Foundation Guide For PMP® and CAPM® Page 1€¦ · •Chapter 12 - Project Risk Management...

Foundation Guide For PMP® and CAPM®

PMI is a registered trademark and service mark of the Project Management Institute, Inc.PMP is a registered certification mark of the Project Management Institute, Inc.

PMBOK is a registered trademark of the Project Management Institute, Inc.


Table of Contents

Preface•Chapter 1 - Introduction•Chapter 2 - Project Management Basics•Chapter 3 - Processes grouped as Process Groups•Chapter 4 - Processes grouped as Process Groups•Chapter 5 - Project Integration Management Knowledge Area•Chapter 6 - Project Scope Management Knowledge Area•Chapter 7 - Project Time Management Knowledge Area•Chapter 8 - Project Cost Management Knowledge Area•Chapter 9 - Project Quality Management Knowledge Area•Chapter 10 - Project Human Resources Management Knowledge Area•Chapter 11 - Project Communications Management Knowledge Area•Chapter 12 - Project Risk Management Knowledge Area•Chapter 13 - Project Procurement Management Knowledge Area•Thank You..•


Preface

You've probably found your way to this eBook from my blog, or may be a friend passed it along to you. Either way, I am happy you're here.

Whenever you had to study a 'heavy' book, did you wish for a simpler guide just to get the gist of the subject? Something like a foundation guide, that you could go through and get a handle on the stuff?

I always thought about and looked for such resources whenever I had to study a new subject (that is the reason Wikipedia is so liked).

It was a similar feeling I had when I took up PMBOK® book to study.

And when I was in a position to prepare a foundation guide, there was no time to waste.

(a) seriously preparing for PMP® or CAPM® exam(b) performing the duties of a project manager ("project practitioner") (c) simply curious to know about a systematic way of project management

So here is this eBook in front of you. The very fact that you have decided to read this means that you might be one of these below -

And you will not be disappointed.

This guide, of course, comes to you free of cost. The only goal of this guide is to provide you with a quick and succinct account of PMBOK®. After going through this guide you should be able to save tremendous time and effort on the study of PMBOK® book itself. To make this easier, this book goes through the subject in the same sequence as PMBOK®, as you can see from the Table of Contact.

For all the details of concepts highlighted in this book, do visit www.PMExamSmartNotes.com blog. It will make your PMBOK® study a breeze, I promise!

Note - this is based on 4th edition of PMBOK® guide. Per PMI announcement, one can take certification exam till 31 July 2013 on 4th edition.

Let us jump right in!


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Chapter 1 - Introduction

Introduction

What is a Project?

What can be an earliest example of a wonderfully executed and successfully completed project?

The Great Pyramid of Giza!

It was built more than 4500 years ago.

The accuracy of measurements, precision of placements of 2.3 million blocks of limestone each weighing 50-60 tons to form a structure of 230 meters (756 ft.) of base side each and 146 meters (480 ft.) height - is simply astounding!

Imagine what a humongous task it must have been for the 'project management team' to plan and build a pyramid with none of today's technological advances and mostly with just 'human resources' to depend on?

Yet, pyramids are one the most brilliantly executed projects that have been around for thousands of years!

PMBOK® guide defines a project as..

A Project is a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique Product, Service or Result.

What are the characteristics of a project?

In order to understand the characteristics of a project, let us first look at few scenarios:

Scenario 1-Mammoth Construction Corp is authorized to construct the bridge across river Cruize. It is estimated that they need about 1700 workers, 75 construction machinery, and 14 months to finish the job. The planned start date is January 26, 2014.

Image courtesy: JackVersloot


http://www.flickr.com/photos/jackversloot/2308069568/

to finish the job. The planned start date is January 26, 2014.

Scenario 2-Remington Steels is gearing up to automate its entire steel production system. They plan to announce this in their upcoming shareholders meet, and score brownie points in the press as well. The board has authorized a budget of $2million. It is estimated to achieve the Return on Investment (ROI) in about 6 years time, with benefits of increased throughput for the plant and reduced labor costs.

Scenario 3-ReSearch Inc. is given a task of finding out how students living in rural area are faring in middle school, as compared to students from urban areas, over the past decade. This trend will be the input for upcoming fiscal year's budget to be announced by the Ministry of Education.

What factors, would you say are common in the above three scenarios?

Take a minute and go over them again.

All of them have a definite start date and end date•All of them result in some specific benefits•They are progressively elaborated (which is to say, they are produced in an iterative fashion). Yes, this is not very obvious from the scenarios :)

•

The common factors are -

PMBOK® in a (really small) nutshell

Processes - which are project management activities•Process Groups - a way of grouping processes specific to each logical phase of a project, such as Initiating, Planning, Executing, Monitoring and Controlling, and Closing.

•

Knowledge Areas - a way of grouping these same processes based on the knowledge required to carry them out, such as Cost management, Human Resources management, and Communications management.

•

Broadly, PMBOK® guide consists of -


Communications management.

Figure 1: 5 Process Groups in a Project or Phase

Essentially, project management is all about knowing the processes. And executing them effectively, of course. There are 42 processes defined in PMBOK® guide. And they are grouped into two buckets, sliced and diced.

...which means to say that, each of these 42 processes falls into one of the Process Groups and one of the Knowledge Areas.

As a Project Manager you will need to know about all these processes, what goes into each of the process, what comes out of it, and how do you produce those outputs. Chances are good though, that you may not use all of them on any single project. Sometimes, which processes are used on a project is also governed by the project management policies or practices published by the performing organization.

You will come across this term 'performing organization' in PMBOK®, which basically refers to the organization that is executing the project.

Anatomy of a Process

Inputs (what goes in)•

Tools and Techniques (that gets applied over the inputs)

Each process has certain -


Tools and Techniques (that gets applied over the inputs)•

Outputs (what gets produced)•

Think of it like the classic hand-operated sugarcane juice extracting machine!

These are collectively called as 'ITTOs' of a process -

Figure 2: ITTOs of a Process


Process Groups Explained

There are 5 Process Groups in PMBOK® guide. They are logically sequenced. Each one consists of a bunch of processes. The following figure shows how process groups are related, using a simple example -

Figure 3: Process groups, and their interaction

What is a Constraint

A constraint can be any blocker that can potentially trouble a project in reaching its goal.

There are six types of constraints for a Project Manager to address. If these are managed well the project will be a surefire success. And this is where all the challenge is!


Figure 4: Six constraints of a project

What is Project Management

From your experience as a project manager you would know that project management feels like more of a perfected art than science. There are several constraints involved and they may pose risks to any degree at any given point in time.

A project manager needs to bring into effect her knowledge, performance and personal behavioral skills to manage these constraints.

Project management is, then, the application of knowledge, skills and tools in order to achieve objectives of stakeholders while effectively handling the constraints such as scope, quality, schedule, budget, resources and risks.

Thankfully, PMBOK® guide pulls all the tools and techniques together for you to be able to achieve success in your project.


Chapter 2 - Project Management Basics

Project Management Basics

Project, Program and Portfolio

ProjectAs we saw in the previous chapter, a Project is a temporary endeavor undertaken, with a specific start and end date, with an expected outcome of a Product, Service or Result.

ProgramProgram is a collection of related projects that are dependent on each other.

Here's an example. XYZ Construction Company runs a Program for building a township. This township consists of luxury apartments project, low cost single-family house project, and a commercial offices project.

Figure 1: A program may have one or more projects

Portfolio

A portfolio is a collection of projects or programs managed together in order to gain a business benefit.

These programs or projects may or may not be related.

Here's an example. A clothing firm runs a Portfolio that serves strategic goals of improving the effectiveness of IT, introducing new brand of teen-clothing, reducing inventory costs, and increasing user satisfaction.


Figure 2: A portfolio will address strategic goals of the organization

Couple of points to remember the differences between the 3Ps (Project, Program, Portfolio):

Project Program Portfolio

Unique Benefit Related projects, shared benefit Achieves a business objective

{project1} {project-1, project-2,...project-X} {project-1.. project-X; program-1...program-Y}

Project Constraints

We saw earlier that a constraint can be a blocker on a project that can potentially create trouble for it to achieve one of the goals.

Figure 3: The 6 project constraints

Some examples of how constraints are related -

If necessary resources are not available, time to deliver will increase. This may also increase project cost, because alternate resources if available, may be more expensive than planned.

•

If QA team finds that quality of deliverables is going bad, more resources may be required. This • Foundation Guide For PMP® and CAPM®

If QA team finds that quality of deliverables is going bad, more resources may be required. This increases the cost (additional resources) and effort to fix the faulty deliverables. This will also increase the time to deliver.

•

If scope creep happens on the project, it will result in increased time, cost, resources and potentially reduced quality. And thus increased risk on delivery.

•

Managing 6 constraints will test the mettle of project manager. But do not worry, with the knowledge of PMBOK® processes and some support from your organization (PMO), managing these constraints should be a challenge that you enjoy.

Different types of managers in an organization

It is essential to be able to recognize the duties of a Project Manager as compared to other types of managers that work in an organization. That is to say, to know the differences between Functional Manager (FM), Operations Manager (OM) and Project Manager (PM). Knowing this will help you understand if/when your duties are overlapping that of FM or OM.

Functional Manager is responsible for a specific function of an organization, such as Finance, Customer Success, Sales, or Human Resources.

Figure 4: Organizational structure of a Functional Organization

Operations is an 'ongoing' activity of an organization, and an Operations Manager manages them. For instance, IT team of a company manages IT Operations. A catering service serving food to patients in a hospital - is another example of Operations.

What are the differences between these 3 types of managers

The figure below explains it. Also notice how a project is dependent on functional manager and operations manager -


Figure 5: Three types of managers in an organization

Characteristics of a Project Manager

Three fundamental characteristics of an effective project manager are -

Knowledge: What do you know about your job...•Performance: How do you put that to use...•Personal skills: How do you deal with people involved while doing it...•

Enterprise Environmental Factors

Every organization has an environment that can greatly influence - positively or negatively - the way projects are managed and their outcome.

EEO can be segregated into internal and external factors -


Figure 6: Enterprise Environmental Factors

Certain projects get impacted by external factors such as government standards. For instance, a automobile manufacturing company needs to adhere to certain emission standards set by the government. A healthcare management system of a hospital maintaining patients' data has to comply with HIPAA compliance standards.

Some types of projects do not get impacted as much (such as a web based software product to help manage students information in a university).

Organizational Process Assets

'Assets' by definition are things of value that people or companies own.

Lessons learnt from earlier projects•Templates, policies, standard operating procedures•Risk register•

As a project manager, you will save lot of time and get a head-start by looking into your organization's existing Organizational Process Assets (OPA). As project progresses you will log all the lessons you are learning into company's knowledge repository, thus building the OPA further. This will be useful for other project managers and project management teams in the company.

In the context of a project these are the assets created and managed by organizations, such as -

Stakeholders

PMBOK® defines Stakeholder 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."

Negatively affected? Foundation Guide For PMP® and CAPM®

Negatively affected?

If someone's interest is negatively affected by the project - they may try to disrupt the project. The project manager needs to figure out who are those, study their interests and understand how can she make them a 'convert'. If she can make them feel comfortable about the project, better still address their concerns, they become project's biggest supporters! And a good word from them may help the project manager at unexpected times.

Project manager's job is not complete once she figure out the stakeholders. Stakeholders change!

Stakeholders can change as project progresses. Remember that a project is 'progressively elaborated'. What you set out to do in the first place, may (mostly will) change to certain extent as project continues. And when that happens a different set of people may now be impacted by the project outcome and they become the stakeholders.

The discotheque coming up next to your house has decided to offer valet parking to its guests in order to attract more customers. And the staff starts parking cars on the nearby residential streets, taking away the convenience of people to park cars in front of their houses. Now you have the entire neighborhood as stakeholders in the discotheque project.

Project manager needs to keep a regular check on the stakeholder list and update as project progresses.

Project Phases

Do all projects have single sequence of these process groups?

Not really.

Overlapping phases of a projectThe example below shows how phases of a project can overlap.

Imagine that you are building your dream house. Your first 'phase' of work would be to get the blueprint done, figuring out vendors for building materials, choosing a builder, choosing colors for walls, tiles etc. However as soon as you have figured out the blueprint and builder you can start building the foundation of your house. Similarly, you can start building first floor as soon as structure of ground floor is complete. While interiors of the house are underway, you can start on the landscaping around the house.


Figure 7: Most of the projects will have overlapping phases

Sequenced phases of a projectIn the above example, you would not start painting the walls until plastering work is all complete. Or you would not set up furniture and lighting fixtures until all painting work is complete. In such cases you would sequence the phases.

Figure 8: A project can have sequential phases

Iterative phases of a project Foundation Guide For PMP® and CAPM®

Iterative phases of a projectConsider Agile software development practice. The product is released to production over few release cycles. Each release consists of few smaller (4-6 weeks, typically) iterations. Each release of a product comes out in a span of few months, and then the next phase of the product development starts.

Organizational Structure

Functional•Matrixed•Projectized•

There are 3 types of organizational structure that a project manager will work under:

Figure 2: Functional, Matrix and Projectized organizations

Matrixed organization type can have three variations, based on the extent to which control and power over project resources and decision lie with Functional manager or Project manager.

On the exam, unless otherwise the question indicates clearly we need to assume the set up to be matrix organization.

Functional organization will give least authority and responsibility to project manager (they may be even called as project expediter) and Projectized organization will give complete control over all aspects of the project to the project manager.

Further References

You can find detailed understanding of above points of Project management basics, by clicking here.


http://www.pmexamsmartnotes.com/category/basics/

Chapter 3 - Processes grouped as Process Groups

Processes grouped as Process Groups

Each process is grouped under two categories - Process Groups and Knowledge Areas. Which means that you will find a process under a specific Process Groups as well as a Knowledge Area.

A project or a phase requires to be initiated, planned, executed, monitored and controlled and finally closed. Processes falling in each of these are grouped under a process group.

There are 5 Process Groups, and they are -

Initiating •

Planning •

Executing •

Monitoring & Controlling •

Closing •

This series of mind maps show which of the 42 processes make into each of these process groups. Corresponding knowledge area is indicated below each process.

Know that these processes have a logical connection across knowledge area, so try to focus on that, rather than trying to remember the processes. Eventually you will find it much easier to recall.

Here we go.

Initiating Process Group - has 2 processes:


Figure 1: Processes with their inputs and outputs in Initiating process group

Planning Process Group - has 20 processes:


Figure 2: Processes with their inputs and outputs in Planning process group

Executing Process Group - has 8 processes:


Figure 3: Processes with their inputs and outputs in Executing process group

Monitoring & Controlling Process Group - has 10 processes:


Figure 4: Processes with their inputs and outputs in Monitoring and Controlling process group

Closing Process Group - has 2 processes:


Figure 5: Processes with their inputs and outputs in Closing process group

In the next chapter we shall see how these processes are grouped under knowledge areas.


Chapter 4 - Processes grouped as Process Groups

Processes grouped as Knowledge Areas

Each of the 42 processes are grouped under Knowledge Areas.

What is a knowledge area?

Managing a project requires knowledge in different areas such as Risk management, Human Resources management, Cost management. The processes required in each of them are simply grouped under a specific knowledge area.

There are 9 Knowledge Areas, and they are -

Integration (The overall 'How')•

Scope (What is to be produced?)•

Time (By when?)•

Cost (What is the price?)•

Quality (Does it meet stakeholder expectations?)•

Human Resources (People. Period.)•

Communications (Who should know what?)•

Risk (What may go wrong?)•

Procurement (Who else can do what my team cannot?)•

The mind map below should help you understand and remember these knowledge areas. The chapters are given in the order of Knowledge Areas, just as given in the PMBOK® guide. Each of the chapter starts with a mind map for that knowledge area, showing all the processes, their Inputs, Tools and Techniques and the Outputs (ITTOs).


Figure 1: The 9 Project Management Knowledge Areas

The mind map below makes it easier to understand which processes are part of which knowledge areas. The numbers against the knowledge area map to those given in PMBOK® guide to make it simpler to correlate.

The mnemonic (memory aid) in the image helps one to remember these knowledge areas in the same sequence as they appear in PMBOK® - "Integrating Scope and Time will Cost our Quality Human Resources to Communicate with a Risk of Procuring knowledge".

Sillier or weirder the mnemonic is, easier it is for the mind to remember. That is the trick. So go ahead and try to create your own that you can remember easily.


PMBOK® guide aligns its chapters along knowledge areas rather than process groups. This guide, as well as PMExamSmartNotes.com blog, does the same so you will find it easier to alternate your study between PMBOK® and the blog notes.


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Chapter 5 - Project Integration Management Knowledge Area

Project Integration Management Knowledge Area

Image courtesy: Vezzel.com

Integration knowledge area contains processes that are like backbone of project management. Spending enough time on this knowledge area to understand the nuances is worth every bit of the effort.

Spend some time on the image below that shows the 6 processes of Integration management knowledge area. It also shows the inputs, tools & techniques and outputs of each of these processes and how they are connected to each other. Note that these processes spread across from Initiating to Closing process group. Process groups are indicated in the yellow labels below the process names.


http://www.veezzle.com/photo/179157/east-meets-west-2

Figure 1: Integration management processes and ITTOs

You can download a better and bigger version of this image from this blog post.

Develop Project Charter process

…this process creates the Project charter, which formally authorizes you as a Project Manager to work on this project. It also documents, at a high level, what customer wants. It will have other information such as high level milestone dates and any foreseen constraints.

Project Statement of Work - one of the initial documents created on the project. Provides high level business needs of the customer that the output of this project is supposed to fulfill.

•

Business case - prepared by the performing organization. This is the document that showcases how does undertaking this project would benefit the performing organization.

•

Contract - a legal document between seller (performing organization) and buyer (customer). It outlines the terms and conditions, compensation details and disclaimers.

•

The primary inputs to this process are -


http://www.pmexamsmartnotes.com/project-integration-management-knowledge-area/

Develop Project Management Plan process

Procurement management plan, •Risk management plan, •Communication management plan, •Human Resource management plan•

...is very important one. Inputs to this process are the subsidiary plans such as -

Cost performance baseline, •Scope baseline, •Schedule baseline•

The Project management plan contains the following baselines (apart from the above subsidiary plans) such as -

Direct and Manage Project Execution process

...is the process where project work as defined in the project management plan is carried out.The primary inputs are approved change requests and project management plan (of course!).

This process produces project deliverables, information about how the work is being performed, and the change requests, amongst others.

Monitor and Control Project Work process

...is responsible to figure out whether everything is on course. Whether deliverables meet the quality requirements. Whether costs are within threshold limits. Whether team members are happy and doing their work well.

The primary inputs required are project management plan, and performance reports on the work being carried out. Change requests (bugs, errors, customer requested changes) are definitely what one can expect this process to produce.

Perform Integrated Change Control process

...comes into play whenever something needs to change. For instance, if you find that quality control activities are not efficient enough, you analyze and document what needs to be changed, run the change request through change control board (CCB) and get it approved. Even project management plan may get changed based on project progress. All changes to baselined documents are done using this process.


By now you would have figured out that pretty much all the processes from Integration Management knowledge area require one input - the project management plan. Apart from it this process requires work performance reports, change request and help from enterprise environmental factors and organizational process assets.

Close Project or Phase process

...is where you complete the scheduled work, deliver it to the customer and formally close a project or phase of a project. You will also document the lessons learned during the project into Organizational Process Assets.

Inputs needed are the project management plan and completed deliverables, apart from organizational process assets that the project (or phase) has created. The output, of course, is what delights the customer - the final product, service or result.

Further References

You can find detailed understanding of above processes in Project Integration Management knowledge area, by clicking here.


http://www.pmexamsmartnotes.com/category/integration/

http://www.pmexamsmartnotes.com/category/integration/

Chapter 6 - Project Scope Management Knowledge Area

Project Scope Management Knowledge Area

Image courtesy: widakso

Have you had or overheard this kind of a conversation?

Steve's team is building a Hotel Management software. Maggie submitted her software program that took care of guest registration when they arrive at the reception. Beth from the testing team took it up for testing and rejected it. Reason? Maggie did not implement the feature that a different rate card is applicable for arriving guest who is a Club member.

"Different rate card? Where is this requirement written?" Maggie said in disbelief.

"I don’t know where is it written, but it was mentioned by someone during the Requirement Clarification meeting with customer last month", was Beth's reply.

"If it is not in the Use-case," said Maggie, "it doesn’t get into the code".

"Hey, Special Guests Management use-case captures user registration but I am not sure if it talks about the rate card", said Anil, a fellow developer.


http://www.flickr.com/photos/widakso/2459855222/

about the rate card", said Anil, a fellow developer.

"Then it is not part of the scope", said Maggie.

Beth shook her head.

So did Steve, the project manager, realizing that he had a problem on his hands. Requirements were not documented and detailed properly, in spite of him conducting regular Requirement Clarification meetings with the customer.

PMBOK® defines Project Scope Management knowledge area as consisting of "processes required to ensure that the project includes all the work required, and only the work required, to complete the project successfully".

"only the work required" - this is very important. In my own experience, we had to pay dearly for over-enthusiasm shown by developer (in one of the instances, I being the one) by adding functionality that was 'cool' but was not documented in requirements. Problems such as Gold plating and Scope creep in such cases can hurt team's schedule, productivity and quality quite badly.

Why do these happen?

That is what Project Scope Management processes talk about, and helps one to avoid those pitfalls.

Scope management knowledge area has 5 processes. Here is a quick look at all the processes, including the process groups they belong to, how they are related, and their ITTOs.


Figure 1: Processes and their interactions in Scope Management Knowledge Area


Before we go into the processes, let us look at couple of concepts -

Project Scope Versus Product Scope

Scope of a Product refers to the features, characteristics and functions of the product, service or result.

Project scope refers to all the needs to be addressed in order to create the product, service or result mentioned above.

Gold plating Versus Scope Creep

Gold plating happens when one or more team members introduce functionality or features that is Foundation Guide For PMP® and CAPM®

http://www.pmexamsmartnotes.com/project-scope-management-knowledge-area/

Gold plating happens when one or more team members introduce functionality or features that is not scoped in the requirements documents, because they consider it to be useful to customer or end users. Since customer did not ask for these features, she may end up asking the team to remove them from deliverables, which may cost more time, effort and resources.

Scope Creep happens when team agrees to introduce a 'small' feature request that customer makes. And soon enough it snow balls into something really big. Since it was not planned initially, such changes will end up taking lot of effort, time and resources there by, potentially, impacting one or more project constraints.

Now, the processes..

Collect Requirements process

Unclear goals and objectives that change during the project (Coverdale Organization research)•Incomplete requirements (Chaos Report)•Poor articulation of user requirements (OASIG Study)•

Ulad Shauchenka analyzed various failed projects and wrote the book 'Why Projects Fail'. He writes about some of the findings from research surveys. Three out of five research findings have reasons related to requirements -

How do you identify and document what customer wants? This process answers this question with some neat tools and techniques.

Only inputs for this process are project charter document and stakeholder register. Project charter is required as it contains the high level business needs to refer to. Stakeholder register is required in order to know whom to talk to and document the requirements.

There are quite a few tools and techniques for this process including - interviews, focus groups, facilitated workshops, group creativity techniques, group decision making techniques, questionnaires and surveys, observations and prototypes.

This process produces requirements documents, requirement management plan, and traceability matrix.

What is Requirements Management PlanIt is important to outline which of the tools and techniques of this process are used for the current project while documenting requirements. It is also necessary to outline how they are analyzed, documented, how changes are authorized, managed and communicated throughout the project.

If project is planned to be done in phases, the relationship between phases also determines how requirements are managed. The level of detailing might be less if phases are iterative, than if phases are sequential.


http://whyprojectsfailbook.com/toc/reasons-for-project-failure/

All this information is captured in this document called requirements management plan. This document also captures the process by which requirements are prioritized, and the traceability structure.

What is Requirements Traceability Matrix (RTM)RTM is the way in which baselined requirements are linked across different baselined data, such as use case, design, test plan and test case. This document ensures that various activities of the project work fulfill the business needs, and that none of the business needs go missing from implementation.

Figure 3: Sample Requirements Traceability Matrix

A sample requirements traceability matrix would be -

Define Scope process

Once you know customer's needs, this process helps you add clarity to project and product requirements.

Primary inputs for this process are project charter and requirements documentation.

Tools and Techniques contain expert judgment, product analysis, alternative identification and facilitated workshops.

Primary output of this process, as evident, is the Project scope statement.

Create WBS process

WBS stands for Work Breakdown Structure. This process is all about breaking down the work packages into activities that are easily managed, tracked and implemented.

Inputs of this process are quite logical - project scope statement and requirements documentation.


There is only one tool and technique - Decomposition.

Remember that Scope baseline itself contains WBS, WBS dictionary and Project scope statement.

No surprise on the outputs - WBS, WBS dictionary and scope baseline.

Before we move on, let us look at an interesting rule called 100% rule.

What is 100% rule?A completed WBS represents all the deliverables of the project - including the outcome of project management activities, such as documents and plans. If you are at the leaf node of the structure (one that does not have further child nodes) and roll up all of the nodes into their parent, and roll up parents into their parents, till all the way up - it would cover ALL of the work that project team ever does. Hence this technique ensures that team does only requirements related work, nothing more, nothing less. This is called '100% rule'.

Figure 2: Sample WBS using major deliverables

An example of WBS is -

Verify Scope process

When a deliverable is completed, you will have to verify them against documented requirements. How to do that is outlined in this process.

Close your eyes for a moment and think of things that are required to verify deliverables. Remember, you need to verify whether deliverables are produced as per the documented requirements.

Completed deliverables. Of course. Requirements documentation. Yes. Requirements traceability matrix. Perfect. And? Project management plan. In specific, the scope baseline from it. These are the process inputs.

Tools and techniques - just one. Again, anybody's guess. Inspection. Foundation Guide For PMP® and CAPM®

Tools and techniques - just one. Again, anybody's guess. Inspection.

Outputs - accepted deliverables, change requests (when deliverables are not matching requirements), and changes to project documents.

Control Scope process

This is a crucial process. In a nutshell, this is about managing changes to scope baseline. Controlling scope is a course-correction exercise to ensure that team produces only what customer wants, nothing more or less. This is where change requests are generated too.

This process is sort of building upon previous one. So deriving the ITTOs in a similar manner will yield the following:

Inputs - project management plan, work performance information, requirements documents, requirement traceability matrix, organizational process assets.

Tools and techniques - variance analysis.

Outputs - work performance measurements, organizational process assets updates, change requests, project management plan updates, project documents updates.

You would have noticed that monitoring and controlling processes usually end up updating documents and plans. Each time we critically look at something, we discover areas to improve. Keeping this in mind will also help you recall the process outputs.

Further References

You can find detailed understanding of above processes in Project Scope Management knowledge area, by clicking here.


http://www.pmexamsmartnotes.com/category/scope/

http://www.pmexamsmartnotes.com/category/scope/

Chapter 7 - Project Time Management Knowledge Area

Project Time Management Knowledge Area

Image courtesy: briandeadly

What is that one thing that you, as a project manager, would not have most of the time?

Time!

Customer always wants things as of yesterday. There are always deadlines and a mad rush to get things 'out of the door' as soon as possible.

Indeed.

Figuring out the tasks, which tasks are to be done first and which ones are done later, who is best suited to work on them, how long will they take, how to ensure that time is not wasted between tasks, how do you pull things back when tasks are delayed… these are all things on your mind when you manage a project.

Project Time Management Knowledge Area has answer to this chaos. PMBOK® guide has defined processes that systematically help you do all the above things. In fact there is a process for every Foundation Guide For PMP® and CAPM®

http://www.flickr.com/photos/briandeadly/7322605322/

processes that systematically help you do all the above things. In fact there is a process for every one of these. Re-read the above paragraph from PMBOK®'s perspective -

"Figuring out the tasks (define activities), which tasks are to be done first and which ones are done later (sequence activities), who is best suited to work on them (estimate activity resources), how long will they take (estimate activity durations), how to ensure that time is not wasted between tasks (develop schedule), how do you pull things back when a task is delayed (control schedule)… these are all things on your mind when you manage a project."

Exam pointer> Exam requires you to remember the sequence of these processes. They follow a logical sequence, so it should be easy to remember them.

Although PMBOK® guide defines each of these steps as a separate process, in most of the smaller projects these can be done by one of two people in a short time.

Here is a look at the mind map showing 6 processes of Time management knowledge area -


Figure 1: ITTOs of Time Management processes



Define Activities process

..is the process to identify specific tasks that produce deliverables.

The primary input for this process is the scope baseline. Recall from previous chapter that scope baseline contains WBS, WBS dictionary and Project scope document.

Tools and Techniques available to define activities are - decomposition, rolling wave planning, templates and expert judgment.

The primary output of course is the list of activities, and corresponding activity attributes (similar to WBS and WBS attributes from Create WBS process). We also define list of milestones as the other output of this process.

Here is a sample activity list -

Figure 2: Activity list of John's building project

Sequence Activities process

..is the process to identify how these tasks are related to each other.

This is the next logical process, as you can imagine. So the outputs of Define Activities process must go in as inputs of this process. Apart from these, project scope statement is referred to get proper understanding of the activities and their dependencies. Organizational process assets, as seen in many of the processes, give project manager a head start.


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The tools and techniques of this process are pretty important and useful in sequencing activities. The primary method is called Precedence Diagramming Method (PDM) or Activity On Node (AON). Dependency determination, applying leads and lags and schedule network templates are other possible tools and techniques one can use.

Main output of this process is project schedule network diagrams.

In the context of Precedence Diagramming Method, four types of dependency relationships between activities are as below -

Finish-to-Start (FS) - predecessor activity should finish, for the successor activity to start.•

This is the most commonly used dependency relationship.○

Example: Finalizes house blueprint activity should finish, for the Mark footprint activity tostart.

○

Figure 3: Example of Finish-to-Start dependency relationship

Finish-to-Finish (FF) - predecessor activity should finish, for the successor activity to finish. This also means that sometimes both activities may finish together.

•

Example: John need not wait for the planning of lighting fixtures to complete, in order to start procuring them. But planning should be completed for the procuring activity to complete. Because there is no meaning for its planning to continue even after buying the light fixtures.

○

Figure 4: Example of Finish-to-Finish dependency relationship


Start-to-Start (SS) - predecessor activity should have started, for the successor activity to start.•

Example: if there is time or resource constraint, John can start digging earth as soon as some amount of footprint is marked, without waiting for it to complete.

○

Figure 5: Example of Start-to-Start dependency relationship

Start-to-Finish (SF) - predecessor activity should have started, for the successor activity to finish.

•

Example: the contractor telling John "You start paying me first and then the work will be completed!" - would be an example for start-to-finish. :-)

○

On a serious note though - the plumbing work cannot finish, until fixing of bath fittings has started. This is a bit tricky and rarely used dependency relationship.○

Figure 6: Example of Start-to-Finish dependency relationship

Estimate Activity Resources process

..is the process to figure out all resources (people, servers, machinery, tools, equipment) required for the tasks.

In order to estimate activity resources we need, firstly, the activity list and their attribute list as inputs. These are the output from the previous process. Apart from these we need the resource calendar to determine which resource is available during what time. Foundation Guide For PMP® and CAPM®

calendar to determine which resource is available during what time.

Note that the risks (one of knowledge area) are identified throughout the project phase. And they can be discovered while performing any of the processes. This process is no different. For instance, if earth-moving equipment might be engaged with another project when it is required, a risk element is discovered and added to the risk register.

Coming back to this process, there are quite a few tools and techniques for Estimate Activity Resources process - expert judgment, alternative analysis, published estimating data, bottom-up estimating, and of course as most of us have used, project management software.

Primary output, as the process name indicates, is activity resource requirements document and resource breakdown structure (RBS). Note that RBS is pretty similar to WBS.

Estimate Activity Durations process

..is the process to estimate how long each of the tasks take to complete.

Note that Duration is in calendar days (or hours, weeks - the unit of work chosen for the activity), and not raw effort like person-days.

Inputs are all that you saw in previous processes - activity list, activity attributes, activity resource requirements, resource calendars, project scope statement, and the famous two - enterprise environmental factors and organizational process assets.

Tools and Techniques include expert judgment, analogous estimating, parametric estimating, three-point estimates (a technique from PERT analysis) and reserve analysis.

Main output.. Activity duration estimates.

Develop Schedule process

..is the process to make use of outputs from above processes together and come up with a schedule, which can be tracked to ensure that all tasks are completed on time. Know that developing schedule is an iterative process, and even maintaining it throughout the project will entail changes to it.

Primary inputs - activity list, activity list attributes, project schedule network diagrams, activity resource requirements, resource calendars, activity duration estimates, project scope statement.Then the famous two - organizational process assets and enterprise environmental factors.

Tools and techniques - schedule network analysis, critical path method, critical chain method, Foundation Guide For PMP® and CAPM®

Tools and techniques - schedule network analysis, critical path method, critical chain method, resource leveling, what-if scenario analysis, applying leads and lags, schedule compression and scheduling tool.

Outputs - project schedule, schedule baseline, schedule data, and project document updates.

Why is schedule compression required while developing schedule?Schedule crashing and fast tracking are two methods to compress schedule. You might be thinking as to why are these required while developing schedule for the first time. No, you will not need. But then, you will notice that there is no difference between creating schedule for the first time versus updating later. Developing schedule is an iterative process and before it can be baselined for the first time, a schedule will undergo several updates. And during this you would be using schedule compression techniques.

Control Schedule process

..is the process to figure out what to do when things go wrong with schedule, and how to bring them back on track. It is also about identifying those factors that cause the schedule to change and influencing them.

This process is also part of Perform Integrated Change Control process. As a thumb rule, whenever there is a change to the baselined document (any of the subsidiary plans, baselines or project management plan) Perform Integrated Change Control process comes into play.

The inputs are project management plan, project schedule, work performance information and organizational process assets.

There are a bunch of tools and techniques coming into play in Control Schedule process -Performance reviews, variance analysis, project management software, resource leveling, what-if scenario analysis, applying leads and lags, schedule compression, scheduling tool.You might notice that some of these have been part of Develop Schedule process.

Outputs - project schedule, schedule baseline, schedule data, project document updates

Further References

You can find detailed understanding of above processes in Project Time Management knowledge area, by clicking here.


http://www.pmexamsmartnotes.com/category/time/

http://www.pmexamsmartnotes.com/category/time/

Chapter 8 - Project Cost Management Knowledge Area

Project Cost Management Knowledge Area

“Money often costs too much.”– Ralph Waldo Emerson

Sydney Opera House is built on 4.5 acres of land, is 183 m long, 120 m wide and is supported on 588 concrete piers sunk as much as 25 m below sea level! Construction was started in March 1959, with an estimated cost of $7 million and estimated completion date of January 1963.

An ambitious and grand project indeed.

When the project was completed, it had cost $103 million and 10 years of delay.

A budget overrun of 14 times the original estimate!

A mind map capturing 3 processes of Cost management knowledge area is below -

Image courtesy - Wikipedia


Figure 1: Processes and their interaction in Project Cost Management Knowledge Area


The three processes of this knowledge area are -

Estimate Costs process

This is the process to look at all activities of the project, their duration and estimates and do the costing.

This is one important process for a project manager to get it right. You can imagine that a bunch of inputs as well as tools and techniques would come into play.

Primary inputs - scope baseline, project schedule, human resource plan and risk register.Tools and Techniques - expert judgment, analogous estimating, parametric estimating, bottom-up estimating, three-point estimates, reserve analysis, cost of quality, project management software and vendor bid analysis.Primary outputs - activity cost estimates and basis of estimates. Foundation Guide For PMP® and CAPM®

http://www.pmexamsmartnotes.com/project-cost-management-knowledge-area/

Primary outputs - activity cost estimates and basis of estimates.

Note: Detailing of these tools and techniques as well as inputs and outputs (ITTOs) are out of scope for this crash guide. Follow the link at the end of this chapter to detailed explanation of these.

Determine Budget process

This is the process to figure out the monitory needs to be taken care of, based on the cost estimates.

First let us see what is management reserve.

Although you plan for all possible activities on the project, identify their costs and prepare a budget for them - it does not mean that things cannot go wrong afterwards! Things can go wrong, and in many cases they will. That is why management keeps a reserve amount for contingencies. This is called management reserve.

Primary inputs - activity cost estimates, basis of estimates (reasoning for the estimates), scope baseline (WBS, WBS dictionary, project scope statement), project schedule, resource calendars (to get cost of resources), contracts (how much does it cost to out-source some of the work?).

Tools and techniques - cost aggregation (roll up estimates from WBS from lowest level upwards), reserve analysis (look at contingency and management reserves), expert judgment, historical relationships (model on similar earlier projects), and funding limit reconciliation.

Outputs - cost performance baseline (BAC-budget at completion), project funding requirements (quarterly and/or annual), project document updates (such as risk register and project schedule).

Control Costs process

This is the process that allows monitoring expenses and having a control over how, when and how much the scheduled budget is spent.

A quick look at ITTOs for the process -


Figure 2: ITTOs of Control Costs process

Earned value management (EVM) calculations are commonly used method of performance measurement.

This method takes into consideration all the three baselines - cost, scope and schedule. Planned value (PV), earned value (EV), actual cost (AC) are parameters that can be measured on periodic or cumulative basis, schedule variance (SV) and cost variances (CV) are variance measurements, while schedule performance index (SPI) and cost performance index (CPI) are efficiency indicators, and estimate at completion (EAC), budget at completion (BAC), estimate to complete (ETC) are forecasting measures.

Further References

You can find detailed understanding of above processes in Project Cost Management knowledge area, by clicking here.


http://www.pmexamsmartnotes.com/category/cost/

http://www.pmexamsmartnotes.com/category/cost/

Chapter 9 - Project Quality Management Knowledge Area

Project Quality Management Knowledge Area

Peter Drucker-

“Quality in a service or product is not what you put into it. It is what the client or customer gets out of it.”

Image courtesy: lydia_shiningbrightly

The simplest definition of Quality, given by 'Quality Guru' Joseph Juran is "fitness for intended use".

Quality processes ensure that the project deliverables meet requirements given by customer.

Take a look at the mind map of Quality Management processes -


http://www.flickr.com/photos/lydiashiningbrightly/5821211033/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_M._Juran

Figure 1: Three processes of Project Quality Management Knowledge Area


Before we move on to the processes let us look at few concepts used in the Quality management knowledge area.

Cost of quality (CoQ)

CoQ is the sum of these two - Foundation Guide For PMP® and CAPM®

http://www.pmexamsmartnotes.com/project-quality-management-knowledge-area/

Cost of conformance - all the money you spend in setting up testing process, training people, and actually spending time in testing deliverables

•

Cost of non-conformance - the money you spend in repair, rework, scrap, defective product recalls

•

CoQ is the sum of these two -

Quality versus Grade

Quality of a product is a measure of how closely it matches its intended purpose.

Consider an example - two carpenters are given specifications for a table. First specification has a very fine design, with carved legs and flower pattern on the surface of the table. The other specification has a bland design with four straight legs and a plain sheet of wood as its surface. First one is intended to be used as a dining table at an upscale restaurant and second table is intended to be used for cutting vegetables in its kitchen.

When these tables are made, if they match their specifications pretty well - then both of them are said to be of good quality.

Now, you being a connoisseur of art, would like the first table, with all its exquisite carvings and fine finish, much better than the second one. For you then the first table is of higher grade, while the second table with its bland table is of low grade.

On the other hand, let us say that the first carpenter did not read specifications properly and instead of flower design on the table surface he carved a beautiful leafy design that he is familiar with. It was well executed and had fine finish. For you it might still be of higher grade table than the second table, but the first table is of low quality now - because it did not match up to the requirements.

Hence, Grade can be understood as a measure of value that people put on a product.

Let us look at one more example - which of these two television would you like - 42 inch LED 3D TV or the good old CRT television of 80's?

If you opted for LED TV, you probably chose it over the CRT TV because of its superior grade. That makes CRT TV of low grade. However if you were the first ones to receive CRT TV when it was first introduced, you would choose it due to its superior grade - at that point in time. So, grade is a measure of value people place on the product.

Precision versus Accuracy

Few years ago I was at customer location at Phoenix, AZ and a bunch of friends decided to explore San Diego over the long weekend. We speculated the distance on our own (before referring to Google maps) and one of my friends said that the distance is exactly 423 miles. The other friend estimated the distance to be somewhere between 350 to 370 miles. Foundation Guide For PMP® and CAPM®

estimated the distance to be somewhere between 350 to 370 miles.

I had no idea of the distance. Which of the answers do you think I believed?

I thought the precise estimate of 423 miles is the right answer. But actual distance was 355 miles, pretty close to the answer given by the other friend!

While the former answer of 423 miles was precise, latter answer was more accurate.

Let us look at another example.

Let us say you are aiming for the bulls eye, 5 shots at a time. On your first attempt of 5 shots you got something like this -

Figure 2: Precise but not accurate

On your second attempt of 5 shots, it looked something like this -

Figure 3: Accurate but not precise

You would be precise in the first attempt but not accurate, and you would be accurate in the second attempt but not precise.

Imagine how would it look if you were both precise and accurate. :) Foundation Guide For PMP® and CAPM®

Imagine how would it look if you were both precise and accurate. :)

Accuracy refers to how far you are from the true value, Precision refers to how close do you get to the same value if you repeated the exercise several times.

There are 3 processes in Project Quality Management knowledge area -

Now, the processes..

Plan Quality process

..is to come up with a quality management plan that talks about quality standards to follow and procedures to use in order to ensure that outcome of project and product meets documented requirements.

Inputs for this process include scope baseline, stakeholder register, cost performance baseline, schedule baseline and risk register.

There are a buuuunch of tools and techniques, which are detailed in www.PMExamSmartNotes.comblog. A quick listing of them is - cost-benefit analysis, cost of quality, control charts, benchmarking, design of experiments, statistical sampling, flowcharting, proprietary quality management methodologies and few more additional quality management tools.

Main outputs include quality management plan, quality metrics and quality checklists.

Perform Quality Assurance process

..is to look at how your project's quality activities fit in overall organization's quality framework and guidelines.

Project management plan, quality metrics, work performance information (such as status of deliverables, schedule progress and incurred costs), and quality control measurements are the inputs required for this process.

The tools and techniques from Plan Quality and Perform Quality Control processes, quality audits and process analysis are the tools and techniques.

Change requests are discovered during this process, which are the output of this process along with updates to organization process assets, project documents and project management plan.

Perform Quality Control process



..is about actually looking at the deliverables and making sure they comply with requirements. This is where you will see defects getting logged and change requests being raised. This is also the place where the reality hits hard and we realize that prevention is better than cure!

Figure 3: ITTOs for Perform Quality Control process

The cause and effect diagram is also called fish-bone diagram or Ishikawa diagram. It helps you plot all the possible causes for a particular (d)effect. The diagram looks like a fishbone.

•

Control chart helps you observe a process over a period of time and helps identify if and when a process goes out of control. This is done by looking at plotted values to be between defined control limits.

•

Pareto chart is based on Pareto's 80-20 principle, whereby 80% of the problems are due to 20% of causes.

•

Run chart is used to plot trends of behaviour of a process under consideration.•Scatter diagram shows the relationship between two process variables. •From exam perspective, usually it is enough to know these tools, you need not use them to solve any exam problem.

•

Notes -

Further References Foundation Guide For PMP® and CAPM®

Further References

You can find detailed understanding of above processes in Project Quality Management knowledge area, by clicking here.


http://www.pmexamsmartnotes.com/category/quality/

http://www.pmexamsmartnotes.com/category/quality/

Chapter 10 - Project Human Resources Management Knowledge Area

Project Human Resources Management Knowledge Area

Image courtesy: suphakit73 / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Human resource management is one of the crucial as well as challenging knowledge areas for the project manager, or project management team.

The main benefit of team is it's synergy. Synergy is defined as 'two or more entities functioning together to produce a result much greater than sum total of the results produced by individual entities'.

A team can produce things much greater than its people can independently produce. And the main challenge for project manager is to keep the team functioning at the top of its abilities in order to achieve best synergy.

A quick overview of ITTOs of these processes and how they interact with each other is shown below.


http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

Figure 1: Human Resource Management Knowledge Area Processes and their ITTOs


As with other knowledge areas the first process of this knowledge area is preparing a Human Resource Plan.

Develop human resource plan process

The plan contains human resource requirements, skillsets, reporting hierarchies, roles and responsibilities.


http://www.pmexamsmartnotes.com/project-human-resources-management-knowledge-area/

Activity resource requirements is the main input required for this process. Tools and Techniques include organization charts and position descriptions, networking and organizational theory. Single output is, of course, the human resource plan.

Organization charts and position descriptions can be shown in one of (a) hierarchical format (b) matrix format, or (c) text-oriented format.

An example of matrix format is RACI matrix. It stands for Responsible, Accountable, Consulted and Informed. This matrix is about deciding, for each activity, who is responsible, who is accountable, who is consulted (if needed) and who needs to be informed. This is particularly important when team has internal as well as external people working on it. This dispels any ambiguities wrt who does what.

An examples of this, as applicable to Landscaping project, is given below.

Figure 2: Example of RACI matrix

What does a human resource plan contain?

Roles and responsibilities of team members•Project organizational charts•Staff acquisition plan•Resource calendars•Staff release plan•Training needs•Recognition and rewards•Compliance needs•Safety needs and measures•

The human resource plan in a nutshell, contains information such as, but not limited to -

Acquire project team process

This process is about various ways of acquiring the right team for the project.

It may so happen, due to various reasons, that you will not get people with right skillset, in the right time. In that case you need to have a secondary plan to fulfill the resourcing needs. Because if not Foundation Guide For PMP® and CAPM®

time. In that case you need to have a secondary plan to fulfill the resourcing needs. Because if not filled, the project objectives may be negatively impacted, sometimes to the extent of project getting cancelled.

Alternate plans could be to get lower skilled people, or get similar skilled people from outside the organization at a substantially higher cost, or even outsourcing that part of the work to a vendor (processes from Procurement management knowledge area will come into play).

The ability of project manager or project management team to build and tap their people network in the organization will be instrumental in getting required human resources.

The primary input for this process is project management plan (for roles and responsibilities expected from the team, staff management plan and project organization chart). This is where you get all details about resources. Enterprise environmental factors and organizational process assetswill also come handy.

Pre-assignment, negotiations (with right people in the organization, like functional managers), acquisition (from outside the organization), and virtual teams (working remotely) will are the tools and techniques.

Outputs are project staff assignments, resource calendars and project management plan updates.

Develop project team process

This is about developing the team in terms of providing required training to build necessary competencies, and helping team work in a synergetic way.

The ITTOs are pretty straight forward and logical.

Inputs - project staff assignments, project management plan and resource calendars.

Tools and techniques - interpersonal skills, training, team-building activities, ground rules, co-location, recognition and rewards.

Outputs - team performance assessments, enterprise environmental factors updates.

Manage project team process

This process is about motivating and rewarding team, conducting performance reviews, providing feedback, resolving issues, and managing changes in the team.


Figure 3: ITTOs for Manage Project Team process

Six techniques of conflict resolution are - avoiding, accommodating, compromising, forcing, collaborating, problem solving.

•

Some of the important interpersonal-skills are - leadership, team building, motivation, communication, influencing, decision making, political and cultural awareness, and negotiation.

•

Note that although the processes are shown as discrete and sequential, they often overlap in ways specific to the project environment.

Notes -

Further References

You can find detailed understanding of above processes in Project Human Resources Management knowledge area, by clicking here.


http://www.pmexamsmartnotes.com/category/human-resources/

http://www.pmexamsmartnotes.com/category/human-resources/

Chapter 11 - Project Communications Management Knowledge Area

Project Communications Management Knowledge Area

James Humes-

“The art of communication is the language of leadership.”

Image courtesy: loop_oh

According to a web poll conducted by CompTIA, nearly 28% of more than 1000 respondents said that poor communication is the number one reason causing IT projects to fail!.

Why?

The reason is quite simple. It is easy to commit a mistake in communication without immediately seeing the impact. A customer may not react immediately to an angry email that one of the team members sent, but the management may come to know about it only when he vents his anger during contract renewal.

Amongst hundred other mails it is easy to overlook an important email you have received•Sometimes legitimate and important emails land in junk/spam folder due to intelligence built into mailing systems

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Consider these scenarios where communication may break -


http://www.flickr.com/photos/loop_oh/492805848/

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9012758/Survey_Poor_communication_causes_most_IT_project_failures

mailing systemsIn a meeting held after lunch, it is not hard to miss an important point made by someone, while the mind is dreaming of a cup of extra-strong coffee

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While writing email some people have the practice of manually adding recipients' email ids, instead of using a distribution list. This might mean that an important developer is missed out in the communication creating havoc in his schedule.

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In a Communication Plan, one of the important stakeholder might be inadvertently missed out from all of the communication channels

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Excessive communication is as bad as missed communication, because people tend to miss important piece of communication amongst the 'noise'

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Most of the times the result can be disastrous and can impact on one or more of the project constraints.

Let us take a quick look at the types of communication in a project setup

Figure 1: Types of communication

How does communication happen?

Let us also take a moment and look at the basic communication model.

Receiver decodes the information and processes it. ►

Communication gets initiated from a sender, who encodes the message and sends it to the receiver over a medium of communication.

►


Sender gets the feedback and if noise has not rendered it useless, will decode and understand it.

►

Assuming that receiver received the message intact, she encodes feedback and sends back to the sender

►

However the noise in the medium may render the message useless to the receiver. This is similar to the disturbance in telephone connection, which makes it harder to hear the person on the other end.

►

Receiver decodes the information and processes it. ►

The basic communication model below shows flow of information -

Figure 2: Basic communication model

Let us look at the processes in Communications Management knowledge area, in the mind map below.


Figure 3: Five processes of Project Communications Management Knowledge Area


Here is a brief look at all the 5 processes -

Identify Stakeholders process

This is the process to identify all people who are directly or indirectly associated with your project.


http://www.pmexamsmartnotes.com/project-communications-management-knowledge-area/

This is the process to identify all people who are directly or indirectly associated with your project.

This process is crucial - if any stakeholders are missed to be identified, rest of the processes may not yield good results irrespective of how best you execute them.

Important inputs are project charter and procurement documents. Enterprise environmental factorssuch as standards prescribed by government or industry are to be studied to identify any additional stakeholders. Organizational process assets such as templates, lessons learned and stakeholder register from earlier projects are going to be helpful.

Stakeholder analysis and expert judgment are two tools and techniques used to identify stakeholders.

Step1: Identify key stakeholders•Step2: Collect necessary information about them such as their role, responsibilities, level of influence, level of knowledge, interest in the project

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Step3: Prepare power-interest grid, and/or power-influence grid, power-impact grid•Step4: Based on these identify the risks, how they impact each of stakeholders and plan how would you mitigate them

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The four step process of Stakeholder Analysis are -

Outputs of this process are only two - stakeholder register and stakeholder management strategy.

Plan Communications process

This is the process to figure out which of the stakeholders require what information, and which methods are to be used to communicate it.

Two key inputs are stakeholder register and stakeholder management strategy. You might have noticed that these are the outputs from previous process. That is how one process feeds into the other.

There are four tools and techniques for this process - communication requirements analysis, communications technology, communications models (you saw a simple model earlier in this chapter), and communication methods.

As the process name suggests, this processes produces communications management plan.

Distribute Information process

This is simply about sending out the information to relevant stakeholders as planned.


Inputs are project management plan, performance reports and organizational process assets.•Tools and techniques are communication methods and information distribution tools.•Output - updates to organizational process assets.•

Manage Stakeholder Expectations process

This is about working closely with stakeholders, satisfying their needs and figuring out solutions to any issues they face from time to time.

Figure 4: ITTOs for Manage Stakeholder Expectation process

Report Performance process

This is the process for collecting status and performance information and forecasts for scope, schedule, quality, cost and distributing to relevant stakeholders.


Figure 5: ITTOs for Manage Stakeholder Expectation process

Further References

You can find detailed understanding of above processes in Project Communications Management knowledge area, by clicking here.


http://www.pmexamsmartnotes.com/category/communications/

http://www.pmexamsmartnotes.com/category/communications/

Chapter 12 - Project Risk Management Knowledge Area

Project Risk Management Knowledge Area

Dr. Michael Ong-

"Good Risk Management fosters vigilance in times of calm and instills discipline in times of crisis"

Image courtesy: renjith krishnan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

What is risk?

A possibility of change in the expected outcome of a task or event implies a risk. Every activity has an inherent risk in it. Even walking on the road has its own risks, like getting hit by a truck. :)

Simplest of the tasks on a project has risks. As project release gets closer project's software architect may fall sick, thereby increasing the risk of delivery.

A risk can be positive!

On the day you wanted to buy that project management software, you stumbled upon a discount code that saved you 50% on the cost! This is a positive risk. And it is called an opportunity.

Let us take a look at ITTOs of these processes and how they are related.



Let us take a look at ITTOs of these processes and how they are related.

Figure 1 : Project Risk Management processes and their ITTOs


Plan Risk Management process

This is a process to create a plan that identifies methods of managing risks, assigns responsibilities for Foundation Guide For PMP® and CAPM®

http://www.pmexamsmartnotes.com/project-risk-management-knowledge-area/

This is a process to create a plan that identifies methods of managing risks, assigns responsibilities for people who handle risks, outlines risk budget, defines risk categories, and identifies probability and impact matrix.

Primary inputs are project scope statement, cost management plan, schedule management plan and communications management plan.

Planning meetings and analysis is the only tool/technique for this process.

As again, single output - risk management plan.

We have seen work breakdown structure (WBS) and resource breakdown structure (RBS) in earlier chapters. This process produces risk breakdown structure. An example would be -

Figure 2: Risk Breakdown Structure

What does risk management plan contain?Risk management plan is a subset of project management plan. It is a subsidiary plan just like other plans considered as inputs to this process. Which also means that any change to risk management plan is to be driven via change control process.

Roles and responsibilities•Risk management budget•Risk categorization such as risk breakdown structure•Probability and impact matrix•Stakeholder's tolerance•Risk reporting format•

This plan gives you the tools to identify, assess and manage risks:


Identify Risks process

This is the process to come up with risk register. The risk register contains list of identified risks, their sources, and potential responses.

This process has a laaaat of inputs as well as tools and techniques. But don't worry, they are easier to get once you see the connection between them.

Let us try to derive the inputs. The simplest first - output of previous process, the risk management plan. That is a good start.

What would one need in order to identify risks on the project?

Think about it for a moment. Risk can come from anywhere. Mainly around activities (or, tasks) to be executed on the project. What is that we have identified from earlier processes around activities? Activity cost estimates, activity duration estimates, and scope baseline (remember WBS, and WBS dictionary).

Then we also saw that risks can lurk around areas that impact stakeholders (that is why we have stakeholder management plan). So we need stakeholder register.

Then the subsidiary plans we came up with earlier - cost, schedule and quality management plans. Why? Each of them give us insights into risk elements related to those knowledge areas. Then of course we sift through all project documents to see if there is anything that can indicate risks.

Don’t leave out the famous two - organizational process assets and enterprise environmental factors.

That's basically it. The inputs for Identify Risks process.

Documentation reviews•Information gathering techniques•Checklist analysis•Assumptions analysis•Diagramming techniques•SWOT analysis•Expert judgment •

Again, tools and techniques are quite a few. We will only list them here. For you to get familiar with their names. Complete details around them can be found in the blog site (follow the link given at the end of this chapter).

Any guesses on the output? The Risk register. :)


Perform Qualitative Risk Analysis process

This is the process where risks in the risk register are ranked and prioritized based on urgency, probability of them coming true, and potential impact.

Inputs - risk register, risk management plan, project scope statement and organizational process assets.

Risk probability and impact assessment•Probability and impact matrix•Risk data quality measurement•Risk categorization•Risk urgency assessment•Expert judgment•

Tools and Techniques -

Outputs - risk register updates.

Perform Quantitative Risk Analysis process

This is the process where risks in the risk register are analyzed using statistical tools and their priorities are updated.

Here is the ITTOs diagram for this process. Expected Monitory Value (EMV) is one of the tools on this process and the blog talks in detail about this (follow the link at the end of this chapter to the blog) and shows how to calculate EMV for a project.


Figure 3: ITTOs of Perform Quantitative Risk Analysis process

Plan Risk Responses process

This is the process for developing actions to enhance opportunities and reduce threats to project objectives posed by risks.

To calculate risk responses we need the risk register and risk management plan as inputs.

Tools and techniques are strategies for managing negative and positive risks, and contingent response strategies to identify responses. Finally what we must bank on, irrespective of which tools and techniques we use, expert judgment.

Here is a quick mnemonic for remembering strategies for managing negative and positive risks -"Negative ATMA, PositivE SEA"

Strategies for negative risks are Avoid, Transfer, Mitigate and Accept; for positive risks they are Exploit, Share, Enhance, Accept.

Risk register updates•Risk-related contract decisions•Project management plan updates•Project document updates•

Outputs -


Monitor And Control Risks process

Figure 4: ITTOs of Monitor and Control Risks process

This is the process to actually implement risk response plans, track and monitor residual risks, identify and manage new risks.

Further References

You can find detailed understanding of above processes in Project Risk Management knowledge area, by clicking here.


http://www.pmexamsmartnotes.com/category/risk/

http://www.pmexamsmartnotes.com/category/risk/

Chapter 13 - Project Procurement Management Knowledge Area

Project Procurement Management Knowledge Area

Many a times it is better to let a expert team outside the organization do the work that we do not have expertise for. You would recall from Plan Risk Responses process that this is a good risk mitigation strategy as well. All the processes involved with finding a vendor, getting a contract, and getting the work done through chosen vendor, are covered in PMBOK® guide's Project Procurement Management knowledge area.

Image courtesy: David Castillo Dominici / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

There are 4 processes as you can see from the mind map below. Spend few minutes on this to see how these processes are connected and get a hang of their ITTOs. Notice the process group they fall in.



Figure 1: Procurement Management Knowledge Area processes and their ITTOs


The 4 Procurement management processes are - Foundation Guide For PMP® and CAPM®

http://www.pmexamsmartnotes.com/project-procurements-management-knowledge-area/

The 4 Procurement management processes are -

Plan Procurements process

Figure 2: ITTOs for Plan Procurements process

This is to look at project scope and decide what work needs to be given out to a vendor, or which products are to be purchased, and deciding on the type of contract and defining how a potential vendor is selected.

One of the outputs is Procurement management plan. What does this contain?Procurement management plan describes how whole procurement processes will be carried out -from sending out request for proposal (RFP) to making payments to closing the contract.

It contains the following information -

Contract types used for each of the work you want to contract out•What are the additional risks and how are they managed•What is the criteria to evaluate seller responses•What is the criteria to measure deliverables of each contracted work, and the metrics to be used to evaluate performance

•

References to organization's standard policy, guidelines, processes, templates to be used• Foundation Guide For PMP® and CAPM®

References to organization's standard policy, guidelines, processes, templates to be used•How does estimate activity resources and develop schedule processes are impacted due to make-or-buy decisions

•

What are the project management, performance related and deliverable related documentation to be provided by the seller for each of the contract

•

Types of contract

Type 1: Fixed Price•The basic version of this contract involves buyer paying a fixed sum to the seller for producing a product or service. The variations of this contract involve paying additional money based on certain criteria. Under this contract seller is legally obligated to complete the work as per defined acceptance criteria. If not they will have to pay financial penalties. Hence this is mostly favored by the buying organization, and not many sellers would like this type of contract.

Firm Fixed Price contract (FFP)This is most commonly used Fixed Price contract type. The price of product or service is fixed upfront and will change only if there is change in scope - as agreed by both seller and buyer. If initial estimates were found to be incorrect then seller assumes all additional cost.

Fixed Price Incentive Fee contract (FPIF)Apart from the fixed price of the contract, seller gets a chance to make more money if predetermined performance goals are achieved. These metrics could be related to cost, schedule or technical performance.

Fixed Price with Economic Price Adjustment contract (FP-EPA)This is a favored contract type for long term projects that span years. The price adjustment comes into play due to factors such as inflation, cost changes to raw materials, or changed environmental conditions under which the project is carried out.

Type 2: Cost Reimbursable•Buyer reimburses all legitimate costs incurred in carrying out the contract work by the seller. In addition, buyer pays a fee which is the profit component for seller. The fee may be fixed or tied to certain performance expectations, such as cost, time, or quality of the deliverables.

Cost Plus Fixed Fee contract (CPFF)This is a straight forward case of reimbursement of costs and a fixed fee. In some cases this fee could be certain percentage of the initial fixed price quoted, or certain percentage of the overall cost, subject to a ceiling limit.

Cost Plus Incentive Fee contract (CPIF)Apart from the fixed cost component, additional incentive fee is subject to achieving performance objectives as written in the contract.


Cost Plus Award Fee contract (FPAF)This is similar to CPIF type of contract, with a difference that award fee is subject to achievement of certain performance aspects which are subjective, rather than objective. These are usually not clearly measurable and amount of award fee is determined by the buyer purely based on how happy she is with the deliverables.

Type 3: Time & Material (T&M)•This is a hybrid type of contract with elements from both Fixed Price and Cost-reimbursable contracts. Buyer pays seller for all materials (hardware, machinery, tools and equipment) and pays a per unit rate for the time spent by the team. This type of contract is favored when 100% of requirements cannot be scoped up front. If the requirements are subjected to changes quite often, where buyer himself is not able to decide on requirements upfront, this is the contract type to go.

Conduct Procurements process

Figure 3: ITTOs for Conduct Procurements process

This is about asking potential vendors for proposals, evaluating their responses, deciding on the right vendor (also called seller), and awarding the contract.


Administer Procurements process

Figure 4: ITTOs for Administer Procurements process

This is about managing vendor relationships, monitoring what they produce, resolving any issues, and making changes to contract as and when required.

Close Procurements process

This is about verifying that deliverables are as per requirements, making sure that contractual obligations are honored by both you and vendor, making payments and closing each of the procurements.


Figure 5: ITTOs for Close Procurements process

Further References

You can find detailed understanding of above processes in Project Procurement Management knowledge area, by clicking here.


http://www.pmexamsmartnotes.com/category/procurement/

http://www.pmexamsmartnotes.com/category/procurement/

Thank You..

Thank You So Much!

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