course of developing the schedule, you will find changes to your resource requirements, activity attributes, and project calendars. Some changes may affect your overall plan for handling all other areas of project management. In that case, the Project Management Plan will need to be updated. (You’ll also update the Risk Register—you’ll learn all about that in Chapter 11.)
Risk Register
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scenario and output matching
or the exam, you need to know Develop Schedule outputs. Several outputs from F the wedding’s Develop Schedule process are on the left. Match them to the correct description on the right.
A. Project Schedule
1. Kathleen gives a list of dates to the caterer telling him when he will need to have his menu plans and when the shopping for the ingredients will need to be complete for the Reception and Rehearsal Dinner.
B. Schedule Data
2. Kathleen realizes that she needs to make a change to how she keeps track of the waiters’ time, so she makes a change to the document that describes it.
C. Schedule Baseline
3. While making the schedule, Kathleen realizes that she is going to need a lot more waiters.
D. Update to Resource Requirements
4. Kathleen makes a copy of the schedule when it’s done so that she can compare how she is doing to the original plan.
E. Project Document Updates
5. There’s a big poster on the wall where Kathleen keeps track of who does what, and when.
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time management
Q:
Don’t we need to go through change control before we update the resource requirements or the activity attributes?
Q:
Do people really do Monte Carlo Analysis to figure out their schedules? I have never heard of that before.
A:
A:
As you work your way through your network diagram and figure out new dependencies, you are going to find that you need more resources for some items or that the activity itself has changed. That’s why this process gives you the freedom to refine your earlier idea and make all of the time management documents in sync with your new understanding.
Critical Chain sounds complicated. Do I need to know how to do it?
No. You need to go through change control if you are requesting changes to, say, your cost management plan. But while you are working on creating your schedule, everything you have created as part of the Time Management knowledge area is fair game.
The Develop Schedule process is about taking all of the information you are able to think of up front and putting it into a schedule that is realistic. When you are done with this process, you should have a really good idea of what you are going to do, who will do it, and how long it will take.
Q:
We always want to do our projects as quickly as we can. Why don’t we always fast-track and crash our schedules?
A:
Because crashing is expensive and fast-tracking is risky. While it may look good on paper to add a lot of resources to a project that is running late, it often adds so much management overhead and training issues that the project just comes in later.
Even though it might seem like some predecessors are really unnecessary, you usually planned them for a reason. So when you break your dependencies to fasttrack your project, you can significantly compromise the quality of the work that gets done. That means you might have to redo it altogether—which would probably take a lot of time.
It’s true that most people don’t use this technique to figure out what might go wrong on their projects, so don’t feel bad if you’ve never heard of it. Some people think that this is just one of those things that is on the PMP exam, so you have to know what it is. But there really are some project managers who use it and get great results!
Q:
A:
Not really. You need to know that it is a technique for developing schedules that takes resource assignment into account early on.
When project managers use the Critical Chain method, they identify strategic points to put buffers in their schedule and then manage the size of the buffers so that each milestone in the schedule is met. Don’t worry, you won’t be asked to create a schedule using this technique. You just need to know the definition.
Updates refine the outputs of previous processes so you don’t have to go back and redo them.
While fast-tracking and crashing might work sometimes, they always add both risk and cost to your project.
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don’t wait for change
Influence the factors that cause change Kathleen doesn’t just sit around and wait for schedule changes to happen…
You might get a question on the PMP exam that asks you about this.
Something doesn’t seem right with the catering.
Joe (on phone): Good afternoon, Joe’s Catering. Joe speaking. How can I help you? Kathleen: Hello, Joe. This is Kathleen calling about Rob and Rebecca’s wedding. Joe: Oh, Hi! Everything’s going fine with that wedding. Kathleen: Are you sure? What about that big convention across town that’s going to be happening at the same time? Won’t it be tough to find waiters in June? Joe: I didn’t think of that; we’d better start figuring out how we’ll handle it now.
By realizing that town will need waitthe convention across prevents a lot of chers, too, Kathleen cause schedule prob anges before they lems!
The project manager doesn’t just wait for change to happen! She finds the things that cause change and influences them.
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time management
Control Schedule inputs and outputs As the project work is happening, you can always discover new information that makes you re-evaluate your plan, and use the Control Schedule process to make the changes. The inputs to Control Schedule cover the various ways you can discover that information. The outputs are the changes themselves. Inputs
A lot of changes are discovered by looking at ts. performance improvemen
Changes are always compared to the schedule to understand impact.
Project Management Plan
Schedule
Work Performance Information
You built the Schedule Management Plan sub-plan back when you were in theent Develop Project Managem Plan process.
Organizational Process Assets
Outputs
Control Schedule
New values for Schedule Performance Index and WBS components. We’ll learn more about that in the next chapter.
Updates to time nts management documet or like the activity lisnts resource requireme
Project Document Updates
Change Requests
Project Management Plan Updates
Work Performance Measurements
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schedule document updates
What Control Schedule updates All of the stuff you made during the Develop Schedule process gets updated using the Control Schedule process. Here’s a closer look at what those updates mean.
Control Schedule Schedule Baseline
Whenever a change is approved to your schedule, the baseline needs to be updated. That way, you will always be comparing your results to the right plan.
Organizational Process Assets
Activity List
Updates
Activity Attributes
Schedule Data
Project Management Plan
As you make changes to your project schedule, you should be tracking your lessons learned so that other projects can benefit from your experience. Sometimes you might find changes to templates that will help future projects, too.
If the work you need to do changes, then you need to update your activity list and attributes to match the new information.
Some scenarios for what might go wrong on your project might show up when you are already doing the work. You need to update your schedule accordingly.
It could happen that the way you manage Control Schedule needs to change, and those changes would need to be updated in the project management plan.
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Managing schedule change means keeping all of your schedule documents up to date.
time management
Measuring and reporting performance Most often, changes are identified through looking at performance data. It’s just as important once you make a change to gather performance data as it was when you found the change in the first place. Here’s how performance data feeds into the Control Schedule process.
Gathering reports on those measurements will help you determine where the problem is and recommend changes to fix it.
Performance Measurement
Routine performance measurements might show that you are lagging in your schedule. We’ll learn more about how to measure this stuff in the next chapter.
When your schedule changes, you need to take performance measurements so you can keep your stakeholders up to date.
Performance Reports
Control Schedule
Once the change is made, you need to measure performance and keep everybody in the loop on what is working and what isn’t.
Putting the recommended changes through Control Schedule will help you to evaluate the impact and update all the necessary documents. Performance Measurement
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the tools of Control Schedule
Control Schedule tools and techniques The tools and techniques for Control Schedule are all about figuring out where your project schedule stands. By comparing your actual project to the schedule you laid out in the baseline and looking at how people are performing, you can figure out how to handle every schedule change.
You did the same thing in scope control!
Variance Analysis Use this to take stock of where your project is right now and compare that against what you’d planned to do in the baseline. If there’s a big difference there, you know there’s a problem! Performance Reviews There are two important calculations called Schedule Variance (SV) and Schedule Performance Index (SPI) that give you valuable information about how your project is doing. You’ll learn all about them in the next chapter. Adjusting Leads and Lags, What-if analysis, Schedule Compression Most of the tools from the last process apply to this one too. As you find variances in the schedule, you need to figure out the impact of those issues and change your schedule to account for the new information.
Progress Reporting Most project managers have probably done a lot of progress reporting! It’s one of those things that most people think of when they think of project management. It’s when you create a report that says what the team has done, what milestones you’ve reached, and what’s left to be done. You’ll usually use a report template for this. Project Management Software This is software like Microsoft Project that helps you organize and analyze all of the information you need to evaluate the schedule of any project. Resource Leveling As things change in your project, you need to make sure that resources are covering all of the activities in your plan. That means you need to distribute resources so that the work that needs to get done always has a resource to available to do it.
Hold it! Almost all the scheduling in my job is done with Gantt charts, but I barely see them here. What gives?
Remember, Gantt charts—the bar charts you make with MS Project—are just one tool for scheduling. You may use them a lot in your day-to-day work, but they’re only one piece of time management. And remember, on the exam they’re called bar charts, not Gantt charts! 300 Chapter 6 Download at Boykma.Com
A lot of scheduling software contains logic to do this automatically.
time management
Q:
When I create performance reports, who uses them?
A:
The performance reports that you create are used by a lot of people. The team uses them to keep an eye on the project. If there’s a schedule problem coming up, it alerts the team so that they can help you figure out how to avoid it.
Performance reports are also used by your project’s sponsor and stakeholders, who are very interested in whether or not your project is on track. Those reports give them a good picture of how the project is doing... and that’s especially important in Control Schedule, because most change control systems require that every change is approved by a Change Control Board that includes sponsor and stakeholders.
Q: A:
What’s schedule data used for?
You use the schedule data to build the schedule, and you’ll usually generate and analyze it using a schedule tool (like Microsoft Project). It includes detailed information about things like resource requirements, alternate best-case and worst‑case schedules, and contingency reserves.
Q:
One of the tools is Project Management Software. Do I need to know how to use software in order to pass the exam?
A:
No. The PMP exam does not require that you know how to use software like Microsoft Project. However, if you spend a lot of time using project management software, then you probably have become very familiar with a lot of the Time Management concepts. It’s a good way to learn the basics of time management.
Q:
How often am I supposed to update the project calendar?
A:
The project calendar shows you the working days for your team, holidays, nonworking days, planned training, and the dates that could affect your project. Luckily, in most companies these dates don’t change very often. You probably won’t need to update it—and most project managers just use their company’s existing project calendar.
When you’re doing Develop Schedule, you may discover that you need to make a change to the project calendar. That’s why Updates to the Project Calendar is an output of Develop Schedule.
When you put together your schedule, you should look at all of these things in order to create an accurate plan. The more information you have when you’re building your schedule, the more likely it is that you’ll catch those little problems that add up to big schedule slips.
Q:
What do I do with the progress reports and performance measurements?
A:
When you’re planning your project, you’ll often look to your company’s past projects to see what went well and what could have been planned better. And where do you look? That information is in the Organizational Process Assets. So where do you think that information comes from? It comes from project managers like you who added their progress reports and performance measurements.
Any time you generate data about your project, you should add it to your organizational process assets so you can use it for future projects.
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do you know Control Schedule?
Control Schedule Magnets
You’ll see change control over and over again— every single knowledge area has its own change control process! Luckily, you’ll start to see how similar they all are. But Control Schedule has its own quirks, and they’re important for understanding Time Management. Inputs
Fill in the inputs up here! We’ve gotten you started with this one.
Write the tools and techniques in here.
Work Performance Information
Adjusting Leads and Lags, Whatif analysis, Schedule Compression
Resource leveling
Performance Reviews Scheduling Tool
The outputs go down here!
Answers on page 309.
Outputs
Write in four of the things that get updated here Updates to
Work Performance Measurements
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time management
Timecross
Untitled Puzzle
Take some time to sit back and give your right brain something to do. It’s your standard crossword; all of the solution words are from this chapter. 1
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Header Info 1 Header Info 2 etc...
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1. Taking work packages from the WBS and 5. The “P” indown PDM. into activities breaking them 5. The 7."P" PDM Thein kind of analysis where you ask a lot of questions 7. The about kindpossibilities. of analysis where you ask a lot of questions about possibilities 8. A snapshot of the schedule that you can use for later 8. A snapshot of the schedule that you can use comparison. for later comparison 10. __________ estimation means plugging data about your 10. __________ estimation means plugging data projectproject into a database historical information to get an about your into aofdatabase of historical estimatetoofget how an longestimate it will take toofdohow the work. information long it will take to12. doGiving the awork successor task some time to start before a 12. Giving a successor predecessor finishes. task some time to start before a predecessor finishes 13. Adding more resources to a project so you can get it 13. Adding more resources to a project so you faster is called _______ the schedule. can getdone it done faster is called _______ the 14. A PERT three-point estimate is optimistic time + 4 x most schedule likely time + _______ time. 14. A PERT three-point estimate is optimistic time + 4 x most likely time + _______ time
2. Any delay in an activity on the _______ path will delay the Down entire project.
2. Any delay in an activity on the _______ path 3. Youdelay do thisthe sort entire of planning when you get more will project information as the project progresses. 3. You do this sort of planning when you get more information as the projectwhen progresses 4. What you’re doing to resources you evaluate 4. What you're doing resources when all of them to see if the criticaltopath needs to change to you evaluate alltheir of restrictions. them to see if the critical path accommodate needs to change to accommodate their 6. An activity with a dependency on something outside the restrictions project has an _________ predecessor. 6. An activity with a dependency on something 9. ________ Activities is the proces you put the outside the project has an where _________ activities in order. predecessor. 9. ________ Activities the the proces whereis you 11. How long an activity can slipisbefore whole project put the activities in order delayed. 11. How long an activity can slip before the whole project is delayed
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happy days for everyone
Another satisfied customer! Rob and Rebecca had a beautiful wedding! Everything was perfect. The guests were served their meals, the band was just right, and everyone had a blast...
...and Kathleen got lots of referrals!
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Oh, that rocks. Four more weddings to plan right away!
time management
You’ll need to understand the different Estimate Activity Resources tools and techniques for the exam. Look at each of these scenarios and write down which of the five Activity Resource Estimation tools and techniques is being used. 1. K athleen has to figure out what to do for the music at Rob and Rebecca’s wedding. She considers using a DJ, a rock band, or a string quartet. Alternatives Analysis 2. The latest issue of Wedding Planner’s Journal has an article on working with caterers. It includes a table that shows how many waiters work with various guest-list sizes. Published Estimating Data 3. There’s a national wedding consultant who specializes in Caribbean-themed weddings. Kathleen gets in touch with her to ask about menu options. Expert Judgment 4. K athleen downloads and fills out a specialized spreadsheet that a project manager developed to help with wedding planning. Project Management Soft ware 5. There’s so much work that has to be done to set up the reception hall that Kathleen has to break it down into five different activities in order to assign jobs. Bottom-Up Estimating 6. K athleen asks Rob and Rebecca to visit several different caterers and sample various potential items for the menu.
Alternatives Analysis
7. K athleen calls up her friend who knows specifics of the various venues in their area for advice on which one would work best. Expert Judgment
ach of these scenarios describes a different tool or technique from Estimate Activity Durations. E Write down which tool or technique is being described. 1. Kathleen comes up with three estimates (one where everything goes wrong, one where some things go wrong, and one where nothing goes wrong) for printing invitations, and averages them together to come up with a final number. Three-point estimate 2. There will be two different catering companies at the wedding. Kathleen asks the head chef at each of them to give her an estimate of how long it will take each of them to do the job. Expert judgment 3. There’s a spreadsheet Kathleen always uses to figure out how long it takes guests to RSVP. She enters the number of guests and their ZIP codes, and it calculates an estimate for her. Parametric estimating 4. Kathleen’s done four weddings that are very similar to Rob and Rebecca’s, and in all four of them it took exactly the same amount of time for the caterers to set up the reception hall. Analogous estimating
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exercise solutions
ou may get questions on the exam asking you to identify the critical path in a network diagram. You Y had to practice that by finding the critical path and duration for this PDM.
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time management
ou’ll need to be able to calculate the float of an activity in a network diagram for the exam. Take Y another look at this PDM from the last exercise. Can you calculate the float for each activity?
0 1. What is the float for each activity on the critical path? ____ 10 2. What is the total duration for path A – B – C – G? ____ 15 3. What is the total duration for path A – B – F – G? ____ 17 4. What is the total duration for path D – E – F – G? ____ 11 5. What is the total duration for path D – H – I? ____ D – ____ E – ____ F – ____ G 6. Which path is the critical path? ____ 7. Write down the float for each activity:
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ach of these scenarios describes a schedule compression technique. Pick which are E examples of fast-tracking and which are crashing. 1. Kathleen guesses that 70% of the invitees will RSVP. Instead of waiting for all of them to come in, she goes ahead and reserves the tables and chairs now.
c Fast-tracking
c Crashing
2. Rebecca is taking a really long time to choose the decorations so Kathleen brings in a professional decorator to help, even though it will cost more.
c Fast-tracking
c Crashing
3. Kathleen needs to get the invitations out quickly, so she hires two temps to come in and help her stuff envelopes for a few days.
c Fast-tracking
c Crashing
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exercise solutions
ou’ll need to know how to turn a table of Y nodes into a network diagram, so here’s your chance to get some practice! Here’s a list of nodes for a PDM network diagram. Try drawing the diagram based on it:
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Now try another one!
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time management
Control Schedule Magnets Answers
This is just like Sc Management! You stopare with a plan, a baseline, t and change requests.
You’ll see change control over and over again— every single knowledge area has its own change control process! Luckily, you’ll start to see how similar they all are. But Control Schedule has its own quirks, and they’re important for understanding Time Management. Inputs
You use these to figure out which milestones you hit and which activities are slipping.
These tools are all about figuring out where you stand in relation to the baseline!
Work Performance Information
Project Management Plan Organizational Process Assets
e Project Schedul
Adjusting Leads and Lags, Whatif analysis, Schedule Compression
Project Management Software
Variance Analysis
Resource leveling
Performance Reviews Scheduling Tool Outputs
This should also look really familiar. Whe n you go through change control, you end up wit bunch of updates and some corrective act h a ions. Work Performance Measurements
Change Requests
Updates to
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exercise solutions
Timecross solution 1
Did you get thrown because you thought using a historical database meant that you were doing analogous estimation? If you’re plugging values into a database or spreadsheet, you’re doing parametric estimation. A lot of people consider this a special type of analogous estimation, but describing it as parametric is more accurate.
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ere are some examples of three-point estimates. Use the formula to figure out the expected time H for each of these.
1. Expected Duration = 50d; Optimistic Duration = 30d; Most Likely Duration = 45d; Pessimistic Duration = 90d 2. Expected Duration = 20.3d; Optimistic Duration = 12d; Most Likely Duration = 20d; Pessimistic Duration = 30d 3. Expected Duration = 25d; Optimistic Duration = 10d; Most Likely Duration = 25d; Pessimistic Duration = 40d 4. Expected Duration = 51.8d; Optimistic Duration = 33d; Most Likely Duration = 49d; Pessimistic Duration = 82d
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Exam Questions 1. You’re managing a project, when your client tells you that an external problem happened, and now you have to meet an earlier deadline. Your supervisor heard that in a situation like this, you can use schedule compression by either crashing or fast-tracking the schedule, but he’s not sure which is which. What do you tell him? A. B. C. D.
Crashing the project adds risk, while fast-tracking adds cost When you crash a project, it always shortens the total duration of the project Crashing the project adds cost, while fast-tracking adds risk When you fast-track a project, it always shortens the total duration of the project
2. Given this portion of the network diagram to the right, what’s the ES of activity F? A. B. C. D.
9 10 12 13
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3. Given this portion of the network diagram to the right, what’s the LF of activity F? A. B. C. D.
EF = 9
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4. You are managing a software project. Your QA manager tells you that you need to plan to have her team start their test planning activity so that it finishes just before testing begins. But other than that, she says it can start as late in the project as necessary. What’s the relationship between the test planning activity and the testing activity? A. B. C. D.
Start-to-Start (SS) Start-to-finish (SF) Finish-to-Start (FS) Finish-to-Finish (FF)
5. You’re managing an industrial design project. You’ve come up with the complete activity list, created network diagrams, assigned resources to each activity, and estimated their durations. What’s the next thing that you do? A. B. C. D.
Use Rolling Wave Planning to compensate for the fact that you don’t have complete information Create the schedule Consult the project scope statement and perform Sequence Activities Use fast-tracking to reduce the total duration
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exam questions
Exam Questions 6. Which of the following is NOT an input to Develop Schedule? A. B. C. D.
Activity list Project schedule network diagrams Resource calendars Schedule baseline
7. Three members of your project team want to pad their estimates because they believe there are certain risks that might materialize. What is the BEST way to handle this situation? A. B. C. D.
Estimate the activities honestly, and then use a contingency reserve to cover any unexpected costs Allow more time for the work by adding a buffer to every activity in the schedule Tell the team members not to worry about it, and if the schedule is wrong it’s okay for the project to be late Crash the schedule
8. Which of the following tools is used for adding buffers to a schedule? A. B. C. D.
Three-point estimates Critical chain method Expert judgment Critical path analysis
Name
9. What is the critical path in the activity list to the right? A. B. C. D.
Start-A-B-C-Finish Start-A-D-E-F-Finish Start-G-H-I-J-Finish Start-A-B-J-Finish
10. What is the float for activity F in the activity list to the right? A. B. C. D.
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11. You’re managing an interior decoration project, when you find out that you need to get it done earlier than originally planned. You decide to fast-track the project. This means: A. B. C. D.
Starting the project sooner and working overtime Assigning more people to the tasks at a greater total cost, especially for activities on the critical path Starting activities earlier and overlapping them more, which will cost more and could add risks Shortening the durations of the activities and asking people to work overtime to accommodate that.
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time management
Exam Questions 12. Slack is a synonym for: A. B. C. D.
Float Lag Buffer Reserve
13. You’re managing a construction project. You’ve decomposed work packages into activities, and your client needs a duration estimate for each activity that you come up with. Which of the following will you use for this? A. B. C. D.
Milestone list Activity list Critical path analysis Project schedule network diagram
14. What’s the correct order of the Time Management planning processes? A. Sequence Activities, Define Activities, Estimate Activity Resources, Estimate Activity Durations, Develop Schedule B. Define Activities, Sequence Activities, Develop Schedule, Estimate Activity Resources, Estimate Activity Durations C. Define Activities, Sequence Activities, Estimate Activity Resources, Estimate Activity Durations, Develop Schedule D. Develop Schedule, Define Activities, Sequence Activities, Estimate Activity Resources, Estimate Activity Durations 15. Which of the following is NOT a tool or technique used in Estimate Activity Durations? A. B. C. D.
SWAG Estimation Parametric Estimation Analogous Estimation Three-Point Estimation
16. You’re managing a project to build a new project management information system. You work with the team to come up with an estimate of 27 weeks. In the best case, this could be shortened by two weeks because you can reuse a previous component. But there’s a risk that a vendor delay could cause the project to be delayed by five weeks. Use PERT to calculate a three-point estimate for this project. A. B. C. D.
25.83 weeks 26 weeks 27.5 weeks 28.3 weeks
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exam questions
Exam Questions 17. Given the network diagram below, what’s the critical path? A. B. C. D.
Start-A-B-C-End Start-A-D-G-End Start-E-D-C-End Start-E-F-G-End
18. For that same network diagram below, what’s the float for activity A? A. B. C. D.
0 weeks 1 week 2 weeks 4 weeks
19. For that same network diagram below, what’s the float for activity E? A. B. C. D.
0 weeks 1 week 2 weeks 4 weeks 3 B
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Start 1 8
1
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F
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G
time management
Exam Questions 20. You’re managing a software project, when your customer informs you that a schedule change is necessary. Which is the BEST thing to do? A. B. C. D.
Consult the schedule management plan Notify the team and the sponsor that there’s going to be a schedule change Influence the factors that cause change Refuse to make the change because there’s already a schedule baseline
21. Your company has previously run other projects similar to the one you’re currently managing. What is the BEST way to use that information? A. B. C. D.
Check the organizational process assets for lessons learned and other information about the past projects Use parametric estimation to estimate your project based on past projects’ performance Start from scratch because you don’t want mistakes from past projects to influence you Reuse the project management plan from a past project
22. You’re planning the schedule for a highway construction project, but the final date you came up with will run into the next budget year. The state comes up with capital from a reserve fund, and now you can increase the budget for your resources. What’s the BEST way to compress the schedule? A. B. C. D.
Go back to your three-point estimates and use the most optimistic ones Use the extra budget to increase your contingency reserve Hire more experts to use expert judgment so your estimates are more accurate Crash the schedule
23. You’re managing a software project. You’ve created the schedule, and you need to figure out which activities absolutely cannot slip. You’ve done critical path analysis, identifying the critical path and calculating the early start and early finish for each activity. Which activities cannot slip without making the project late? A. B. C. D.
The ones with the biggest difference between ES and LF The activities on the critical path The activity with the most lag The last activity in the project, because it has no float
24. You’re managing a construction project. You’ve decomposed work packages into activities, and your client needs a duration estimate for each activity that you came up with. Which of the following BEST describes what you are doing? A. B. C. D.
Evaluating each activity to figure out how much effort it will take Estimating the number of person-hours that will be required for each activity Understanding, in calendar time, how long each activity will take Estimating how many people it will take to perform each activity
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exam answers
Answers
Exam Questions 1. Answer: C
You’ll definitely get some questions that ask you about crashing and fast-tracking, and it’s important to know the difference between them. When you crash the project, it means that you add resources to it, especially to the critical path. There’s no real risk in doing that—in the worst-case scenario, the extra people just sit around!—but it does cost more. Fast-tracking means adjusting the schedule so that activities overlap. The same resources are doing the work, so it’s not going to cost more, but it’s definitely riskier, because now you’ve eliminated buffers and possibly broken some dependencies! And remember that crashing or fasttracking won’t always work to make the project go faster! 2. Answer: D Calculating the early start (ES) of an activity isn’t hard. All you need to do is look at the early finish (EF) of the previous activity and add one. If there’s more than one predecessor, then you take the largest EF and add one. In this case, the predecessors to activity F are D, with an EF of 9, and E, with an EF of 12. So the ES of F is 12 + 1 = 13. 3. Answer: A It’s just as easy to calculate the late finish (LF). Look at the following activity, take its LS (late start), and subtract one. If there’s more than one following activity, use the one with the lowest LS. So for activity F in the question, the following activities are G, with an LS of 17, and H, with an LS of 11. So the LF of F is 11 - 1 = 10. 4. Answer: C Don’t let the jargon fool you! You don’t need to know anything about software testing to answer this question. When you have two activities, and the first activity has to be timed so that it finishes before the second one starts, then you’ve got a Finish-to-Start relationship, or FS. 5. Answer: B
Did answer A trick you? No need for rolling wave planning when you’ve got enough info to define all the activities!
This is a Which-is-next question that describes a project that’s completed the Define Activities, Sequence Activities, Estimate Activity Resources, and Estimate Activity Durations processes. The next process in Time Management is Develop Schedule, which means that the next thing you do is create the schedule!
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Answers
time management
Exam Questions 6. Answer: D
The schedule baseline is an output of the Develop Schedule process, not an input. You should definitely know what goes into the schedule baseline: it’s a specific version of the schedule that you set aside and use for comparison later on, when you want to know if the project is running late. I get it—we can use the schedule baseline the same way that we use the scope baseline! We take a snapshot of it and then save it, so we can compare the project’s performance against it later!
7. Answer: A You always want to be honest with your estimates. Every project has unknowns and risks, and there’s no way to estimate any activity exactly! Luckily, we have tools to deal with this. You can use reserve analysis, a tool of Estimate Activity Durations, to come up with a contingency reserve that you can use to plan for these risks. 8. Answer: B Critical chain method is a technique that’s part of Develop Schedule that lets you figure out how to handle the problems that come with having limited resources. You use it to shuffle both activities and resources on your critical path. One important aspect of the critical chain method is that you can use it to add buffers to the schedule to reduce the risk of certain activities. 9. Answer: A When you draw out a network diagram for the activities in the table, you end up with four paths. And you definitely should draw out the activity diagram for a question like this! You’re allowed to use scratch paper on the exam, and this is one place where you should definitely do it. Of the four paths, only one has the longest duration: Start‑A‑B‑C‑Finish, which has a duration of 6+ 4 + 8 = 18. That’s the critical path.
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exam answers
Answers
Exam Questions 10. Answer: C
Activity F is in the path Start-A-D-E-F-Finish. This path has a duration of 6 + 1 + 1 + 2 = 10. The float of an activity is the longest time it can slip before it affects the critical path. In this case, activity F can slip by 8 without causing the path that it’s on to go beyond the critical path. But any more than that, and its path becomes the new critical path! Don’t
forget Did you notice answer A? that the float of any activity in the critical path is zero!
11. Answer: C
This is the definition of fast-tracking, and you’re probably getting the hang of this one by now. You may get a question like this, but you’ll almost certainly see fast-tracking as an incorrect answer to several questions! 12. Answer: A Remember that when you see “slack,” it’s the same thing as float. Either term could appear on the exam! 13. Answer: B
When a question asks what you’d use a process, it’s asking you to pick an input, tool, for or tec hnique that’s part of the process.
This question is asking about the Estimate Activity Durations process. Take a look at the answers—there’s only one answer that’s used in that process: you need to start with the activity list in order to do the estimates for the activities! The other answers are things that are inputs, tools, or techniques for other processes. 14. Answer: C It’s not hard to remember the order in which the Time Management processes are performed. If you use a little common sense, you can reason your way through a question like this. You need to define your activities before you can sequence them, you need to know who’s going to be doing an activity before you can estimate how long it’s going to take, and you need to do all of that before you can build a schedule! 15. Answer: A
Control Schedule isn’t included in the list of proceses because if a schedule change happens, you’ll have to go back and revisit the other Time Management processes. So it doesn’t have a specific order!
You’ll have to know the different kinds of estimating techniques for the exam. You don’t necessarily have to be good at doing them, but you should recognize which are which. Parametric estimating is when you plug values into a formula, program, or spreadsheet and get an estimate. Analogous estimating uses similar activities from past projects to calculate new estimates. Three-point estimating uses an optimistic, pessimistic, and realistic estimate.
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Answers
time management
Exam Questions 16. Answer: C
This question is asking you to apply the PERT three-point estimation formula: (Optimistic Time + 4 x Most Likely Time + Pessimistic Time) ÷ 6. When a question gives you these values directly, it’s easy. But in this case, to answer the question you had to figure out the values for the Optimistic Time and Pessimistic Time, which meant that you needed to look at the assumptions that the team was making. The most likely time was given: 27 weeks. The best case scenario would come in two weeks earlier, at 25 weeks, and the worst case would come in five weeks late, at 32 weeks. So the estimate is (25 weeks + 4 x (27 weeks) + 32 weeks) ÷ 6 = 27.5 weeks.
Sometimes you’ll get a question about applying a formula, but you’ll need to read the text in the question to figure out all of the variables
17. Answer: C
The path Start-E-D-C-End has a duration of 8 + 2 + 4 = 14, which is the longest total duration in the entire network. 18. Answer: B Activity A is on three different paths: Start-A-B-C-End (13), Start-A-D-C-End (12), and Start-A-D-G-End (9). To calculate its float, you take the longest path’s length and subtract it from the lenth of the critical path: 14 - 13 = 1.
stion Can you think of how a queorm ation might quiz you on this inf to look without actually asking you at a network diagram?
It looks like there will be a bunch of questions on the critical path method! It’s a good thing I’ve got so much practice with it.
19. Answer: A Since activity E is on the critical path, its float is zero, because the float of any activity on the critical path is zero. 20. Answer: A The schedule management plan tells you how changes to the schedule are to be handled. Any time there’s a change, the first thing you should do is consult the plan to see how it should be handled.
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exam answers
Answers
Exam Questions 21. Answer: A
The organizational process assets contain historical information about past projects. When you write up your lessons learned, or create work performance information, you store it in your company’s organizational process asset library! Also, did you notice that answer B was the wrong definition of parametric estimation? 22. Answer: D Crashing the schedule is the form of schedule compression that increases cost. This is a difficult question because all of the answers sound good, and one or two are a little misleading! Don’t fall into the trap of choosing an answer because you recognize a valid tool or technique in it. Reserve analysis and three-point estimates are very useful techniques, but they’re not the answer to this question. 23. Answer: B The critical path is the path in the network diagram where any delay will cause a delay in the schedule. These are the activities that cannot slip without making the project late! 24. Answer: C This question was really about the definition of “duration,” and the key to answering it is to understand how duration is different from effort. The correct answer talks about “calendar time,” which is what a duration is: it’s a measurement (or estimate) of how long the activity will take in real life, taking into account the number of people who will be doing the work, the availability of the people and other resources, everyone’s vacation time, time taken away from the schedule because people are pulled off of the activity to work on higher priority activities, and other real-world factors. That’s different from effort (which is often measured in person-hours), and it’s different from resource estimating (which involves estimating how many people and what other resources will be used for the activity).
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7 Cost management
Watching the bottom line The popular boys never used to ask me out. But now I use Cost Management, and I never have to spend Friday night alone!
Every project boils down to money. If you had a bigger budget, you could probably get more people to do your project more quickly and deliver more. That’s why no project plan is complete until you come up with a budget. But no matter whether your project is big or small, and no matter how many resources and activities are in it, the process for figuring out the bottom line is always the same!
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lounge expansion plans
Time to expand the Head First Lounge The Head First Lounge is doing so well that the guys are going to go ahead and open another Lounge near you! They’re renting a basement bar, and now all they need to do is renovate it.
We have to make sure the new Lounge looks rockin’, too!
So where do you want to start? Hey, with the furniture, right?!
Jeff
Charles
These guys own the Head First Lounge, a local hangout with good tunes, refreshing elixirs, and wireless access… Oh, and it also has a cool web site!
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cost management
The guys go overboard When they start planning out what to buy, they want really expensive original retro stuff—the biggest bar they can find, and seventies textiles for the walls, floor, and upholstery, plus accessories—this is going to cost a lot of money…
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the budget
Lounge conversation Guys, you don’t have that kind of money to spend. I’m the PMP in this setup, and I know a little something about controlling costs.
Jeff: That bar is soooo cool! I can just imagine mixing up some crazy elixirs at parties! Alice: Look. I know you want the new Lounge to look as good as the original, but you only have a little spare cash to spend on this. That means you have a limit of $10,000. Charles: We should be able to get the new place looking so sweet with that! Alice: Costs can creep up on you if you don’t watch what you’re doing. The best way to handle this is to create a budget and check your progress against it as you go. Jeff: You always turn everything into a project, even mixing elixirs! Can’t we just have fun with this?
Alice, the Head First Lounge’s elixir mixer and project manager since she got her PMP® certification.
Alice: Not if you don’t want to go into debt.
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cost management
Introducing the cost management processes To make sure that they don’t go over budget, Jeff, Charles, and Alice sit down and come up with detailed estimates of their costs. Once they have that, they add up the cost estimates into a budget and then they track the project according to that budget while the work is happening.
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Estimate Costs process This means figuring out exactly how much you expect each work activity you are doing to cost. So each activity is estimated for its time and materials cost, and any other known factors that can be figured in.
Determine Budget process Here’s where all of the estimates are added up and baselined. Once you have figured out the baseline, that’s what all future expenditures are compared to.
ve a good You need to hwaork you’re idea of the and how long going to do to do that it will take work.
This is just like the scope baseline fr Chapter 5 or theom schedule baseline fr om Chapter 6.
Control Costs process This just means tracking the actual work according to the budget to see if any adjustments need to be made.
Controlling costs mean alw ays knowing how you are dosing compared to how you thou ght you would do.
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estimate costs inputs
What Alice needs before she can Estimate Costs Alice wants to keep the Lounge project’s costs under control, and that starts with the Estimate Costs process. Before Alice can estimate costs, she needs the scope baseline. Once she knows who’s doing what work, and how long it’ll take, she can figure out how much it will cost.
Information about past cost estimates re helps her make a mo realistic estimate.
Information about ic the costs for specif resources make it possible for Alice tost make the overall co estimates.
Human Resource Plan
Organizational Process Assets
d The way that Charless an Jeff keep their book will figures into how Alice ll. do their estimates as we
Knowing the risks that t might affect the projwec ho will help her know much it will cost. We’ll learn more about this input in Chapter 11.
Enterprise Environmental Factors Risk Register Updates
You’ll learn more abou9.t this plan in Chapter
Inputs Project Scope Statement
Project Schedule
e overall The schedule shows th t. She’ll oj pr duration of the hoec much need that to know w it’ll cost.
The work breakdown structure will list all of the work packages that are in the scope the project. That tellsof her what she needs to estimate.
Estimate Costs
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The project scope e statement lists all th objectives and the deliverables of the to project. She’ll need know that to figure out how much the work will cost.
cost management
You’ve actually seen five of the tools and techniques in the Estimate Costs process before. Take a look at the list of tools below, and try to figure out which one of them Alice is using when she estimates costs. Can you write down which tool is being used in each scenario?
A. Bottom-Up Estimating
D. Parametric Estimating
B. Analogous Estimating
E. Three-Point Estimates
C. Expert Judgment 1. The Starbuzz across the street opened just a few months ago. Alice sits down with the contractor who did the work there and asks him to help her figure out how much it will cost. He takes a look at the equipment Charles and Jeff want to buy and the specs for the cabinets and seating and tells her what she can afford to do with the budget she has.
4. Alice sits down and estimates each and every activity and resource that she is going to need. Then she adds up all of the estimates into “rolled-up” categories. From there she adds up the categories into an overall budget number. Tool:
Tool:
2. Alice creates a spreadsheet with all of the historical information from similar remodeling projects that have happened on her block. She sits down and types in the guys’ desired furnishings and the square footage of the room to generate an estimated cost.
5. Jeff sets up an appointment with the same contractor his friend used for some remodelling work. The contractor comes to the house, takes a look at the room, and then gives an estimate for the work. Tool:
Tool: 3. Before Alice finishes her schedule, she gathers all of the information she has about previous projects’ costs (like how much labor and materials cost). She also talks to a contractor, who gives valuable input. Tool:
6. Alice figures out a best case scenario, a likely scenerio and a worst case scenario. Then she used a formula to come up with an expected cost for the project.
Tool:
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cost and time estimates use the same tools
Did you work out which estimating tool from Time Management Alice is using when she estimates costs in each of these scenarios?
1: B. Analogous Estimating.
4: A. Bottom-Up Estimating.
2: D. Parametric Estimating.
5: B. Analogous Estimating.
3: C. Expert Judgment.
6: E. Three-Point Estimates
Since Alice is using the contractor’s experience with a similar project to figure out how long her project will take, she is assuming that her project will go like the Starbuzz one did. In this one Alice is just applying some numbers particular to her project to some historical information she has gathered from other projects and generating an estimate from that.
Expert judgment often involves going back to historical information about past projects as well as consulting with experts or using your own expertise.
Watch it!
Starting at the lowest level and rolling up estimates is bottom-up estimating. Alice started with the activities on her schedule and rolled them up to categories and finally to a budget number. This is another example of asking somebody who has direct experience with this kind of work to give an estimate.
Alice came up with the three estimates and then performed the PERT calculation on them.
is Analogous Estimating p“To d lle ca sometimes Down Estimating”
ut why it would be Take a minute and think abo you’re doing bottomcalled “top-down.” When ak it down into bre up estimating, first you and add them up. ce, pie h eac te pieces, estima osite: you start opp Analogous estimation is the aking it up at bre ut tho (wi t with the whole projec t were like it, and use all), find other projects tha with a new estimate. those projects to come up
Hold on! How can you use the same tools to estimate both time and cost?
Good question. Not all of the estimation techniques for cost are the same as the ones we used for time. Often, people only have a certain amount of time to devote to a project and a fixed amount of money too. So, it makes sense that some of the tools for estimating both would overlap. We’ll learn a few new ones next.
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cost management
Other tools and techniques used in Estimate Costs A lot of times you come into a project and there is already an expectation of how much it will cost or how much time it will take. When you make an estimate really early in the project and you don’t know much about it, that estimate is called a Rough Order of Magnitude estimate. (You’ll also see it called a ROM, or a ballpark estimate.) It’s expected that it will get more refined as time goes on and you learn more about the project. Here are some more tools and techniques used to estimate cost:
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Project Management Estimating Soft ware
This estimate is REALLY rough! It’s got a range of -50% to +50%, which it can be anywhere frommeans half to one and a ha the actual cost! So yolfu times only use it at the very beginnin g of the project.
Project managers will often use specialized estimating software to help come up with cost estimates (like a spreadsheet that takes resource estimates, labor costs, and materials costs and performs calculations).
Vendor Bid Analysis Sometimes you will need to work with an external contractor to get your project done. You might even have more than one contractor bid on the job. This tool is all about evaluating those bids and choosing the one you will go with.
Reser ve Analysis
You’ll see this in action when we look at risk management in Chapter 11.
You need to set aside some money for cost overruns. If you know that your project has a risk of something expensive happening, better to have some cash laying around to deal with it. Reserve analysis means putting some cash away just in case.
Cost of Quality Since the next chapter is all about quality, you’ll be learning a lot about this in Chapter 8.
You will need to figure the cost of all of your qualityrelated activities into the overall budget, too. Since it’s cheaper to find bugs earlier in the project than later, there are always quality costs associated with everything your project produces. Cost of Quality is just a way of tracking the cost of those activities.
Cost of Quality is how much money it takes to do the project right. you are here 4 329
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budget numbers
Let’s talk numbers There are a few numbers that will appear on the test as definitions. You won’t need to calculate these, but you should know what each term means.
Benefit cost ratio (BCR) This is the amount of money a project is going to make versus how much it will cost to build it. Generally, if the benefit is higher than the cost, the project is a good investment.
Money you’ll get in three years isn’t worth as much to you as money you’re getting today. NPV takes the “tim value” of money into consideration, e so you can pick the project with the best value in today’s dollars.
You’ll get exam questions asking you to use BCR or NPV to compare two projects. The higher these numbers are, the better!
Net present value (NPV) This is the actual value at a given time of the project minus all of the costs associated with it. This includes the time it takes to build it and labor as well as materials. People calculate this number to see if it’s worth doing a project.
Opportunity cost When an organization has to choose between two projects, they are always giving up the money they would have made on the one they don’t do. That’s called opportunity cost. It’s the money you don’t get because you chose not to do a project.
If a project will make your company $150,000, then the opportunity cost of selecting another project instead is $150,000 because that’s how much your company’s missing out on by not doing the project.
Internal rate of return This is the amount of money the project will return to the company that is funding it. It’s how much money a project is making the company. It’s usually expressed as a percentage of the funding that has been allocated to it. Depreciation This is the rate at which your project loses value over time. So, if you are building a project that will only be marketable at a high price for a short period of time, the product loses value as time goes on. Lifecycle costing Before you get started on a project, it’s really useful to figure out how much you expect it to cost—not just to develop, but to support the product once it’s in place and being used by the customer. 330 Chapter 7 Download at Boykma.Com
cost management
Match each scenario to the cost numbers that Alice is using in each one.
1. Alice does such a good job planning out her entertainment center remodeling that the Smiths down the street ask if they can have her help with their home theater upgrade. Since she is too busy doing the work on the lounge, she has to say no. Rob Smith says, “That’s a shame, we were willing to pay $1,000 to someone to help us out with this.” 2. The minute the TV gets installed, Alice starts inviting all of her friends over to the lounge to watch the games on the weekend. She charges a $2 cover charge for her football Saturdays and has been clearing about $20 per week even though the room isn’t finished. 3. Even though the system she is currently installing is state of the art, Alice knows that within a year or so it will be on sale for half as much as she is paying now. 4. Alice wants to figure out how much the project is worth so far. So she adds up the value of all of the materials she has used and subtracts the labor and any depreciation that needs to be accounted for. The number she ends up with gives the value of the overall project right now. 5. Before Jeff and Charles decided to do the remodeling, they compared how much the project was going to cost to how much good they thought it would do for them.
A. Opportunity cost
B. Benefit cost ratio
C. Internal rate of return
D. Depreciation
E. Net Present Value
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the lounge budget
Now Alice knows how much the Lounge will cost Once you’ve applied all of the tools in this process, you’ll get an estimate for how much your project will cost. It’s always important to keep all of your supporting estimate information, too. That way, you know the assumptions you made when you were coming up with your numbers.
Outputs
Activity Cost Estimates This is the cost estimate for all of the activities in your activity list. It takes into account resource rates and estimated duration of the activities.
Basis of Cost Estimates Just like the WBS has a WBS Dictionary, and the Activity List has Activity Attributes, the cost estimate has supporting detail called the Basis of Cost Estimates. Here is where you list out all of the rates and reasoning you have used to come to the numbers you are presenting in your estimates.
Updates to Project Documents Along the way, you might find that you need to change the way you measure and manage cost. These updates allow you to make changes to the Project Management Plan to deal with those improvements.
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Activity Cost Estimates
$ Basis of Cost Estimates
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Project Document Updates
Requested changes As you figure out how much the activities will cost, you may realize that the scope or schedule or risk register or anything else you have baselined needs to change. When that happens, you need to create a change request and send it through the change control system.
Change Request
Once Alice has an estimate of the project’s cost, what should she do with that information?
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cost management
Lounge conversation
Let’s build a budget!
Jeff: OK, how do we start? There are a lot of things to buy here. Alice: We already have your savings, and the rest will come in July at the end of the quarter. The Lounge is having another great year, so the profits are pretty good. Your savings are around $4,000 and the profits will probably be closer to $6,000. That’s definitely enough money to work with. Charles: Well the furniture I want isn’t back in stock until June. Alice: OK, so we have to time our costs so that they’re in line with our cash flow. Jeff: Oh! I see. So we can start building now, but we’ll still have money in June and July when the furniture comes in. Perfect.
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after you estimate you build a budget
The Determine Budget process Once Alice has cost estimates for each activity, she’s ready to put a budget together. The she does that using the Determine Budget process. Here’s where you take the estimates that you came up with and build a budget out of them. You’ll build on the Activity Cost Estimates and Basis of Cost Estimate that you came up with in Estimate Costs.
Estimate Costs
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Basis of Cost Estimate
You use the outputs from the last process where you created estimates as inputs to this one. Now you can build your budget.
Activity Cost Estimates
The two main outputs from Estimate Costs turn into the inputs for Determine Budget, because you build your budget based on the activity estimates.
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Determine Budget
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cost management
What you need to build your budget The inputs to Determine Budget are largely the same ones that you saw in Estimate Costs, with the notable additions of Activity Cost Estimates and Basis of Cost Estimate.
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If you’re doing work that’s been contracted, then your contract will have information (like fees or rates) that you’ll need to take into acount. You’ll learn all about contracts in Chapter 12.
Contracts Basis of Estimates
Activity Cost Estimates
Project Schedule Resource Calendars
Inputs
Project Scope Statement
Organizational Process Assets
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Determine Budget
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build your budget
Determine budget: how to build a budget
1
Roll up your estimates into control accounts
2
This tool is called cost aggregation. You take your activity estimates and roll them up into control accounts on your Work Breakdown Structure. That makes it easy for you to know what each work package in your project is going to cost.
Come up with your reserves When you evaluate the risks to your project, you will set aside some cash reserves to deal with any issues that might come your way.
Outputs
5
Build a baseline Just like your scope and schedule baselines, a Cost Performance Baseline is a snapshot of the planned budget. You compare your actual performance against the baseline so you always know how you are doing versus what you planned.
$
$ Cost Performance Baseline
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cost management
Your company’s management plans for project overruns!
Just because you plan out a budget in your Cost Performance Baseline, that doesn’t mean your project is 100% guaranteed to fall inside that budget. It’s common for a company to have a standard policy for keeping a management reserve to cover unexpected, unplanned costs. When you need to get your project funded, that funding has to cover both the budget in your Cost Performance Baseline and the management reserve.
3
4
Use your expert judgment Here’s where you compare your project to historical data that has been collected on other projects to give your budget some grounding in real-world experience, and you use your own expertise and the expertise of others to come up with a realistic budget to cover your project’s costs.
This tool is Funding Limit Reconciliation. Since most people work in companies that aren’t willing to throw unlimited money at a project, you need to be sure that you can do the project within the amount that your company is willing to spend.
It’s true that not everybody has access to historical data to do a check like this. But, for the purposes of the test, you need to know that it’s a tool for making your budget accurate.
6
If you blow your lim replan or go to youritsp, you need to out what to do. It couldonsor to figure a scope change is necessa be that funding limit can be inc ry, or the reased.
7
Figure out funding requirements
Make sure you haven’t blown your limits
It’s not enough to have an overall number that everyone can agree to. You need to plan out how and when you will spend it, and document those plans in the project funding requirements. This output is about figuring out how you will make sure your project has money when it’s needed, and that you have enough to cover unexpected risks as well as known cost increases that change with time.
Update your project documents Once you have estimated and produced your baseline and funding requirements, you need to update your cost management plan with anything you learned along the way.
So these requirements need to cover both the budget and the management reserve.
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no dumb questions
What tool or technique is Alice using to build the budget?
1. Alice reads a newspaper article that says that there has been a sharp increase in lumber costs recently. She knows this wasn’t in her contractor’s original plan and decides to put a few hundred dollars aside to deal with the price hike if it should happen.
c Parametric estimating c Reserve Analysis c Cost aggregation c Funding Limit Reconciliation 2. Jeff helps Alice add up all of the estimates they have done into control accounts so that they can figure out how much the stereo installation is going to cost versus the entertainment center building.
c Parametric estimating c Reserve Analysis c Cost aggregation c Funding Limit Reconciliation 3. Once the budget is close to done, Alice looks over their financial plans for the year to be sure that they can afford everything at the time that it is needed.
c Parametric estimating c Reserve Analysis c Cost aggregation c Funding Limit Reconciliation Answers: 1. Reserve Analysis 2. Cost aggregation 3. Funding Limit Reconciliation ¢¢
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Parametric Estimation is used in Estimate Costs and Determine Budget. Cost Aggregation is rolling up costs from the work package level to the control account level so that the numbers can be followed down through the WBS hierarchy. Control Accounts are highlevel WBS items that are used to track cost estimates. They do not represent activities or work packages. They represent the cost of the work packages and activities that appear under them in the WBS.
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The main output of Estimate Costs is the Activity Cost Estimate and the Basis of Cost Estimate. The main output of Determine Budget is the Cost Performance Baseline and Project Funding Requirements. You will get questions on the exam asking you to select between projects using Net Present Value (NPV) or Benefit Cost Ratio (BCR). Always choose the project with the biggest NPV or BCR! Lifecycle Costing means estimating the money it will take to support your product or service when it has been released.
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¢¢
¢¢
Rough Order of Magnitude Estimation is estimating with very little accuracy at the beginning of a project and then refining the estimate over time. It’s got a range of –50% to +50%. A Management Reserve is money set aside to cover unplanned, unexpected costs. Your project’s funding requirements need to cover both the budget in the Cost Performance Baseline and the management reserve.
cost management
Q:
Isn’t it enough to know my project’s scope and schedule, and then trust the budget to come out all right?
A:
Even if you don’t have a strict budget to work within, it makes sense to estimate your costs. Knowing your costs means that you have a good idea of the value of your project all the time. That means you will always know the impact (in dollars) of the decisions you make along the way. Sometimes understanding the value of your project will help you to make decisions that will keep your project healthier.
Many of us do have to work within a set of cost expectations from our project sponsors. The only way to know if you are meeting those expectations is to track your project against the original estimates. It might seem like fluff. But knowing how much you are spending will help you relate to your sponsor’s expectations much better as well.
Q:
In my job I am just handed a budget. How does estimating help me?
A:
In the course of estimating, you might find that the budget you have been given is not realistic. Better to know that while you’re planning, before you get too far into the project work than later.
You can present your findings to the sponsor and take corrective action right away if your estimate comes in pretty far off target. Your sponsor and your project team will thank you for it.
Take a minute to think about what “value” really means. How does the sponsor know if he’s getting his money’s worth halfway through the project? Is there an easy way you can give the sponsor that information?
Q:
What if I don’t have all of this information and I am supposed to give a ballpark estimate?
A:
This is where those rough order of magnitude estimates come in. That’s just a fancy way of saying you take your best guess, knowing that it’s probably inaccurate, and you let everybody know that you will be revising your estimates as you know more and more about the project.
Q:
My company needs to handle maintenance of projects after we release them. How do you estimate for that?
A:
That’s called lifecycle costing. The way you handle it is just like you handle every other estimate. You sit down and try to think of all of the activities and resources involved in maintenance, and project the cost. Once you have an estimate, you present it along with the estimate for initially building the product or service.
Q:
Hold on just a minute. Can we go back to the Rough Order of Magnitude estimate? I remember from my math classes that an order of magnitude has something to do with a fixed ratio. Wouldn’t –50% to +100% make more sense as an order of magnitude?
A:
Yes, it’s true that in science, math, statistics, or engineering, an order of magnitude typically involves a series of magnitudes increasing by a fixed ratio. So if an order of magnitude down is 50%, then you’d typically maintain that same 2:1 ratio between orders of magnitude, so the next order of magnitude higher would be 100%.
However, if you check the PMBOK® Guide, it defines it as follows: “... a project in the initiation phase could have a rough order of magnitude (ROM) estimate in the range of ±50%.” [PMBOK® Guide, 4th Edition, p168] Since that’s the definition in the PMBOK® Guide, that’s what to remember for the exam.
Q:
I still don’t get Net Present Value. What do I use it for?
A:
The whole idea behind Net Present Value is that you can figure out which of two projects is more valuable to you. Every project has a value—if your sponsor’s spending money on it, then you’d better deliver something worth at least that much to him! That’s why NPV is figured out by coming up with how much a project will be worth, and then subtracting how much it will cost. But for the exam, all you really need to remember are two things: net present value has the cost of the project built into it, and if you need to use NPV to select one of several projects, always choose the one with the biggest NPV. That’s not hard to remember, because you’re just choosing the one with the most value!
Estimate Costs is just like Estimate Activity Durations. You get the cost estimate and the basis of the cost estimate, updates to the plan, and requested changes when you are done. you are here 4 339
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Question Clinic: The Red Herring Sometimes a question will give you a lot of extra information that you don’t need . It’ll include a rambling story or a bunch of extra numbers that are irrelevant.
Did you read that whole paragraph, only to find out the question had nothing to do with it?
104. You are managing a highway constructi on project. You have build a three-mile inter to change at a cost of $7 5,000 per quarter-mile Your project team co . nsists of a road plann er, an architect, an en a foreman, and 16 hig gin eer, hway workers. The wo rkers will not be avail until week 10 of the pr able oject. Your business case document is co and you have met wi mplete, th your stakeholders and sponsor. Your se managers are now as nio r king you to come up with an estimate. Your company has done fo ur other highway proje cts very similar to this one, and you have de cided to make your es timate by looking at th costs of those previou e s projects. What kind of estimat e involves comparin g your project to a previous one? A. Parametric You only needed to read B. Analogous this sentence to get the answer right. C. Bottom-Up D. Rough Order of Ma gnitude
When you see a Red Herring question, your job is to figure out what part of it is relevant and what’s included just to distract you. It seems tricky, but it’s actually pretty easy once you get the hang of it.
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Red Herring
HEAD
LIBS
Fill in the blanks to come up with your own Red Herring question!
You are managing a project. (kind of project) You have at your disposal, with . Your (describe a resource) (how that resource is restricted) contains . The (something that document would contain) (a team member) (a project document) alerts you that , and suggests . (a problem that affected your project) (a suggested solution) (a question vaguely related to one of the things in the paragraph above) A. B. C. D.
?
(wrong answer) (trickily wrong answer) (correct answer) (ridiculously wrong answer)
Join the Head First PMP community at http://www.headfirstlabs.com/PMP You can add your Head Libs answer, and see what Head Libs other project managers came up with! 341 Download at Boykma.Com
handling change
The Control Costs process is a lot like schedule control When something unexpected comes up, you need to understand its impact on your budget and make sure that you react in the best way for your project. Just like changes can cause delays in the schedule, they can also cause cost overruns. The Control Costs process is all about knowing how you are doing compared to your plan and making adjustments when necessary.
I just talked to our accountant. She says we need to put a third of our profits away for taxes.
Time to Control Costs!
Given what you already know about controlling your scope and schedule, how would you handle this problem?
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cost management
Using what you already know about the Control Scope and Control Schedule processes, can you take a guess at what each of these inputs will be used for?
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Project funding requirements
Cost Performance Baseline
Remember the Cost Management Plan? It’s the sub-plan that you built back in the Develop Project Management Plan process.
Cost Management Plan
Work Performance Information
Performance reports
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could you figure out the inputs?
Using what you already know about the Control Scope and Control Schedule processes, can you take a guess at what each of these inputs will be used for?
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The cost performance baseline r is what you compare all of you to. actual performance informationed This is the amount you budget be for. Any changes that need to made to the budget need to be made to this baseline.
Cost Performance Baseline
Cost Management Plan
Project funding requirements
On top of the baseline cost, you have added some reserves to deal with known risks. You’ve also spread your budget out, so that you always have money when you need it. Changes to your project might also mean changes to your funding requirements.
You may find that you need to change the PM Plan and its cost management sub-plan as a result of information coming from your project. So, you’ll need to evaluate your work performance information in relation to it.
This is the actual data being generated by your project. It tells how are you spending your budget right now. You’ll need this information to figure out if you need to make any changes to stay on track. Work Performance Information
Like the work perf ormance information, perfor m give actual informat ance reports project is doing. Yo ion on how your figure out whether u will use them to to change your budg or not you need issues that have co et to deal with me up.
Performance reports
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cost management
A few new tools and techniques The tools in Control Costs are all about helping you figure out where to make changes so you don’t overrun your budget.
Earned Value Management
Project Management Soft ware
Here’s where you measure how your project is doing compared to the plan. This involves using the earned value formulas to assess your project.
You can use software packages to track your budget and make it easier to know where you might run into trouble.
You’ll learn more about the formulas in just a few pages!
To-Complete Performance Index The to-complete performance index (TCPI) is a calculation that you can use to help you figure out how well your project needs to perform in the future in order to stay on budget.
You’ll learn more about TCPI, too!
Variance Analysis Throughout your project, you are looking at how you are doing as compared to your plan. The variance between planned and actual performance needs to be carefully analyzed so you can head off problems before they make your project go over budget.
Performance Reviews Reviews are meetings where the project team reviews performance data to examine the variance between actual performance and the baseline. Earned value management is used to calculate and track the variance. Over time, these meetings are a good place to look into trends in the data.
Forecasting Use the information you have about the project right now to predict how close it will come to its goals if it keeps going the way it has been. Forecasting uses some earned value numbers to help you come up with preventative and corrective actions that can keep your project on the right track.
Forecasting and performance measurement are very important! You use them to find the changes you need to make in your project.
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calculating your budget
Look at the schedule to figure out your budget The tools in Control Costs are all about helping you figure out where to make changes so you don’t overrun your budget.
$10,000
Budget at completion (BAC) How much money are you planning on spending on your project? Once you add up all of the costs for every activity and resource, you’ll get a final number... and that’s the total project budget. If you only have a certain amount of money to spend, you’d better make sure that you haven’t gone over!
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How to calculate Planned Value
Once you figure this out, you can figure out your project’s planned value.
cost management
If you look at your schedule and see that you’re supposed to have done a certain percentage of the work, then that’s the percent of the total budget that you’ve “earned” so far. This value is known as Planned Value. Here’s how you calculate it.
1
First, write down your
BAC—Budget At Completion
BAC
This is the first number you think of when you work on your project costs. It’s the total budget that you have for your project—how much you plan to spend on your project.
2
The name “BAC” should sense—it’s the budget ofmake project when it’s complet your e!
Then multiply that by your
Planned % Complete
BAC
If the schedule says that your team should have done 300 hours of work so far, and they will work a total of 1,000 hours on the project, then your Planned % Complete is 30%.
3
x
x
Planned % Complete
Planned % Complete is easy to work out, as it’s just the calculation Given amount ÷ Total amount.
The resulting number is your
PV—Planned Value This is how much of your budget you planned on using so far. If the BAC is $200,000, and the schedule says your Planned % Complete is 30%, then the Planned Value is $200,000 × 30% = $60,000.
BAC
x
Planned % = Complete
PV
BAC
PV =
x
BAC
Planned % = Complete
x
PV
Planned % Complete
You may also see the Planned Value formula flipped around and wri with the PV out front, but it’stten exactly the same formula. you are here 4 347 Download at Boykma.Com
exercises are very fun
Now it’s your turn! See if you can figure out BAC and PV for a typical project. 1. You’re managing a project to install 200 windows in a new skyscraper and need to figure out your budget. Each week of the project costs the same: your team members are paid a total of $4,000 every week, and you need $1,000 worth of parts each week to do the work. If the project is scheduled to last 16 weeks, what’s the BAC for the project? BAC =
2. What will the Planned % Complete be four weeks into the project? Planned % Complete =
This is the part that takes some thinking. How do you know what % you are through the project?
Even though we are at the beginning of the project now, we can still figure out what the PV will be in four weeks.
3. What should the PV be four weeks into the project? PV = x =
Answers on page 372.
Hmm. Okay, but that doesn’t tell me much about my budget, does it?
Not yet, it doesn’t. But wouldn’t be nice if, when your schedule said you were supposed to be 37.5% complete with the work, then you knew that you’d actually spent 37.5% of your budget? Well, in the real world things don’t always work like that, but there are ways to work out—approximately—how far on (or off) track your budget actually is.
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cost management
Earned Value tells you how you’re doing When Alice wants to track how her project is doing versus the budget, she uses Earned Value. This is a technique where you figure out how much of your project’s value has been delivered to the customer so far. You can do this by comparing the value of what your schedule says you should have delivered against the value of what you actually delivered.
The schedule says we shou ld have delivered this by now… Today is May 14
Your schedule tells you a lot about where you are supposed to be right now.
… but we only delivered this.
$2,200
$1650
The actual cost of this project on May 14th is $1,650. The planned value was $2,200. you are here 4 349 Download at Boykma.Com
calculating earned value
How to calculate Earned Value If you could estimate each activity exactly, every single time, you wouldn’t need Earned Value. Your schedule would always be perfectly accurate, and you would always be exactly on budget. But you know that real projects don’t really work that way! That’s why Earned Value is so useful—it helps you put a number on how far off track your project actually is. And that can be a really powerful tool for evaluating your progress and reporting your results. Here’s how you calculate it.
1
When you do work, you convert the money your sponsor invests in your project into value. So, Earned Value is about how much work you have been able to accomplish with the money you’ve been given. When you calculate Earned Value, you’re showing your sponsor how much value that investment has earned.
First, write down your
BAC—Budget At Completion
BAC
x
BAC
x
Remember, this is the total budget that you have for your project.
2
Then multiply that by your
Actual % Complete Say the schedule says that your team should have done 300 hours of work so far, out of a total of 1,000. But you talk to your team and find out they actually completed 35% of the work. That means the actual % complete is 35%.
3
Actual % Complete
the work If your team actually got 35% ofy sho uld only the s done when the schedule say y’re the ns mea t have gotten 30% done, tha ! ned more efficient than you plan
The resulting number is your
BAC
EV—Earned Value This figure tells you how much your project actually earned. Every hour that each team member works adds value to the project. You can figure it out by taking the percentage of the hours that the team has actually worked and multiplying it by the BAC. If the total cost of the project is $200,000, then the Earned Value is $200,000 × 35% = $70,000.
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Actual % Complete
=
EV
Again, you might see the Earned ue formula flipped around and writteVal n with the EV out front, but rem it’s exactly the same formula. ember,
EV = 350 Chapter 7
x
BAC
x
Actual % Complete
cost management
What’s the difference between Actual Cost and Planned Value? What does it mean if your AC is bigger than your PV? What if it’s smaller?
This is a harder problem to solve than it seems! Take a minute and really think about it before you turn the page. You’ll be doing a lot of calculations in a minute. The best way to approach any calculation is to understand what it’s for and why you use it. So before you go on, go and grab a cup of coffee and think for a few minutes about the the difference between BAC and PV. Also, how do you compute Actual % Complete on a real project? Doing that will really help you get these ideas firmly embedded into your brain!
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the sponsor’s perspective
Put yourself in someone else’s shoes Earned Value is one of the most difficult concepts that you need to understand for the PMP exam. The reason it’s so confusing for so many people is that these calculations seem a little weird and arbitrary to a lot of project managers. But they make a lot more sense if you think about your project the way your sponsor thinks about it. If you put yourself into the sponsor’s shoes, you’ll see that this stuff actually makes sense!
Let’s say you’re an executive: You’re making a decision to spend $300,000 of your company’s money on a project. To a project manager, that’s a project’s budget. But to you, the sponsor, that’s $300,000 of value you expect to get!
That’s the total budget, or the BAC.
If you put the value in dollar terms, your sponsor knows what return he’s getting for his investment.
So how much value is the project delivering? If you’re the sponsor, you’re thinking about the bottom line. And that bottom line is whether or not you’re getting your money’s worth from the project. If the team’s done 50% of the work, then you’ve gotten $150,000 of value so far. But if the schedule says that they should have done 60% of the work by now, then you’re getting less value than you were promised!
The sponsor doesn’t care as much about how you spend the budget. He just wants to get the most value for his money!
Think about Earned Value from the sponsor’s perspective. It all makes a lot more sense then.
That’s Earned Value—it’s based on how much work the team actually did.
Look at the schedule to figure out how much value you planned to deliver to your sponsor.
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cost management
L et’s get back to that 16-week project from page 348. In the last exercise you figured out what the project should look like by using planned value. Now you can use Earned Value to figure out if your project is really going the way you planned.
1. Fast forward four weeks into the project installing those 200 skyscraper windows. Fill in the BAC and PV you figured out before. (Check your answer at the top of page 372 to make sure you got it right!) BAC =
Figure out the actual % complete by dividing the actual work done into the total amount you’re planning on
PV =
2. You’ve checked with your team, but they have bad news. The schedule says they were supposed to have installed 50 windows by now, but they only installed 40. Can you figure out the actual % complete?
Fill in the number of windows the team’s actually installed
Actual % Complete = _______ =
3. What should the Earned Value be right now?
Fill in the total number of windows that will be installed over the course of the project.
EV = x =
Fill in the Actual % Complete
Fill in the BAC
4. Look at the planned value, and then look at the Earned Value. Are you delivering all the value you planned on delivering?
c
Yes
c
No
Answers on page 372.
Neat. I think I can use these formulas to track my schedule and my budget!
You can definitely use them to track the schedule and budget on smaller projects. But once your projects start getting more complex, your formulas are going to need to take into account that you’ve got several people all doing different activities, and that could make it harder to track whether you’re ahead of schedule or over budget. So now that you know how to calculate PV and EV, they’re all you need to stay on top of everything… What are you waiting for? Flip the page to find out how!
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are you on schedule?
Is your project behind or ahead of schedule? Figuring out if you’re on track in a small project with just a few people is easy. But what if you have dozens or hundreds of people doing lots of different activities? And what if some of them are on track, some are ahead of schedule, and some of them are behind? It starts to get hard to even figure out whether you’re meeting your goals. Wouldn’t it be great if there were an easy way to figure out if you’re ahead or behind schedule? Well, good news: that’s exactly what earned value is used for!
Schedule Performance Index (SPI) If you want to know whether you’re ahead of or behind schedule, use SPIs. The key to using this is that when you’re ahead of schedule, you’ve earned more value than planned! So EV will be bigger than PV.
SPI =
To work out your SPI, you just divide your EV by your PV.
If SPI is less than one, then you’re behind schedule because the amount you’ve actually worked (EV) is less than what you’d planned (PV).
onsor’s benefit, Remember, for the splla … we measure this in do rs
Schedule Variance (SV) It’s easy to see how variance works. The bigger the difference between what you planned and what you actually earned, the bigger the variance.
SV = EV – PV
So, if you want to know how much ahead or behind schedule you are, just subtract PV from EV.
Relax
EV PV
If SPI is greater than one, that means EV isu’re bigger than PV, so yo ahead of schedule!
… so if the variance is positive, it tells you exactly how many dollars you’re ahead. If it’s negative, it tells you how many dollars you’re behind.
Don’t get freaked out by the thought of all these formulas. They’re really not very complex. All you need to remember is that they all use EV and PV in different ways. Once you’ve learned how EV and PV interact in each one, you’re golden!
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cost management
Meanwhile, back in the Lounge, Alice is working out if the project’s coming in on schedule and on budget. Here are the steps she’s taking and her notes. She was called away, so it’s up to you to work out whether the guys need to push the schedule.
1
Start with the schedule and budget. Figure out how much work you planned, how much the team has done, and the total budget (BAC).
$10,000, Jeff and Charles have a total budget of schedule. the ugh thro ay halfw ently and they’re curr
2
Planned % complete = ______
Figure out PV. Multiply the BAC by the percentage of the work that your schedule says the team should have worked so far to get the planned value.
So their planned value is?
3
BAC= ______
PV = $
x
PV =
%=$
BAC x
Planned % Complete
Figure out EV. This is the part that actually takes some thinking! You need to figure out what percentage of work the team has actually done. Once you have that, multiply it with the BAC to find the Earned Value.
Uh-oh! On a closer look, it seems they’ve really only gotten 40% of the work done. EV = BAC x =$ x EV = $
4
Actual % Complete
Now you can calculate SPI and SV. Once you’ve figured out EV and PV, you can do the calculations.
Now that you have the EV and PV, you can tell Jeff and Charles if they’re getting their money’s worth! SPI = $
5
÷$
= 0.8
SV = $
-$
=$
How’s the schedule looking? What do all these figures tell us?
So are we ahead of schedule or behind it?
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are you on budget?
Measuring your cost difference in dollars is easy, but what if your schedule variance is negative?
Are you over budget?
Relax
You can do the same thing for your budget that you can do for your schedule. The calculations are almost exactly the same, except instead of using Planned Value—which tells you how much work the schedule says you should have done so far—you use Actual Cost (AC). That’s the amount of money that you’ve spent so far on the project.
the work Remember, EV measuresAC tells that’s been done, while nt so far. you how much you’ve spe
Cost Performance Index (CPI)
CPI =
If you want to know whether you’re over or under budget, use CPI.
Cost Variance (CV) This tells you the difference between what you planned on spending and what you actually spent.
lot of people worry about that, A but it’s actually not bad. Planned Value just means that you planned on delivering a certain amount of value to your sponsor at a certain time. An SV of, say, –$5,000, tells you that you haven’t delivered all the value you promised.
EV AC
CV = EV – AC
So, if you want to know how much under or over budget you are, just take AC away from EV.
To-Complete Performance Index (TCPI) This tells you how well your project will need to perform to stay on budget.
sponsor: Remember what CV means to the e of valu al tot EV says how much of the back so far. ned the project has been ear ting If CV is negative, then he’s not get . good value for his money
We’ll talk about this in just a few pages...
(BAC-EV) TCPI = (BAC-AC) =
You’re within your budget if...
You’ve blown your budget if...
CPI is greater than or equal to 1 and CV is positive. When this happens, your actual costs are less than Earned Value, which means the project is delivering more value than it costs.
CPI is less than 1 and CV is negative. When your actual costs are more than earned value, that means that your sponsor is not getting his money’s worth of value from the project.
Now Alice can take a look at the Lounge’s checkbook. She figures out that she spent $5,750 on the project so far.
CPI = $4,000 ÷ $5,750 = 0.696 Since CPI is less than 1, it means that Jeff and Charles have blown their budget. 356 Chapter 7
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CV = 4,000 - $5,750 = -$1,750 And that’s how much they’ve gone over! re Jeff, Charles, and Alice had better figu or out how to contain those runaway costs, they’ll have a nasty surprise later.
cost management
The Earned Value Management formulas Earned Value Management (EVM) is just one of the tools and techniques in the Control Costs process, but it’s a big part of PMP exam preparation. When you use these formulas, you’re measuring and analyzing how far off your project is from your plan. Remember, think of everything in terms of how much value you’re delivering to your sponsor! Take a look at the formulas one more time:
Remember, your sponso alw ays cares most about what the prr oje ct to him. BAC says how much is worth getting for the whole proje value he’s tells him how much of that ct, and EV value he’s gotten so far.
Name
Formula
What it says
Why you use it
BAC—Budget at Completion
No formula – it’s the project budget
How much money you’ll spend on the project
To tell the sponsor the total amount of value that he’s getting for the project To figure out what value your plan says you should have delivered so far
PV—Planned Value
PV = BAC x
Planned % What your schedule says Complete you should have spent
EV—Earned Value
EV = BAC x
Actual % Complete
AC—Actual Cost SPI—Schedule Performance Index SV—Schedule Variance CPI—Cost Performance Index TCPI—To-Complete Performance Index CV—Cost Variance
What you’ve actually spent on the project SPI =
EV PV
SV = EV – PV CPI = TCPI =
EV AC
BAC-EV BAC-AC
CV = EV – AC
How much of the project’s value you’ve really earned
EV lets you translate how much work the team’s finished into a dollar value
How much you’ve actually spent so far
The amount of money you spend doesn’t always match the value you get!
Whether you’re behind or ahead of schedule
To figure out whether you’ve delivered the value your schedule said you would
How much ahead or behind schedule you are
This puts a dollar value on exactly how far ahead or behind schedule you are
Whether you’re within your budget or not
Your sponsor is always most interested in the bottom line!
How well your project must perform to stay on budget.
This will let you forecast whether or not you can stick to your budget.
How much above or below your budget you are
Your sponsor needs to know how much it costs to get him the value you deliver
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what cpi and spi really mean
Interpret CPI and SPI numbers to gauge your project The whole idea behind the Earned Value Management is that you can use it to easily put a number on how your project is doing. That’s why there will be exam questions that test you on your ability to interpret these numbers! Luckily, it’s pretty easy to evaluate a project based on the EVM formulas.
If your project is on track, that means you’re delivering the value you promised.
A lot of PMOs have a rule where a CPI or SPI between 0.95 and 1.10 is absolutely fine!
You can tell that your project is on track because the two index numbers—CPI and SPI—are both very close to 1, and the variance numbers—CV and SV—are very close to zero dollars. It’s very rare that you’ll get exactly to a CPI of 1 or a SV of $0, but a SPI of 1.02 means you’re very close to on time, and a CV of –$26 means you’re very close to on budget.
Sometimes you’ll see negative values written in parentheses— in this case, ($26)
You can tell if your project is ahead of schedule or under budget by looking for larger numbers.
Ahead of schedule or under budget
If the SPI is below 1, then your project is behind schedule. But if you see a CPI under 1, your project is over budget!
If the CPI is much bigger than 1, it means you’re under budget. And you can tell how much under by looking at the CV—that’s what variance is for! It helps you see just how much the actual cost varies from the value you were supposed to earn by now.
Being a long way under budget isn’t always a good thing. It means you asked for and were given resources that you didn’t need—and which your company could have used elsewhere.
A project that’s behind schedule or over budget will have lower numbers.
Behind schedule or over budget
When you see a SPI that’s between 0 and 1, that tells you that the project is behind schedule... and that means you’re not delivering enough value to the sponsor! That’s when you check the SV to see how much less value you’re delivering. And the same goes for cost—a low CPI means that your project is over budget, and CV will tell you how much more value you promised to deliver to the sponsor.
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CPI and SPI can’t be below zero, because they’re ratios!
cost management
Oh, I get it: SPI and CPI are just ratios! If SPI is really close to 1, then SV will be really close to zero—and it means that my project is going as planned!
Exactly! And when your CPI is really close to 1, it means that every dollar your sponsor’s spending on the project is earning just about a dollar in value. The biggest thing to remember about all of these numbers is that the lower they are, the worse your project is doing. If you’ve got a SPI of 1.1 and a CPI of 1.15, then you’re within your budget and ahead of schedule. But if you calculate a SPI of 0.6 and a CPI of 0.45, then you’re behind schedule and you’ve blown your budget. And when these ratios are below 1, then you’ll see a negative variance!
Remember:
Lower = Loser If CPI or SPI is below 1, or if CV or SV is negative, then you’ve got trouble!
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earned value exercise
ou’ll definitely need to be able to calculate Earned Value numbers for the exam! But remember, like Y planning that trip way back in Chapter 4, the best way to do that is with practice. Your project has a total budget of $300,000. You check your records and find that you’ve spent $175,000 so far. The team has completed 40% of the project work, but when you check the schedule it says that they should have completed 50% of the work. Calculate the following:
There were two dollar values AC = $ given in the problem. Which is AC, and which is BAC? Now you just need to figure out which numbers that you’ve already calculated are being divided into one another!
PV = $
x
% = $
EV = $
x
% = $
SV = $
– $
= $
CV = $
– $
= $
$ SPI =
$
$
=
CPI =
$
The trick is figuring out which percentage you need to put here!
=
You’re managing a highway construction project. Your total budget is $650,000, and there are a total of 7,500 hours of work scheduled on the project. You check with your accounting department, and they tell you that you’ve spent a total of $400,000. According to the schedule, your crew should have worked 4,500 hours, but your foreman says that the crew was allowed to work some overtime, and they’ve actually put in 5,100 hours of work. Calculate these Earned Value numbers: BAC =
PV =
AC =
EV =
SV =
CV =
SPI =
CPI =
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Answers on page 374.
BAC = $
cost management
ou are the project manager at an industrial design firm. You expect to spend a total of $55,000 on Y your current project. Your plan calls for six people working on the project eight hours a day, five days a week for four weeks. According to the schedule, your team should have just finished the third week of the project. When review what the team has done so far, you find that they have completed 50% of the work, at a cost of $25,000. Based on this information, calculate the Earned Value numbers: BAC =
PV =
AC =
EV =
SV =
CV =
SPI =
CPI =
Check all of the following that apply: The project is ahead of schedule
The project is over budget
The project is behind schedule
The project is under budget
You should consider crashing the schedule
You should find a way to cut costs
BAC =
PV =
AC =
EV =
SV =
CV =
SPI =
CPI =
Check all of the following that apply: The project is ahead of schedule
The project is over budget
The project is behind schedule
The project is under budget
You should consider crashing the schedule
You should find a way to cut costs
Answers on page 375.
Your current project is an $800,000 software development effort, with two teams of programmers that will work for six months, at a total of 10,000 hours. According to the project schedule, your team should be done with 38% of the work. You find that the project is currently 40% complete. You’ve spent 50% of the budget so far. Calculate these numbers:
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forecast your final budget results
Forecast what your project will look like when it’s done There’s another piece of the Earned Value Management, and it’s part of the last tool and technique in Cost Management: forecasting. The idea behind forecasting is that you can use Earned Value to come up with a pretty accurate prediction of what your project will look like when it’s at completion. If you know your CPI now, you can use it to predict what your project will actually cost when it’s complete. Let’s say that you’re managing a project with a CPI of 0.8 today. If you assume that the CPI will be 0.8 for the rest of the project—and that’s not an unreasonable assumption when you’re far along in the project work—then you can predict your total costs when the project is complete. We call that Estimate at Completion (EAC).
There are a bunch of different ways to calculate EAC, but this one is sufficient for the PMP exam.
If your CPI is below 1, that means you’re running over budget—which will give you an EAC that’s larger than your current budget
EAC =
BAC CPI
If your CPI is above 1, you’re running under budget, so the estimate will end up smaller than your BAC
Meanwhile, back in the Lounge Alice is forecasting how the new Lounge project will look like when it’s done. If Jeff and Charles have a CPI of 0.869 and a total budget of $10,000, then they can forecast their final costs: EAC = BAC ÷ CPI…
Here’s what Alice wrote down first…
S 10,000 = S 11,507 0.869
… now Alice can take a look at the Lounge’s checkbook. She figures out that she spent $5,750 on the project so far… 362 Chapter 7 Download at Boykma.Com
cost management
Once you’ve got an estimate, you can calculate a variance! There are two useful numbers that you can compute with the EAC. One of them is called Estimate to Complete (ETC), which tells you how much more money you’ll probably spend on your project. And the other one, Variance at Completion (VAC), predicts what your variance will be when the project is done.
ETC = EAC – AC
VAC = BAC – EAC
much money Since EAC predicts how act the tr you’ll spend, if you sub much money w ho AC, you’ll find out end up the rest of the project will costing.
If you end up spending more tha your budget, the VAC will be n negative… just like CV and SV!
If the EAC is $11,507, and the AC is $5,750, then I can figure out what Jeff and Charles have left to spend. ETC = EAC – AC.
You can use EAC, ETC, and VAC to predict what your Earned Value numbers will look like when your project is complete.
So, we’re over budget. But what will the damage be? At least now I can figure out the final variance. VAC = BAC – EAC.
S 11,507 – S 5,750 = S 5,757
S 10,000 – S 11,507 = –S 1,507
… and now she knows how much money the rest of the project is likely to cost...
… but will the guys be able to come up with the extra money?
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budget forecasting exercise
ou’re a project manager working on a large project scheduled to last for two years. You’ve got six Y different teams working on five major functional areas. Some teams are ahead of schedule, and others are falling behind. That means that you have cost overruns in some areas, but you’ve saved costs in others—and that’s making it very hard to get an intuitive grasp on whether your project is over or under budget! It’s nine months into your project. The total budget for your project is $4,200,000. You’ve spent $1,650,000 so far, and you’ve got a CPI of .875. Use the Earned Value Management formulas from Forecasting to figure out where things stand.
$ EAC =
= $
ETC = $
– $
= $
VAC = $
– $
= $
Will the project be over or under budget when it’s complete? (check one) The project will be over budget
The project will be within its budget
How much will the project be over or under budget? $
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cost management
Now it’s six months later, and your project looks very different. You need to work out a new forecast for what your budget situation will be like at project completion. You’ve now spent a total of $2,625,000. You look at all of the activities done by the team, and you find that the project is 70% complete. Can you come up with a new forecast for your project?
BAC = $
AC = $
EV =
CPI =
EAC =
ETC =
VAC =
Your project will be over/under budget at completion. (circle one)
How much will the project be over or under budget?
$ 450,000
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turn it upside-down
Finding missing information Most of the Earned Value questions on the exam will be pretty straightforward: you’ll be given the numbers that you need to plug into a formula, and when you do it you’ll get the answer. But once in a while, you’ll get a question that isn’t quite so straightforward.
Let’s say you’re given... … the CPI and Earned Value, and you want to figure out the actual costs. Why would you ever see this? Sometimes it’s hard to figure out how important a project is unless you know how much it’s really spending—if a project is more expensive, people in your company probably care more about it. If you’re told that a project’s CPI is 1.14 and its EV is $350,000, how do you figure out the actual costs?
CPI =
1.14 =
AC =
EV AC
… the Earned Value and actual percent complete, and you want to figure out the project’s budget. This can be really helpful when you need to “read between the lines” when you need to make a decision about a project when someone doesn’t want to give you all the information you need. When you have a project’s EV of $438,750 and its actual % complete of 32.5%, how do you figure out the total budget (BAC)?
Start with the formula that includes all the numbers you’re looking for.
Here’s the formula for CPI. But what do you do if you’re given CPI and EV, and need to figure out AC?
350,000 AC 350,000 1.14
AC = 307,017
Let’s fill in the numbers that we know!
EV =
BAC
x
Actual % Complete
438,750 = BAC x 32.5% Don’t forget that a 32.5% is the same as 0.325.
You’re going to have to use a little basic algebra here… but it’s really easy!
Now you know everything you need to calculate the final numbers.
BAC =
438,750 0.325
BAC = 1,350,000
There are some times when you’ll need to flip the formulas upside down! Sometimes you’re going to be on the receiving end of Earned Value numbers. If you’re working at a company with a bunch of project managers, then sometimes you’ll get a report from one of them that only gives you part of the picture! 366 Chapter 7 Download at Boykma.Com
cost management
You’ll probably get a question or two where you’ll need to flip your formulas over to figure out one of the values you’d normally be given. Don’t worry if you’re math‑phobic! This is really easy—you’ll definitely get it with a little practice. If EV is $93,406 and SPI is 0.91, what is the planned value?
Write down the formula for SPI.
SPI =
Now flip around the formula so PV is on the left.
PV =
= $
=
Fill in the numbers that you have.
And now you can solve for PV!
PV =
If PV is $252,000 and BAC is $350,000, what is the planned percent complete?
Start with the formula for PV. x PV =
% Complete =
$
=
$
$
ula so Now flip around the folefrmt. e th % complete is on
x
And now you can solve it!
% Complete =
$
Fill in the numbers that you have.
Now try one on your own. If BAC is $126,500 and EAC is $115,000, what is the CPI?
First write out the formula that has EAC, CPI, and BAC
2
Next fill in the numbers that you know
3
Now flip around the formula so the number
4
Now you can solve the problem!
you’re looking for is on the left.
Answers on page 377.
1
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any questions?
Q:
What does CPI really mean, and why can it predict your final budget?
A:
Doesn’t it seem a little weird that you can come up with a pretty accurate forecast of what you’ll actually spend on your project just by dividing CPI into your BAC, or the total amount that you’re planning to spend on the project? How can there be one “magic” number that does that for you?
But when you think about it, it actually makes sense. Let’s say that you’re running 15% over budget today. If your budget is $100,000, then your CPI will be $100.000 ÷ $115,000 = .87. One good way to predict what your final budget will look like is to assume that you’ll keep running 15% over budget. Let’s say your total budget is $250,000. If you’re still 15% over at the end of the budget, your final CPI will still be $250,000 ÷ $287,500 = .87! Your CPI will always be .87 if you’re 15% over budget. That’s why we call that forecast EAC—it’s an ESTIMATE of what your budget will look like AT COMPLETION. By dividing CPI into BAC, all you’re doing is calculating what your final budget will be if your final budget overrun or underrun is exactly the same as it is today.
Q:
Wow, there are a lot of Earned Value formulas! Is there an easy way to remember them?
A:
Yes, there are a few ways that help you remember the Earned Value formulas. One way is to notice that the Performance Reporting formulas all have something either being divided into or subtracted from EV. This should make sense—the whole point of Earned Value Management is that you’re trying to figure out how much of the value you’re delivering to your sponsor has been earned so far. Also, remember that a variance is always subtraction, and an index is always division. The schedule formulas SV and SPI both involve PV numbers you got from your schedule, while the cost formulas CV and CPI both involve AC numbers from your budget.
And remember, the lower the index or variance, the worse your project is doing! A negative variance or an index that’s below 1 is bad, while a positive variance or an index that’s above 1 is good!
Q:
Is that really the best way to estimate costs? What if things change between now and the end of the project?
A:
EAC is a good way to estimate costs, because it’s easy to calculate and relatively accurate—assuming that nothing on the project changes too much. But you’re right, if a whole lot of unexpected costs happen or your team members figure out a cheaper and better way to get the job done, then an EAC forecast could be way off!
It turns out that there are over 25 different ways to calculate EAC, and the one in this chapter is just one of them. Some of those other formulas take risks and predictions into account. But for the PMP exam, you just need to know EAC = BAC ÷ CPI.
The Earned Value formulas have numbers divided into or subtracted from EV. SV and SPI use PV, while CV and CPI use AC.
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Keep your project on track with TCPI You can use Earned Value to gauge where you need to be to get your project in under budget. TCPI can help you find out not just whether or not you’re on target, but exactly where you need to be to make sure you get things done with the money you have.
BAC based:
To-Complete Performance Index (TCPI) This number represents a target that your CPI would have to hit in order to hit your forecasted completion cost. If you’re performing within your budgeted cost, it’ll be based on your BAC. If you’re running over your budget, you’ll have to estimate a new EAC and base your TCPI on that. There are two different formulas for TCPI. One is for when you’re trying to get your project within your original budget, and the other is for when you are trying to get your project done within the Estimate At Completion you’ve determined from Earned Value Calculations.
ay Have you ever wondered halwfw ch mu through a project just ho order you’d have to cut costs inbudget? to get it in within your at out! This is how you figure th
TCPI
How much budgeted work is left divided by how much budgeted money is left.
(BAC-EV) = (BAC-AC)
EAC based: How much budgeted work is left divided by how much estimated money is left.
(BAC-EV) TCPI = (EAC-AC)
TCPI for the Head First Lounge renovation project Alice figured out the BAC and EAC for the bar project and realized that the lounge was over budget, so she did a TCPI calculation to figure out exactly where needed to keep her CPI if she wanted to get the project in without blowing the budget. Alice’s Earned Value calculations have put the lounge renovation project’s numbers here:
EAC= $11,507
AC= $5,750
BAC=$10,000
EV=$5000
The project is over budget! So Alice uses the BAC-based formula to figure out where she needs to keep the CPI for the project if she wants to complete it within the original budget. Here’s the calculation:
(BAC-EV) TCPI = (BAC-AC) =
($10,000-$5,000) 1.17 = ($10,000-$5,750) =
So, if the project were going to get back on budget, it would have to run at a 1.17 CPI for the rest of the project to make up for the initial overage. Alice doesn’t think that’s going to happen. Jeff and Charles pushed for stucco in the lounge that cost an extra $750 in the beginning, and, the way things are going, it’s probably a safe bet that there will be a few more cost overruns like that as the project goes on. She prepared a second TCPI to see what the number would be to complete the project based on the current EAC.
(BAC-EV) = TCPI = (EAC-AC)
($10,000-$5,000) = .86 = ($11,507-$5,750) you are here 4 369 Download at Boykma.Com
tight, isn’t it?
A high TCPI means a tight budget When you’re looking at the TCPI for a project, a higher number means it’s time to take a stricter cost management approach. The higher the number, the more you’re going to have to rein in spending on your project and cut costs. When the number is lower than one, you know you’re well within your budget and you can relax a bit.
Remember “lower = loser”? Well, with TCPI, it’s the opposite. A higher number means that your budget is too tight. You want it lower to give you more room to spend money!
You’ll need to know the formula for TCPI and be ready to calculate it for the exam. Here are a couple of problems to help you get a little practice. BAC is $40,000 and EAC is $30,000 , EV is $17,000 and AC is $15,000. What is the BAC-based TCPI?
Write down the formula for TCPI.
TCPI =
=
= $
Fill in the numbers and solve the problem.
BAC is $100,000 and EAC is $107,000, EV is $68,000 and AC is $70,000. What is the EAC basedTCPI?
TCPI =
=
= $
BAC is $20,000 and EAC is $20,000, AC is $15,000 and the project is 75% complete. What is the EAC based TCPI?
First, write down the formula for EV. Write down the formula for TCPI.
Fill in the numbers and solve the problem.
EV =
TCPI =
=
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Fill in the numbers and solve the problem.
Answers on page 378.
Write down the formula for TCPI.
cost management
Party time! Jeff and Charles finished the new Lounge! It looks great, and they’re really happy about it… because Alice managed their costs well. She used Earned Value to correct their budget problems, and they managed to cut a few costs while they still had time. And they had just enough money left over at the end to throw a great party for her!
Thanks, Alice! You really saved our skins on this project!
on top of the budget ay st to lue Va ed rn Ea d le to Since she use Jeff and Charles were ab throughout the projecint, style and still manage to stay within renovate the Lounge their spending limits.
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exercise solutions
Now it’s your turn! See if you can figure out BAC and PV for a typical project. 1. You’re managing a project to install 200 windows in a new skyscraper and need to figure out your budget. Each week of the project costs the same: your team members are paid a total of $4,000 every week, and you need $1,000 worth of parts each week to do the work. If the project is scheduled to last 16 weeks, what’s the BAC for the project? The project’s 16 BAC =
weeks long. Multiply that by the costs per week to get the total budget for the project. 5,000 x 16 = 80,000 parts. Each week costs $4,000 for labor and $1,000 for
2. What will the Planned % Complete be four weeks into the project?
You’re 4 weeks into a 16-week project. That means you’re 25% of the way through. Fill in the BAC from question 1. 3. What should the PV be four weeks into the project? question Fill in the Planned % Complete froPVm. the PV = 25% = 20,000 2. Now multiply them to get 80,000 x Planned % Complete =
25%
Let’s get back to that 16-week project from page 348. Can you figure out how to use EV? 1. Fast-forward four weeks into the project installing those 200 skyscraper windows. Fill in the BAC and PV you figured out above. (Check your answer above to make sure you got it right!) BAC =
80,000
20,000
PV =
2. You’ve checked with your team, but they have bad news. The schedule says they were supposed to have installed 50 windows by now, but they only installed 40. Can you figure out the actual % complete?
40
Actual % Complete = _______ =
200
The team installed 40 windows out of a total of 200. That means they’re 20% of the way done with the work.
20%
3. What should the Earned Value be right now? EV = 80,000 x 20% =
16,000
4. Look at the planned value, and then look at the Earned Value. Are you delivering all the value you planned on delivering? You planned on delive
c
Yes
c
No
ring $20,000 worth of value, but you’ve only delivered $16,000 worth. That means the customer isn’t getting all the value he’s paying for!
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Meanwhile, back in the Lounge, Alice is working out if the project’s coming in on schedule and on budget. Here are the steps she’s taking and her notes. She was called away, so it’s up to you to work out whether the guys need to push the schedule.
1
Start with the schedule and budget. Figure out how much work you planned, how much the team has done, and the total budget (BAC).
$10,000, Jeff and Charles have a total budget of schedule. the ugh and they’re currently halfway thro
2
50% Planned % complete = ______
Figure out PV. Multiply the BAC by the percentage of the work that your schedule says the team should have worked so far to get the planned value.
So their planned value is?
3
BAC= $10,000
PV =
PV = $10,000 x 50% = $5,000
BAC x
Planned % Complete
Figure out EV. This is the part that actually takes some thinking! You need to figure out what percentage of work the team has actually done. Once you have that, multiply it with the BAC to find the Earned Value.
Uh-oh! On a closer look, it seems they’ve really only gotten 40% of the work done. EV = BAC x EV = $10,000 x 40% = $4,000
4
Actual % Complete
Now you can calculate SPI and SV. Once you’ve figured out EV and PV, you can do the calculations.
Now that you have the EV and PV, you can tell Jeff and Charles if they’re getting their money’s worth! SPI = $4,000 ÷ $5,000 = 0.8
5
SV = $4,000 - $5,000 = -$1,000
How’s the schedule looking? What do all these figures tell us?
So are we ahead of schedule or behind it? The Lounge project is behind schedule.
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exercise solutions
ou’ll definitely need to be able to calculate Earned Value numbers for the exam! But remember, like Y planning that trip way back in Chapter 4, the best way to do that is with practice. Your project has a total budget of $300,000. You check your records and find that you’ve spent $175,000 so far. The team has completed 40% of the project work, but when you check the schedule it says that they should have completed 50% of the work. Calculate the following: BAC = $
300,000
AC = $ 175,000
Planned value uses what’s on the PV = $ 300,000 x 50 % = $ 150,000 schedule, earned value is uses what actually happened.
EV = $
300,000 x 40 % = $ 120,000
You may have to round SV = $ 120,000 – $ 150,000 = $ –30,000 the CPI and SPI numbers. Don’t worry CV = $ 120,000 – $ 175,000 = $ –55,000 – since PMP is multiple choice, you’ll The formulas see a match! $ 120,000 $ 120,000 for CV and CPI use the same = 0.8 = 0.68 CPI = $ 150,000 $ 175,000 numbers, too.
Did you notice how the formulas for SV and SPI use the same numbers? You subtract for one, and divide for the other!
SPI =
You’re managing a highway construction project. Your total budget is $650,000, and there are a total of 7,500 hours of work scheduled on the project. You check with your accounting department, and they tell you that you’ve spent a total of $400,000. According to the schedule, your crew should have worked 4,500 hours, but your foreman says that the crew was allowed to work some overtime, and they’ve actually put in 5,100 hours of work. Calculate these Earned Value numbers: BAC = 650,000 AC = 400,000 SV = 442,000 SPI =
442,000 390,000
4,500 out of a total of 7,500 hours you planned to work: PV = 650,000 x 60% = 390,000 4,500 ÷ 7,500 = 60% Do the same for actual hours: EV = 650,000 x 68% = 442,000 5,100 ÷ 7,500 = 68%
– 390,000 = 52,000 = 1.13
CV = 442,000
CPI =
442,000 400,000
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– 400,000 = 42,000 = 1.11
cost management
ou are the project manager at an industrial design firm. You expect to spend a total of $55,000 on your Y current project. Your plan calls for six people working on the project eight hours a day, five days a week for four weeks. According to the schedule, your team should have just finished the third week of the project. When you review what the team has done so far, you find that they have completed 50% of the work, at a cost of $25,000. Based on this information, calculate the Earned Value numbers: BAC = 55,000 AC = 25,000 SV = 27,500
e team should The schedule says th e third week have just finishedprth ect, so the of a four-week eojis 75% planned % complet
– 41,250 = ( 13,750)
PV = 55,000
x 75% = 41,250
EV = 55,000
x 50% = 27,500
CV = 27,500
– 25,000 = 2,500
Get used to seeing negative number parentheses CPI = 27,500 SPI = = 0.67 insteadsofin usin = 1.1 g a minus sign. 25,000 41,250 An SPI below 1 means your project’s behind Check all of the following that apply: schedule. It’s time to think The project is ahead of schedule about schedule The project is over budget compression! The project is behind schedule The project is under budget
27,500
You should consider crashing the schedule
You should find a way to cut costs
Your current project is an $800,000 software development effort, with two teams of programmers that will work for six months, at a total of 10,000 hours. According to the project schedule, your team should be done with 38% of the work. You find that the project is currently 40% complete. You’ve spent 50% of the budget so far. Calculate these numbers:
BAC = 800,000 AC = 400,000 SV = 320,000 SPI =
320,000 304,000
This SPI means that the project is ahead of schedule, but it’s very close to 1, which means the schedule is pretty accurate.
– 304,000 = 16,000 = 1.05
Check all of the following that apply:
PV = 800,000
x 38% = 304,000
EV = 800,000
x 40% = 320,000
CV = 320,000
– 400,000 = ( 80,000)
320,000
= 0.8 Since CPI is 400,000 below 1 and CV is negative, the project is over budget. Cost-cutting is definitely a good idea! CPI =
The project is ahead of schedule
The project is over budget
The project is behind schedule
The project is under budget
You should consider crashing the schedule
You should find a way to cut costs
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exercise solutions
ou’re a project manager working on a large project scheduled to last for two years. You’ve got six Y different teams working on five major functional areas. Some teams are ahead of schedule, and others are falling behind. That means that you have cost overruns in some areas, but you’ve saved costs in others—and that’s making it very hard to get an intuitive grasp on whether your project is over or under budget! It’s nine months into your project. The total budget for your project is $4,200,000. You’ve spent $1,650,000 so far, and you’ve got a CPI of .875. Use the Earned Value Management formulas from forecasting to figure out where things stand. You’re starting to get the hang of this $ 4,200,000 stuff! These formulas look a little = $ 4,800,000 EAC = intimidating
0.875
ETC = $ 4,800,000 – $ 1,650,000 = $ 3,
at first, but they’re really not that bad once you get used to them.
150,000
VAC = $ 4,200,000 – $ 4,800,000 = ($ 600,000)
Since VAC is negative, it means that you’ll be $600,000 over budget at the end of the project.
Will the project be over or under budget when it’s complete? (check one) The project will be over budget
The project will be within its budget
How much will the project be over or under budget? $ 600,000 Now it’s six months later, and your project looks very different. You need to work out a new forecast for what your budget situation will be like at project completion. You’ve now spent a total of $2,625,000. You look at all of the activities done by the team, and you find that the project is 70% complete. Can you come up with a new forecast for your project? BAC = $ 4,200,000 EV = 4,200,000 EAC =
4,200,000 1.12
VAC = 4,200,000
AC = $ 2,625,000
x 70% = 2,940,000 = 3,750,000 – 3,750,000
= 450,000
CPI =
2,940,000 2,625,000
= 1.12
ETC = 3,750,
000 – 2,625,000 = 1,125,000
Your project will be over / under budget at completion. (circle one) How much will the project be over or under budget?
Take a second and think about what these numbers reall means your project $ 450,000 mean. Are you delivering good value to the sponsor? y This VAC,000 under budget. is $450 376 Chapter 7 Download at Boykma.Com
cost management
You’ll probably get a question or two where you’ll need to flip your formulas over to figure out one of the values you’d normally be given. Don’t worry if you’re math‑phobic! This is really easy—you’ll definitely get it with a little practice. If EV is $93,406 and SPI is 0.91, what is the planned value?
SPI =
PV =
EV PV
=
93,406
0.91 = $
PV =
0.91
93,406
When you’re dividing, you just need to swap these two numbers.
PV
Sometimes your answer aren’t nice, round numbser That doesn’t mean that s. they’re wrong!
102,644
If PV is $252,000 and BAC is $350,000, what is the planned percent complete?
PV =
BAC
% Complete =
x
Scheduled % Complete
$ 252,000
$ 252,000
PV =
$ 350,000
72%
= $ 350,000 x
Scheduled % Complete
’re Don’t forget that when you % 72 ge, ta cen calculating a per 2. 0.7 is the same as
Now try one on your own. If BAC is $126,500 and EAC is $115,000, what is the CPI?
1
First write out the formula that has EAC, CPI, and BAC
EAC =
3
BAC CPI
2
If you’re still stumped here, don’t worry! You’ll only see one or two questions like this on the exam.
Now flip around the formula so the number
4
you’re looking for is on the left.
CPI =
126,500 $115,000
Next fill in the numbers that you know
115,000 =
$126,500 CPI
Now you can solve the problem!
CPI = 1.1
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exercise solutions
You’ll need to know the formula for TCPI and be ready to calculate it for the exam. Here are a couple of problems to help you get a little practice. BAC is $40,000 and EAC is $30,000, EV is $17,000, and AC is $15,000. What is the BAC-based TCPI?
TCPI =
The index number is under 1. No need to tighten the belt here.
BAC-EV BAC-AC
40,000-17,000
.92
= $
40,000-15,000
BAC is $100,000 and EAC is $107,000, EV is $68,000, and AC is $70,000. What is the EAC-based TCPI?
This project should have no trouble hitting it’s budget goals .
TCPI =
BAC-EV EAC-AC
.86
= $
100,000-68,000
107,000-70,000
BAC is $20,000 and EAC is $20,000, AC is $15,000 and the project is 75% complete. What is the EAC-based TCPI?
EV =
20,000 x .75
TCPI =
BAC-EV EAC-AC
This project is right on budget.
1
= $
20,000-15,000 20,000-15,000
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cost management
Exam Questions 1. You are creating your Cost Performance Baseline. What process are you in? A. B. C. D.
Some of the Earned Value number s have alternate four-letter abbrev iat ion This one stands for “Budgeted s. Cost of Work Performed.” Don’t worry don’t need to memorize them! —you
Determine Budget Control Costs Estimate Costs Cost Baselining
2. You’re working on a project that has an EV of $7362 and a PV (BCWS) of $8232. What’s your SV? A. B. C. D.
–$870 $870 0.89 Not enough information to tell
3. You are managing a project for a company that has previously done three projects that were similar to it. You consult with the cost performance baselines, lessons learned, and project managers from those projects, and use that information to come up with your cost estimate. What technique are you using? A. B. C. D.
Parametric Estimating Net Present Value Rough Order of Magnitude Estimation Analogous Estimating
4. You are working on a project with a PV of $56,733 and an SPI of 1.2. What’s the Earned Value of your project? A. B. C. D.
$68,079.60 $47,277.50 $68,733 .72
5. Your company has two projects to choose from. Project A is a billing software project for the Accounts payable department; in the end it will make the company around $400,000 when it has been rolled out to all of the employees in that department. Project B is a payroll application that will make the company around $388,000 when it has been put to use throughout the company. After a long deliberation, your board chooses to go ahead with Project B. What is the opportunity cost for choosing Project B over Project A? A. B. C. D.
$388,000 $400,000 $12,000 1.2
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exam questions
Exam Questions 6. Your company has asked you to provide a cost estimate that includes maintenance, installation, support, and upkeep costs for as long as the product will be used. What is that kind of estimate called? A. B. C. D.
Benefit Cost Ratio Depreciation Net Present Value Lifecycle Costing
7. You are working on a project with an SPI of .72 and a CPI of 1.1. Which of the following BEST describes your project? A. B. C. D.
Your project is ahead of schedule and under budget Your project is behind schedule and over budget Your project is behind schedule and under budget Your project is ahead of schedule and over budget
8. Your project has a BAC of $4,522 and is 13% complete. What is the earned value (EV)? A. B. C. D.
$3934.14 There is not enough information to answer $587.86 $4522
9. A project manager is working on a large construction project. His plan says that the project should end up costing $1.5 million, but he’s concerned that he’s not going come in under budget. He’s spent $950,000 of the budget so far, and he calculates that he’s 57% done with the work, and he doesn’t think he can improve his CPI above 1.05. Which of the following BEST describes the current state of the project? A. B. A. B.
The project is likely to come in under budget The project is likely to exceed its budget The project right on target There is no way to determine this information
10. You are managing a project laying underwater fiber optic cable. The total cost of the project is $52/ meter to lay 4 km of cable across a lake. It’s scheduled to take 8 weeks to complete, with an equal amount of cable laid in each week. It’s currently week 5, and your team has laid 1,800 meters of cable so far. What is the SPI of your project? A. B. C. D.
1.16 1.08 .92 .72
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u cost management
Exam Questions 11. During the execution of a software project, one of your programmers informs you that she discovered a design flaw that will require the team to go back and make a large change. What is the BEST way to handle this situation? A. B. C. D.
Ask the programmer to consult with the rest of the team and get back to you with a recommendation Determine how the change will impact the project constraints Stop all work and call a meeting with the sponsor Update the cost performance baseline to reflect the change
12. If AC (ACWP) is greater than your EV (BCWP), what does this mean? A. B. C. D.
The project is under budget The project is over budget The project is ahead of schedule The project is behind schedule
13. A junior project manager is studying for her PMP exam, and asks you for advice. She’s learning about Earned Value Management, and wants to know which of the variables represents the difference between what you expect to spend on the project and what you’ve actually spent so far. What should you tell her? A. B. C. D.
Actual Cost (AC) Cost Performance Index (CPI) Earned Value (EV) Cost Variance (CV)
14. You are managing an industrial architecture project. You’ve spent $26,410 so far to survey the site, draw up preliminary plans, and run engineering simulations. You are preparing to meet with your sponsor, when you discover that there a new local zoning law will cause you to have to spend an additional estimated $15,000 to revise your plans. You contact the sponsor and initiate a change request to update the cost performance baseline. What variable would you use to represent the $26,410 in an Earned Value calculation? A. B. C. D.
PV BAC AC EV
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exam questions
Exam Questions 15. You are working on the project plan for a software project. Your company has a standard spreadsheet that you use to generate estimates. To use the spreadsheet, you meet with the team to estimate the number of functional requirements, use cases, and design wireframes for the project. Then you categorize them into high, medium, or low complexity. You enter all of those numbers into the spreadsheet, which uses a data table derived from past projects’ actual costs and durations, performs a set of calculations, and generates a final estimate. What kind of estimation is being done? A. B. C. D.
Parametric Rough Order of Magnitude Bottom-Up Analogous
16. Project A has a NPV of $75,000, with an internal rate of return of 1.5% and an initial investment of $15,000. Project B has a NPV of $60,000 with a BCR of 2:1. Project C has a NPV of $80,000, which includes an opportunity cost of $35,000. Based on these projects, which is the BEST one to select: A. B. C. D.
Project A Project B Project C There is not enough information to select a project
17. What is the range of a Rough Order of Magnitude Estimate? A. B. C. D.
–5% to +10% –25% to +75% –50% to +50% –100% to +200%
18. You are managing a software project, when one of your stakeholders needs to make a change that will affect the budget. What defines the processes that you must follow in order to implement the change? A. B. C. D.
Cost change control system Monitoring & Controlling process group Change control board Cost performance baseline
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cost management
Exam Questions 19. You are managing a software project, when one of your stakeholders needs to make a change that will affect the budget. You follow the procedures to implement the change. Which of the following must get updated to reflect the change? A. B. C. D.
Project management plan Project cost performance baseline Cost change control system Project performance reviews
20. You are managing a project with a BAC of $93,000, EV (BCWP) of $51,840, PV (BCWS) of $64,800, and AC (ACWP) of $43,200. What is the CPI? A. B. C. D.
1.5 0.8 1.2 $9,000
Again, don’t pani you see these four-letterc if ab br You’ll always be give eviations. you’re used to on thn the ones e exam!
21. You are managing a project that has a TCPI of 1.19. What is the BEST course of action? A. B. C. D.
You’re under budget, you can manage costs with lenience Manage costs aggressively. Create a new schedule Create a new budget
22. You are starting to write your project charter with your project sponsor when the senior managers ask for a time and cost estimate for the project. You have not yet gathered many of the project details. What kind of estimate can you give? A. B. C. D.
Analogous Estimate Rough Order of Magnitude Estimate Parametric Estimate Bottom-up Estimate
23. You are managing a project for a defense contractor. You know that you’re over budget, and you need to tell your project sponsor how much more money it’s going to cost. You’ve already given him a forecast that represents your estimate of total cost at the end of the project, so you need to take that into account. You now need to figure out what your CPI needs to be for the rest of the project. Which of the following BEST meets your needs? A. B. C. D.
BAC ETC TCPI (BAC calculation) TCPI (EAC calculation)
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Exam Questions
Answer: A 1.1.You are creating your cost baseline. What process are you in? This is really a question about the order of the processes. Determine Budget and Control Costs both use the DetermineBaseline, Budget so it has to be created before you get to them. Cost Baselining isn’t a process at CostA. Performance all, so shouldCosts exclude that from the choices right away. The main output of Determine Budget is the Cost B. you Control Performance and supporting detail, so that’s the right choice here. C. Cost Baseline Estimating D. Cost Baselining 2. Answer: A
Watch out for fake processes! This isn’t a real process name.
This one is just testing whether or not you know the formula for schedule variance. Just plug the values into the SV formula: SV = EV – PV and you get answer A. Watch out for negative numbers, though! Answer B is a trap because it’s a positive value. Also, the test will have answers like C that check if you’re using the right formula. If you use the SPI formula, that’s the answer you’ll get! You can throw out D right away—you don’t need to do any calculation to know that you have enough information to figure out SV! 2. You’re working on a project that has an EV of $7362 and a PV (BCWS) of $8232. What’s your SV?
Don’t get thrown off by four-lett er abbreviations like BCWP—some people have dif fer ent for PV, EV, and AC. The PMP exa abbreviations you the abbreviations you’re familia m will always give r with. 3. Answer: D When you’re using the past performance of previous projects to help come up with an estimate, that’s called Analogous Estimation. This is the second time you saw this particular technique—it was also in the Time Management chapter. So there’s a good chance that you’ll get an exam question on it. 4. Answer: A The formula for SPI is: SPI = EV ÷ PV. So you just have to fill in the numbers that you know, which gets you1.2 = EV ÷ $56,733. Now flip it around. You end up with EV = 1.2 x $56,733, which multiplies out to $68,079.60. 5. Answer: B
t matter Did you notice the red herring in the question? It didn’ cost! they what the projects were about, only how much
If you see a question about opportunity cost of selecting one project over another, the answer is the value of the project that was not selected! So even though the answers were all numbers, there’s no math at all in this question.
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cost management
Exam Questions 6. Answer: D
This is one of those questions that gives you a definition and asks you to pick the term that’s being defined. So which one is it? Try using the process of elimination to find the right answer! It can’t be Benefit Cost Ratio, because you aren’t being asked to compare the overall cost of the project to anything to figure out what its benefit will be. Depreciation isn’t right—that’s about how your project loses value over time, not about its costs. And it’s not Net Present Value, because the question didn’t ask you about how much value your project is delivering today. That leaves Lifecycle Costing.
answer to a If you don’t know thenate all the question, try to elimie wrong. answers you know ar
Don’t forget: Lower = Loser! 7. Answer: C
When you see an SPI that’s lower than one, that means your project is behind schedule. But your CPI is above one, which means that you’re ahead on your budget!
8. Answer: C Use the formula: EV=BAC x Actual % Complete. When you plug the numbers into the formula, the right answer pops out!
I love these calculation questions because when I see that the answer on my calculator matches one of the choices, I know I got it right!
9. Answer: B You might not have recognized this as a TCPI problem immediately, but take another look at the question. It’s asking you whether or not a project is going to come in under budget, and that’s what TCPI is for. Good thing you were given all of the values you need to calculate it! The Actual % Complete is 57%, the BAC is $1,500,000 and the AC is $950,000. You can calculate the EV = BAC x Actual % Complete = $1,500,000 x 57% = $855,000. So now you have everything you need to calculate TCPI: BAC - EV ($1,500,000 - $855,000) TCPI = = = 1.17 BAC - AC ($1,500,000 - $950,000) This means he needs a TCPI of 1.17 in order to come in under budget. Since he knows that he can’t get better than 1.05, he’s likely to blow the budget. you are here 4 385 Download at Boykma.Com
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Exam Questions 10. Answer: D
Some of these calculation questions can get a little complicated—but that doesn’t mean they’re difficult! Just relax—you can do them! The formula you need to use is: SPI = EV ÷ PV. But what do you use for EV and PV? If you look at the question again, you’ll find everything you need to calculate them. First, figure out Earned Value: EV = BAC x Actual % Complete. But wait! You weren’t given these in the question! OK, no problem—you just need to think your way through it. The project will cost $52/meter to lay 4 km (or 4,000 meters) of cable, which means the total cost of the project will be $52 x 4,000 = $208,000. And you can figure out Actual % Complete too! You’ve laid 1,800 meters so far out of the 4,000 meters you’ll lay in total… so that’s 1,800 ÷ 4,000 = 45% complete. All right! Now you know your earned value: EV = $208,000 x 45% = $93,600. So what’s next? You’ve got half of what you need for SPI—now you have to figure out PV. The formula for it is: PV = BAC x Scheduled % Complete. So how much of the project were you supposed to complete by now? You’re 5 weeks into an 8 week project, so 5 ÷ 8 = 62.5%. Your PV is $208,000 x 62.5% = $130,000. Now you’ve got everything you need to calculate SPI! EV ÷ PV = $93,600 ÷ $130,000 = .72
So that question was really about whether I could figure out how to calculate EV and PV from what I was given.
Did you think that this was a herring? It wasn’t—you needed red all the numbers you were given. 11. Answer: B You’ll run into a lot of questions like this where a problem happens, a person has an issue, or the project runs into trouble. When this happens, the first thing you do is stop and gather information. And that should make sense to you, since you don’t know if this change will really impact cost or not. It may seem like a huge change to the programmer, but may not actually cost the project anything. Or it may really be huge. So the first thing to do is figure out the impact of the change on the project constraints, and that’s what answer B says!
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cost management
Exam Questions 12. Answer: B
What formula do you know that has AC and EV? Right, the CPI formula does! Take a look at it: CPI = EV ÷ AC. So what happens if AC is bigger than EV? Make up two numbers and plug them in! You get CPI that’s below 1, and you know what that means… it means that you’ve blown your budget! 12. If AC (ACWP) is greater than your EV (BCWP), what does this mean?
Here are more of those four-letter abbreviations. Don’t worry—you don’t need to memorize these
If I write down all of the formulas on my scratch paper before the test starts, questions like this will be a lot easier!
13. Answer: D This question gave you a definition and is checking to see if you know what it refers to. You should take a minute to look at each of the four possible answers and see if you can think of the definition for each of them. It’s definitely worth taking the time to understand what each of these formulas and variables represents in real life! It will make the whole exam a lot easier. 14. Answer: C This is a classic Red Herring question! The money you’ve spent so far is the actual cost. It’s a simple definition question, wrapped up in a whole bunch of fluff! 14. You are managing an industrial architecture project. You’ve spent $26,410 so far to survey…
15. Answer: A
This is the only part of the question that matters—the rest is a red herring.
When you plug a bunch of values into a formula or computer program, and it generates an estimate, that’s called parametric estimation. Parametric estimation often uses some historical data, but that doesn’t mean it’s the same as analogous estimation!
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Exam Questions 16. Answer: C
You’ve been given a net present value (NPV) for each project. NPV means the total value that this project is worth to your company! It’s got the costs—including opportunity costs—built in already. So all you need to do is select the project with the biggest NPV. 17. Answer: C The Rough Order of Magnitude estimate is a very preliminary estimate that everyone knows is only within an order of magnitude of the actual cost (or ±50%). That means it can be anywhere from half the actual cost to one and a half times the actual cost! 18. Answer: A You should definitely have a pretty good idea of how change control works by now! The change control system defines the procedures that you use to carry out the changes. And Control Costs has its own set of procedures, called the cost change control system. 19. Answer: B You use the project Cost Performance Baseline to measure and monitor your project’s cost performance. The idea behind a baseline is that when a change is approved and implemented, the baseline gets updated.
I recognize this—a change is requested, approved, and implemented, and then the baseline is updated. So I’m using the cost performance baseline just like I used the scope baseline back in the Scope Management chapter!
20. Answer: C You should have the hang of this by now! Plug the numbers into the formula (CPI = EV ÷ AC), and it spits out the answer. Sometimes the question will give you more numbers than you actually need to use—just ignore them like any other red herring and only use the ones you need! 21. Answer: B If your TCPI is above 1, you need to manage costs aggressively. It means that you need to meet your goals without spending as much money as you have been for the rest of the project. 388 Chapter 7 Download at Boykma.Com
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cost management
Exam Questions 22. Answer: B
If you are just starting to work on your project charter, it means you’re just starting the project and you don’t have enough information yet to do analogous, parametric, or bottom-up estimates. The only estimation technique that you can use that early in the project is the Rough Order of Magnitude estimate. That kind of estimate is not nearly as accurate as the other kinds of estimate and is used just to give a rough idea of how much time and cost will be involved in doing a project. 23. Answer: D This question may have seemed a little wordy, but it’s really just a question about the definition of TCPI. You’re being asked to figure out where you need to keep your project’s CPI in order to meet your budget. And you know it’s the EACbased TCPI number, because the question specified that you already gave him a forecast, which means you gave him an EAC value already. So now you can calculate the EAC-based TCPI number to figure out where you need to keep your CPI for the rest of the project.
sed on the EAC, it By calculating this ba how much money shows your sponsor injust r less, if you’ve they need to kick or(oder to come in got good news!) in under budget.
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8 Quality management
Getting it right I can’t remember if I used chocolate chips or marbles, but I guess it’s okay. Someone’s sure to figure it out before the big bake sale.
It’s not enough to make sure you get it done on time and under budget. You need to be sure you make the right product to suit your stakeholders’ needs. Quality means making sure that you build what you said you would and that you do it as efficiently as you can. That means trying not to make too many mistakes and always keeping your project working toward the goal of creating the right product!
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defining what quality is
What is quality? Everybody “knows” what quality is. But the way the word is used in everyday life is a little different than how it is used in project management. You manage quality on your project by setting goals and taking measurements. That’s why you need to understand the quality levels your stakeholders believe are acceptable, and that your project meets those targets... just like it needs to meet their budget and schedule goals.
How do you know if this is a high quality product?
How can you tell a high-quality product from a low-quality one?
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quality management
You need more than just tests to figure out quality A lot of people confuse quality with testing. When projects run into quality problems, some project managers will respond by adding more testers to the project to try to find more bugs. But testing is only one part of the story. To know your product’s quality, you need to do more than test it:
The Black Box 3000TM.
Scenario 1 Lisa presses the button, but nothing happens.
Hmm. I have no idea what these tests prove!
Lisa, our tester, is testing the Black Box 3000TM, but she isn’t sure what she’s supposed to be testing for.
Scenario 2 Lisa presses the button and a voice comes out of the box that says, “You pressed the button incorrectly.”
Scenario 3 Lisa presses the button and the box heats up to 628°F. Lisa drops the box and it shatters into hundreds of pieces.
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quality means conformance
Once you know what the product is supposed to do, it’s easy to tell which tests pass and which fail Testing is all about checking to be sure that the product does what it is supposed to do. That means that you need to have a good idea of what it is supposed to do to judge its quality. That’s why the most important concept in defining quality for the PMP® exam is conformance to requirements. That just means that your product is only as good as the requirements you have written for it. To say that something is a high quality product means that it fulfils the requirements your team agreed to when you started the work.
TM BLACK BOX 3000 al Specification Manu
TM ng element for The BB3K is a heati industrial oven
to exactly BB3KTM must heat up 0.8 seconds BB3KTM must have a button
an
628°F in
large, easy-to-press
That’s why getting the Collect Requirements process right is so important!
Quality is the measurement of how closely your product meets its requirements.
The spec lists all of the requirements that must be met by the product.
Scenario #3 was the test that passed! The product looks like it’s conforming to that requirement. But scenarios 1 and 2 could be defects. I don’t see anything about them in the spec.
Now that she knows what sheLisisa supposed to be testing for, can report on what behavior . was correct and what wasn’t
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quality management
Quality up close There are a few general ideas about quality that will help you understand a little better where the PMP exam is coming from. A lot of work has been done on quality engineering in the past 50 years or so that was originally focused on manufacturing. Those ideas have been applied to product quality over lots of different industries. Here are a few concepts that are important for the exam. Customer satisfaction is about making sure that the people who are paying for the end product are happy with what they get. When the team gathers requirements for the specification, they try to write down all of the things that the customers want in the product so that you know how to make them happy. Some requirements can be left unstated, too. Those are the ones that are implied by the customer’s explicit needs. In the end, if you fulfill all of your requirements, your customers should be really satisfied.
Customer needs should be written down as requirement before you start to build s your product. That way, you can always plan on building the right thing.
t common Some requirements are jus people hold sense—like a product that stu ff that can’t be made from toxic stated, but kills you. It might not be ent. it’s definitely a requirem
Fitness for use is about making sure that the product you build has the best design possible to fit the customer’s needs. Which would you choose: a product that’s beautifully designed, well constructed, solidly built, and all-around pleasant to look at but does not do what you need, or a product that does what you want despite being really ugly to look at and a pain in the butt to work with?
You could pound in a nail with a screwdriver, You’ll always choose the product that fits your needs, even if it’s but a hammer is more seriously limited. That’s why it’s important that the product both does fit for the job. what it is supposed to do and does it well. This idea came from a quality theorist named Joseph Juran. Conformance to requirements is the core of both customer satisfaction and fitness for use. Above all, your product needs to do what you wrote down in your requirements specification. Your requirements should take into account both what will satisfy your customer and the best design possible for the job. In the end, your product’s quality is judged by whether you built what you said you would build.
Quality is a measure of how well your product does what you intend.
Phillip Crosby made this idea popular in the early 1980s. It’s been really important to quality engineering ever since.
nforming That means coed and to both statrements. implied requi
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high-quality, low-grade
I know quality when I see it. Can’t I just look at the final product and reject it if it’s low quality?
It’s easy to mistake a low-grade product for a low-quality one. When people talk about the quality of their car or their meal, they are often talking about its grade. You can judge something’s grade without knowing too much about its requirements. But that’s a lot different than knowing its quality.
Quality vs. grade You can eat a lobster platter for dinner, or you can eat a hot dog. They are both types of food, right? But they have very different tastes, looks, feels, and most importantly, cost. If you order the lobster in a restaurant, you’ll be charged a lot more than if you order a hot dog. But that doesn’t mean the lobster is a higher-quality meal. If you’d ordered a salad and got lobster or a hot dog instead, you wouldn’t be satisfied.
the hot The lobster is a high-grade meal;y’re both the dog is a low-grade one. But d. sala a ted low quality if you actually wan 396 Chapter 8 Download at Boykma.Com
Quality means that something does what you needed it to do. Grade describes how much people value it.
Higher-grade stuf more, but just becafustypically costs for something doesn’te you pay more what you need it to domean it does .
quality management
Take a look at each of these situations and figure out if they’re talking about quality or grade.
1. You ordered mushrooms on your pizza, but you got onions.
3. The pizza arrived, but it had canned mushrooms.
c
Quality
c
Grade
c
Quality
2. You called the pizza parlor to complain and the guy yelled at you.
4. The pizza was cold.
c
Quality
c
Grade
c
Quality
c
Grade
c
Grade
5. You just got a brand new luxury car that cost a whole lot of money.
7. Your neighbors make fun of you because your chrome hubcaps aren’t very classy…
c
Quality
c
Grade
6. But it’s in the shop every two weeks.
c
Quality
c
Grade
You probably didn’t tell the salesman you needed the car to work, but you expected it to. That’s an unstated requirement.
c
Quality
c
Grade
8. … even though they do a great job of protecting the wheels from dirt, which is why you bought them in the first place.
c
Quality
c
Grade
Answers on page 430.
We’ve talked about how you can’t just test the product to figure out its quality. Can you think of ways that you can make a product’s quality higher?
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prevention over inspection
“An ounce of prevention…” It’s not enough to go to the dentist to get your cavities filled. You need to brush your teeth every day. The same goes with product quality. If you focus on preventing mistakes on your project before they happen, you are more likely to get the product done on time and without spending too much money.
ve buttons 10% of the black boxes hath em. ss pre that stick when you
When it comes to defects, prevention is always better than inspection!
We could hire a lot more inspectors to check to see if each of the products has a sticky button and send it for repair…
And that’s why you need the three Quality Management processes!
Or we could change the design to make the button a millimeter smaller and eliminate the problem altogether.
There are three processes in the Quality Management knowledge area, and they’re all designed to make sure that you and your team deliver the highest quality product that you can. Plan Quality is like the other planning processes you’ve learned about—you create a Quality Management Plan to help guide you and your team through quality activities.
Perform Quality Control is the Monitoring & Controlling process where you look at each deliverable and inspect it for defects.
Perform Quality Assurance is where you take a step back and look at how well your project fits in with your company’s overall quality standards and guidelines. 398 Chapter 8 Download at Boykma.Com
quality management
Which of these activities are prevention, and which are inspection? 1. You find that 40% of the sneakers your factory makes have the left foot insole put into the right shoe and the right insole put into the left shoe. So, you print an L on the underside of the left insole so that factory workers can tell them apart more easily.
c Prevention c Inspection
2. The applications being built by your programming team have lots of bugs. So you add extra test cycles and make them longer and more intensive to try to find more problems before you ship.
c Prevention c Inspection
3. The applications being built by your programming team have lots of bugs. So you write up coding standards that will guide everyone in building the product with more attention to quality.
c Prevention c Inspection
4. Some of the black boxes being built at the factory are only heating up to 500 degrees when the button is pushed. So you set up an automated button presser to press each one and measure its temperature as it comes off of the assembly line.
c Prevention c Inspection
5. You set up code reviews at important milestones in your project to catch defects as early as you can.
c Prevention c Inspection
6. The programmers on your team write unit tests before they write the code for the application they’re writing. That helps them to think of ways that the application’s design might go wrong and avoid major pitfalls.
c Prevention c Inspection
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exercise solution
Which of these activities are prevention, and which are inspection? 1. You find that 40% of the sneakers your factory makes have the left foot insole put into the right shoe and the right insole put into the left shoe. So, you print an L on the underside of the left insole so that factory workers can tell them apart more easily.
c Prevention c Inspection
no The focus here is on making sure that find ing on n tha more defects happen, rather them.
2. The applications being built by your programming team have lots of bugs. So you add extra test cycles and make them longer and more intensive to try to find more problems before you ship. Catching the bugs after
c Prevention c Inspection
they’ve been put in the product is not the most efficient way to deal with this problem. It will cost more money and take longer.
3. The applications being built by your programming team have lots of bugs. So, you write up coding standards that will guide everyone in building the product with more attention to quality. This is a much better way of
c Prevention c Inspection
dealing with the same problem. It focuses on making sure e the bugs never make it into the softwar . them ng rather than finding them and fixi
4. Some of the black boxes being built at the factory are only heating up to 500 degrees when the button is pushed. So you set up an automated button presser to press each one and measure its temperature as it comes off of the assembly line.
c Prevention c Inspection
This one is also focused on finding the problems once they’re in the product.
5. You set up code reviews at important milestones in your project to catch defects as early as you can.
c Prevention c Inspection
6. The programmers on your team write unit tests before they write the code for the application they’re writing. That helps them to think of ways that the application’s design might go wrong and avoid major pitfalls.
c Prevention c Inspection
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quality management
Plan Quality is how you prevent defects Since prevention is the best way to deal with defects, you need to do a lot of planning to make sure that your product is made with as few defects as possible. The Plan Quality process focuses on taking all of the information available to you at the beginning of your project and figuring out how you will measure your quality and prevent defects.
Your company should have a quality policy that tells how it measures quality across the organization. You should make sure your project follows the company policy.
Any company or governmental rules or regulations on how you need to plan quality for your project are considered enterprise environmental factors.
Here’s where you find out how much money you can spend. This lets you know how much time is available for quality activities
$
Enterprise Environmental Factors
The Schedule Baseline
Here’s where all the deliverables are listed and any thresholds for cost, scope, time, or quality are written out.
Organizational Process Assets
Inputs
Risk Register
Stakeholder Register
Risks that have been identified will help you find the places where quality might suffer.
The Stakeholder Register tells you who of your stakeholders have an interest in particular quaity requirements. You’ll learn all about it in Chapter 10.
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Plan Quality tools
How to plan for quality You need to plan out which activities you’re going to use to measure the quality of the product of your project. And you need to be sure that the activities you plan are going to pay off in the end. So you’ll need to think about the cost of all of the quality-related activities you want to do. Then you’ll need to set some guidelines for what you’re going to measure against. Finally, you’ll need to design the tests you’re going to run when the product is ready to be tested. Cost-benefit analysis is looking at how much your quality activities will cost versus how much you will gain from doing them. The costs are easy to measure; the effort and resources it takes to do them are just like any other task on your schedule. Since quality activities don’t actually produce a product, though, it is harder for people to measure the benefits sometimes. The main benefits are less rework, higher productivity and efficiency, and more satisfaction from both the team and the customer. Benchmarking means using the results of Plan Quality on other projects to set goals for your own. You might find that the last project your company did had 20% fewer defects than the one before it. You would want to learn from a project like that and put in practice any of the ideas they used to make such a great improvement. Benchmarks can give you some reference points for judging your own project before you even get started with the work. Design of experiments is where you apply the scientific method to create a set of tests for your project’s deliverables. It’s a statistical method, which means you use statistics to analyze the results of your experiments to determine how your deliverables best meet the requirements. A lot of quality managers use this technique to produce a list of tests that they’ll run on the deliverables, so they have data to analyze later. Flowcharting means coming up with a graphical depiction of the the process you’re doing so that you can anticipate where quality activities might help you prevent defects. Control charts are used to figure out which processes in your company might be having quality problems. They’re used for measuring the performance of activities that are done over and over. Properietary techniques are process frameworks and methodologies that project managers use to improve quality. (Don’t worry, the PMBOK® Guide doesn’t contain a list of them that you need to memorize.) 402 Chapter 8 Download at Boykma.Com
That makes sense. A teamlity that is making a high qua ud product will be really pro of their work.
world, In the softwarcae lled this is usually test planning.
quality management
Cost of quality is what you get when you add up the cost of all of the prevention and inspection activities you are going to do on your project. It doesn’t just include the testing. It includes any time spent writing standards, reviewing documents, meeting to analyze the root causes of defects, rework to fix the defects once they’re found by the team—absolutely everything you do to ensure quality on the project. Statistical sampling is when you look at a representative sample of something to make decisions. For example, you might take a look at a selection of widgets produced in a factory to figure out which quality activites would help you prevent defects in them. There are additional quality planning tools that project managers might use:
a good number to Cost of quality can be oject is doing well orst check whether your pr company tracks co having trouble. If your projects, you could of quality on all of itdisng more or less than tell if you were spenyou can get your project the others are, so up to snuff.
• Brainstorming (which you’ll learn all about in Chapter 11) • Affinity diagrams (which you learned about in Chapter 5) • Force field analysis is how engineers analyze structures to see what forces affect their use • Nominal group techniques mean brainstorming with small groups, and then working with larger groups to review and expand the results • Matrix diagrams are tables, spreadsheets or pivot tables that help you analyze complex relationships • Prioritization matrices let you analyze multiple issues and prioritize so you can attack the important ones first
Don’t worry, you don’t need to know how to use these techniques to pass the PMP exam!
1. You look through your company’s asset library and find that a recent project was able to reduce defects by 20% by inserting defect prevention meetings early in the construction phase. You put the same process in your quality plan and set the target for shipped defects to be 20% lower than the company average for your project. Tool/technique: 2. You add up all of the costs projected for quality activities and track that number in your quality plan. You use this number to gauge the health of your project compared to other projects in your company. Tool/technique:
Answers on page 431.
Read each of these scenarios and identify which tool or technique is being used.
3. You write up a list of all of the tests you are going to run on the Black Box 3000™ when it rolls off the assembly line. You determine what kinds of failures might cause you to stop testing, what it would take for you to resume test activities, and requirements that the product would need to fulfill to be considered accepted into test. Tool/technique: you are here 4 403 Download at Boykma.Com
make a plan
The quality management plan gives you what you need to manage quality Once you have your quality management plan, you know your guidelines for managing quality on your project. Your strategies for monitoring your project quality should be included in the plan, as well as the reasons for all of the steps you are taking. It’s important that everyone on the team understands the rationale behind the metrics being used to judge success or failure of the project.
Outputs
The Quality Management Plan is the main output of Plan Quality. It’s a sub-plan of the project management plan.
The Quality Management Plan is the main tool for preventing defects on your project.
BLACK BOX 3000TM Quality Management Plan
A metric is just a number you use to measure your product’s quality.
Project Background:
The project goal is to create as many industrial heating ele ments as possible with no def Past problems included stic ects. ky buttons and difficulty tes ting the product. This was cor when a specification was giv rected en to the test team. Goals for Project Metrics: Metric
Even though this number is part of Time Management, you’ll often measure it in your quality plan because it’s part of customer satisfaction on the project.
Goal
Schedule Variance
Defect Density
<5%
0 High Priority 2 Medium Priority 5 Low Priority (defects per thousand black boxes)
Rationale Because shipments of black boxes are planned with clients in advance, very few delays are acceptable. Defect repair is extremely costly. We need to get as many products shipped as possible on the first try.
Defect Prevention Plan:
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How we’ll do it Track any activities that might cause delays. Use extra resources if necessary to meet the deadline. Set up defect prevention activities early in the process. Monitor the results of inspections and adjust if necessary.
quality management
Outputs Checklists are there to help people head off mistakes that might cause defects. You can create checklists to avoid common errors as part of your Plan Quality process and then put them to use throughout your project as a defect prevention technique. Checklists can also be used for inspecting products to be sure that they display specific characteristics.
This means you need to think about more than just building the product of the project. You also need to think about how your company does all of its projects.
The Stakeholder Register might need to be updated if you find new stakeholders in the course of planning quality activities.
Process Improvement Plan is a plan for improving the process you are using to do the work. In it, you come up with strategies for finding inefficiencies and places where the way you work might be slowing you down or creating a low quality product. You set goals for how you can monitor the process during your project and make recommendations to make it better.
The Pro Improvemceess is another nt Plan of the Pr sub-plan Manageme oject nt Plan.
Quality Metrics are the kinds of measurements you’ll take throughout your project to figure out its quality. If you’re running a project to install windows in a skyscraper, and 15% of them have to be reinstalled because they were broken, that’s an important metric. You’ll probably want to work with your company to bring that number down. Here’s where you document how you’ll be figuring out the product’s quality. You need to write down the formulas you’ll use, when you will do the measurements, why you are taking them, and how you will interpret them.
Project Document Updates might need to be made because you have found new information in the course of planning your quality activities that affects one of the other plans you’ve already made. That’s why this process includes an output for making those kinds of changes. Stakeholder Register
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check for defects
Quality Management Plan
Helps you to make sure that each deliverable is up to the project’s standards.
Process Improvement Plan
Helps you to plan out all of your quality activities
Quality Checklists
Describes how you’ll measure a particular attribute of a deliverable during testing.
Quality Metrics
Helps you change the way you work for the better.
Q:
Why do you need to track the cost of testing?
A:
You mean Cost of Quality, right? Cost of Quality isn’t just the cost of testing. It’s the cost of all of your quality activities. Even preventive activities like spending time writing checklists and standards are part of it. The reason you track Cost of Quality is that it can tell you a lot about the health of your project as a whole. Say you find you’re spending twice as much on quality activities as you are on building your product. You need to use that number to start asking some questions about the way the work is being done. Are people not doing enough up front to prevent defects and adding a lot of expensive test activities at the end of the project to compensate? Is the design not clear, so your team needs to do a lot of re-work trying to get what the customer needs? There are many reasons that could be causing a high cost of quality number, but you wouldn’t even know to ask about them if you didn’t track it.
Q:
How do you know your benchmarks before you start building?
A:
That’s what your Organizational Process Assets are for. Since your company keeps a record of all of the projects that have been done over the years, those projects’ quality measurements can help you get a gauge on how your project will perform too. If your company knows that all of the projects in your division had a cost of quality that was 40% of the cost of the overall cost of development, you might set 40% cost of quality as a benchmark for your project as well. Your company might have stated a goal of having a schedule variance of plus or minus 10% on all projects for this calendar year. In that case, the schedule variance is a benchmark for your project.
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Answers on page 431.
Match each Plan Quality output to its description.
Q:
I don’t really have good requirements for my projects because everyone on the team starts out with just a good idea of what we’re building. How do I handle quality?
A:
You should never do that. Remember how you spent all that time collecting requrements in the Collect Requirements process? Well, this is why you needed them. And it’s why it’s your responsibility to make sure that the project starts out with good, well-defined, and correct requirements. If you don’t have them, you can’t measure quality—and quality is an important part of project management. Without requirements, you have no idea what the product is supposed to do, and that means you can’t judge its quality. You can learn a lot about a product by testing it, but without knowing its requirements, a product could pass all of its tests and still not do what the customer expects it to do. So having good requirements really is the only way to know whether or not your product is high quality.
quality management
Inspect your deliverables It’s not enough to inspect the final product. All of the things that you make throughout a project should be looked at to find bugs. In fact, the earlier you find them, the easier they are to fix. The Perform Quality Control process is all about inspecting work products to find defects. LAST WEEK
TODAY
Lisa takes a good look at a sample of all of the products that are about to be shi d to Black Box 3000™ Custoppe mers.
Lisa looked for defects in the parts as they were being made. She also inspected the blueprints for the Black Box when they were designed.
Quality Control is in the Monitoring & Controlling process group. Like Scope Control and Cost Control, you look at the work performance information that is coming from your project and compare it to your plan. If there are problems, you recommend a change. That way you can either fix the problem or make sure that it doesn’t happen again.
How would you use your checklists and metrics to inspect all of the deliverables and find defects?
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measuring quality
Use the planning outputs for Perform Quality Control You’ve come up with a plan to make sure each deliverable is right. Now it’s time to monitor the work that’s being done to the requirements—and that’s just a matter of following your plan! You’ll need to look at everything that is being produced and make sure that it stands up to all of the requirements that have been gathered. And you’ll need nearly everything you produced in Plan Quality in order to get a handle on your product’s quality.
s to help You’ll use checklist the you remember alltoofinclude things you need les. in your deliverab
Metrics make it easy for you to check how well your product meets expectations. Metrics tell what going to measure yoanurd how you are quality. They give you product’s objective measures to some make better judgmenthelp you s about it.
Deliverables are the things you inspect. Stuff like black boxes, specifications, or buttons.
Deliverables Quality Checklists
Work Performance Measurements
Quality Metrics Organizational Process Assets
Project Management Plan
This document describes your approach to inspection—what you’ll track and what you’re shooting for.
Inputs
find Here’s where you’llality your company’s quwide policy, company‑ pany‑wide metrics, and com project goals.
Approved Change Requests
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quality management
The seven basic tools of quality
button height (mm)
These charts and tools are so common in quality control that they have a name. They’re called the seven basic tools of quality. Expect a bunch of questions on these in the exam!
10.5 10.0 9.5 9.0 8.5 8.0 7.5 7.0 6.5 11:20am
11:40am
12:00pm
Control Charts are a way of visualizing how processes are doing over time. Let’s say that the button on each black box needs to be between 7.5 and 9.5 millimeters tall, and the chart above represents sample height measurements of boxes being made. We want the boxes to all be between 7.5mm and 9.5mm. The lower control limit of the chart is 7.5mm, and the upper control limit is 9.5mm. The chart above shows control limits as dashed lines. The mean is the solid line in the middle, and it shows the average height of all of the buttons in the sample. By looking at the chart above, you can see that there are a lot of buttons that were taller than 9.5mm manufactured and only one that was shorter than 7.5mm. When a data point falls outside of the control limits, we say that data point is out of control; and when this happens we say that the entire process is out of control. It’s pretty normal to have your data fluctuate from sample to sample. But when seven data points in a row fall on one side of the mean, that’s an uncommon enough occurrence that it means your process might have a problem. So when you see this, you need to look into it and try to figure out what’s going on. That’s called the rule of seven, and you’ll definitely see questions about it on the PMP exam.
When you’re looking at the whole process, that’s called Quality Assurance—and it’s coming up next.
These points are showing the Rule of Seven AND that this process is out of control. l There are three lines on a contro chart. The first one is the upper control limit. Mean—the average height in your sample of buttons. The lower control limit is the last line. This one represents the shortest that you want the buttons to be. 12:20pm
The vertical “fishbone” lines are categories to help you find and organize the root causes of defects.
Horizontal lines show the root causes you’ve found for each category.
Machine Machine cuts wrong size
Buttons Stick Mistake in machine operation
Worker
Bad plastic
Materials
Fishbone or Ishikawa Diagram
Cause and effect diagrams are also called Fishbone and Ishikawa diagrams. They are used to figure out what caused a defect. You list all of the categories of the defects that you have identified and then write the possible causes of the defect you are analyzing from each category. Fishbone diagrams help you see all of the possible causes in one place so you can think of how you might prevent the defect in the future. you are here 4 409
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more quality tools
Pareto charts, flowcharts, and histograms The bars show # of defects in each category, and the line tells you the cumulative percentage. 70 60 50 40
75% 50%
30 20
The y-axis labels on the left are for the bars, and the ones on the right are for the line.
25%
10 scope
req.
Pareto charts help you to figure out which problems need your attention right away. They’re based on the idea that a large number of problems are caused by a small number of causes. In fact, that’s called the 80/20 rule—80% of the defects are usually caused by 20% of the causes. Pareto charts plot out the frequency of defects and sort them in descending order. The right axis on the chart shows the cumulative percentage. For the example here, the most defects are caused by scope issues. So, improving the way projects are scoped would be the best way to prevent defects in upcoming projects.
This particular Parecttos chart divides defe design build test users into six categories, which are always to ordered from most least defects found. This product probably isn’ta Flowcharts let you show how ready to ship—it still has processes work visually. You can use lot of bugs But at least youall a flowchart to show how the tasks in know that the bugs aren’t your project interrelate and what they critical! depend on. They are also good for showing decision-making processes.
The example on the left shows a highlevel view of a software development process. First, the high-level scope is decided, then the requirements, and then the design. After design there is a decision to be made: Does the design pass a review? If yes, then move on to the build phase; if no, there’s still some design work to do. After the build process, the product needs to pass its unit tests to make it into the test phase.
60 50 40 30
Don’t call this a “bar chart”! In the PMP world, a bar chart is another name for a Gantt chart, which is a kind of project schedule.
20 10 Critical High
Med Low
Histograms give you a good idea of how your data breaks down. If you heard that your product had 158 defects, you might think that they were all critical. So looking at a chart like the one above would help you The PMBOK® Guide to The flowchart helps you to see how get some perspective on the data. all of the phases relate to each other. does refer to it as A lot of the bugs are low priority. It Sometimes the way you are working is a “vertical bar chart,” looks like only 28 or so are critical. responsible for defects in your product. so you might see that Histograms are great for helping you Flowcharts help you get a handle on term where you might to compare characteristics of data the way you are working by showing normally see the term and make more informed decisions. you a picture of the whole process. “bar chart.”
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quality management
Run charts and scatter diagrams 60 50 40 30 20 10
# of defects found
10am 11am 12pm 1pm 2pm 3pm
Run charts tell you about trends in your project by showing you what your data looks like as a line chart. If the line in the chart were the number of defects found in your product through each quality activity, that would tell you that things were getting worse as your project progressed. In a run chart, you are looking for trends in the data over time. Does it seem to be going up or down as the project progresses? Is there a steady climb or a spike when a particular activity occurs? Scatter diagrams show how two different types of data relate to each other. If you worked with your test team to create a bunch of new tests, you might use a scatter diagram to see if the new test cases had any impact on the number of defects you found. The chart here shows that as more test cases pass, fewer defects are found.
60 50 40 30 20 10 5
10
20 15 25 # of passed tests
30
35
of When the numbeesr up, go g tests passin are found. fewer defects The seven basic tools are all about charting defects. Why do you think that would be useful in Quality Control?
More quality control tools Inspection is what you’re doing when you look at the deliverables and see if they conform to requirements. It’s important to remember that you don’t just inspect the final product. You also look at all of the deliverables that are made along the way. Approved change request review is when you inspect a repaired defect to be sure that it is actually fixed.
It’s not enough to fix defects. You need to be sure that they don’t cause more damage once they’re fixed.
Statistical sampling helps you make decisions about your product without looking at each and every thing you make. Lisa is responsible for the quality of the Black Box 3000TM, but there’s no way she can inspect each one as it comes off the assembly line. It makes sense for her to take a sample of the products and inspect those. From that sample she can learn enough about the project to make good judgments. you are here 4 411
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using the seven basic tools
Answer the questions about the Black Box 3000TM using the Quality Control Charts below.
Which root cause is responsible for the most defects in the project?
What is the lowest priority area for defect prevention?
What is the cumulative percentage of Machine, Materials, and Design defects?
gap in Hint: Look for ashows the chart thatg an extra you how addin lot more test caught a defects. Did adding more tests find more bugs?
Where did you see the biggest increase in defect detection?
Looking at this chart, should you continue to add more tests to the project?
did In other words,tests help adding extra defects? you find more
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quality management
How many machine defects were found?
How many defects were caused by workers?
How many total defects are shown on this chart?
Circle the data points that make up the rule of seven. Is this process in control?
What’s the upper control limit?
What’s the mean temperature reading?
What’s the lower control limit?
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exercise solutions
Answer the questions about the Black Box 3000TM using the Quality Control Charts below.
fects. So, that’s You have the most Machinetadeckle first. the root cause you should
Which root cause is responsible for the most defects in the project?
Machine What is the lowest priority area for defect prevention?
Workers What is the cumulative percentage of Machine, Materials, and Design defects?
90%
Since you don’t have very ts, many worker-related defec they’re the lowest priority for improvement tasks.
s The gap between 2 and 3 wawe ere the largest, so that’s wh fect had the biggest jump in de detection.
Did adding more tests find more bugs?
Yes
Looks like the number of sing defects found kept increa as you added more tests.
Where did you see the biggest increase in defect detection?
Looking at this chart, should you continue to add more tests to the project?
Yes
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3 tests
quality management
How many machine defects were found?
14 How many defects were caused by workers?
3 How many total defects are shown on this chart?
31
in the chart Adding up all of the numbersets is. tells you how big the data
worth Looks like there’s something seven investigating here. There are on data points in a row that are the lower side of the mean.
The lower limit is the bottom line and the mean is in the middle
Circle the data points that make up the rule of seven. Is this process in control?
No
The points both above and below the control limits tell us that the process is out of control.
What’s the mean temperature reading?
628.6
What’s the upper control limit?
630.2 What’s the lower control limit?
627
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Question Clinic: The “Which-One” Question You’ll see a lot of questions on the exam that describe a situation and ask you to identify the tool, technique, or process that’s being used or is most appropriate. Luckily, process of elimination is really useful when you see a “Which-One” question.
t—it’s not This can’t be ri’sghjust a rule. even a tool! It The run chart just tells you trends, and that’s not what you’re looking for.
Getting closer… the histogram will show you categories, but not importance. Aha! This is what a Pareto chart is for. It shows you categories of defects, and which category is the most important because it has the most defects.
oject to install 13,000 light 83. You’re managing a pr ll. You hire a team of switches in a new strip ma d electrician find any inspectors to help your lea 0 They check a sample of 65 defective light switches. e. t 15% of them are defectiv light switches, and find tha t an to produce a chart tha You ask your lead electrici broken down by category, shows you these defects, portance. Which quality and shown in order of im s information? control tool will show thi A. Rule of seven B. Run chart C. Histogram D. Pareto chart
When you think about it, all questions are “Which-One” questions… but when the question asks to choose one item from a list of four really similar or related things, then that’s when you really get to work your way backward and start eliminating them one at a time.
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HEAD
LIBS
Fill in the blanks to come up with your own “Which-One” question! Start by thinking of the correct tool and then figure out three really similar answers that sound right, but can’t be because the question gives more specific details allowing you to eliminate the wrong ones.
You’re working on a project, and you want to (kind of project) measure .Which of the seven basic tools of (something you’d measure on a project) quality is best for doing that?
A. B. C. D.
(an obviously wrong tool) (something that isn’t a tool at all) (another incorrect tool) (the right answer)
Join the Head First PMP community at http://www.headfirstlabs.com/PMP You can add your Head Libs answer, and see what Head Libs other project managers came up with! 417 Download at Boykma.Com
finding and fixing defects
Quality control means finding and correcting defects When you look for bugs in your deliverables, you produce two kinds of things: outputs from the inspections and outputs from the repairs you’ve made. All of the outputs of the Perform Quality Control process fall into those two categories.
Outputs Quality control measurements are all of the results of your inspections: the numbers of defects you’ve found, numbers of tests that passed or failed—stuff like that. You’ll use them when you look at the overall process you are using in your company to see if there are trends across projects.
You might need to update templates for Quality metrics or checklists. Organizational Process Assets Updates
That’s coming up in the Quality Assurance process. That’s next!
Lessons Learned Updates are where you keep a record of all of the major problems that you solve in the course of your project so that you can use them later.
Completed Checklists are records of quality activities that are performed through the course of the project and what happened. It’s a good idea to keep records of the results of reviews and quality tests.
There’s just one output here, Organizational Process Assets Updates. You’ll store your lessons learned and records of your completed checklists in your Organizational Process Asset library.
Project management plan updates You may need to update the Quality Management Plan and the Process Improvement Plan, which are both sub-plans of the Project Management Plan.
You might need to update the PM Plan because of what you find in Quality Control. Project Management Plan Updates
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quality management
Validated deliverables and validated changes are two of the most important outputs of Perform Quality Control. Every single deliverable on the project needs to be inspected to make sure it meets your quality standards. If you find defects, the team needs to fix them—and then those repairs need to be checked, to make sure the defects are now gone.
When you’ve finished inspecting your product, you know whether or not your fixes worked.
First the team inspects every deliverable to find defects that need to be fixed. Deliverables
Validated Defect Repair
Change Requests are recommended or preventative actions that also require changes to the way you are doing your project. Those kinds of changes will need to be put through change control, and the appropriate baselines and plans will need to be updated if they are approved.
Project document updates might need to be made. You might discover that your company’s quality standards need to be updated, because something you thought was a defect might not be a defect after all!
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improving the way you work
Q: A:
What exactly are Pareto charts for?
Pareto charts go together with the 80/20 rule. It says that 80 percent of the problems you’ll encounter in your project are caused by 20 percent of the root causes you can find. So if you find that most of your problems come from misunderstanding requirements, changing the way you gather requirements and making sure that everybody understands them earlier in the process will have a big impact on your project’s quality
To get the data for your Pareto chart, first you have to categorize all of the defects that have been found in your project by their root causes. Then you can graph them in a Pareto chart to show the frequency of bugs found with each root cause and the percentage of the cumulative defects that are caused by each root cause. The one with the highest frequency is the root cause that you should work on first.
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¢¢
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¢¢
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Q:
If I am trying to prevent quality problems, why can’t I just test more?
A:
You can find a lot of problems by testing. If you find them during testing, then you have to go back and fix them. The later you find them, the more expensive they are to fix. It’s much better for everybody if you never put the bugs in the product in the first place. It’s much easier to fix a problem in a specification document than it is to fix it in a finished product. That’s why most of the Plan Quality process group is centered around setting standards and doing reviews to be sure that bugs are never put into your product and, if they are, they’re caught as early as possible.
Inspection means checking each deliverable for defects. That means checking your specs and your documentation, as well as your product, for bugs. The better your Plan Quality, the less inspection you need. Ishikawa diagrams help you to pinpoint the causes of defects. The rule of seven means that any time you have seven data points in a row that fall on the same side of the mean on a control chart, you need to figure out why. When data points fall above the upper limit or below the lower limit on a control chart, the process is out of control.
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Q:
I still don’t get that thing where a control chart can show you defects that are out of control, but also show you that your process is out of control.
A:
The reason that’s a little confusing to some people is that you use the same tool to look at defects that you do when you’re looking at the whole process.
A lot of the time, you’ll use charts to measure processes, not just projects. They’re used to look at sample data from processes and make sure that they operate within limits over time. But they are considered quality control tools because those data samples come from inspecting deliverables as they are produced. Yes, it’s a little confusing, but if you think of control charts as the product of inspection, you’ll remember that they are Perform Quality Control tools for the test.
For the test, using any of the seven basic quality tools is usually a good indication that you are in the Quality Control process. Ishikawa, fishbone, and cause-and-effect diagrams are all the same thing. Scatter charts help you look at the relationship between two different kinds of data. Flowcharts help you get a handle on how processes work by showing all of the decision points graphically. Grade refers to the value of a product, but not its quality. So, a product can be low-grade by design, and that’s fine. But if it’s a low-quality product, that’s a big problem.
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quality management
Trouble at the Black Box 3000TM factory It’s not enough to inspect your deliverables. Sometimes it’s the way you work that’s causing your problems. That’s why you need to spend some time thinking about how you will make sure you are doing the work efficiently and with as few defects as possible. The Perform Quality Assurance process is about tracking the way you work and improving it all of the time.
Executing process group
The products are looking great, and customers are really happy! But wait—we have boxes full of parts collecting dust in our warehouse, and we’ve got so many inspectors that our budget’s through the roof. We need to do something!
These boxes are fu parts that the comll of uses to build the B pany Box 3000 TM. The lack ordered from supp y were who delivered themliers BB3K TM warehouse, to the they’ve been sitting but for weeks taking up around valuable space.
What do you do if the quality is good but you aren’t satisfied with the speed or efficiency of the work?
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perform quality assurance
Introducing Quality Assurance In the Perform Quality Assurance process, you take all of the outputs from Plan Quality and Perform Quality Control and look at them to see if you can find ways to improve your process. If you find improvements, you recommend changes to your process and your individual project plan to implement them.
Quality Metrics
Quality Control Measurements
Inputs
ing This is in the Executed group because you ne t to make sure your projec mpislies done in a way that coquality with your company’s standards.
The Quality Management Plan will be an important input to this process. Work Performance Information
Project Management Plan
You’ll use the outputs of the other quality processes and information about how the work is being performed to find ways to improve the way your company operates.
Plan Quality tools and techniques are all of the tools you used in Plan Quality. They come in handy when reviewing your process, too. Perform Quality Control tools and techniques are all of the tools from Perform Quality Control. You can use histograms, control charts, and flowcharts—all of them can be used to help you figure out how your process is working. Quality Audits are reviews of your project by your company. They figure out whether or not you are following the company’s process. Process Analysis is when you look at your process to find out how to make it better. You use your process improvement plan to do this one.
The Project Documents that get updated are Quality Audits, Training Plans, and Process Documentation.
Outputs
Project Management Plan Updates
Change Requests
Project Document Updates
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Organizational Process Assets Updates
quality management
A closer look at some tools and techniques Fixing the bugs in your project solves the problems that give you trouble. But fixing bugs in your process means that other projects can learn from the problems you’ve faced and avoid your project’s bugs altogether. The tools that are used in quality assurance are the same as the ones in quality control, but they’re used to examine the process rather than the project.
Quality Audits are when your company reviews your project to see if you are following its processes. The point is to figure out if there are ways to help you be more effective by finding the stuff you are doing on your project that is inefficient or that causes defects. When you find those problem areas, you recommend corrective actions to fix them. Process Analysis means following your process improvement plan to compare your project’s process data to goals that have been set for your company. If you find that the process itself needs to change, you recommend those changes to the company and sometimes update Organizational Process Assets as well as your own project management plan to include your recommendations. Perform Quality Control tools and techniques are the same ones you already know about from earlier in this chapter. But instead of using them to look for problems with specific defects, you’ll use them to look at your overall process. A good example of this is using a control chart to see if your whole process is in control. If it’s not, then you’ll want to make a change to the whole way you do your work in order to bring it under control.
Even if your company ha s the best process in the world doesn’t do your project , it good if you don’t follow any it!.
A lot of companies have Quality Assurance departments whose job is to perform these audits and report findings from projects to a process group. When Lisa noticed that the warehouse was full of black box parts that weren’t needed yet, she was really noticing a problem with the process. Why spend money on overstocked inventory?
Here’s another example. If you ate d a Pareto chart that showed all cre of the defects in all of your projects, could find the one or two categoyou of defects that caused problems forries the whole company. Then you could all of the PMs together to figureget out improvement that they could all makan that would help the whole company. e
How would you use these tools to manage your project?
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improve your process
Plan-Do-Check-Act was created by Walter Shewhart, who also created the control chart while he was working at Bell Labs in the 1920s.
More ideas behind quality assurance There are a couple more things you need to know about quality assurance. These are some of the most important ideas behind modern quality and process improvement.
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Just-In-Time means keeping only the inventory you need on hand when you need it. So, instead of keeping a big inventory of parts sitting around, the Black Box company might have only the parts they need for that day. Some companies have done away with warehouses all together and had production lines take the parts directly off the trucks to do the work. If you’re working in a Just In Time shop, quality is really important because there isn’t any extra inventory to deal with mistakes.
Plan-Do-Check-Act is one way to go about improving your process, and it’s used by a lot of Kaizen practitioners. It was popularized by a well known quality theorist named W. Edwards Deming and is also known as The Deming Cycle. Plan-Do-Check-Act is about making small improvements, and measuring how much benefit they make before you change your process to include them. Here’s how it works:
Plan:
Kaizen means continuous improvement. It’s all about constantly looking at the way you do your work and trying to make it better. Kaizen is a Japanese word that means improvement. It focuses on making small improvements and measuring their impact. Kaizen is a philosophy that guides management, rather than a particular way of doing quality assurance.
e :W ck s e h ay C fd o le coup
with.
Wait a minute! In the beginning of the book, you said that projects were temporary. This stuff is all about processes! What gives?
You’re right. The Perform Quality Assurance process is all about improving the process, and that isn’t what most of project management is about. But your project is really affected by the process you are working in, so you should really understand it and help to make it better wherever you can. The bottom line is that your project has a better chance of succeeding if you stay involved with process improvement and keep your eye on how your project stacks up to your company’s expectations of quality and process. 424 Chapter 8 Download at Boykma.Com
quality management
Qualitycross Take some time to sit back and give your right brain something to do. It’s your standard crossword; all of the solution words are from this chapter.
Across
Down
3. When a process has data points above the upper limit or below the lower limit, those data points are out of _________.
1. Quality theorist who came up with the idea of Fitness For Use
5. The middle line on a control chart.
2. Tool for finding the root cause of a defect.
7. The quality theorist who popularized Plan-Do-Check-Act.
4. Synonym for continuous improvement.
9. ______________ is more important than inspection in Quality Management.
6. Process where you inspect deliverables to look for defects.
11. An important definition of quality is ________________ to requirements.
8. Tools that help you visualize processes and all of their decision points.
12. Tool used to make sure your project is following the company’s process.
10. Heuristic that says that seven data points on one side of the mean requires investigation.
13. What you compare your work performance information to. 14. Tool for finding the 20% of root causes responsible for 80% of defects. 15. Tool for comparing two kinds of data to see if they are related. 16. Tool used in Plan Quality to set numeric goals for your project. Download at Boykma.Com
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control versus assurance
Tonight’s talk: Two quality processes discuss the best ways to correct problems on your project.
Perform Quality Control:
Perform Quality Assurance:
I’d like to go first, because I’m what most people think of as quality. Whenever you see one of those “Inspected by #8” stickers on the inside of your sneaker, that’s me! You’re right—most people do think that quality begins and ends with inspection. Which is funny, because we wouldn’t even need you if people paid attention to me. Whoa, there, buddy. That’s a strong statement! Now don’t get me wrong. Nobody’s ever felt comfortable enough with me that they’ve eliminated inspection entirely. You always need someone at the end of the line to look at what’s been produced and make sure that we delivered what we meant to. That’s right. And don’t forget, I’m everywhere. Any time you call for customer service, I’m there to tell you that your call will be recorded for quality purposes. I’m always warning you to make sure package contents haven’t shifted, and to check your car’s emissions once a year. Right, but don’t you get tired of doing all of that tedious work? An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, after all. I guess I don’t really understand exactly how you do your job, then, because I’m having a hard time figuring out how I would ever be able to take a long weekend.
Well, last week it was because the company logo came out upside down on a bunch of the shoes. It turned out that the logo was being stitched into the leather and then put on another assembly line, and once in a while it was placed on the belt upside-down.
Let’s take a look at those sneakers you mentioned. What’s the most common reason you throw a pair back to the factory floor to be restitched?
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quality management
Perform Quality Control:
Perform Quality Assurance: That seems like an honest mistake. How much did it cost?
We had to throw out about 10% of our sneakers last week. Let’s just say that the boss wasn’t happy. You could see the little veins in his forehead throbbing. It was kind of gross. Wow, that sounds expensive. What’s keeping it from happening again? The boss yelled at everyone, and we’ll check even more carefully to make sure we don’t ship it. So next week your inspection costs will be even higher, and you’ll probably still have to throw out just as many shoes, or more! Wow, I never thought of that. What if you painted a little arrow on the inside of the leather showing which direction it should be placed on the belt? We’d have to pay someone else to paint that on. This is no time to be increasing our costs! But a small increase in the cost of painting the leather will cause you to throw out a whole lot fewer sneakers. I call that cost of quality. You have to pay more to put quality in at the beginning, but you can reduce the number of inspectors and scrap a lot less product. In the end, I save you far more money that I cost. Can you say the same about yourself ? Huh. Um. No.
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making things better
Choose whether the tools are being used for Perform Quality Control or Perform Quality Assurance.
1. You use a Pareto chart to figure out which root causes are responsible for the most defects in the current batch of Black Boxes. It looks like most of them are coming from a Machine Calibration problem. So you run them back through the machine after recalibrating it.
c Perform Quality Control c Perform Quality Assurance
2. You use a histogram to look at the root cause category for all defects that have been found over the past year. You find that Machine errors are habitually responsible for the largest number of errors across all batches of Black Boxes. You schedule Machine calibration checks at the start of every shift to be sure that the machine is always set properly.
60 50 40 30 20 10
c Perform Quality Control c Perform Quality Assurance
3. You look at defects in all of the inspection runs for the past year and notice that you seem to be finding more and more defects per inspection as time goes on. You create a quality task force to try to figure out what is causing these defects.
c Perform Quality Control c Perform Quality Assurance
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quality management
The Black Box 3000TM makes record profits! People who bought the product were thrilled with it. They were happy that the Black Box company always kept its promises and the products were always high quality. The company managed to save a lot of money by implementing process improvement measures that caught defects before they cost too much money to fix. And Lisa got a big promotion—now she’s in charge of quality assurance for the whole company. Great job, Lisa!
The number of inspect they needed went downors as the quality got bett er and better.
Since they focused on were preventing defects, they ms able to find and fix probled to efficiently and didn’t nee hire lots of testers.
ement, Thanks to quality manag TM is always 00 the Black Box 30 high quality.
They cut down on extra inventory by using Just In Time processes to track and forecast how much they would need. Just In g Time means no parts sittin around anymore!
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exercise solutions
Take a look at each of these situations and figure out if they’re talking about quality or grade.
1. You ordered mushrooms on your pizza, but you got onions.
3. The pizza arrived but it had canned mushrooms.
c
Quality
c
Grade
c
Quality
2. You called the pizza parlor to complain and the guy yelled at you.
4. The pizza was cold.
c
Quality
c
Grade
c
Quality
c
Grade
c
Grade
5. You just got a brand new luxury car that cost a whole lot of money.
7. Your neighbors make fun of you because your chrome hubcaps aren’t very classy…
c
Quality
c
Grade
6. But it’s in the shop every two weeks.
c
Quality
c
Grade
c
Quality
c
Grade
8. … even though they do a great job of protecting the wheels from dirt, which is why you bought them in the first place.
c
Quality
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c
Grade
quality management
Read each of these scenarios and identify which tool or technique is being used. 1. You look through your company’s asset library and find that a recent project was able to reduce defects by 20% by inserting defect prevention meetings early in the construction phase. You put the same process in your quality plan and set the target for shipped defects to be 20% lower than the company average for your project. Tool/technique:
Benchmarking
2. You add up all of the costs projected for quality activities and track that number in your quality plan. You use this number to gauge the health of your project compared to other projects in your company. Tool/technique:
Cost of quality
3. You write up a list of all of the tests you are going to run on the Black Box 3000™ when it rolls off the assembly line. You determine what kinds of failures might cause you to stop testing, what it would take for you to resume test activities, and requirements that the product would need to fulfill to be considered accepted into test. Tool/technique:
Design of experiments
Match each Plan Quality output to its description. Quality Management Plan
Helps you to make sure that each deliverable is up to the project’s standards.
Process Improvement Plan
Helps you to plan out all of your quality activities
Quality Checklists
Describes how you’ll measure a particular attribute of a deliverable during testing.
Quality Metrics
Helps you change the way you work for the better.
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exercise solutions
Qualitycross Take some time to sit back and give your right brain something to do. It’s your standard crossword; all of the solution words are from this chapter.
Across
3. When a process has data points above the upper limit or below the lower limit, those data points are out of _________. 5. The middle line on a control chart. 7. The theorist who came up with Plan-Do-Check-Act. 9. ______________ is more important than inspection in Quality Management.
15. Tool for comparing two kinds of data to see if they are related. 16. Tool used in Plan Quality to set numeric goals for your project. Down
1. Quality theorist who came up with the idea of Fitness For Use. 2. Tool for finding the root cause of a defect.
11. An important definition of quality is ________________ to requirements.
4. Synonym for continuous improvement.
12. Tool used to make sure your project is following the company’s process.
6. Process where you inspect deliverables to look for defects.
13. What you compare your work performance information to.
8. Tools that help you visualize processes and all of their decision points.
14. Tool for finding the 20% of root causes responsible for 80% of defects.
10. Heuristic that says that seven data points on one side of the mean requires investigation.
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quality management
Choose whether the tools are being used for Perform Quality Control or Perform Quality Assurance.
1. You use a Pareto chart to figure out which root causes are responsible for the most defects in the current batch of black boxes. It looks like most of them are coming from a Machine Calibration problem. So you run them back through the machine after re-calibrating it.
c Perform Quality Control c Perform Quality Assurance
2. You use a histogram to look at the root cause category for all defects that have been found over the past year. You find that Machine errors are habitually responsible for the largest number of errors across all batches of Black boxes. You schedule Machine calibration checks at the start of every shift to be sure that the machine is always set properly.
60 50 40 30 20 10
c Perform Quality Control c Perform Quality Assurance
3. You look at defects in all of the inspection runs for the past year and notice that you seem to be finding more and more defects per inspection as time goes on. You create a quality task force to try to figure out what is causing these defects.
c Perform Quality Control c Perform Quality Assurance
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exam questions
Exam Questions 1. Which of the following is NOT a part of quality? A. B. C. D.
Fitness for use Conformance to requirements Value to the sponsor Customer satisfaction
2. A project manager is using a histogram to analyze defects found by the team during inspection activities. What process is being performed? A. B. C. D.
Plan Quality Perform Quality Control Perform Quality Assurance Verify Scope
3. Which of the following is NOT an example of Cost of Quality? A. B. C. D.
Having team members spend extra time reviewing requirements with the stakeholders Paying extra programmers to help meet a deadline Hiring extra inspectors to look for defects Sending a crew to repair a defective product that was delivered to the client
4. You’re working with an audit team to check that your company’s projects all meet the same quality standards. What process is being performed? A. B. C. D.
Plan Quality Perform Quality Control Perform Quality Assurance Perform Quality Management
5. You’re managing a project to deliver 10,000 units of custom parts to a manufacturer that uses Just In Time management. Which of the following constraints is most important to your client? A. B. C. D.
The parts must be delivered on time The parts must be delivered in a specific order The parts must conform to ISO specifications The parts must be packaged separately
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quality management
Exam Questions 6. Which of the following is NOT part of the quality management plan? A. B. C. D.
Strategies for handling defects and other quality problems Guidance on how the project team will implement the company’s quality policy Metrics for measuring your project’s quality A description of which deliverables don’t have to be inspected
7. Which of the following tools and techniques is used to show which categories of defects are most common? A. B. C. D.
Control charts Pareto charts Run charts Flowcharts
8. You’re managing a highway construction project. The foreman of your building team alerts you to a problem that the inspection team found with one of the pylons, so you use an Ishikawa diagram to try to figure out the root cause of the defect. What process is being performed? A. B. C. D.
Quality Management Plan Quality Perform Quality Control Perform Quality Assurance
9. Which tool or technique is used to analyze trends? A. B. C. D.
Scatter chart Run chart Checklist Flow chart
10. When is inspection performed? A. B. C. D.
At the beginning of the project Any time a project deliverable is produced Just before the final product is delivered At the end of the project
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exam questions
Exam Questions 11. What’s the difference between Quality Control and Verify Scope? A. B. C. D.
Quality Control is done at the end of the project, while Verify Scope is done throughout the project Quality Control is performed by the project manager, while Verify Scope is done by the sponsor Quality Control is performed by the sponsor, while Verify Scope is done by the project manager Quality Control means looking for defects in deliverables, while Verify Scope means verifying that the product is acceptable to the stakeholders
12. You’re a project manager at a wedding planning company. You’re working on a large wedding for a wealthy client, and your company has done several weddings in the past that were very similar to the one you’re working on. You want to use the results of those weddings as a guideline to make sure that your current project’s quality is up to your company’s standards. Which tool or technique are you using? A. B. C. D.
Checklists Benchmarking Design of Experiments Cost-Benefit Analysis
13. You are using a control chart to analyze defects, when something on the chart causes you to realize that you have a serious quality problem. What is the MOST likely reason for this? A. B. C. D.
The rule of seven Upper control limits Lower control limits Plan-Do-Check-Act
14. Which of the following BEST describes defect repair review? A. B. C. D.
Reviewing the repaired defect with the stakeholder to make sure it’s acceptable Reviewing the repaired defect with the team to make sure they document lessons learned Reviewing the repaired defect to make sure it was fixed properly Reviewing the repaired defect to make sure it’s within the control limits
15. The project team working on a project printing 3,500 technical manuals for a hardware manufacturer can’t inspect every single manual, so they take a random sample and verify that they have been printed correctly. This is an example of: A. B. C. D.
Root cause analysis Cost benefit analysis Benchmarking Statistical sampling
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quality management
Exam Questions 16. What’s the difference between Perform Quality Control and Perform Quality Assurance? A. Perform Quality Control involves charts like histograms and control charts, while Perform Quality Assurance doesn’t use those charts B. Perform Quality Control and Perform Quality Assurance mean the same thing C. Perform Quality Control means inspecting for defects in deliverables, while Perform Quality Assurance means auditing a project to check the overall process D. Perform Quality Assurance means looking for defects in deliverables, while Perform Quality Control means auditing a project to check the overall process 17. Which Quality Control tool is used to analyze processes by visualizing them graphically? A. B. C. D.
Checklists Flowcharts Pareto charts Histograms
18. You are looking at a control chart to figure out if the way you are doing your project is fitting into your company’s standards. Which process are you using ? A. B. C. D.
Plan Quality Quality Assurance Quality Control Quality Management
19. Which of the following is associated with the 80/20 rule ? A. Scatter chart B. Histogram C. Control chart D. Pareto chart 20. Validated defect repair is an output of which process ? A. B. C. D.
Integrated Change Control Plan Quality Perform Quality Control Perform Quality Assurance
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exam answers
Answers
Exam Questions 1. Answer: C
It’s important for projects to produce a valuable product, but value isn’t really a part of quality. That’s why earned value is part of Cost Management, not Quality Management. 2. Answer: B In the Perform Quality Control process, the team inspects the product for defects and uses the seven basic tools to analyze them. Since the defects came from inspection, you know it’s Perform Quality Control. 3. Answer: B Cost of Quality is the time and money that you spend to prevent, find, or repair defects. 4. Answer: C The Perform Quality Assurance process is all about how well your company meets its overall quality goals. 5. Answer: A
Keep an eye out for fake process names like Perform Quality Management.
A manufacturer that uses Just In Time management is relying on its suppliers to deliver parts exactly when they’re needed. This saves costs, because they don’t have to warehouse a lot of spare parts.
But those parts had better not have a lot of defects, because there aren’t a lot of spare parts lying around to do repairs!
6. Answer: D
Your project team needs to inspect ALL of the deliverables! That means every single thing that gets produced needs to be reviewed by team members, so they can find and repair defects. 7. Answer: B A Pareto chart divides your defects into categories, and shows you the percentage of the total defects each of those categories represents. It’s really useful when you have a limited budget for Plan Quality and want to spend it where it’s most effective!
Don’t forget that ALL deliverables need to be inspected, including the stuff you create—like the schedule, WBS, and project management plan. So you’ll get defects for them, too!
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Answers
quality management
Exam Questions 8. Answer: C
Keep your eye out for questions asking you about Ishikawa or fishbone diagrams. When you use those tools to analyze defects, you’re in quality control.
Don’t assume that just because you’re using a fishbone diagram, you’re always doing quality control! It’s also used in Risk Management; you’ll see that in Chapter 11. The key thing to watch for here is that the fishbone diagram is being used to find the root cause of a DEFECT, not a risk or something else.
9. Answer: B A run chart is one of the seven basic tools of quality. It’s a long line graph that shows you the total number of defects that were found over time.
OK, so I can use a run chart to figure out whether quality is getting better or worse over the course of my project.
10. Answer: B Inspection is when your team examines something that they produced for defects… and every single deliverable needs to be inspected! That’s what “prevention over inspection” means: if you produce a deliverable that’s needed later in the project today, it’s a lot cheaper to fix defects in it now than it will be when that deliverable is used later on in the project.
11. Answer: D A lot of people get Quality Control and Verify Scope confused because they seem really similar. Both of them involve looking closely at deliverables to make sure that they meet requirements. But they serve really different purposes! You use Quality Control to find defects that you’re going to repair. Verify Scope happens at the very end of the Executing phase; it’s when you work with the stakeholder to get their formal acceptance for the deliverables.
You’d better have found all the defects before you take the product to the customer!
12. Answer: B
Benchmarking is when you use previous projects to set quality guidelines for your current project. You can always find the results of the past projects in the Organizational Process Assets.
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exam answers
Answers
Exam Questions 13. Answer: A
The rule of seven tells you that when seven consecutive data points on your control chart come out on the same side of the mean, you’ve got a process problem. That sounds a little complicated, but it’s actually pretty straightforward. Defects tend to be scattered around pretty randomly; in any project that makes a lot of parts, even if they’re all within the specification, you’ll get a couple of parts that are a little bigger, and a couple that are a little smaller. But if you have a bunch of them in a row that all run a little big, that’s a good indication that something’s gone wrong on your assembly line! 14. Answer: C Going back and repairing defects can be a pretty risky activity, because it’s really easy to introduce new defects or not fully understand why the defect happened in the first place. Answer C says exactly that: you go back and review the defects to make sure they’re fixed. 15. Answer: D A lot of times it’s impractical to check every single product that rolls off of your assembly line. Statistical sampling is a great tool for that; that’s when you pull out a small, random sample of the products and inspect each of them. If they’re all correct, then there’s a very good chance that your whole product is acceptable! 16. Answer: C A lot of people get confused about the difference between Perform Quality Control and Perform Quality Assurance. Quality Control is where you inspect deliverables for defects, while Quality Assurance is where you audit the project to make sure the quality activities were performed properly.
You inspect products for defects, and you can d remember that because you’ll find an “inspecte, by #8” tag in a product. You audit processes and you can remember that because when you get audited, they’re making sure you did yourns, taxes correctly—they’re auditing your actio not a product.
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Answers
quality management
Exam Questions 17. Answer: B
A flowchart is one of the seven basic tools of quality. You use it to analyze processes that are part of your project in order to look for quality problems and inefficiencies. 18. Answer: B You’re analyzing the process, so you are using Perform Quality Assurance. 19. Answer: D
m Quality Just because you see a Perfor an you’re Control tool, that doesn’t ntmerol process... in the Perform Quality Coused in Perform because they’re also tools ays need to figure Quality Assurance! You alw for. out what you’re using them
Pareto charts are based on the 80/20 rule. They sort your defects in descending order by root cause. So you always know which 20% of root causes are responsible for 80% of defects on your project. 20. Answer: C Perform Quality Control is where you inspect your work, including your repairs!
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9 Human resource management
Getting the team together OK, on three... two... one... be an effective team! Right now! Seriously guys, please?
Behind every successful project is a great team. So how do you make sure that you get—and keep—the best possible team for your project? You need to plan carefully, set up a good working environment, and negotiate for the best people you can find. But it’s not enough to put a good team together… If you want your project to go well, you’ve got to keep the team motivated and deal with any conflicts that happen along the way. Human resource management gives you the tools you need to get the best team for the job and lead them through a successful project.
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back to ranch hand games
Mike needs a new team Cows Gone Wild III was a huge success! But now the Ranch Hand Games team is gearing up for their next big hit. How are things shaping up?
The box is done, but Brian, Mike, and Amy are just getting started on the game.
OK! Let’s get the team back together! Hey Brian, when can your team get started?
Not so fast, Mike. Remember the online portion of CGW III? Well, the team’s swamped with server maintenance.
Mike, the project manager
Uh-oh! Looks like Mike’s going to need to put together a new team.
Brian, the development team manager
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human resource management
Cubicle conversation Hey, we’re all on the same team here. Look, why don’t we have people from our teams just help out whenever you need someone?
Brian: Yeah, there’s no reason you need our resources dedicated to your project. We can get multiple projects done that way. Mike: Come on, guys. You don’t really think that’s gonna work, do you? Amy: Sure, why not? Mike: We can’t just staff up as we go; that’s going to cause huge problems.
Amy, the creative director
Brian: You’re overreacting, Mike. Look, I’m a team player, and I want to get the project done. You just tell me when you need someone off my team, and I’ll make sure you’ve got the developers and testers you need. What’s wrong with that? Mike: Okay, so what if I need three developers starting tomorrow for the next two weeks. Can you do that? Brian: Well, no, I’ve got a deadline on Friday. It’ll have to wait until next Monday. But that’s just a couple of days. Mike: See, that’s what I’m talking about! A few days here, a few days there... if we have to wait a few days every time the team needs someone, we’ll totally blow the schedule.
How can Mike solve his problem? What can he do to make sure that he gets the team members he needs when he needs them?
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a bird’s-eye view
Get your team together and keep them moving You want to stay in control of your project team, right? But when you work in a matrixed organization, your team members don’t directly report to you. So how do you make sure you get the best people, and keep them motivated and productive? That’s what the four processes in Human Resource Management are for: guiding you through all the things you need to do to make sure you get everyone for your project when you need them.
This shouldn’t be a surprise— almost every knowledge area has its planning process, and Develop Human Resource Plan is no exception.
In the Develop Human Resource Plan process, you plan out exactly which resources you’ll need, what their roles and responsibilities are, and how you’ll train your team and make sure they stay motivated.
A lot of the stuff in this chapter applies mostly to matrixed organizations... but you’ll still find it really use even if you don’t work in aful, matrixed company!
Planning process group
Develop Human Resource Plan
This is where you plan out the staffing needs for your project, and how you’ll manage and reward the team.
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human resource management
It makes sense that Acquire Project Team and Develop Project Team are in the Executing group—you only put the team together AFTER the project has started.
Executing process group
You’ll need to train your team, and keep them motivated with rewards in order to get the project done.
CEO
Acquire Project Team
Once the project gets started, you need to put together your team. This means you may need to negotiate for some of the resources.
No project goes perfectly People have conflicts, and . it’s up to you to make sure they get resolved.
Develop Project Team
All three of these processes are part of the Executing process group, because they happen while your team’s executing the project!
Manage Project Team
Executing process group
What can you do to make sure that you get the right people for your team exactly when you need them? What can you do before the project starts to make sure they stay motivated?
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staffing the team
Figure out who you need on your team Project teams don’t just assemble themselves spontaneously! It takes a lot of planning and guidance to get a team together, and that’s the idea behind the Develop Human Resource Plan process. Remember, in a matrixed organization your team doesn’t report directly to the project manager. You need to work with the functional managers to get you the team members that you need for your project… which means there’s a lot of information that you need to give to everyone so they know exactly who you need for your team.
You’ve seen these two inputs a whole bunch of times now!
Inputs Activity Resource Requirements
Enterprise Environmental Factors
Organizational Process Assets
Organization Charts and Position Descriptions tell everyone how your team is structured. Networking means both formally and informally interacting with other people in your company and industry to stay on top of everything. Organizational theory is where you use proven principles to guide your decisions.
This is a lot like the other planning processes you’ve Outputs seen already! You r start with you project plan and what you know about your company, and you come up with a plan.
The Human Resource Plan tells everyone on the project who you’ll need on your team, when you need them, and what skills they’ll need. The Human Resource Plan is divided into three major sections that help you manage the resources on your project.
Project Organization Charts
Staffing Management Plan
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Roles and Responsibilities
human resource management
The inputs, tools and techniques, and outputs of Develop Human Resource Plan should seem pretty familiar! Write down what you think you’d use each of them for. Notice that there are a few that you haven’t seen before—take an educated guess at those. INPUTS Enterprise Environmental Factors
Organizational Process Assets
TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES Organization Charts and Position Descriptions
There are a couple of other tools & techniques—this isn’t the only one!
OUTPUTS Human Resource Plan: •
Staffing Management Plan
•
Roles and Responsibilities
•
Project Organization Charts
Think about how thise is different than th ” listed “Organization Charts ues. under Tools & Techniq
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roles and responsibilities
The inputs, tools and techniques, and outputs of Develop Human Resource Plan should seem pretty familiar! Write down what you think you’d use each of them for. Notice that there are a few that you haven’t seen before—take an educated guess at those.
Your company’s culture islike really important—stuffnical Enterprise Environmental Factors common languages, techople disciplines, and how pe This is information about the company’s culture and structure normally relate to each other. Organizational Process Assets You’ve already seen lots of wa ys we use templates Templates and lessons learned from past projects checklists. They’re justanasd important in Develop Huma n Resource Plan. INPUTS
TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES Organization Charts and Position Descriptions
reports to It’s easy to lose track of who ple do in your whom, and what different peo stuff if company. You need to know that!t you want to staff your projec
Shows the relationships bet ween managers, team members, and other people inside and outside the company who will work on the project.
OUTPUTS Human Resource Plan: •
Staffing Management Plan
Your Staffing Management be on your project, when th Plan describes who will for how long, and describes ey’ll do the work and use to keep the team motiv the reward system you’ll ated.
Describes how you’ll manage and control your resources
•
•
it has a title, has authority to Every role on the project needs to be defined— erables. do certain things, and is responsible for specific deliv Roles and Responsibilities This is a lot like th chart for your who e org Lists each role on the project that needs to be filled company, except th le it only lists the sp at Project Organization Charts people on the proj ecific ect. Shows the reporting structure of the resources assigned to the project team
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human resource management
Hold on—how can organization charts be both tools & techniques and outputs?
You need two charts because you have two “organizations.” One organization is the whole company—along with any subcontractors or consultants you’ve got access to for your project team. The other organization is just the people who are on the team. The team might have people from different groups in your company, and they need to know how they interact. That’s why you create a chart just for the team.
The Project Organization Chart shows how your team members relate with each other. This might include people or relationships that may not necessarily show up on a company organization chart. If you’ve got a team built from multiple consultants and subcontractors, this chart will be the only place where everyone is listed at once.
Some people will bring in a consult or expert to manage or lead part of the teaant m. Ma ke sure the project’s org chart shows that rela tio nship, even if it’s not part of the company!
Roles and Responsibilities show who’s responsible for what. It’s really common to see the roles and responsibilities for a project written out as a RACI matrix, which is just a table that lists the role or people on the top; the specific activities, work, or responsibilities down the side; and indicates the level of responsibility that each person or role has for each of the activities or responsibilities. (RACI stands for “Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed.”)
This could also list roles, like “Project Manager,” “Creative Director” or “Development Manager”
CEO
Work Package
RACI Matrix
People Mike
Amy
Brian
CEO
Project Management
R
I
I
I
Design
C
R
C
I
Construction
C
C
R
I
Testing
C
C
R
I
R = Responsible A = Accountable C = Consulted I = Informed
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planning your staff
The staffing management plan
Everything you do with An important component of the Human Resource Plan is your team—acquiring them, the Staffing Management Plan. It tells you everything that you need in order to build your team, keep them developing them, and managing motivated, and manage them to resolve conflicts and get the work done. them—depends on a good A common way of showing the timetable—or when people will work onStaffing Management Plan.
The resource histogram tells you the type and number of resources you need at any time. It’s usually a vertical bar chart. You need to make sure everyone on the team has the skills he or she needs to do the job.
A really important part of human resource management is keeping your team motivated, and rewards tied to goals are a great way to do that. You’ll need to plan out exactly how your team members will roll off of your project so functional managers and other project managers will know if they’re available for other projects.
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urces Needed Number of Reso
what—is to use a resource histogram. for t rtan impo y This is reall telling the functional managers exactly who you’ll need on your team, so they can provide the staff that you need to get the job done.
Week
human resource management
ead the Staffing Management Plan on the facing page and answer these questions about the R project. 1. How many designers, developers and testers are needed in week #7 of the project?
Answers on page 480.
developers
testers
2. Who is responsible for verifying that each team member has the skills appropriate to the project?
3. Rewards should always be tied to performance goals in order to motivate the team. What performance goal has been set for the team, and what reward will each team member receive if it’s achieved?
Q:
I still don’t get the resource histogram. Am I supposed to make this myself, or does it come from somewhere?
A:
designers
You need to come up with the histogram yourself when you put together the staffing management plan. Since you’re managing the project, you’re the only one who knows when each person is needed on the project. Remember all of the activities that you came up with, back when you were building the schedule in the Time Management chapter? Well, each of those activities had resource requirements, right? That means you know exactly what resources you’ll need at any time in your project!That’s why the Activity Resource Requirements are an input to Develop Human Resource Plan—you need the schedule and the activities in order to figure out the timetable. The histogram is the easiest way to show that information.
Q: A:
Is that RACI chart really necessary?
Yes, definitely! Sometimes people split up responsibilities in ways that aren’t immediately obvious just from people’s titles or the names of their roles on the project—that’s one of the big advantages of a matrixed organization. RACI charts help everyone figure out their assignments. Mike might have Brian’s senior developers sit in on Amy’s design meetings, even though they don’t usually do that. He’d put that in the RACI matrix to show everyone that’s now part of their jobs for the project.
Q:
Can the “halo effect” really affect my projects?
A:
The halo effect is something that happens when you’ve got a team member who’s very good at a job—especially a technical job, like computer programmer or engineer. It’s easy to forget that just because someone is very good at one job, it doesn’t mean he or she has the skills to do another,
equally hard job. This happens a lot with functional managers: the top programmer will often get promoted to a management position… but if she doesn’t have management or leadership skills, then the company just lost their best programmer and gained a lousy manager.
Q:
Once I know what roles need to be filled on my project, how do I actually get the team on board?
A:
That’s what the next process is all about! It’s called Acquire Project Team, and it’s where you actually staff up your project. Of course, you don’t staff it up during the planning phase. You have to wait until the project work begins, which is why it’s in the Executing process group.
The hardest part about staffing up your project is negotiating with the functional managers. The best resources are the ones that are in demand, which means your negotiating skills will be very important when it comes time to staff up your project team. you are here 4 453
gather the team
Get the team together Your Human Resource Plan is in place, your project is ready to roll, and now it’s time to begin the actual project work! You need your team, and the way you bring them on board is the Acquire Project Team process. This is where you negotiate with functional managers for your project team members. You need the right people for the project, and you’ve done all the prep work to figure out who you need and when you need them. So now it’s time to go get your team!
eware of the B halo effect! That’s when you put someone in a position they can’t handle, just because they’re good at another job.
Take a minute and think about why you need each of these inputs.
Inputs
There aren’t any surprises here—if you’ve staffed up a project team, you’ve done all of these things.
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Negotiation is the most important tool in this process. There are resources that you need for your project, but they don’t report to you. So you need to negotiate with the functional managers—and maybe even other project managers—for their time.
Pre-Assignment is when you can actually build the assignments into your staffing management plan. Sometimes you have resources who are guaranteed to you when you start the project, so you don’t need to negotiate for them.
Virtual Teams are when your team members don’t all work in the same location. This is really useful when you’re relying on consultants and contractors for outsourced work. Instead of meeting in person, they’ll use phone, email, instant messaging, and online collaboration tools to work together.
Acquisition means going outside of your company to contractors and consultants to staff up your team.
Don’t be thrown by the wo even though this is the Acquirdre“acquisition”— Team process, this particular tecProject refers to acquiring resources frohnique only m outside.
human resource management Hey Brian! Don’t forget about the two developers I need for the racing simulator level. We talked about this a few weeks ago, right?
Yeah, I remember. You can take Joe and Sue, who are freed up right now.
Mike needs to negotiate for resources… …but the negotiation isn’t going so well
Hold on! Weren’t those guys the ones who kept coming in late on all their deadlines in our last project? I need top performers.
How about if I give you Sue, but I also send along a more senior engineer to help mentor her?
t That doesn’t sound like such a greado? to g goin e Mik t’s compromise. Wha What would you do?
Resource Calendars tell the company exactly when the team members will be available once they’re done.
Outputs
er for a few If you need a team meg,mband then again weeks at the beginniner, make sure the for another week latreflects this! resource availability
Resource Calendars
Staffing Assignments
Staffing Assignments are the whole point of the process! They’re what you get when you secure a team member and assign him or her to a specific role on the project.
Project Management Plan Updates. During Develop Human Resource Plan, you might not have all the information. You might discover a better team structure, or find out that certain resources simply aren’t available. Keep the plan up to date Project Management with this new information. Plan Updates
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test your knowledge
Human Resourcecross Untitled Puzzle
Header Info 1
Take some time to sit back and give your right brain something to do. It’s Header Info 2 your standard crossword; all of the solution words are from this chapter.etc... 1
2
3
4
5
Answers on page 481.
6
7 8 9
10
11 12
Down
Across 1. What you provide for a human resource in order to ensure
Across he or she has the skills necessary to do the project.
2. The most important tool in Acquire Project Team.
Down
3. The ___________ Organization ChartProject shows only the 1. What you provide for a human resource in 2. The most important tool in Acquire people assigned to your team, including consultants and 6. The __________ is a the vertical barnecessary chart in the Team order to resource ensure he or she has skills to staffing do the management project. ___________ Organization Chart shows subcontractors. plan that tells you the type and number3. The 6. of The resource __________ is a vertical bar only the people assigned to your team, including resources you need. 4. The Manage Project Team process is part of the _________ chart in the staffing management plan that tells consultants and subcontractors. process group. 8. This is a great for communicating roles you the type and tool number of resources youand need 4. The Manage Project Team process is part of 8. responsibilities. This is a great tool for communicating roles the _________ process group. 5. This of charttells tellsyou you how how team relate to and responsibilities 5. This kindkind of chart teammembers members each other in your company. 9. The ______ effect causes people with technical expertise 9. The ______ effect causes people with relate to each other in your company to be putexpertise in positionstoforbe which unqualified. technical put they’re in positions for which 7. The main output Project Team 7. The main outputofofthe the Acquire Acquire Project Team process is they're unqualified process is _________ assignments 10. You use _________ teams when your team members _________ assignments. 10. You use _________ teams when your team 8. A great way to motivate your team don’t all work thework samein location. members don'tin all the same location. 8. A great way to motivate your team. 11. HumanResource Resource Management 11.The The first first Human Management process you process you perform is Human Resource perform is Human Resource _________. _________ 12. availability is output an output that 12.__________ __________ availability is an that describes when describes each member willproject. be each teamwhen member will team be available to your available to your project 456 Chapter 9
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Cubicle conversation I’m starting to get a little concerned with the pace of our design work. Is everything okay?
Looks like Mike’s negotiation went well in the end! So nowhe he’s got his team... but can get them motivated?
Amy: I haven’t noticed anything. What’s up? Mike: Well, maybe it’s nothing, but a couple of the design team members have been missing some deadlines. Nothing major, but it’s starting to concern me. Amy: Well, okay. I can keep an eye on them. Mike: That’s not all. One of them hasn’t been replying to emails at all, and another scheduled a vacation right in the middle of a huge deadline week. I think we may have a real motivation problem. Amy: You’re right, that sounds pretty bad. What can I do about it? Mike: Well, I built a discretionary bonus budget into the plan. Amy: Right, that $2,500. But should we really be talking about giving bonuses? I thought these were underperformers. Shouldn’t we only reward good behavior? Mike: Well, right, but if we tie the bonus to meeting an aggressive deadline or high quality standards, it might help get them energized again. Amy: We can give it a shot, but I’m skeptical.
Do you think Mike’s idea will work? Why is it a good idea to make the bonus contingent on meeting specific goals? Can this plan backfire?
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manage and motivate
Develop your project team The Develop Project Team process is the most important one in Human Resource Management. It’s the one where you make sure your team is motivated and well-managed—and those are some of the most important things that project managers do! You do it throughout the entire Executing phase of the project, because you need to keep your team moving towards the goal.
Get the team involved in planning—the more they feel like they’re in control, the better they feel about the project!
Motivation
e This makes it mstoray on top to challenging make sure of the team antdting done. Management the work is ge
c One of your most important jobs as project
c When the project is being planned, you’re
c A really effective way to motivate your team is to
c That’s why it’s really important for a project
c Training is another great way to keep a team
c A really good way to make sure that your
manager is keeping the team motivated and constantly monitoring them to make sure they stay motivated.
set up a reward system. But make sure that they understand exactly what they’re being rewarded for—and it MUST be fair, or it could backfire!
motivated. When people feel that they’re growing professionally, they stay more involved and get more excited by their work.
directing everything—but by the time it’s executing, the project manager is more of a coach and a facilitator.
manager to have “soft skills”—you need to really understand what makes your team members tick, and help with their problems.
project team sticks together is to establish ground rules for your project, which set a standard for how everyone works together.
This is one of the tools & techniques for Develop Project Team.
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Develop the team with your management skills How do you keep your team motivated and up and running? With the tools and techniques for Develop Project Team, that’s how. When you’re working with your team, you need to be a leader. That means setting the rules for how people interact with each other, making sure they have the skills they need, setting up a good working environment, and keeping them motivated.
Inputs
Project Staff Assignments
Recognition and rewards are the best way to keep your team motivated!
Discussing ground rules with the team can be really valuable, because it helps everyone see what’s important to their teammates!
Interpersonal Skills are all about using soft skills to help the people on your team solve problems. Ground rules help you prevent problems between team members, and let you establish working conditions that everyone on the team can live with. Team-building activities are important throughout your entire project. You’re responsible for keeping the team together!
Resource Calendars
The inputs to Develop Project Team are the outputs you just created.
Project Management Plan
Training is a really important part of developing your team. If you’ve got a team member who doesn’t have the skills to do the job, you need to get them trained… and it’s up to you to plan enough of the project’s time and budget to make sure it happens!
have a rule For example, you mighstemails the team where everyone alwayy off. when they take a da Co-location is the opposite of virtual teams. When you have all of your team located in the same room, you can increase communication and help them build a sense of community. Sometimes that room is called a war room.
These tools and techniques do a lot to help you manage your team. But do they really establish you as a leader? What’s the difference between management and leadership?
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let’s get interpersonal
Your interpersonal skills can make a big difference for your team Knowing all of the tools and techniques in the PMBOK® Guide will help you to know a lot about your project, but the way you help your team to get the job done is just as important as the steps you take to get it done.
The team was happy to work on CGW III from the beginning. But when Mike told them that the company saw the game’s success as responsible for 70% of their revenue, it realy showed them how important the work was.
Leadership is all about giving the team a goal to shoot for and helping them to see the value in the work they are doing. It’s not enough to have a team know the end product that they’re buiilding; they need to understand the value that that product is going to bring to the company. A project manager needs to constantly remind the team of the vision they’re working toward and make decisions to help keep the team on track toward it. Team-building involves helping your team learn to depend on each other and trust each other. As a project maanger, it’s your job to help the team come to an understanding about how they’ll communicate with each other and stay motivated when things go wrong. If you’re open about your decision-making processes and communicate often about what you’re doing, you can help your team to bond with each other. Some people think of team building as going out for pizzas after work, but it’s more about how you lead, and how you help to create an environment where your team members can trust each other. Motivation demonstrates to your team the value that the project has for them. It includes making sure that people are compensated and rewarded financially for their work. But that’s not the most the only facet of team motivation that you need to be concerned with. Your team also needs to know how they tasks they’re doing contribute to project success and what’s in it for them. Motivating your team is about helping them to be satisfied with the the job they’re doing, recognizing them when they do a good job, and keeping them challenged with new and different problems. Communication is a constant concern when you’re leading a team. It’s not enough to make the best decisions to get your project done, you’ve got to make sure that everybody in the team knows why you’re making them and feels like you’re being open and honest about what’s motivating every decision you make. If the people on your team feel like they’re always getting the information they need from you and that they’re never in the dark, they’ll be able to trust you and each other more.
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Influencing is all about using your relationships with the people on your team to get them to cooperate in making good decisions for the project. When you lead by example, you show your team how you want them to behave by doing it. It may seem subtle, but the way you work as a project manager can set the standard for your teammates. Collaborating with your team on the best way of working through your project is a really effective way of making sure that the team members gel, and know that they can rely on each other.
Mike made sure early as often ashe came to work while he noticed he could. After a the team was doithat everybody on ng the same thin g.
Political and Cultural Awareness means knowing the people on your team and understanding their backgrounds. Since projects sometimes span more than one culture, it’s important to take the time to understand the similarities and differences in the working environments across the project team. It’s equally important to communicate with your team members and understand what motivates them. Decision-Making is how you handle the issues that come up when you’re working through your project. There are a few basic techniques for decision making that you’ll use: Command - Sometimes, you’ll just make a decision and inform your team about it. You’ll decide and then team will do what you say.
Consultation - Sometimes you’ll talk your decision over with your team and ask for their opinions before you decide.
Consensus - Another way of making decisions is to talk about a few options with your team and get everybody to agree on one of them before you decide.
Coin Flip - Another way to make a decision is to just randomly choose one of the options.
Negotiation helps people the on your team come to an agreement about how to work together. It’s important when your negotiating to listen to both parties in negotiation and to make sure that you make it clear when concessions are made. That should everyone see both sides of the issue and know that you’re negotiating a fair resolution to the issue.
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leadership and power
Lead the team with your management skills You’ve seen tools and techniques that help you set up a great environment for your team to succeed, but you need more than that to get them through a tough project. You need leadership skills, Wait a second! How can a those “soft skills” you use to influence your team and keep multiple-choice test quiz me them directed toward the project’s goals. on my leadership skills?
You use leadership skills ject! throughout the entire pro in But they’re most important Develop Project Team becrause that’s where you lead you team through their work.
You’re right, it can’t. What the PMP® exam can quiz you on is your knowledge of leadership skills. There’s been a lot of research on how people wield power in companies. The PMP exam concentrates on research done by two social psychology researchers named French and Raven who came up with five different kinds of power that people use to influence others.
The five kinds of power There are five kinds of power that a project manager typically uses on a project. The first is called legitimate power, which is what you use when you assign work to someone who reports to you.
Reward power is what you have when you can award a bonus or another kind of reward in order to motivate team members. Always make sure that rewards are fair—you don’t want to single out one person who is eligible for a reward without giving others a chance at it! And rewards work best when they’re tied to specific goals or project priorities.
Making everyone compete for one single reward isn’t fair—it’s actually demotivating to force people to compete for an arbitrary prize.
Everyone on the team will get an extra $500 bonus if we meet all of the quality standards in the spec!
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When you’re someone’s boss, you have legitimat power to tell them what to do. But when you e work in a matrixed organization, you don’t have direct reports! So you’ll need to use the other kinds of power to influence your team. Expert power means that the team respects you for your expertise in a specific area, and gives you credibility because of that. Think about it: a team of programmers is more likely to respect you and do what you ask them to do if they know that you’re an accomplished software engineer!
I spent a few years leading a game design team, and I got the best results when we held joint design meetings with the programmers.
human resource management
Punishment power is exactly what it sounds like—you correct a team member for poor behavior. Always remember to do this one-on-one and in private! Punishing someone in front of peers or superiors is extremely embarrassing, and will be really counterproductive.
Referent power means that people admire you, are loyal to you, and want to do what you do because you’re part of the cool crowd. Often, a project manager might wield referent power because he’s trusted by people in authority, and others perceive him as associated with success.
If you buy something because a celebrity does, that’s referent power. I was just having coffee with the CEO and we got to talking about our project. He’s really counting on us.
Look, Joe, I know you’re trying your best, but if you can’t meet the delivery deadline, I’m going to have to take you off the team.
Could you imagine if someone said that to you in front of your boss?
Match each form of power to the scenario where it’s being used.
Legitimate Power
“We’re not meeting our quality standards, and until we do we’re going to have to work weekends.” A project manager sets up an “Accolade Wall” and posts awards for team members who come in ahead of schedule.
Expert Power
Everyone always does what Shelly says because everyone knows that senior management loves her.
Referent Power
A functional manager assigns a tester to work on the project manager’s team.
Punishment Power
The programmers always listen to the team lead because he’s a really good software architect.
Answers on page 480.
Reward Power
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motivation theories
This stuff is all part of Recognition and Rewards—one of the tools and techniques for Develop Project Team.
Motivate your team
No matter how good your “soft skills” are, if your team has a lousy work environment, they’re going to have a hard time getting the project done. Luckily, there’s been research done over the years to figure out exactly what makes a good working environment. For the PMP exam, you’ll be expected to be familiar with the most popular theories of motivation and organization.
You might see this in a question about “Maslow’s theory,” or it might show on the exam as “Hierarchy of Needs” or “Maslow’s Hierarchy.” Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs says that people have needs, and until the lower ones are satisfied they won’t even begin to think about the higher ones.
Maslow says you can’t achieve the higher needs until you’re comfortable with the lower ones…
…you need to feel safe and accepted before you can make a higher contribution
SelfActualization (fulfilling your full potential, and making a contribution) Esteem
Acceptance on the team Security—safety and job security Physiological (like food and warmth)
McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y McGregor tells us that there are two kinds of managers: ones who assume that everyone on the team is selfish and unmotivated, and ones who trust their team to do a good job. He calls the kind of manager who distrusts the team a “Theory X” manager, and the kind who trusts them a “Theory Y” manager. You could get exam questions where the answer could be “Theory X” or “Theory Y”—or both!
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like A “hygiene factor” is somethf ing at th tuf —s tus a paycheck or sta job. people need in order to dostuthffe , it’s If people don’t have this em! really hard to motivate th
Herzberg’s Motivation-Hygiene Theory Sure, you love being a project manager. But would you do the job if you weren’t getting a paycheck? Of course not! What Herzberg figured out was that you need things like good working conditions, a satisfying personal life, and good relations with your boss and coworkers—stuff he called “hygiene factors.” They don’t motivate you, but you need them before you can be motivated. Until you have them, you don’t really care about “motivation factors” like achievement, recognition, personal growth, or career advancement.
need Herzberg says that peopy leexpect out all rm no the stuff they efore of a job—like hot coffeeat—b about you can get them motivnal ed owth. achievement and perso gr
A Theory X manager will micromanage the team, looking over everyone’s should er all the time and making them feel like the y aren’t trusted. It’s much better—and easier—to be a Theory Y manager. If you trust the team to do their jobs, they won’t let you down!
human resource management
appear on Two more theories that migthhtey’re not the PMP exam—although ers. nearly as common as the oth Expectancy Theory says that you need to give people an expectation of a reward in order to motivate them—but this only works if that award is achievable. If everyone knows the award is either worthless or impossible to achieve, it will actually demotivate them!
McClelland’s Achievement Theory says that people need achievement, power, and affiliation to be motivated. Achievement is when someone performs well and is recognized for it. Power means he or she has a lot of control or influence in the company. And someone feels a strong sense of affiliation from being a part of a working team and having good relationships with coworkers.
ach of the following scenarios demonstrates one of the motivational theories at work. E Write down which theory each scenario describes.
1. Bob is a programmer on the team, but he doesn’t really feel like he’s “one of the guys.” He doesn’t really have a lot of control over the work he’s assigned. Recently, Bob put in a long weekend to get his work done, but nobody really seemed to take notice.
2. There was a break-in in the office, and now people are really jittery. Plus, the heating system has been broken for weeks, and it’s freezing! No wonder nobody’s getting any work done.
3. Eric’s a functional manager, but his team seems to move really slowly. It turns out that everyone who reports to him has to hand him their work first, before they can give it to anyone else. He goes through it line by line, which sometimes takes hours! He doesn’t trust his team to release anything he hasn’t seen.
4. Joe’s a functional manager, and his team is very efficient. He spot-checks their work, but for the most part he sets realistic performance goals and trusts them to meet it—he only pulls people aside if he finds that there’s a specific problem that has to be corrected.
5. A project manager is having a lot of trouble motivating the team. He tries setting up rewards and a good working environment. But the team remains difficult to motivate—mostly because their paychecks all bounced last week, and everyone is angry at the CEO because they didn’t get bonuses..
Answers on page 482.
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the real last stage is blaming
Stages of team development There’s a process for a team to get from a group of strangers to a group that creates something good together, that’s what the stages of team development are all about.
Every team goes through these stages during a project.
Forming - People are still trying to figure out their roles in the group; they tend to work independently, but are trying to get along with each other. Storming - As the team learns more about the project, members form opinions about how the work should be done. This can lead to temper flare-ups in the beginning, when people disagree about how to approach the project. Norming - As the team learns more about the other people on the team, they begin to adjust their own work habits to help out each other and the team. Here’s where the individuals on the team start learning to trust each other.
Researcher Bruce Tuckman came up with this fivestage model as a model for team decision-making.
Performing - Once everyone understands the problem and what each other are capable of doing, they start acting as a cohsesive unit and being efficient. Now the team is working like a well-oiled machine. Adjourning - When the work is close to completion, the team starts dealing with the fact that the project is going to be closing soon. Although this is the normal progression, it’s possible that the team can get stuck in any one of the stages. One big contribution you can make, as the Project Manager, is to help the team get through the initial Storming phase and into Norming and Performing. It’s important to keep in mind that people have a tough time creating team bonds initially, and to try to use your soft skills to help the team to progress through the stages quickly.
How does knowing the five stages of team development change the decisions that you’ll make in handling conflicts on your team?
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Each of the following scenarios demonstrates one of the stages of team development. Write down which stage each scenario describes. 1. J oe and Tom are both programmers on the Global Contracting project. They disagree on the overall architecture for the software they’re building, and frequently get into shouting matches over it. Joe thinks Tom’s design is too short-sighted and can’t be re-used. Tom thinks Joe’s design is too complicated and probably won’t work. They’re at a point right now where they’re barely talking to each other.
2. J oan and Bob are great at handling the constant scope changes on the Business Intelligence Project. Whenever the stakeholders request changes, they shepherd them through the change control process and make sure the team doesn’t get bothered with them unless it’s absolutely necessary. That leaves Darrel and Roger to focus on building the main product. Everybody is focusing on their area and doing a great job. It seems like it’s all just clicking for the group.
3. Derek just got to the team, and he’s really reserved. Folks on the team aren’t quite sure what to make of him. Eveybody’s polite, but it seems like some people are a little threatened by him.
4. Now that the product has shipped, the team is meeting to document all of their lessons learned and write up project evaluations.
5. Danny just realized the Janet is really good at developing web services. He’s starting to think of ways to make sure that she gets all of the web service development work and Doug gets all of the client software development. Doug seems really happy about this too—he seems to really enjoy building Windows applications.
Answers on page 484.
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assessing performance
Outputs
How’s the team doing? There are two outputs of Develop Project Team. One is the Team Performance Assessment. Developing the project team means working with them to keep everyone motivated, and training them to improve their skills. The other is updates to your company’s Enterprise Environmental Factors, to update your company’s personnel records. look
The project manager should has at how the team’s skill setit’s improved, and make sure documented here. Has the team performance improved? Are the motivational techniques working? If so, that goes here!
Cows Gone Wild IV sment Pe Team rformance Asses provements Competencies / Skills im vector graphics day training course on new Developers: attended threeign professor s: brought in industrial des coding techniques. Designer inar on design techniques. from Ivy College to hold sem
You can measure how motivated and happy the team is by keeping an eye on the turnover rate.
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Team Performance and it’s resulted rovement in team cohesion, There’s been a marked imp bonus budget. awarded 50% of our $2,500 in a lower defect rate. We’ve Turnover Rate ich is an eloper have left the team, wh Two designers and one dev improvement from CGW III.
Project managers use their general management skills (“soft skills”) to motivate and lead the team.
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In a matrixed organization, the project manager doesn’t have legitimate power, because the team doesn’t directly report to the project manager.
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The most effective forms of power are reward power, where the project manager sets up rewards and recognition for the team, and expert power, which means the team respects the project manager’s technical expertise.
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Referent power is power that’s based on identifying with or admiring the power-holder. Punishment power is the least effective form of power. The project manager should never punish a team member in front of peers or managers! Project managers should be familiar with modern theories of motivation and management.
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You’ll need to keep track of how well the team is performing, because whe the team has problems you’ll have a n good baseline to compare against.
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McGregor’s Theories X and Y state that there are poor Theory X managers who don’t trust their teams, and good Theory Y managers who do. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is the theory that says that people can’t achieve “self-actualization” (full potential) or esteem (feeling good and important) until lower needs like safety and security are met. Herzberg’s Theory says that it’s difficult to motivate people unless hygiene factors like a paycheck and job security are already in place. Expectancy Theory holds that people only respond to rewards that are tied to goals they feel they have a realistic chance of achieving. Bruce Tuckman’s five stages of team development are forming (the team still finding their roles), storming (the team forming opinions), norming (adjusting work habits to help the team), performing (working like a well-oiled machine), and adjourning (closing down the project).
human resource management
Cubicle conversation We’ve got a problem, Mike. My team needs the 3-D model designs and texture maps from the design team, but we’re not getting them.
Amy: Look, we’ve been over this, Brian. My team is working on level design, and that’s the priority right now. Brian: Mike, is that true? Mike: I checked the schedule, and all three of those things are part of the current activity. It’s not really clear which one of them is the priority. Brian: Look, my team will be halted if we don’t get those models and textures. Amy: Come on, Brian. You guys have a whole bunch of unit tests that you can write, and I know you’re a week behind on code reviews. Can’t you just work on those in the meantime? Brian: My team’s been reviewing code for two weeks now. They need a break! Amy: Aha! So it’s not really that you’re going to fall behind if you don’t get the textures immediately. Brian: Well, no, but I’ll be dealing with a team that has motivation problems. And I’m the one who has to clean up that mess! Mike: OK, hold on, guys. Let’s see if we can work this out. Amy: I don’t see what there is to work out. He’s being unreasonable.
It looks like Brian and Amy are having a serious conflict, and it could have a big impact on the project if Mike doesn’t get it under control! What usually causes conflicts in projects, and what can the project manager do about it when those conflicts happen?
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solving problems
Managing your team means solving problems
Executing process group
Wouldn’t it be great if your team members never had any conflicts? Well, we all know that conflicts are a fact of life in any project. A good project manager knows how to handle conflicts so they don’t delay or damage the project. And that’s what the Manage Project Team process is about.
You already know what these inputs are, and what they’re for.
This comes from Develop Project Team, and tells you how the work’s been done. Performance Reports
Project Staff Assignments
Team Performance Assessments
Conflict management is one of the most important tools in Manage Project Team, because it’s where you resolve conflicts between people. Issue logs are really useful for keeping track of any issue, problem or conflict that happens throughout the project. As each issue is resolved, write down the resolution.
Project performance appraisals means looking at each person’s work and assessing his or her performance. Interpersonal skills are all about helping the people on your team to solve problems. Observation and conversation are how you communicate to manage your team.
You should have a really good feel for what the outputs are from any process in the Monitoring & Controlling process group. Write them in here.
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Outputs
Answers on page 481.
Inputs
We’ll see these in the next chapter! They tell you if the project’s deviated from the plan.
human resource management
Conflict management up close It’s probably no surprise that over half of conflicts come from priorities, schedules, and people. That’s why so many of the processes you’re learning about are focused on preventing conflicts. Ground rules, good planning practices, and pretty much anything that has to do with communication are all there to prevent the most common reasons that conflicts happen.
Some of the common reasons that conflicts happen Resources are scarce—that’s why you have to negotiate for them. Have you ever been in a situation where there’s a “good” conference room, or top-performing team member, or even that photocopy machine that always seems to be in use? Well, that’s a scarce resource. No wonder resources cause so many conflicts. Priorities mean one project or person is more important than another, and gets more budget, resources, time, prestige, or other perks. If the company’s priorities aren’t crystal clear, then conflicts are definitely going to happen. Schedules decide who gets what, when. Have you ever had a client, sponsor, or stakeholder get upset because your project won’t come in as early as he or she wanted it to? Then you’ve had a conflict over schedules.
These three things ar e the source of over 50 % of all conflicts!
Over half of all conflicts are caused by resources, priorities, and schedules.
Some more sources of conflict Personalities are always clashing. Sometimes two people just don’t get along, and you’re going to have to find a way to make them work together in order to get your project done.
Cost disagreements seem to come up a lot, especially where contracts are involved. Even when the price is agreed upon up front, buyer’s remorse will set in, and it will lead to issues.
Technical opinions are definitely a reason that conflicts happen, because it’s really hard to get an expert to change his mind… so when two of them disagree, watch out!
What’s the best way to deal with a conflict between two people on your project team?
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keeping everyone together
How to resolve a conflict When you’re managing a project, you depend on people to get the work done. But when they have any sort of conflict, your project can grind to a halt… and you’re the one who has to face the music when it causes delays and costs money! Since you’re on the hook when a conflict threatens your project, you’re the one who has to resolve it. Luckily, there are some techniques for getting your conflicts resolved.
The best way to resolve a conflict is to confront the problem: do your research, figure out what’s behind it, and fix the root cause.
Confronting—or problem-solving—is the most effective way to resolve a conflict. When you confront the source of the conflict head-on and work with everyone to find a solution that actually fixes the reason that conflicts happen, then the problem is most likely to go away and never come back!
Okay, let’s see if we can get to the bottom of this.
The first thing you do whenever you face a problem is do your research and gather all the information so you can make an informed decision.
Compromise sounds good, doesn’t it? But hold on a second—when two people compromise, it means that each person gives up something. That’s why a lot of people call a compromise a “lose-lose” solution.
Look, each of you is going to have to give up something if we want to get back on track.
You should always try to confront should only forge a compromise aftthe problem first—you possible way to solve the real pro er you’ve tried every blem. Collaborating means working with other people to make sure that their viewpoints and perspectives are taken into acount. It’s a great way to get a real commitment from everyone. 472 Chapter 9
Amy came up with a good idea, and Brian expanded on it. It sounds like we’ve got a real plan, here!
human resource management
Smoothing is what you’re doing when you try to play down the problem and make it seem like it’s not so bad. It’s a temporary solution, but sometimes you need to do it to keep tempers from flaring and give people some space to step back and really figure out what’s going on.
Forcing means putting your foot down and making a decision. One person wins, one person loses, and that’s the end of that.
Come on, guys. I know this seems like the end of the world, but it’s really not such a big deal.
I’m in charge here, and I’ve made my decision… and you’re just gonna have to live with it.
You should really try to avoid forcing and withdrawal if you can.
Withdrawal doesn’t do much good for anyone. It’s when people get so frustrated, angry, or disgusted that they just walk away from the argument. It’s almost always counterproductive. If someone withdraws from a problem before it’s resolved, it won’t go away—and your project will suffer.
You guys are being totally unreasonable, and we’re just not going to talk about it anymore.
Who’s really being unreasonable here?
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confront the problem
But confronting sounds like a bad thing! Shouldn’t I avoid confrontation?
No! Confrontation is just another name for problem-solving, because you solve a problem by confronting it head-on, doing your research, and fixing whatever is causing it. If you always remember to:
Confront the problem …it will really help you through a bunch of questions on the exam!
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“Confronting” is an saying “problem-so other way of time two people ha lving.” Any you need to step ve a conflict, out what’s actuallyback and figure the problem. That’ causing “confront” it—by s how you fixing the underlyifinding and ng issue!
human resource management
Take a look at each of these attempts to resolve a conflict and figure out which conflict resolution technique is being used.
1. “I don’t really have time for this—let’s just do it your way and forget I ever brought up the problem.”
2. “ Look Sue, Joe’s already filled me in on your issue. I’ve considered his position, and I’ve decided that he’s right, so I don’t need to hear anymore about it.”
3. “ Hold on a second, let’s all sit down and figure out what the real problem is.”
4. “ Joe, you’ve got a solid case, but Sue really brings up some good points. If you just make two little concessions, and Sue gives up one of her points, we’ll all be good.”
5. “You guys are almost entirely in agreement—you just differ on one little point! I’ll bet we’ll be laughing about this next week.”
6.“I don’t really have time to deal with this right now. Just figure it out and get back to me.”
7. “ I know this problem seems really big, but I’ll bet if we take a long, hard look at it, we can figure out how to fix it permanently.”
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no dumb questions
Q: A:
How do I know what form of power to use?
You should always try to use expert power or reward power if you can. Expert power is effective because people naturally follow leadership from someone who they respect. And reward power is also good because rewards help people motivate themselves.
When you use referent power, you’re appealing to a really important psychological tool: the fact that when you like someone or they like you, you’re much more likely to influence them. And when you use punishment, you have to be very careful because it can be highly demotivating to the team. When you use it, always be careful not to punish someone in front of the team or other managers in your company. That can be embarrassing for them, and just makes you look vindictive. Remember, your goal is to get your project back on track, not to put someone in his or her place!
Q:
It sounds like compromise is a bad thing. But I’ve been told that when people are fighting, I should always look for a middle ground!
Q:
I’m still not quite clear about all of that storming and norming stuff. Do I need to know that to run a project?
A:
Yes, you do! When Bruce Tuckman published his pioneering research about group development in 1965, he was looking for a model to describe how teams face their challenges, tackle their problems, find solutions to those problems, and deliver results. Since then, it’s become the foundation for a lot of modern thinking about how teams form and work. More importantly, if you learn to recognize how teams evolve over the course of a project, it will actually help you in real life when you run your projects. If you understand how group dynamics work, you’ll have a much better idea of what’s causing conflicts and problems on your team, and you can help everyone work through those problems. Sometimes knowing that groups go through these patterns helps you keep perspective... and realize that it’s normal—even healthy!—to have conflicts every now and then.
Try to avoid using punishment. When you do have to punish someone, make sure to do it in private, and not in front of peers or other managers.
A:
Yes, as little kids a lot of us were told that we should always look for a compromise. And that probably is the right thing to do on the playground. But when you’re managing a project, you’re judged by the success of your final product, not by how happy your team is. When you forge a compromise instead of really figuring out what’s causing the problem, you’re usually taking the easy way out.
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50% of project problems and conflicts are caused by resources, schedules, and priorities. Personality conflicts are actually the least likely cause. The best way to solve a problem is to confront it, which means doing your research, figuring out what’s causing the problem, and fixing it. Withdrawal happens when someone gives up and walks away from the problem, usually because they’re frustrated or disgusted. If you see a team member doing this, it’s a warning sign that something’s wrong.
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Don’t be fooled by questions that make it sound like “confronting” is a bad thing. Confronting is just another word for problem-solving. Smoothing is minimizing the problem, and it can help cool people off while you figure out how to solve it. You should only compromise if you can’t confront the problem. Forcing means making a decision by simply picking one side. It’s a really ineffective way to solve problems.
human resource management
The Cows Gone Wild IV team ROCKS! The odds were against Mike—he had to fight for a whole new team, keep them motivated, and solve some pretty serious problems. But he followed his plan, got a great team together, kept them on track, and got the product out the door!
Mike made sure everyone had a great working environment... ds ...he set up rewarteam that kept the motivated... ...there were conflicts and arguments, but he confronte each of them and got the d project back on track...
...and the team built the best Cows Gone Wild game ever! Phew! That was a whole lot of work, but we got a great product out the door.
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Question Clinic: The “Have-A-Meeting” Question There are a whole lot of questions on the exam that give you a situation where there’s a conflict, an issue, or even a crisis, and ask you what to do first. The trick is that in all of these cases, one of the options is to have a meeting. Sounds odd, right? But this is actually really important for a project manager to know! That’s because you need to gather information from other people before you make a decision.
o It’s not always team memberse wh Don’t be fooled—even though have conflicts. You could hav an this asks about conflict, that unhappy client who has a complaint ers… doesn’t mean it’s asking you about you or your team memb for a conflict resolution and that client could be right. technique.
Sounds like these guys are right, and the other person is wrong… right? Well, maybe not.
out m are having conflicts ab tea ct oje pr ur yo on le op 198. Three pe s out of er wants to do the activitie mb me m tea ior jun A s. prioritie follow the schedule that to nt wa ers mb me r nio se order, while two olving What’s the first step in res er. eth tog t pu lly na igi or you had Never push off your management this conflict? responsibilities on the team. elves. t the problem among thems A. Tell everyone to work ou the t you should always follow B. Tell the junior member tha That’s not true! What if the schedule has a problem and needs schedule ginal schedule change control? The junior team Tell them to keep to the ori C. member could be right. le and get all the information D. Meet with all three peop
You shouldn’t make a unilateral decision without understanding the conflict.
This is the right answer. Get all the facts befo you make any move. re
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Remember how you always look at the impact of a change before you decide whether or not to make it? Well, this is the same idea! You always want to look at all the facts before you make a move.
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Fill in the blanks to come up with your own “Have-A-Meeting” question! You’re managing , when (two people with a conflict) (description of a project) come to you with a disagreement about . One team member (source of disagreement) says , while the other says .. (one idea about how to resolve it) (a different idea about how to solve it) What’s the first thing that you do? A.
(make a unilateral decision)
B.
(side with one person)
C.
(side with the other person)
D.
(have a meeting)
Here’s an additional “Have-A-Meeting” exercise to help get you used to this kind of question. How many different ways can you say “Have a meeting”?
Fill in a few more.
Gather information from everyone involved Talk to the people involved directly Make sure you know everything you need about the situation Don’t make a move until you’ve got all the information
Join the Head First PMP community at http://www.headfirstlabs.com/PMP
You can add your Head Libs answer, and see what Head Libs other project managers came up with! 479
exercise solutions
ead the staffing management plan on the facing page and answer these questions about the R project. 1. How many designers, developers and testers are needed in week #7 of the project?
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2. Who is responsible for verifying that each team member has the skills appropriate to the project?
Mike, Amy, and Brian 3. Rewards should always be tied to performance goals in order to motivate the team. What performance goal has been set for the team, and what reward will each team member receive if it’s achieved?
Each team member will receive 1,000 if the schedule is met, and 500 more if all quality control standards are met.
Match each form of power to the scenario where it’s being used. Legitimate Power
“We’re not meeting our quality standards, and until we do we’re going to have to work weekends.”
Reward Power
A project manager sets up an “Accolade Wall” and posts awards for team members who come in ahead of schedule.
Expert Power
Everyone always does what Shelly says because a senior director assigned her personally.
Referent Power
A functional manager assigns a tester to work on the project manager’s team.
Punishment Power
The programmers always listen to the team lead because he’s a really good software architect.
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Outputs
You should have a really good feel for what the outputs are from any process in the Monitoring & Controlling process group. Write them in here.
Change requests Updates to Enterprise Environmental Factors
Updates to the organizational process assets Updates to the project management plan
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exercise solutions
ach of the following scenarios demonstrates one of the motivational theories at work. E Write down which theory each scenario describes.
1. Bob is a programmer on the team, but he doesn’t really feel like he’s “one of the guys.” He doesn’t really have a lot of control over the work he’s assigned. Recently, Bob put in a long weekend to get his work done, but nobody really seemed to take notice.
McClelland’s Achievement Theory 2. There was a break-in in the office, and now people are really jittery. Plus, the heating system has been broken for weeks, and it’s freezing! No wonder nobody’s getting any work done.
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs 3. Eric’s a functional manager, but his team seems to move really slowly. It turns out that everyone who reports to him has to hand him their work first, before they can give it to anyone else. He goes through it line by line, which sometimes takes hours! He doesn’t trust his team to release anything he hasn’t seen.
McGregor’s Theory X
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4. Joe’s a functional manager, and his team is very efficient. He spot-checks their work, but for the most part he sets realistic performance goals and trusts them to meet them—he only pulls people aside if he finds that there’s a specific problem that has to be corrected.
McGregor’s Theory Y 5. A project manager is having a lot of trouble motivating the team. He tries setting up rewards and a good working environment. But the team remains difficult to motivate—mostly because their paychecks all bounced last week, and everyone is angry at the CEO because they didn’t get bonuses.
Herzberg’s Motivation-Hygiene Theory
human resource management
ake a look at each of these attempts to resolve a conflict and figure out which conflict T resolution technique is being used.
1. “ I don’t really have time for this—let’s just do it your way and forget I ever brought up the problem.”
Withdrawal 2. “Look Sue, Joe’s already filled me in on your issue. I’ve considered his position, and I’ve decided that he’s right, so I don’t need to hear any more about it.”
Forcing 3. “ Hold on a second, let’s all sit down and figure out what the real problem is.”
Confronting (or problem-solving) 4. “Joe, you’ve got a solid case, but Sue really brings up some good points. If you just make two little concessions, and Sue gives up one of her points, we’ll all be good.”
Compromise 5. “ You guys are almost entirely in agreement—you just differ on one little point! I’ll bet we’ll be laughing about this next week.”
Smoothing 6.“I don’t really have time to deal with this right now. Just figure it out and get back to me.”
Withdrawal 7. “ I know this problem seems really big, but I’ll bet if we take a long, hard look at it, we can figure out how to fix it permanently.”
Confronting (or problem solving)
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ready for some exam questions?
Each of the following scenarios demonstrates one of the stages of team development. Write down which stage each scenario describes. 1. Joe and Tom are both programmers on the Global Contracting project. They disagree on the overall architecture for the software they’re building, and frequently get into shouting matches over it. Joe thinks Tom’s design is too short-sighted and can’t be re-used. Tom thinks Joe’s design is too complicated and probably won’t work. They’re at a point right now where they’re barely talking to each other.
Storming 2. J oan and Bob are great at handling the constant scope changes on the Business Intelligence Project. Whenever the stakeholders request changes, they shepherd them through the change control process and make sure the team doesn’t get bothered with them unless it’s absolutely necessary. That leaves Darrel and Roger to focus on building the main product. Everybody is focusing on their area and doing a great job. It seems like it’s all just clicking for the group.
Performing 3. D erek just got to the team, and he’s really reserved. Folks on the team aren’t quite sure what to make of him. Eveybody’s polite, but it seems like some people are a little threatened by him.
Forming 4. Now that the product has shipped, the team is meeting to document all of their lessons learned and write up project evaluations.
Adjourning 5. D anny just realized the Janet is really good at developing web services. He’s starting to think of ways to make sure that she gets all of the web service development work and Doug gets all of the client software development. Doug seems really happy about this too—he seems to really enjoy building Windows applications.
Norming
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Exam Questions 1. A RACI Matrix is one way to show roles and responsibilities on your project. What does RACI stand for? A. B. C. D.
Responsible, Approve, Consult, Identify Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed Retain, Approve, Confirm, Inform Responsible, Accountable, Confirm, Inform
2. Everybody does what Tom says because he and president of the company are golfing buddies. What kind of power does he hold over the team? A. B. C. D.
Legitimate Reward Punishment Referent
3. What’s the most effective approach to conflict resolution? A. B. C. D.
Smoothing Confronting Compromise Withdrawal
4. Two of your team members are having a disagreement over which technical solution to use. What’s the first thing that you should do in this situation? A. B. C. D.
Consult the technical documents Tell the team members to work out the problem themselves Ask the team members to write up a change request Meet with the team members and figure out what’s causing the disagreement
5. Joe is a project manager on a large software project. Very late in his project, the customer asked for a huge change and wouldn’t give him any more time to complete the project. At a weekly status meeting, the client demanded that the project be finished on time. Joe told the client that he wasn’t going to do any more status meetings until the client was ready to be reasonable about the situation. Which conflict resolution technique was he using? A. B. C. D.
Forcing Compromise Withdrawal Confronting
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exam questions
Exam Questions 6. You’ve just completed your resource histogram. What process are you in? A. B. C. D.
Acquire Project Team Develop Project Team Develop Human Resource Plan Manage Project Team
7. Which of the following describes Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs? A. B. C. D.
You can’t be good at your job if you don’t have a nice office You need to feel safe and accepted to want to be good at your job Your boss’s needs are more important than yours The company’s needs are most important, then the boss’s, then the employee’s
8. Jim and Sue are arguing about which approach to take with the project. Sue makes some good points, but Jim gets frustrated and storms out of the room. What conflict resolution technique did Jim demonstrate? A. B. C. D.
Withdrawal Confronting Forcing Smoothing
9. Tina is a project manager who micromanages her team. She reviews every document they produce and watches when they come and go from the office. Which kind of manager is she? A. B. C. D.
Theory X Theory Y Theory Z McGregor Manager
10. Which of the following is NOT one of the top sources of conflict on projects? A. B. C. D.
Resources Technical opinions Salaries Priorities
11. What is the “halo effect”? A. B. C. D.
When a project manager is good, the team is good, too The tendency to promote people who are good at technical jobs into managerial positions When a project manager picks a star on the team and always rewards that person When a technical person does such a good job that no one can find fault with them
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Exam Questions 12. You are working on a construction project that is running slightly behind schedule. You ask the team to put in a few extra hours on their shifts over the next few weeks to make up the time. To make sure everyone feels motivated to do the extra work, you set up a $1,500 bonus for everyone on the team who works the extra hours if the deadline is met. What kind of power are you using? A. B. C. D.
Legitimate Reward Expert Referent
13. Two team members are having an argument over priorities in your project. One thinks that you should write everything down before you start doing any work, the other thinks you can do the work while you finish the documentation. You sit both of them down and listen to their argument. Then you decide that you will write most of it down first but will start doing the work when you are 80% done with the documentation. What conflict resolution technique are you using? A. B. C. D.
Forcing Confronting Smoothing Compromise
14. What is a war room? A. B. C. D.
A place where managers make decisions A room set aside for conflict management A room where a team can sit together and get closer communication A conflict resolution technique
15. You are writing a Performance Assessment for your team. Which process are you in? A. B. C. D.
Develop Project Team Acquire Project Team Manage Project Team Develop Human Resource Plan
16. You are working in a matrix organization. You don’t have legitimate power over your team. Why? A. B. C. D.
They don’t report to you They don’t trust you They don’t know whether or not they will succeed You haven’t set up a good bonus system
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exam questions
Exam Questions 17. Tom is using an organization chart to figure out how he’ll staff his project. What process is he performing? A. B. C. D.
Develop Human Resource Plan Acquire Project Team Develop Project Team Manage Project Team
18. You’re a project manager on an industrial design project. You’ve set up a reward system, but you’re surprised to find out that the team is actually less motivated than before. You realize that it’s because your rewards are impossible to achieve, so the team doesn’t expect to ever get them. What motivational theory does this demonstrate? A. B. C. D.
Herzberg’s Hygiene Theory Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs MacGregor’s Theory of X and Y Expectancy Theory
19. You’re managing a software project, when two of your programmers come to you with a disagreement over which feature to work on next. You listen to the first programmer, but rather than thinking through the situation and gathering all the information, you decide to go with his idea. Which conflict resolution technique did you use? A. B. C. D.
Compromise Forcing Confronting Smoothing
20. Your client comes to you with a serious problem in one of the deliverables that will cause the final product to be unacceptable. Your team members look at his complaint and feel that it’s not justifiable, and that the product really does meet its requirements. What’s the first thing that you do? A. B. C. D.
Confront the situation by making the change that needs to be made in order to satisfy the client Explain to the client that the solution really is acceptable Work with the client and team members to fully understand the problem before making a decision Write up a change request and send it to the change control board
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human resource management
Exam Questions 1. Answer: B
Think about how you organize the work on your project and the RACI chart makes sense. Being responsible for a specific task or area of work means you’re the one who’s on the hook if it doesn’t get done. Being accountable means you might not be doing it directly but you have influence over it. Some people need to be consulted but don’t get involved in the work, while others should just be kept informed of status. 2. Answer: D
id of punishment from Did you choose punishment? People might bet afra agree with Tom. But since the president of the company if they don’ rent power. Tom isn’t the one who would punish them, it’s refe
The power is here is referent. People are reacting to Tom’s relationship to the president of the company, not his own authority. 3. Answer: B Confronting does sound like it would be negative, but it just means solving the problem. If you actually solve the problem, there’s no more reason for people to fight at all. That’s always the best way to deal with a conflict. Any of the other options could lead to more problems later. 4. Answer: D This is a classic “Have a Meeting” question! You should always gather the information you need before you make any kind of decision. 5. Answer: C Joe decided that the best tactic was to refuse to talk to the client anymore—that’s withdrawing. It’s also probably not going to solve the problem. 6. Answer: C You create the Histogram as part of the Staffing Management Plan. It’s the main output of the Develop Human Resource Plan process. 7. Answer: B Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs says that your safety and acceptance are a prerequisite for you being able to do your best.
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exam questions answers
Exam Questions 8. Answer: A
Jim took his ball and went home. That’s withdrawal.
It seems like Jim and Sue had a confrontation, right? But that’s not what “confronting” means here! It really means “problem‑solving”.
9. Answer: A A micromanager is a Theory X manager. They believe that all employees need to be watched very closely, or they will make mistakes. 10. Answer: C You definitely need to know what causes conflicts on projects. Resources, technical opinions, priorities, and personalities all cause people to conflict with each other, and there’s a good chance you’ll get a question on that! 11. Answer: B Just because someone is good at a technical job, it doesn’t mean they will be good at management. The jobs require very different skills. 12. Answer: B You are motivating the work by offering a reward for it. People might be motivated by the bonus to put in the extra time even if they would not have been motivated by the deadline alone. 13. Answer: D Both of them had to give something up, so that’s a compromise. 14. Answer: C War rooms are part of co-location. It’s a way to keep your entire team in one room so they don’t have any communication gaps.
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human resource management
Exam Questions 15. Answer: A
Developing the team is where you evaluate performance and set up motivational factors. Manage Project Team is where you solve conflicts. 16. Answer: A In matrix organizations, team members usually report to their functional managers. A project manager never has legitimate power over the team in those situations. 17. Answer: A
e are two org Don’t forget that thcoermpany, and one charts—one for the for the project.
Tom’s project is at the very beginning—he’s using the organization chart as a tool to figure out who’s going to be assigned to his team. 18. Answer: D Expectancy Theory says that people only get motivated by rewards that they can achieve, and that are fair. If you set up a reward system that selects people who don’t deserve rewards, or that has rewards that are unattainable, then it will backfire and cause people to resent their jobs. 19. Answer: B Whenever you choose one side over another without thinking or actually finding the root cause of the problem, you’re forcing a solution on it. This is NOT a good way to solve problems! 20. Answer: C Any time there’s any sort of conflict, the first thing you need to do is gather all the information. And that’s especially true when there’s a disagreement between the client and the team! You’d better have your facts straight in such a charged situation.
He should have sat down with both programmers and figured out what the real problem was. Even if the solution isn’t perfect, at least it’s more fair.
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10 Communications management
Getting the word out Good news, Gertrude! Get the pot roast on the stove... I just checked the performance report, and I’ll make it home in time for dinner.
Communications management is about keeping everybody in the loop. Have you ever tried talking to someone in a really loud, crowded room? That’s what running a project is like if you don’t get a handle on communications. Luckily, there’s Communications Management, which is how to get everyone talking about the work that’s being done, so that they all stay on the same page. That way everyone has the information they need to resolve any issues and keep the project moving forward.
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planning a party
Party at the Head First Lounge! Jeff and Charles want to launch their new Head First Lounge, so they’re going to have a party for the grand opening. They’re thinking of all of the things they need to do: the DJ, the hors d’oeuvres, the drinks, hula dancing. They need to start contacting caterers, DJs, and suppliers to make sure it all goes off without a hitch.
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But something’s not right When Jeff called the caterer and the DJ to request everything he wanted for the party, his old staticky phone made it hard for everybody to understand what he was asking. Sometimes their taste for retro furniture can make things a little difficult.
1
Make sure you bring the good wine!
2 Hi Jeff. This is the caterer. We got your message. We’ll be sure to bring pork rinds.
Oops! The caterer couldn’t make out what Jeff was saying.
This phone is old and staticky!!
3
Man, I’ve gotta call them back and make sure they bring wine, not rinds!
4
I wonder if I need to contact anyone other than the caterer about this? Is there something wrong with the phone? How can we be sure this won’t happen again?
What can Jeff and Charles do to get a handle on their communication problems?
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are you receiving me?
Anatomy of communication When you communicate with your team, you need to encode your message into a phone call, a document, an IM chat, or sometimes even a different language for them to understand. Your team then decodes that message so they can get its content. If something happens to your message along the way (static on the phone line, your printer inserts garbage characters, your Internet connection is spotty, or your translation isn’t very good), then your team might not get the intended message. The kind of interference that can alter your message is called noise.
Noise.
~ ~ ~
Let’s get special olives from the store.
The thing that is used to transfer the call is called the medium.
When you’re talking about messages, encoding, decoding, and noise, you’re talking about a communications model.
Let’s get pflugl polish the door.
Because of the noise on Jeff’s line, it’s tough for Charles to decode the message.
Jeff encodes his message as a phone call. When the receiver responds to the sender’s message, it’s called feedback. It’s not just the door—the whole place needs to be cleaned.
It’s not just the door—the whole place needs to be cleaned.
Medium
This time decoding is easier because the noise on Jeff’s phone didn’t change the message. 496 Chapter 10
Charles encodes his response as a phone call.
communications management
Match each communication element to what it does.
Sender
Receiver
The thing used to transmit the message The person who gets the message
Medium
Something that interferes with the message
Feedback
Modifying a message that has been sent so that it can be understood
Noise
A response to a message
Encoding
Modifying a message so that it can be sent
Decoding
The person who needs to initiate the communication
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the communications management process
Get a handle on communication Any kind of communication can have interference. The wrong person can get the message; noise can garble the transmission; you can make mistakes decoding or encoding the message. It turns out that 90% of a project manager’s job is communication, which is why there’s a whole knowledge area devoted to it. The Communications Management processes are here to help you avoid these common kinds of errors, through planning and careful tracking of stakeholder communications on your project. Just like every other knowledge group we’ve covered so far, it all starts with a plan.
Planning process group
Executing process group
? Identify Stakeholders
end a You need to spiguring little time f out who your are stakeholders an do before you c . That’s anything else is an why this one cess. Initating pro
Plan Communications
The Communications Management Plan is part of the Project Management Plan, like all the others. Here’s where you figure out who needs to know what.
is in the Executing Distribute Informatioen it happens while the work process group, becaused to make sure everybody is being done. You ne they need while they’re gets the information ’re completely equipped to working, so that they get their jobs done. 498 Chapter 10
Distribute Information
Here’s where you get the information out to the people and make sure that the right people have the info they need.
90% of a project manager’s job is communication
communications management
Communications Management makes sure everybody gets the right message at the right time. Monitoring & Controlling process group
Report Peformance
This is where you turn all of that work performance information into reports that your stakeholders will use to stay informed.
Monitoring & Controlling process group
Manage Stakeholder Expectations
Watch out for communications problems and make sure all of your stakeholders get the right information to help them make good decisions. Report Performance and Ma e Stakeholder Expectations are both in thenag Mo Controlling process group. You neenitoring & monitor and always stay in contro d to constantly communication that goes on thr l all of the whether it’s to communicate yououghout the project, or to keep stakeholders up to datr team’s performance, e on the project. you are here 4 499
hint: it’s not a vampire slayer
Find out who your stakeholders are One of the first things you need to do when you start a project is to figure out who your stakeholders are and what you need to do to keep them all in the loop. The Identify Stakeholders process is all about writing down your stakeholders’ names along with their goals, expectations, and concerns in a document called the Stakeholder Register. Most projects succeed or fail based on how well the Project Manager knows and manages stakeholder expectations. Writing them down up front will help you to come up with a strategy to help people who don’t buy into your project to see the value in what you’re doing.
Knowing the way your company runs should help you to find the people who will be impacted by your Enterprise project.
The Project Charter will tell you who’s funding and championing the project.
Project Charter
Environmental Factors
Inputs
Organizational Process Assets
Procurement Documents
Stakeholder Analysis is a critical tool in this process. You need to interview all of the stakeholders you can find for your project and find out the value the project has for them. As you sit with stakeholders, you’ll identify more people to interview. During Stakeholder Analysis you can divide your stakeholders into groups based on their level of involvement and need for communication. When you understand what motivates all of your stakeholders, you can come up with a strategy to make sure that they’re told about the things that they find important, and that they’re not bored with extraneous details.
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Any suppliers or vendors listed in contracts should be part of you r stakeholder list
Expert Judgment
Expert Judgment in this process means talking to all of the experts on your project to identify more stakeholders and learn more about the ones you’ve identified
communications management
Stake-hold-er, noun A person who has an interest or concern about something. Tom was a stakeholder in the Little League game since his son was playing in it.
The PMBOK® Guide defines a stakeholder a little more specifically than its everyday term: as a “person or organization ... that is actively involved in the project, or whose interests may be positively or negatively affected by execution or completion of the project.” [p442]
The register should tell you what gets out of the project so that each stakeholder to see the value in the project. you can help them
Stakeholder Register Name: Mike the Blogger Group: Press Responsibilities: • Attend the party • Write a blogpost about it Goals: • Compare this party with the other lounge parties in town • Get free drinks Expectations: • Head First Lounge will have a first rate sound system
Outputs Stakeholder Management Strategy Stakeholder
Here’s where you list each stakeholder and their responsiblitiles, goals, expectations, and concerns.
Jeff
Stakeholder Group HFL Employee
Current Level of Buy-In Commitment
Desired Level of Buy-In Commitment
Commitment
Incentive to Buy-in More $$ for the lounge More $$ for the lounge Better reputation
Charles
HFL Employee
Commitment
DJ Tom
HFL Employee
Adam Mike the Blogger Mark and Laura
Neighbor Press Guests
Understanding Understanding Acceptance
Peace and quiet More site hits A good party
Acceptance Commitment Commitment
Commitment Commitment
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who’s got the power who’s got the interest
Stakeholder Analysis Up Close When you get started on your project, the first thing you should do is examine the charter and any contract information you have to figure out who will be impacted by it. Once you have a preliminary list, you should sit down with each one of them and figure out their responsiblities, goals, expectations, and concerns. These interviews will be the basis for the Stakeholder Profiles in your Stakeholder Register. As you interview people, you’ll likely find more stakeholders to include in the list. It’s Name: Adam Group: Neighbors Responsibilities: • None Goals: • Peacefully coexist with Head First Lounge • Read a book on the stoop • Drink some coffeee Expectations: • Head First Lounge will not be so loud as to disrupt normal activities. Concerns: • Last weekend a group of people were a little rowdy when they left theName: lounge and that nearly woke theLounge baby. Employees DJ Tom Group: Head up First Responsibilities: • Play the music for the the lounge party • Keep up with the crowd’s mood and make sure everybody has fun • Play new and interesting music that the group will like Goals: • Build a reputation as a good DJ • Get hired back for another gig later Expectations: • Head First Lounge will have a first rate sound system • Head First Lounge will advertise the event and have a full house Concerns: • Mike The last DJ Tom played wasn’t advertised and was poorly attended Name: thegig Blogger Group: Press Responsibilities: • Attend the party • Write a blogpost about it Goals: • Compare this party with the other lounge parties in town • Get free drinks Expectations: • Head First Lounge will have a first rate sound system • Head First Lounge will advertise the event and have a full house Concerns: • There are 3 other lounge parties on the same night that Mike’s been invited to 502 Chapter 10
useful to group stakeholders together, because stakeholders in a particular group tend to have similar needs and project interests.
At first, it may sound like “goals” and “expectations” are almost the same thing, but it’s useful to make a distinction. Goals are what someone needs to get out of your project, while expectations are what they think will actually happen. It’s easy to imagine a stakeholder with high hopes but little actual expectation of seeing them realized.
Once you’ve got a handle on your stakeholders’ concerns, you can start making headway addressing them. That’s how you turn a negative stakeholder into an advocate!
communications management
It’s not enough to know who your stakeholders are – you need to understand what motivates them, and what it will take it to make the project a success for each of them. That’s where the Stakeholder Management Strategy comes in.
Stakeholder Jeff Charles DJ Tom Adam Mike the Blogger Mark and Laura
Stakeholder Group Head First Lounge Employee Head First Lounge Employee Head First Lounge Employee
Current Level of Buy-In Commitment
Neighbor Press Guests
“Buy-in” means a stakeholder throws his support behind your project (he’s “bought into” it).
Commitment
Incentive to Buy-in More $$ for the lounge More $$ for the lounge Better reputation
Commitment
Understanding Understanding Acceptance
Peace and quiet More site hits A good party
Acceptance Commitment Commitment
Commitment
Desired Level of Buy-In Commitment Commitment
One way to get a handle on the best way to communicate with your stakeholders is to create a Power/Interest Grid. When you plot your stakeholders on a Power/Interest Grid, you can determine who has high or low power to affect your project, and who has high or low interest. People with high power need to be kept satisfied, while people with high interest need to be kept informed. When a stakeholder has both, make sure you manage their expectations very closely!
high
People with high power and low interest need to be kept in the loop. You need these people to be kept satisfied with the project even if they aren’t interested in it.
Jeff and Charles, HF Lounge
Power
Tom the DJ
The people who are high power and high interest are the decision makers who have the biggest impact on project success, so closely manage their expectations.
You shouldn’t have to worry too much about the people with low interest and low power; they require the least amount of attention here.
Mike, the blogger
Adam, the neighbor
Mark and Laura, the party guests
Folks with high interest and low power should be kept in the loop as the project progresses. If they’re kept informed, your project will get good buzz.
low low
Interest
high
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the plan communications process
his is the Plan Communications process. You’ve seen a lot of planning processes now. Can you T fill in the Inputs and Outputs for this one?
Inputs
Communications Requirements Analysis means figuring out what kind of communication your stakeholders need from the project so that they can make good decisions. Your project will produce a lot of information; you don’t want to overwhelm every member of your project team with all of it. Your job here is to figure out what all of them feel they need to stay informed and to be able to do their jobs properly. Here’s an example: Jeff and Charles will definitely care about the cost of the overall catering contract, but they don’t need to talk to the caterer’s butcher, liquor supplier, grocer, or other companies they work with.
Communications Models demonstrate how the various people associated with your project send and receive their information. You’ve already learned about this—it’s the messages you send, how you encode and decode the messages, the medium you use to transmit the messages, the noise that blocks the messages, and the feedback you get.
This one is your company’s culture and policies to project communication.ward Here’s where your company keeps all of its templates and lessons learned.
Here’s where you use your plan for keeping stakeholders on board with your project. Its name isn’t obvious, but take a wild guess at what it’s called. 504 Chapter 10
You need to know who you’re going to communicate with.
communications management
Communications Technology has a major impact on how you can keep people in the loop. It’s a lot easier for people to get information on their projects if it’s all accessible through a web site than it is if all of your information is passed around by paper memos. The technologies available to you will definitely figure into your plan of how you will keep everyone notified of project status and issues. Communications Methods are how you actually share the information with your stakeholders. Communications can be interactive, where everyone exchanges information with each other. You can push information out to your stakeholders by sending out emails, memos, faxes, or other one-way communications. Or, if you need to get a lot of information out to people, they can pull it down themselves from intranet websites, e-learning courses, or libraries.
Before you turn the page, take a minute and think of three examples of how you used each of these methods on your last project. That’ll help you remember them for the exam!
n There are only two outputs. Ca is? one you guess what this
Are you surprised of this process youat how much Looks like you’re ge can fill in? hang of this stuff! tting the Outputs
Plan Communications Process
Document Updates
There are several project documents that get updated when you’re planning communications. Can you think of one of them?
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build the plan
his is the Plan Communications process. You’ve seen a lot of planning processes now. Can you T fill in the Inputs and Outputs for this one?
Communications Requirements Analysis means figuring out what kind of communication your stakeholders need from the project so that they can make good decisions. Your project will produce a lot of information; you don’t want to overwhelm every member of your project team with all of it. Your job here is to figure out what all of them feel they need to stay informed and to be able to do their jobs properly. Here’s an example: Jeff and Charles will definitely care about the cost of the overall catering contract, but they don’t need to talk to the caterer’s butcher, liquor supplier, grocer or other companies they work with.
Inputs
Enterprise Environmental Factors Organizational Process Assets Stakeholder Register Stakeholder Management Strategy This is where you lay out r exactly how you’ll keep you stakeholders in the loop.
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Communications Methods and Models means knowing how you’ll get the message across. These tools are pretty important when you’re running your projects, so here are a few questions to think about. Will you be using emails? Meetings? Documents? How will you know when the message has been received? What will you do to deal with any noise along the way? It’s also important to keep track of your methods for communicating. How do you typically handle communications methods on your projects? Push—How do you and your team send messages on a periodic basis to the stakeholders? Interactive—How often do you you sit down and discuss messages and answer questions on them? Pull—Where do you post information publicly so that stakeholders can get it when they need it?t
communications management
Communications Technology has a major impact on how you can keep people in the loop. It’s a lot easier for people to get information on their projects if it’s all accessible through a web site than it is if all of your information is passed around by paper memos. The technologies available to you will definitely figure into your plan of how you will keep everyone notified of project status and issues. Outputs
It’s important that everyone involved understand why you are doing the meetings and reports you create. The plan tells how you will distribute the information, to whom, and how often.
The PM’s not always responsible for every communication. The plan makes it clear who communicates what on the project.
You’ll usually need to update the project schedule, the stakeholder register or the stakeholder management strategy when you plan communications for your project.
This is the only output of the Plan Communications process.
Document Updates
Head First Lounge Party Communication Pl an Purpose: This docume nt will outline who sh ould communicate with whom and how often through the cours e of this project. Requirements for co mmunication are base d on analysis of interviews with the tea m and project sponso rs. Event
Rationale
Status meeting
All of the stakeholders feel that it is important that they meet face to face periodically.
Budget report
Since costs are very important, we will create a budget report weekly to track how we are doing.
Frequency
Biweekly
Weekly
Deliverable
Meeting minutes to be emailed to all stakeholders. Archived in the document repository. Report to be emailed to all stakeholders.
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talk to everyone
Tell everyone what’s going on Once you have the communication plan completed, it’s time to start making sure that everybody is getting the information that they need to help your project succeed. The Distribute Information process is all about making sure that the right information makes it to the right people.
Inputs
Performance Reports
Project Management Plan
This is your status information. The Project Management Plan This is the information you need includes the Communication Plan to get out to your stakeholders. you just created. Communication methods There are a lot of different ways to get a message across. For the test you will need to know four different kinds of communication, and when to use them. 1
Formal written
Any time you’re signing a legal document or preparing formal documentation for your project, that’s formal written Any time you see anything that communication. has to do with a contract, you should always use formal written communication. 3
Formal verbal
sentation If you ever have to give a prejec t, to update people on your pronication. mu com bal that’s formal ver
2
Informal written
Blueprints, specifications and all other project documents are examples of formal written communication.
4
Informal verbal Come by at 7:00!
Speeches and prepared talks are formal. Meetings, hallway chats, and planning sessions are informal. 508 Chapter 10
If you drop someone a quick email or leave them a memo or a sticky note, that’s informal written communication.
Just calling somebody up to chat about your project is informal verbal communication.
communications management
Choose which kind of communication is being used in each situation. 1. You and your business analysts write a requirements specification for your project.
5. You leave a voicemail message for your test team lead following up on an issue he or she found.
c Formal verbal
c Informal verbal
c Formal verbal
c Informal verbal
c Formal written
c Informal written
c Formal written
c Informal written
2. You call up a supplier for materials for your project to let him or her know that you are a week late, so he’s got a little flexibility in his delivery schedule.
6. You IM with your team members.
c Formal verbal
c Informal verbal
c Formal verbal
c Informal verbal
c Formal written
c Informal written
c Formal written
c Informal written
3. You present your project’s status to your company’s executive committee.
7. You prepare an RFP (request for proposals) for vendors to determine which of them will get a chance to contract a new project with your company.
c Formal verbal
c Informal verbal
c Formal verbal
c Informal verbal
c Formal written
c Informal written
c Formal written
c Informal written
4. You send an email to some of your team members to get more information about an issue that has been identified on your project.
c Formal verbal
c Informal verbal
c Formal written
c Informal written
Hint: We haven’t but you don’t needtalked about RFPs yet, are to answer this to know what they question. Answers on page 533.
Be careful about when you use different kinds of communication. Any time you need to get a message to a client or sponsor, you use formal communication. Meetings are always informal verbal, even if the meeting is to say something really important. And any project document—like a project management plan, a requirements specification, or especially a contract—is always formal written.
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more than words
Get the message? Communication is about more than just what you write and say. Your facial expressions, gestures, tone of voice, and the context you are in have a lot to do with whether or not people will understand you. Effective communication takes the way you act and sound into account. Most of the communication on your project takes place during the Distribute Information process, so you need to know how to communicate effectively. There are a important aspects to effective communication: Nonverbal communication means your gestures, facial expressions, and physical appearance while you are communicating your message. Imagine what Jeff and Charles would think of the caterer if he negotiated the contract for their party while wearing a chicken suit. They probably wouldn’t take him very seriously. You don’t always think about it, but the way you behave can say more than your words when you are trying to get your message across.
Paralingual communication is the tone and pitch of your voice when you’re talking to people. If you sound anxious or upset, that will have an impact on the way people take the news you are giving. You use paralingual communication all the time—it’s a really important part of how you communicate. When your tone of voice makes it clear you’re really excited about something, or if you’re speaking sarcastically, that’s paralingual communication in action.
Feedback is when you respond to communication. The best way to be sure people know you are listening to them is to give lots of feedback. Some ways of giving feedback are summarizing their main points back to them, letting them know that you agree with them, or asking questions for clarification When you give a lot of feedback to someone who is speaking, that’s called active listening.
So it’s not enough to say the right thing. You need to say it the right way, too.
When you’re communicating with other people, you actually do more nonverbal communication than verbal! If someone has dread in his voice when he tells , you about a promotion you get a much different impression than if he’d emailed you about it. Like effective communicat effective listening is aboution, taking everything the speaker says and does into consideration and asking questions when you don’t understand.
That’s why active listening is important part of communicatan ion
.
You do most of the project communication when you’re performing the Distribute Information process. 510 Chapter 10
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J eff and Charles are interviewing new bartenders to help with the expanded space. Choose which kind of communication is being used in each situation. 1. One applicant came in 30 minutes late and was dressed unprofessionally. The guys knew that he would not be a good fit for the position.
c Paralingual
c Nonverbal
c Feedback
c Feedback
c Paralingual
c Nonverbal
c Feedback
2. Charles asked an applicant about her background. Her tone of voice was really sarcastic, and he got the impression she didn’t take the job seriously. Charles and Jeff decided to pass on her, too.
c Paralingual
3. Charles asked the next applicant if he knew how to make a sidecar. He said “A sidecar? Sure. It’s one part brandy or cognac, one part Cointreau, and one part lemon juice.”
c Nonverbal
4. Then the applicant told them about his background as a bartender for other retro clubs. As he spoke, he made eye contact with them and made sure to confirm agreement with them.
c Paralingual
c Nonverbal
c Feedback Answers on page 532.
We found a bartender for the new space!
This new guy will be great. He has awesome communication skills.
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get the word out
More Distribute Information tools The tools in this process area are all about getting information from your team and making sure that the information makes it to the people who need it. As you learn more about your project, you write down decisions you make and everything you learn on the project as lessons learned, and update your Organizational Process Assets to include them. Communication methods are the specific methods you use to distribute information to your team... and you’ve already learned about them! Information distribution tools are how you get the information your team needs to do the job. You might have an inbox where everyone puts their status information. If it’s printed out on paper, you’re doing hard copy document distribution. You could also use electronic communication. For example, you might use email, or you could have a software application that gathers information about your project and saves it to a database so that you can make your reports. Or your company might have electronic tools for project management, like a timesheet system for tracking hours spent on a project or a budgeting system for tracking expenditures. All of those are information gathering and retrieval systems because the data they produce will be used to make decisions about your project.
But no matter how I distribute the information, I always need to make sure it gets to the right people!
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Outputs
Organizational Process Asset updates You’ve used lessons learned from all of the other projects your company has done as you’ve planned out your work. Here’s where you get a chance to give your project’s experience back to the company and to help future project managers learn from what’s happened on your project. You’ll put a lot of information into your organizational process asset library: óó Any stakeholder notifications you send need to be kept, because they could be important later on. And if you get feedback from them, you should save that, too! óó Project reports and presentations are really useful to refer back to if your project runs into trouble óó Any records from your project (like memos, important emails, announcements, or other documents) need to be added and organized in your process asset library.
Organizational Process Assets
One of your most important outputs... Lessons learned are all of the corrective and preventative actions that you have had to take on your project, and anything you have learned along the way. And one of the most valuable things you’ll do for future project managers is write them down and add them to your company’s Organizational Process Asset library. That way, other people can learn from your experience.
Next time they plan a party, Jeff and Charles won’t run into the misunderstandings that they had on this one.
Head First Lounge Party Project Lessons Learned: 1. Don’t use 70s phones for calling external vendors . 2. B e sure to hire people with effective communication skills.
It’s important to write down the good things you learned on the project, too. That way, you can be sure to repeat your successes next time.
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communication types
Q: A:
What do I do with lessons learned after I write them?
The great thing about lessons learned is that you get to help other project managers with them. You add them to your company’s process asset library, and other project managers then use them for planning their projects. Since Jeff and Charles learned that they shouldn’t use their retro phones for planning parties, no one should ever have to deal with that problem when planning a party for Jeff and Charles again. They wrote down the lesson they learned and filed it away for future planning efforts.
Q: A:
Q:
Do I have to know everything that will be communicated to build a plan?
A:
No. As you learn more about the project you can always update the plan to include new information as you learn it. Pretty much all of the planning processes allow for progressive elaboration. You plan as much as you can up front, and then put all changes through change control from then on. So, if you find something new, put in a change request and update the plan when it’s approved.
I still don’t get the different types of communication.
When you think about it, they are pretty easy to remember. You have formal and informal communication, and verbal and written communication types. The four different ways you can mix those up are all of the communication types. Think of informal verbal as phone calls between different team members. Formal verbal is giving a presentation. Informal written is sending out notes, emails, or memos. Formal written is when you have to write specifications or other formal project documentation. For the test, you need to be able to identify which is which. If you just think of these examples, it should be a snap for you.
Q:
Now, who’s decoding, who’s encoding, and where does feedback come from?
A:
Think of encoding as making your message ready for other people to hear or read. If you write a book, you are encoding your message into words on pages. The person who buys the book needs to read it to decode it. The same is true for a presentation. When you present, you encode your thoughts into presentation images and text. The people who are listening to your presentation need to read the text, hear your voice, and see the visuals to decode it.
Feedback is all about the person who decodes the message letting the person who encoded it know that they received it. In the case of a book, this could be a reader sending a question or a note to the author or writing a review of it on a website. In a presentation, it could be as simple as nodding your head that you understand what’s being said.
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There are only four communication types; formal written, informal written, formal verbal, and informal verbal. For the test, you need to be able to tell which is which.
communications management
Let everyone know how the project’s going You spend a lot of time collecting valuable information about how your projects are doing. So what do you do with it? You communicate it. And that’s what the Report Performance process is for: taking the information you gathered about how work is being done and distributing it to the stakeholders who need to make decisions about the project.
Remember, the team members are all is stakeholders, too—and this information especially important to them.!
You created this when you wewares executing the project – it e project where you reported how th using it work was going. Now you’re of the to report the performanceand the team to the stakeholders rest of the company.
It all starts with Work Performance Information You create one of the most important outputs of your entire project when the team is doing the project work in Direct and Manage Execution. Work Performance Information tells you the status of each deliverable in the project, what the team’s accomplished, and all of the information you need to know in order to figure out how your project’s going. But you’re not the only one who needs this—your team members and stakeholders need to know what’s going on, so they can adjust their work and correct problems early on.
Hey, we’re still waiting on the band to confirm. And didn’t the caterer have some questions?
Work Performance Information
Whenever you he a team member abarouback from the job is going, th t how performance informat’s work ation.
I have no idea—I haven’t heard back from anyone!
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how are we doing?
Take a close look at the work being done Work performance information isn’t the only information you need to figure out how the project is going. There are a whole lot of outputs from the Executing processes that you need to look at if you really want to get a clear picture of your project.
Remember how you used Earned Value to see how your project is performing? Well, now you use that information to get a handle on your project’s progress.
Report Performance takes the outputs from the Executing process in Distribute Information and turns them into Performance Reports and Forecasts.
re If you want a completenepicedtu of your project, you’ll dget to take a look at the bu forecast.
Work Performance Measurements
Budget Forecasts
You already know what these are for! Can you think of why they’re important for Report Performance?
Organizational Process Assets
Work Performance Information
Inputs
This tells you how the ing.. project execution is go
Relax
Project Management Plan
Performance reports and forecasts are a lot easier than they look—because you already know all about them!
Take a minute and flip back to Cost Control in Chapter 7. You learned how to use CPI and SPI to measure your project’s performance, and you used EAC and ETC to forecast when the project would be complete. Now you’re just taking that information and communicating it! 516 Chapter 10
communications management
Report Performance is one of those PMBOK® Guide processes that’s really familiar to a lot of project managers. Can you figure out what each of its tools and techniques is for just from the name?
Variance Analysis
Reports, slide presentations, spreadsheets, charts
Forecasting Methods
Finding all the important information and putting it all together
Communication Methods
Meetings with the team to go over how the project is doing
Reporting Systems
A system to keep track of how much time people spend doing work
system to keep track of how much money is being spent
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report performance tools and techniques
Report Performance is one of those PMBOK® Guide processes that’s really familiar to a lot of project managers. Can you figure out what each of its tools and techniques is for just from the name?
Variance Analysis
Looking at performance data to see how it varies from the baseline
Forecasting Methods
Using Earned Value and other Forecasting methods to find out whether we’re on budget and on schedule. ject, and it’s your job to
Communication Mehods
on floating around on a pro e measurements, make There’s a whole lot of informatiYou need to talk to people, tak get a good handle on all of it. es, and generally get your nose in everything in order forecasts, go through deliverablproject is. And once you get all of that information, to really figure out where the it makes sense and is easy to work with. you need to put it together so
Deciding on Push, Pull, or Interactive methods of communicating
Reporting Systems
You need to figure you’ll keep everybodyout up front how make sure everyone kninformed and project information. ows where to get
A system to keep track of how much time and money people spend doing work d computer systems A lot of people use specializecos t. But sometimes to keep track of time and ead sheets to get all you need is a couple of sprthing is that you’ve the job done. The important ping track of the got an organized way of keethe project and how time people are putting into much money is being spent.
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communications management
Now you can get the word out Now that you’ve gathered up all the information about how the project’s being done, it’s time to get it out to the people who need it. The outputs from Report Performance shouldn’t be particularly surprising… you’re just packaging up the information you collected and turning it all into stuff that’s easy to distribute to all the stakeholders. You’ve got three outputs from the process:
Change requests happen when you do Report Performance. What do you do if you find out that your forecasts have your project coming in too late or over budget? You put the change request in as soon as possible. And if you need the project to change course, you’ll need to recommend corrective actions to the team.
Organizational Process Assets
Budget Forecasts
Project Management Plan
Inputs
Performance Reports are the most important output of the process—which shouldn’t be a surprise, since the process is called Report Performance. Your performance reports tell everyone exactly how the project is doing, and how far off it is from its time, cost, and scope baselines. These include forecasts, which are what you turn your EAC and ETC numbers into. That way, everyone has a good idea of when the project is going to finish. Organizational Process Asset Updates need to be added—especially your lessons learned. There are always a lot of lessons to be learned when you’re gathering this kind of project information.
Work Performance Measurements
Work Performance Information
Variance Analysis Forecasting Methods Communication Methods Reporting Systems
Outputs
Did you find a variance when you compared your forecasts against the baseline? Make sure you add that to the lessons learned!
You’ve seen thes outputs several tie change control ready for change mes now. Get control.
Report Performance is about more than just telling people how the project is doing. It’s also about finding problems. What kind of problems are you likely to uncover when you sit down with stakeholders and put together your performance reports and forecasts?
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check your knowledge
Communicationcross Untitled Take some time to sitPuzzle back and give your right brain something to do. It’s your standard crossword; all of the solution words are from this chapter. 1
Header Info 1 Header Info 2 etc...
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3. __________ listening is when a listener uses both verbal Across and nonverbal clues like nodding or repeating the listener’s 3. _______ listening is when a listener uses both words communicate thatclues the message has beenorreceived. verbalto and nonverbal like nodding the listener's wordstakes to communicate 4.repeating Most communication on a project place in the that the message has been received __________ Information process. 4. Most communication on a project takes place 6.inAthe stakeholder withInformation high interest process and low power must be _______ 6. A________ stakeholder with high progress. interest and low power kept of your project’s must be kept ________ of your project's progress 10. a message is received, the receiver to 10.When When a message is received, the needs receiver ________ message before it can be understood. needs tothe________ the message before it can be understood 11. This interferes with a message sent from a sender to a 11. This interferes with a message sent from a receiver. sender to a receiver
1. A stakeholder with low interest and high power needs to Down be kept _______ with the project. 1. A stakeholder with low interest and high power needs to beshould kept _______ with project 2. Information be distributed to the all________. 2. Information should be distributed to all 5. According to the PMBOK® Guide, ________percent of ________ project management is communication. 5. According to the PMBOK® Guide, ________ percent of project management is communication 7. You consult the Stakeholder _________ to understand 7. You consult the Stakeholder _________ to your stakeholders’ goals and expectations. understand your stakeholders' goals and expectations 8. A conversation in a hallway is an example of_______ 8. A conversation verbal communication.in a hallway is an example of _______ verbal communication 9. useuse the the ETCETC and EAC from Cost 9. You Youcan can andcalculations EAC calculations Management to create ______. from Cost Management to create ______ 13. When your stakeholders get information from 13. yourwebsite, stakeholders get information an When intranet you're using thisfrom an intranet web site, you’re using this communication model. communication model
12.A A contract is always ________ 12. contract is always ________communication. communication 13. communication modelmodel you useyou whenuse youwhen send email 13.The The communication you announcements. send e-mail announcements 14.This This kind of communication but 14. kind of communication includesincludes vocal but vocal nonverbal nonverbal signals, such as changing the pitch signals, suchofasvoice changing the pitch and tone of voice. and tone 520 Chapter 10
Answers on page 534.
communications management
People aren’t talking! There’s so much information floating around on any project, and if you’re not careful it won’t get to the people who need it. That’s why so much of your job is communication—if you don’t stay on top of all of it, your project can run into some serious trouble!
The forecast looked good, and everyone was on top of their jobs. We thought we were on track for Friday night. Then all these problems came up…
Problems óóThe caterer’s se
rving food that doesn’t go with the dr inks or theme. óóThe DJ and the band want to set up in the same place. óó All the guests ar e telling us they like different food. óó Has anyone even talked to the neighbors about the no ise? óóThree people ar e bringing friends, but nobody told the caterer.
How are we gonna get a handle on this?
What’s causing all of these problems? Will better communication help?
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monitoring and controlling
he Manage Stakeholder Expectations process is a typical Monitoring & Controlling process. You T already know the inputs, tools & techniques, and outputs! See if you can figure out what the outputs and tools & techniques do from their names, and write down a description for each of them.
Inputs We just covered these in the Identify Stakeholders process
Stakeholder Management Strategy
Project Management Plan
Organizational Process Assets
Stakeholder Register
Change Log
Communications Methods
Interpersonal Skills
Issue Log
These are logs of changes that happen on your project and issues that come up. You need to make sure your stakeholders are aware of them, because they really don’t like being blindsided by changes and issues.
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communications management
Manage Stakeholder Expectations process Since the Manage Stak older Expectations process is eh all resolving communications iss about the stakeholders experienc ues that are focused on communica e, the tools stakeholders about those ting with the issues.
Change Requests
Management Skills Project Document Updates
Outputs
Organizational Process Asset Updates
Project Management Plan Updates
How will the outputs be used to communicate with stakeholders? Don’t forget that every team member is a stakeholder!
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manage your changes
he Manage Stakeholder Expectations process is a typical Monitoring & Controlling process. You T already know the inputs, tools & techniques, and outputs! See if you can figure out what the outputs and tools & techniques do from their names, and write down a description for each of them.
ortant for any Kickoff meetings are really imp ryone together, project. You should bring eve previous projects, go over lessons learned from keh older knows and make sure that each staed to happen. This how communication is supposdown the line. can help prevent problems
Inputs
Communications Methods
Stakeholder Management Strategy
Stakeholder Register
This is where you decide how you’ll keep people in the loop using push methods, interactive methods or pull methods.
Change Log
Project Management Plan
Interpersonal Skills
This is where you use your “soft skills” to keep everybody on track and working toward the same goal.
Issue Log
An issue log is a ru ing list of any issues that happen nn du You can use it to moniring the project. and make sure none oftor the issues through the cracks. them slip
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A kickoff meeting is a great way to get your project team and stakeholders on the same page.
communications management
Manage Stakeholder Expectations process
Change Requests
These are any changes to the project plan or other documents that involve stakeholder communication.
Management Skills
This is where you gather important information about your project and use it to make decisions about how to keep the team on track.
Project Document Updates
These are any updates to previously written project documents that come from the communication process.
Organizational Process Asset Updates
Outputs
Any lessons learned from talking to stakeholders are added to the Organizational Process Assets.
Project Management Plan Updates
Approved changes actually need to be made to the project plan.
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counting communication lines
Count the channels of communication How many people need to talk to each other? Well, Jeff and Charles need to talk. But what about the DJ and the band? They wanted to set up their equipment in the same place—it looks like they need to talk, too. And the bartender needs to coordinate with the caterer… Wow, this is starting to get complicated. A good project manager needs to get a handle on all this communication, because it’s really easy to lose track of it. That’s why you need to know how to count the channels of communication on any project.
When there are three people on the project, there are three lines of communication.
Don’t forget to count the project manager!
Counting communication lines the easy way
But add three to the project, manorde people add a LOT of pote you communication to thntial How do you get a hae project! ndle on it?
Sometimes you’ll see communications channels referred to as “lines.” You might see it either way on the exam, so we’ll use both terms here to get you used to them.
It would be really easy to get overwhelmed if you tried to count all the lines of communication by hand. Luckily, there’s a really easy way to do it by using a simple formula. Take the total number of people on the project—including the project manager—and call that number . Then all you need to do is plug that number into this simple formula:
n x (n - 1) 2 So, how many more lines of communication were added when three more people joined # lines for n people =
You’ll need to know this formula on the PMP® exam. Just keep using it, though, and you’ll get it down in no time.
the three-person project above? You know there were three lines to start with. So now just figure out how many lines there are for 6 people:
# lines for 6 people =
6 x (6 - 1) = (6 x 5) 2
When you added three more people to the three-person project—that had three lines of communication—the new team has 15 lines. So you added 12 channels of communication. 526 Chapter 10
2 = 15
communications management
You’ll need to know how to calculate the number of lines of communication for the exam… but don’t worry; it’s really easy, once you get a little practice. 1. You’re managing a project with five people on the team, plus one additional stakeholder—the sponsor. Draw in all the channels of communication on this picture.
Don’t forget the project nag er. There are six people on thematea m, but the total number of peo who need to communicate is sevenple peo because the PM needs to commu ple, with the team members and spo nicate nsor.
2. Wow, that was a lot of work. Luckily, you won’t need to do that again. Now do it the easy way: use the formula to figure out how many lines of communication there are for seven people.
# lines for people =
x ( - 1) = ( x ) 2
2 =
3. Okay, now let’s say that you’ve added two team members and two more stakeholders, so there are now 11 people on the project who need to communicate with one other. How many lines did you add? First figure out how many lines there are for 11 people:
x ( - 1) = ( x ) # lines for people = 2
2 =
So how many lines were added when four people joined the seven-person project?
# lines added = # lines for 11 people - # lines for 7 people = - =
Answers on page 535. you are here 4 527
no dumb questions
Q:
Some of those communication skills seem like the same thing. What’s the difference between active and effective listening?
A:
Some of the communications ideas do have names that are a little confusing. But don’t worry, they’re really easy concepts for you to understand.
Active listening just means when you’re listening to something, you keep alert and take specific actions that help make sure you understand. It includes both effective listening and feedback. Effective listening is a way that you do active listening—it means paying attention to both verbal and nonverbal communication. Feedback means doing things like repeating back the words that you were told in order to make sure you understood them, and giving your own nonverbal cues to show the speaker that you got the message.
Q:
Okay, so what about nonverbal and paralingual communication? Aren’t those the same thing?
A:
They are very similar, but they’re not exactly the same. Nonverbal communication is any kind of communication that doesn’t use words. That includes things like changing your body language, making eye contact, and using gestures. Paralingual communication is a kind of nonverbal communication—it’s changing your tone of voice or intonation, finding ways to communicate things above and beyond just the words that you’re saying. For example, the same words mean very different things if you say them sarcastically than if you say them in a normal tone of voice.
Q:
Why is all that stuff about different kinds of communication important?
A:
It’s important because 90% of project
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management is communication, so if you want to be the best project manager that you can be, you need to constantly work to improve your communication skills!
Q:
Should I always have a kickoff meeting?
A:
Yes, absolutely! You should always have a kickoff meeting for every project. Not only that, but if you’re running the kind of project with several phases, and you go through all of the process groups for each phase, then you should have a separate kickoff meeting for each new phase. Kickoff meetings also help you define who’s responsible for various communications. Kickoff meetings are really important, because they give the team a chance to meet face-to-face, and give you the opportunity to make sure that everyone really understands all of the ways they can communicate with each other. That’s a great way to head off a lot of potential project problems!
Q:
Why do I need to be able to calculate the number of lines of communication?
A:
It may seem like the lines of communication formula is something arbitrary that you just need to memorize for the exam, but it’s actually pretty useful. Let’s say that you have a project with a whole lot of people on it. You set up a good communication system in your communication management plan, but you want to make sure that you really included every line in it, because if you missed one then you could run into communications problems down the line. So what do you do? Well, one thing you can do to check your work is to calculate the total number of lines of communication in your project, and then make sure that every one of those lines is represented somewhere in your communications plan. It’s a little more work
up front, but it could really save you a lot of effort down the line!
Q:
I spent all that time working on performance reports. What do I do with them once I’m done with them?
A:
The same thing you do with any information that you generate on your project. You add them to your Organizational Process Assets!
Think back to how you came up with your estimates in Time Management and Cost Management. You spent a lot of time doing Analogous Estimation, right? That’s where you use performance from past projects to come up with a rough, top-down estimate for your new project. Well, where do you think the performance information from those past projects came from? You got them from your Organizational Process Assets. And how did they end up there? Project managers from those past projects took their performance reports and added them. So you should add your performance reports, too. That way, project managers on future projects can use your project when they need to look up historical data.
You should add all of your performance reports to the Organizational Process Assets so that project managers on future projects can use them as historical information.
communications management
It’s party time! The Head First Lounge party is a big hit! Everything came together beautifully, and Jeff and Charles are the new downtown sensation!
Man! We are SO going to have to open another one of these Lounges!
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Question Clinic: The Calculation Question You’ll run across a bunch of questions on the exam asking you to use some of the formulas that you learned. Luckily, these are some of the easiest questions that you can answer.
This is the wrong answer you’d get if you calculate the number of lines of communication if you include the team and two sponsors, but forget to include the project manager. This wrong answer is the number of lines of communication BEFORE the team size was increased. You have 13 people (10 team members, 2 client sponsors, and you), so the number of lines is 13 x 12 ÷ 2 = 78.
12. You’re managin g a project with tw o client sponsors, and you have a 10-person te am reporting to you. Yo u’ve been given a bu dget increase, which allo wed you to increase your team size by 30 %. How many lines of communication wer e added? A. 66 B. 78 C. 42 D. 120
lines of This wrong answer is the numberm of e was siz communication AFTER the tea people (13 increased by 30%. You have 16rs, and you), so team members, 2 client sponso ÷ 2 = 120. the number of lines is 16 x 15
Aha! Here’s the right answer. Take the number of lines for 16 people and subtract the number of lines for 13 people: 120 - 78 = 42.
When you sit down to take an exam at a computer testing center, you’ll be given scratch paper. You’ll also have 15 minutes to go through a tutorial that shows you how use the exam system. Before you finish the tutorial, take a minute and write down all of the formulas. Write down the earned value formulas and the formula to calculate the lines of communication on the scratch paper. That will make any calculation question easy.
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LIBS
Try coming up with your own calculation question! But this time, try using one of the Earned Value formulas from Chapter 7. You are managing a project. (kind of project) You have , , (a value needed for the calculation) (another value needed for the calculation) and . (an irrelevant value that is NOT needed for the calculation) Calculate for your project. (name of a formula)
A. B. C. D.
(the answer you’d get if you plug the wrong value into the formula) (the answer you’d get if you used the wrong formula) (the correct answer) (a totally bizarre answer that comes out of nowhere)
Join the Head First PMP community at http://www.headfirstlabs.com/PMP You can add your Head Libs answer, and see what Head Libs other project managers came up with! 531
exercise solutions
Match each communication element to what it does Sender
The thing used to transmit the message
Receiver
The person who gets the message
Medium
Something that interferes with the message
Feedback
Modifying a message that has been sent so that it can be understood
Noise
A response to a message
Encoding
Modifying a message so that it can be sent
Decoding
The person who needs to initiate the communication
J eff and Charles are interviewing new bartenders to help with the expanded space. Choose which kind of communication is being used in each situation.
The candidate repeated the question. That’s a great example of feedback.
1. One applicant came in 30 minutes late, and was dressed unprofessionally. The guys knew that he would not be a good fit for the position.
c Paralingual
c Nonverbal
c Feedback
c Feedback
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c Paralingual
c Nonverbal
c Feedback
2. Charles asked an applicant about her background. Her tone of voice was really sarcastic, and he got the impression she didn’t take the job seriously. Charles and Jeff decided to pass on her too.
c Paralingual
3. Charles asked the next applicant if he knew how to make a sidecar. He said “A sidecar? Sure. It’s one part brandy or cognac, one part Cointreau, and one part lemon juice.”
c Nonverbal
4. Then the applicant told them about his background as a bartender for other retro clubs. As he spoke, he made eye contact with them and made sure to confirm agreement with them.
c Paralingual c Feedback
c Nonverbal
communications management
Choose which kind of communication is being used in each situation.
1. You and your business analysts write a requirements specification for your project.
5. You leave a voicemail message for your test team lead following up on an issue he or she found.
c Formal verbal
c Informal verbal
c Formal verbal
c Informal verbal
c Formal written
c Informal written
c Formal written
c Informal written
2. You call up a supplier for materials for your project to let him or her know that you are a week late, so he’s got a little flexibility in his delivery schedule.
6. You IM with your team members.
c Formal verbal
c Informal verbal
c Formal verbal
c Informal verbal
c Formal written
c Informal written
c Formal written
c Informal written
3. You present your project’s status to your company’s executive committee.
7. You prepare an RFP (request for proposals) for vendors to determine which of them will get a chance to contract a new project with your company.
c Formal verbal
c Informal verbal
c Formal verbal
c Informal verbal
c Formal written
c Informal written
c Formal written
c Informal written
4. You send an email to some of your team members to get more information about an issue that has been identified on your project.
c Formal verbal
c Informal verbal
c Formal written
c Informal written
do with a Anything that has to rmal written. contract is always fo
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exercise solutions
Communicationcross Take some time to sit back and give your right brain something to do. It’s your standard crossword; all of the solution words are from this chapter.
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communications management
You’ll need to know how to calculate the number of lines of communication for the exam… but don’t worry, It’s really easy, once you get a little practice. 1. You’re managing a project with five people on the team, plus one additional stakeholder—the sponsor. Draw in all the channels of communication on this picture.
2. Wow, that was a lot of work. Luckily, you won’t need to do that again. Now do it the easy way: use the formula to figure out how many lines of communication there are for seven people.
# lines for people =
x ( - 1) = ( x ) 2
2 =
3. Okay, now let’s say that you’ve added two team members and two more stakeholders, so there are now 11 people on the project who need to communicate with one other. How many lines did you add? First figure out how many lines there are for 11 people:
x ( - 1) = ( x ) # lines for people = 2
2 =
So how many lines were added when four people joined the seven-person project?
# lines added = # lines for 11 people - # lines for 7 people = - = you are here 4 535
exam questions
Exam Questions 1. Keith, the project manager of a large publishing project, sends an invoice to his client. Which communication type is he using? A. B. C. D.
Formal verbal Formal written Informal written Informal verbal
2. Which of the following is NOT an input to the Plan Communications process? A. B. C. D.
Enterprise environmental factors Organizational process assets Information gathering techniques Project scope statement
3. You take over for a project manager who has left the company and realize that team is talking directly to the customer and only having status meetings when there are problems. The programming team has one idea about the goals of the project, and the testing team has another. Which document is the FIRST one that you should create to solve this problem? A. B. C. D.
Communication plan Status report Meeting agenda Performance report
4. You ask one of your stakeholders how things are going on her part of the project and she says “things are fine” in a sarcastic tone. Which is the BEST way to describe the kind of communication that she used? A. B. C. D.
Feedback Active listening Nonverbal Paralingual
5. You’re managing an industrial design project. You created a communication plan, and now the team is working on the project. You’ve been communicating with your team, and now you’re looking at the work performance information to evaluate the performance of the project. Which of the following BEST describes the next thing you should do? A. B. C. D.
Use formal written communication to inform the client of the project status Compare the work performance information against the time, cost and scope baselines and look for deviations Update the organizational process assets with your lessons learned Hold a status meeting
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Exam Questions 6. You have five people working on your team, a sponsor within your company, and a client, all of whom need to be kept informed of your project’s progress. How many lines of communication are there? A. B. C. D.
28 21 19 31
7. Which of the following is NOT an example of active listening? A. B. C. D.
Nodding your head in agreement while someone is talking Restating what has been said to be sure you understand it Asking questions for clarification Multitasking by checking your email during a conversation
8. Sue sent a message to Jim using the company’s voicemail system. When he received it, Jim called her back. Which of the following is true? A. B. C. D.
Sue encoded the voicemail, Jim decoded it, and then encoded his feedback message. Sue decoded her voicemail message; Jim encoded his phone call and decoded the feedback. Jim sent feedback to Sue, who encoded it. Sue decoded her voicemail message and Jim encoded his feedback.
9. You’re managing a construction project. Suddenly the customer asks for some major changes to the blueprints. You need to talk to him about this. What’s the BEST form of communication to use? A. Informal written B. Informal verbal C. Formal written D. Formal verbal 10. Kyle is the project manager of a project that has teams distributed in many different places. In order to make sure that they all get the right message, he needs to make sure that his project plan is translated into Spanish, Hindi, French, and German. What is Kyle doing when he has his communications translated? A. B. C. D.
Encoding Decoding Active listening Effective listening
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exam questions
Exam Questions 11. There are 15 people on a project (including the project manager). How many lines of communication are there? A. B. C. D.
105 112 113 52
12. Which communication process is in the Monitoring & Controlling process group? A. B. C. D.
Distribute Information Manage Stakeholder Expectations Plan Communications Report Performance
13. You’re working at a major conglomerate. You have a 24-person team working for you on a project with five major sponsors. The company announces layoffs, and your team is reduced to half its size. How many lines of communication are on your new, smaller team? A. B. C. D.
66 153 276 406
14. You’ve consulted your Earned Value calculations to find out the EAC and ETC of your project. Which of the following is the BEST place to put that information? A. Work performance information B. Forecasts C. Quality control measurements D. Lessons learned 15. Which of the following is an example of noise? A. B. C. D.
An email that’s sent to the wrong person A project manager who doesn’t notice an important clause in a contract Garbled text and smudges that make a fax of a photocopy hard to read When the team is not paying attention during a status meeting
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Exam Questions 1. Answer: B
Any communication that can be used for legal purposes is considered formal written communication. An invoice is a formal document. 2. Answer: C
See the word, “technique”? That’s a good indication that it’s a tool and not an input.
Information gathering techniques are part of Distribute Information but not part of Plan Communications. 3. Answer: A The Communication Plan is the first thing you need to create in this situation. It will help you organize the meetings that are taking place and get everyone on the same page. The communication plan will help you to streamline communications so that the customer can use you as a single point of contact, too.
I get it! You can’t do any communications unless you’ve got a good communication plan.
4. Answer: D Paralingual communication happens when additional information is conveyed by the tone or pitch of your voice. It’s when you use more than just words to communicate. 5. Answer: B When you look at work performance information, you’re in the Report Performance process. And what do you do with the work performance information? You compare it against the baselines to see if your project is on track! If it isn’t, that’s when you want to get the word out as quickly as possible.
6. Answer: A
A lot of people choose B here. Don’t forget to include yourself! Look out for questions like this on the exam too.
The formula for lines of communication is n x (n-1) 2. In this problem there were seven people named, plus you. (8 x 7) 2 = 28.
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exam solutions
Answers
Exam Questions 7. Answer: D
All of the other options show the speaker that you understand what they are saying. That’s active listening.
8. Answer: A
Active listening sometime ans saying things like “I agree,” or “can yous me ex pla in that a little further?”
This question is just asking if you know the definitions of encode, decode, and feedback. Encoding is making a message ready for other people to understand, while decoding it involves receiving the message and understanding it. Feedback means letting the sender know that you got the message.
9. Answer: C
Anytime you see anything about a formal document in communication with a client, it’s formal written.
Anytime you are communicating with the customer about the scope of your project, it’s a good idea to use formal written communication. 10. Answer: A He has to encode his message so that others will understand it. 11. Answer: A (15 x 14) 2 = 105 This one is just asking if you know the formula n x (n–1) 2. 12. Answer: D Report Performance is the only Monitoring & Controlling process in Communications Management.
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Exam Questions 13. Answer: B
There are now 12 team members, five sponsors and a project manager. That gives you 18 people. Use the formula: n x (n – 1) 2 to calculate this: 18 x 17 2 = 153.
14. Answer: B The idea behind forecasts is that you are using the Earned Value calculations that forecast the completion of the project to set everyone’s expectations. That’s why you use EAC (which helps you estimate your project’s total cost) and ETC (which gives you a good idea of how much more money you think you’ll spend between now and when it ends).
Did you get one of the other s? Make sure you included the fiveansspower nso rs and the project manager!
Oh, I get it. I already came up with good cost and time forecasts using EAC and ETC. Now I can package them up as forecasts and tell them to the team.
15. Answer: C There are plenty of ways that communication can go wrong. When you send email to the wrong person, your communication had trouble—but that’s not noise. Noise is the specific thing that interferes with the communication. In this case, the garbled text is a great example of noise.
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11 Project risk management
Planning for the unknown Gee whiz, Bobby! What if these ropes break?
Don’t worry, Sally! I took care of it with risk planning. You can swing away without a care in the world!
Even the most carefully planned project can run into trouble. No matter how well you plan, your project can always run into unexpected problems. Team members get sick or quit, resources that you were depending on turn out to be unavailable—even the weather can throw you for a loop. So does that mean that you’re helpless against unknown problems? No! You can use risk planning to identify potential problems that could cause trouble for your project, analyze how likely they’ll be to occur, take action to prevent the risks you can avoid, and minimize the ones that you can’t. this is a new chapter 543
risks might occur
What’s a risk? There are no guarantees on any project! Even the simplest activity can run into unexpected problems. Any time there’s anything that might occur on your project and change the outcome of a project activity, we call that a risk. A risk can be an event (like a fire), or it can be a condition (like an important part being unavailable). Either way, it’s something that may or may not happen... but if it does, then it will force you to change the way you and your team will work on the project.
If your project requires that you stand on the edge of a cliff, then there’s a risk that you could fall.
If it’s very windy out or the ground is slippery and uneven, then falling is more likely.
A risk is any uncertain event or condition that might affect your project. Not all risks are negative. Not all risks are negative Some events (like finding an easier way to do an activity) or conditions (like lower prices for certain materials) can help your project! When this happens, we call it an opportunity… but it’s still handled just like a risk.
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How you deal with risk When you’re planning your project, risks are still uncertain: they haven’t happened yet. But eventually, some of the risks that you plan for do happen. And that’s when you have to deal with them. There are four basic ways to handle a risk:
1
Avoid The best thing that you can do with a risk is avoid it—if you can prevent it from happening, it definitely won’t hurt your project.
2
Mitigate If you can’t avoid the risk, you can mitigate it. This means taking some sort of action that will cause it to do as little damage to your project as possible.
4
Accept When you can’t avoid, mitigate, or transfer a risk, then you have to accept it. But even when you accept a risk, at least you’ve looked at the alternatives and you know what will happen if it occurs.
The easiest way to avoid this risk is to walk away from the cliff… but that may not be an option on this project.
3
Transfer One effective way to deal with a risk is to pay someone else to accept it for you. The most common way to do this is to buy insurance.
and there’s If you can’t avoid the risk,uce its nothing you can do to red impact, then accepting it is your only choice.
Looks like falling is the best option.
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planning for risk
Plan Risk Management By now, you should have a pretty good feel for how each of the planning processes work. The past few knowledge areas started out with their own planning process, and Risk Management is no different. You start with the Plan Risk Management process, which should look very familiar to you.
By the time a risk actually occurs on your project, it’s too late to do anything about it. That’s why you need to plan for risks from the beginning and keep coming back to do more planning throughout the project.
You’ll need to see if there are standard templates, roles and responsibilities, or risk categories that your company uses.
Inputs
Organizational Process Assets
Are people at your company risk takers? Do they play it safe? Every company has people with different attitudes about risk.
Enterprise Environmental Factors
Are you starting to see a pattern here? You may get a question on the exam that asks which processes use Organizational Process Assets! Think about why you need them for Plan Risk Management and the other planning processes. That should help you remember which processes need ’em.
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Project Scope Statement Cost Management Plan
Schedule Management Plan
Communications Management Plan
You can figure out wh y you need these projec t management plans scope statement. Taanked the minute to think it th a rough.
project risk management
You do all your risk planning by meeting with the team. You’ll keep meeting with them throughout your project to stay on top of risks. Outputs
Planning Meetings and Analysis
The Risk Management Plan is the only output The Risk Management Plan is your guide to identifying and analyzing risks on your project.
It tells you how you’re going to handle risk on your project—which you probably guessed, since that’s what management plans do. It says how you’ll assess risk on the project, who’s responsible for doing it, and how often you’ll do risk planning (since you’ll have to meet about risk planning with your team throughout the project). The plan has parts that are really useful for managing risk: It has a bunch of categories that you’ll use to classify your risks. Some risks are technical, like a component that might turn out to be difficult to use. Others are external, like changes in the market or even problems with the weather.
Risk Management Plan
It tells you who identifies and analyzes the risks, how they do it, and how often it happens.
You might find a Risk Breakdown Structure (RBS) here. It’s a great tool for managing your risk categories. It looks like a WBS, except instead of tasks it shows how the risks break down into categories. It’s important to come up with probability and impact guidelines to help you figure out how big a risk’s impact is. The impact tells you how much damage the risk will cause to your project. A lot of projects classify impact on a scale from minimal to severe, or from very low to very high. The plan should also give you a scale to help figure out the probability of the risk. Some risks are very likely; others aren’t.
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break it down
Use a risk breakdown structure to categorize risks You should build guidelines for risk categories into your risk management plan, and the easiest way to do that is to use a risk breakdown structure (RBS). Notice how it looks a lot like a WBS? It’s a similar idea—you come up with major risk categories, and then decompose them into more detailed ones.
with the When you sit downwith a list team to come upS will be of risks, the RB categories really useful. Theinder when are a great rem ing. you’re brainstorm Technical Risks
This is what an RBS looks like. The idea here is that you want to come up with a way to take each risk and give it a category. The RBS is just one way to categorize risks. It’s not a tool or technique by itself; you’ll include it as part of the Risk Management Plan.
Project Risks
External Risks
Organizational Risks
Quality
Weather
Staff
Issues
Problems
Attrition
Part
Customer
Project
Compatibility
Issues
Priority Changes
New Government
Funding
Regulations
Cuts
Once you come up with a list of risks, you’ll label each one of them with one of these categories. That will make easier to figure out how toit deal with the risks later.
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Take a look at how each of these project risks is handled and figure out if the risk is being avoided, mitigated, transferred, or accepted.
1. Stormy weather and high winds could cause very slippery conditions, so you put up a tent and wear slip-resistant footwear to keep from losing your footing.
c
Avoided
c
Mitigated
c
Transferred
c
Accepted
5. A mud slide would be very damaging to your project, but there’s nothing you can do about it.
Avoided
c
Mitigated
c
Transferred
c
Accepted
3. Flooding could cause serious damage to your equipment, so you buy an insurance policy that covers flood damage.
c
Avoided
c
Mitigated
c
Transferred
c
Accepted
Avoided
c
Mitigated
c
Transferred
c
Accepted
6. A team member discovers that the location you planned on using is in a county that is considering regulations that could be expensive to comply with. You work with a surveying team to find a new location.
2. You buy a surge protector to make sure a lightning strike won’t blow out all of your equipment.
c
c
c
Avoided
c
Mitigated
c
Transferred
c
Accepted
7. Surrounding geological features could interfere with your communications equipment, so you bring a flare gun and rescue beacon in case it fails.
c
Avoided
c
Mitigated
c
Transferred
c
Accepted
4. The manufacturer issues a warning that the safety equipment you are using has a small but nonzero probability of failure under the conditions that you’ll be facing. You replace it with more appropriate equipment.
c
Transferred
c
Accepted
4 - Avoided
Mitigated
3 - Transferred
c
2 - Mitigated
Avoided
Answers: 1 - Mitigated
c
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5 - Accepted
6 - Avoided
7 - Mitigated
risk planning processes
Anatomy of a risk Once you’re done with Plan Risk Management, there are four more risk management processes that will help you and your team come up with the list of risks for your project, analyze how they could affect your project, and plan how you and your team will respond if any of the risks materialize when you’re executing the project.
Identify Risks
The first thing you need to do when planning for risks is to gather the team together and come up with a list of every possible risk you can think of.
The RBS you created during Plan Risk Management will make it a lot easier to do this.
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Perform Qualitative Risk Analysis
Once you’ve got a list of ris you’ll need to get a good idea of ks, the probability and impact of each risk.
Remember the probability and impact guidelines in the Risk Management Plan? This is where you use them to assign a probability and impact to each risk!
By the time you get here, you’ve got a list of risks, with a probability and impact assigned to each risk. That’s a great starting point, but sometimes you need more information if you want to make good decisions…
There are two more Risk Management processes. You already saw Plan Risk Management. There’s also a Monitoring & Controlling process called Monitor and Control Risks that you use when a risk actually materializes.
project risk management
All four of these Risk Management processes are in the Planning process group—you need to plan for your project’s risks before you start executing the project. ponses All that’s left now is to plan resdec ide you re whe is is to each risk! Th er, nsf tra e, igat mit id, whether to avo or accept... and how you’ll do it!
Perform Quantitative Risk Analysis
You can make better decisions with more precise information. That’s what this process is about—assigning numerical values for the probability and impact of each risk.
Plan Risk Responses
Some teams do Perform Qualitative Risk Analysis first, others start with Perform Quantitative Risk Analysis. Some only do one or the other. Can you think of reasons they might do this? you are here 4 551
identify all risks
What could happen to your project? You can’t plan for risks until you’ve figured out which ones you’re likely to run into. That’s why the next risk management process is Identify Risks. The idea is that you want to figure out every possible risk that might affect your project. Don’t worry about how unlikely the risk is, or how bad the impact would be—you’ll figure that stuff out later.
y cost This will include all of your activit on ati dur y ivit estimates and your act . uts inp estimates, which are also
Cost and Schedule Management Plans
You’ll also need your Stakeholder Register, as well as other Project Documents. You should lo learned fromokp at lessons to see what wenast projects t wrong.
Project Management Plan Risk Management Plan
Organizational Process Assets
Inputs Scope Baseline
Enterprise Environmental Factors
The tools and techniques ar about gathering informatio e all people and making sure it’s n from right.
Identify Risks
The goal of all of the risk planning processes is to produce the risk register. That’s your main weapon against risk.
The risk register is the only output—and it’s the most important part of risk management. It’s a list of all of the risks and some initial ideas about how you’d respond to them. Risk Register
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Information-gathering techniques for Identify Risks You probably already guessed that the goal of Identify Risks is to identify risks— seems pretty obvious, right? And the most important way to identify those risks is to gather information from the team. That’s why the first—and most important— technique in Identify Risks is called Information-Gathering Techniques. These are time-tested and effective ways to get information from your team, stakeholders, and anyone else that might have information on risks.
Four useful information-gathering techniques There are a lot of different ways that you can find risks on your project. But there are only a few that you’re most likely to use—and those are the ones that you will run across on the exam.
The team usually comes up with risks that have to do with Brainstorming is the first thing you building the product, while the should do with your team. Get them all sponsor or someone who would use together in a room, and start pumping product will think about how the out ideas. Brainstorming sessions always end up being difficult to could it have a facilitator to lead the team and use. help turn their ideas into a list of risks. out her, The facilitator is really important—with r goal. clea no with it’s just a disorderly meeting The Delphi technique is a way to get opinions and ideas from experts. This is another technique that uses a facilitator, but instead of gathering team members in a room, they send questionnaires to experts asking about important project risks. The facilitator will take those answers and circulate them all to the experts—but each expert is kept anonymous so that they can give honest feedback.
The Delphi technique is always anonymous. People will give more honest opinions if they know their names won’t be attached to them.
Interviews are a really important part of identifying risk. Try to find everyone who might have an opinion and ask them about what could cause trouble on the project. The sponsor or client will think about the project in a very different way than the project team.
Root cause identification is analyzing each risk and figuring out what’s actually behind it. Even though falling off of the cliff and having your tent blow away are two separate risks, when you take a closer look you might find that they’re both caused by the same thing: high winds, which is the ro
