The project sponsor is generally accountable for the development and maintenance of the project business case document. The project manager is responsible for providing recommendations and oversight to keep the project documents updated.
Project managers should appropriately tailor the noted project management documents for their projects. In some organizations, the business case and benefits management plan are maintained at the program level.
Business documents - Business case
The Business case defines the business need for the deliverable for a project. It may articulate the project's objectives and how the project will contribute to the business goals. Although the business documents are developed prior to the project, they are reviewed periodically.
Business documents - Benefits management plan
The benefits management plan includes information on the strategic alignment of the project with the business objectives of the organization, and the target benefits to be obtained. The Benefits management plan is a business document but is updated by the project manager to reflect how the chosen project will deliver its benefits, and how it will be measured.
The project management plan is the plan (Combination of Plans and Baselines) that describes how the project will be executed, monitored and controlled and closed. It integrates and consolidates all of the subsidiary management plans and baselines, and other information necessary to manage the project. The needs of the project determine which components of the project management plan are needed.
Project management plan - Project management plan
*The document that describes how the project will be executed monitored, controlled, and closed
Project management plan - Change management plan
A change management plan defines activities and roles to manage and control change during the execute and control stage of the project. Change is measured against the project baseline, which is a detailed description of the project's scope, budget, schedule, and plans to manage quality, risk, issues, and change.
Project management plan - Configuration management plan
The configuration management plan is a system of engineering processes for establishing and maintaining consistency of a product's performance, functional, and physical attributes with its requirements, design, and operational information throughout its life.
Project management plan - Development approach
The development approach defines whether waterfall, iterative, adaptive, agile, or a hybrid development approach will be used.
Project management plan - Project life cycle description
The project life cycle determines the series of phases that a project passes through from its inception to the end of the project.
Project management plan - All components
*The Project Management Plan is the combination of Plans and Baselines that describes how the project will be executed, monitored & controlled, and closed.
Project management plan - Any component
*The document that describes how the project will be executed monitored, and controlled and closed.
Project management plan - Scope baseline
The scope baseline is the approved version of a scope statement, WBS, and its associated WBS dictionary, which can be changed only through formal change control procedures and is used as a basis for comparison. it is a component of the project management plan. Components of the scope baseline include: Project scope statement, WBS, Work package, planning package, and WBS dictionary.
Project management plan - Schedule baseline
*The approved version of a schedule model that can be changed only through formal change control procedures and is used as a basis for comparison to actual results.
Project management plan - Cost baseline
*The approved version of the time-phased project budge, excluding any management reserves, which can be changed only through formal change control procedures and is used as a basis for comparison to actual results.
Project management plan - Performance measurement baseline
The Performance measurement baseline is compared to actual results to determine if a change, corrective action or preventive action is necessary.
The performance measurement baseline is the combination of all three baselines, Scope, Schedule, and Cost.
Project management plan - Scope management plan
The scope management plan is a component of the project management plan that describes how the scope will be defined, developed, monitored, controlled, and validated.
Project management plan - Requirements management plan
The requirements management plan is a component of the project management plan that describes how requirements will be analyzed, documented, and managed.
Project management plan - Schedule management plan
The schedule management plan is a component of the project management plan that establishes the criteria and the activities for developing, monitoring, and controlling the schedule. The schedule management plan may be formal or informal, highly detailed or broadly framed, based on the needs of the project and includes appropriate contol thresholds.
Project management plan - Cost management plan
The cost management plan is a component of the project management plan and describes how the project costs will be planned, structured, and controlled. The cost management procedures and their associated tools and techniques are documented in the cost management plan. The cost management plan establishes the following: Units of measure, Level of precision, Level of accuracy, Organizational procedures links, control thresholds, and rules of performance measurement.
Project management plan - Quality management plan
The quality management plan is a component of the project management plan that describes how the organization's quality policies, methodologies, and standards will be implemented in the specified project. The way the project and product scope will be managed can be influenced by how the organization's quality policy, methodologies, and standards are implemented on the project.
Project management plan - Resource management plan
The resource management plan is a component of the project management plan that provides guidance on how project resources should be categorized, allocated, managed, and released. The resource management plan may include but is not limited to: Identification of resources, acquiring resources, roles and responsibilities, project organization charts, project team resource management, training, team development, and resource control.
Project management plan - Communications management plan
The communications management plan is a component of the project management plan that describes how project communications will be planned, structured, implemented, and monitored for effectiveness.
Project management plan - Risk management plan
The risk management plan is a component of the project management plan that describes how risk management activities will be structured and performed.
Project management plan - Procurement management plan
The procurement management plan has information regarding resources that will be acquired from outside the project. This includes information on how procurement's will be integrated with other project work and stakeholders involved in procuring resources.
Project management plan - Stakeholder engagement plan
The stakeholder engagement plan is a component of the project management plan that identifies the management strategies and actions required to effectively engage stakeholders. it can be formal or informal detailed or broadly framed, based on the needs of the project and the expectations of stakeholders.
Project documents include all project written reports, lists, registers, charters, analysis, diagrams, charts, reviews, evaluations, or assessments. Plans and baselines (Project management plan), are excluded from being called documents. Files and records contain both documents and Project management plan items.
Project documents - Assumption log
Strategic and operational assumptions and constraints are normally identified in the business case before the project is initiated and will flow into the project charter and articulated during the project.
Project documents - Issue log
Throughout the life cycle of a project, the project manager will normally face problems, gaps, inconsistencies, or conflicts that occur unexpectedly and that require some action so they do not impact the project performance. The issue log is a project document where all the issues are recorded and tracked.
Project documents - Lessons learned register
Lessons learned are used to improve the performance of the project and to avoid repeating mistakes. The register helps identify where to set rules or guidelines so team's actions are aligned.
Project documents - Change log
The change log contains the status of all change requests. The change will be numbered and the log will summarize the change and quantify if its is approved, not approved, or on hold.
Project documents - Requirements documentation
Requirements documentation describes how individual requirements meet the business need for the project. Requirements may start out at a high level and become progressively more detailed as more about the requirements are known. Before being baselined, requirements need to be unambiguous (measurable and testable), traceable, complete, consistent, and acceptable to key stakeholders.
The requirements traceability matrix links product requirements to the deliverables that satisfy them and helps to focus on the final outcomes.
Project documents - Project scope statement
The project scope statement is the description of the project scope, major deliverables, assumptions, and constraints. The project scope statement documents the entire scope, including project and product scope. It describes, in detail the project's deliverables and the work required to create those deliverables.
Project documents - Activity list
*A documented tabulation of schedule activities that shows the activity description, activity identifier, and a sufficiently detailed scope of work description so project team members understand what work is to be performed.
Project documents - Activity attributes
*Multiple attributes associated with each schedule activity that can be included within the activity list. Activity attributes include activity codes, predecessor activities, successor activities, logical relationships, leads and lags, resource requirements, imposed dates, constraints, and assumptions.
Project documents - Milestone list
The milestone list shows the schedule dates for specific milestones.
*A graphical representation of the logical relationships among the project schedule activities.
Project documents - Duration estimates
*The quantitative assessments of the likely number of time periods that are required to complete an activity.
Project documents - Basis of estimates
Basis of estimates indicate how the various estimates were derived and can be used to make a decision on how to respond to variances and work performance information and modify the project management accordingly.
Project documents - Project schedule
The schedule includes at least the list of work activities, their durations, resources and planned start and finish dates.
Project documents - Schedule data
The schedule data for the project schedule model is the collection of information for describing and controlling the schedule. The schedule data includes, at a minimum, the schedule milestones, schedule activities, activity attributes, and documentation of all identified asumptions and constraints.
Project documents - Project calendars
*A calendar that identifies working days and shifts that are available for scheduled activities.
Project documents - Schedule forecasts
Based on the project's past performance, the schedule forecasts are used to determine if the project is within defined tolerance ranges for schedule and to identify any necessary change requests.
Project documents - Cost estimates
Cost estimates include quantitative assessments of the probable costs required to complete project work, as well as contingency amounts to account for identified risks, and management reserves to cover unplanned work. Cost estimates can be presented in summary form or in detail, Costs are estimated for all resources that are applied to the cost estimate.
Project documents - Cost forecasts
Based on the projects's past performance, the cost forecasts are used to determine if the project is within defined tolerance ranges for budget and to identify any necessary change requests.
Project documents - Quality metrics
*A description of a project or product attribute and how to measure it.
Project documents - Quality reports
The quality report includes quality management issues; recommendations for process, project, and product improvements; corrective actions recommendations (includes rework, defect/bugs repair, 100% inspection, and more); and the summary of findings from the Control Quality process.
Project documents - Test and evaluation documents
Test and evaluation documents can be created based on industry needs and the organization's templates. They are inputs to the Control Quality process and are used to evaluate the achievement of quality objectives. These documents may include dedicated quality checklists and detailed requirements traceability matrices as part of the documents.
Project documents - Quality control measurements
*The documented results of control quality activities. The quality control measurements that document the results of Control Quality activities and demonstrate compliance with the quality requirements.
Project documents - Team charter
The team charter is a document that establishes the team values, agreements, and operating guidelines for the team. The team charter may include but is not limited to: Team values, communication guidelines, decision-making criteria and process, conflict resolution process, meeting guidelines, and team agreements.
Project documents - Resource requirements
Resource requirements identify the types and quantities of resources required for each work package or activity in a work package and can be aggregated to determine the estimated resources for each work package, each WBS branch, and the project as a whole.
Project documents - Resource breakdown structure
The resource breakdown structure includes information on the composition of the team and may help to understand what knowledge is available as a group and what knowledge is missing.
Project documents - Physical resource assignments
Resource requirements identify the types and quanties of resources required for each work package or activity in a work package and can be agregated to determine the estimated resources for each work package, each WBS branch, and the project as a whole. The amount of detail and the level of specificity of the resource requirement descriptions can vary by application area.
Project documents - Project team assignments
Project team assignments provide information on the type of knowledge available in the project and the knowledge that may be missing.
Project documents - Resource calendars
A resource calendar identifies the working days, shifts, start and end of normal business hours, weekends, and public holidays when each specific resource is available.
Project documents - Team performance assessments
As project team development efforts such as training, team building, and collocation are implemented, the project management team makes formal or informal assessments of the project team's effectiveness. Effective team development strategies and activities are expected to increase the team performance, which increases the likelihood of meeting project objectives.
Project documents - Project communications
Project communications include performance reports, deliverable status, and other information generated by the project.
Project documents - Risk register
The risk register provides information on threats and opportunities that may impact project execution.
Project documents - Risk report
The risk report provides information on sources and overall project risk along with summary information on identified individual project risks.
Project documents - Source selection criteria
Source selection criteria indicate if there is a need for specific knowledge from outside the project.
Project documents - Stakeholder register
The stakeholder register contains details about the identified stakeholders to help understand the knowledge they may have.
Being able to articulate and or communicate using verbal, non-verbal or writing techniques.
Communication skills - Communication competence
A combination of tailored communication skills that considers factors such as clarity of purpose in key messages, effective relationships and information sharing, and leadership behaviors.
Communication skills - Nonverbal
Examples of nonverbal communication include appropriate body language to transmit meaning through gestures, tone of voice, and facial expressions.. Mirroring and eye contact are also important techniques. The team members should be aware of how they are expressing themselves both through what they say and what they don't say.
Communication skills - Presentations
Clear and effective communication of project information through presentations to stakeholders where appropriate.
Communication skills - Feedback
To support interactive communication between the project manager and team and all other project stakeholders. Examples include coaching, mentoring, and negotiating.
Data gathering are tools and techniques used to collect raw data (Work performance data), or collect market or research data.
Data gathering - Statistical sampling
Statistical sampling involves choosing part of a population of interest for inspection. The Sample is taken to measure controls and verify quality. Sample frequency and sizes should be determined during the Plan Quality Management process.
Data gathering - Check sheets
Check sheets are also known as tally sheets and are used to organize facts in a manner that will facilitate the effective collection of useful data about a potential quality problem. They are especially useful for gathering attributes data while performing inspections to identify defects.
Data gathering - Market research
Market research includes looking at alternative vendors to provide the deliverable required. In this process it is decided weather we will build or purchase the required component, service or sub-assembly.
Data gathering - Benchmarking
Benchmarking involves comparing actual or planned practices, such as processes and operations, to those of comparable organizations to identify best practices, generate ideas for improvement, and provide a basis for measuring performance, The organizations compared during benchmarking can be internal or external.
Data gathering - Focus groups
Focus groups bring together prequalified stakeholders and subject matter experts to colaborate about the perceived project risks, success criteria, and other topics in a more conversational way than personal interviews.
Data gathering - Questionnaires and surveys
Questionnaires and surveys are written sets of questions designed to quickly accumulate information from a large number of respondents. Questionnaires and/or surveys are most appropriate with varied audiences, when a quick turnaround is needed, when respondents are geographically dispersed, and where statistical analysis is appropriate.
Data gathering - Checklists
Organizations have standard checklists based on their history and experience that guide the project manager to develop the plan or requirements data, or may help to verify that all the required information is included.
Data gathering - Brainstorming
Brainstorming is a technique that is used to identify a list of ideas in a short period of time. It is conducted in a group environment and is led by a facilitator. Brainstorming comprises two parts: idea generation and analysis. Brainstorming can be used to gather data and solutions or ideas from stakeholders, subject matter experts (SME"s), and team members when developing plans, or documents.
Data gathering - Interviews
Interviews are used to obtain specific information from stakeholders to develop any component plan or project document.
Data analysis is creating metrics out of the “work performance data”. This analysis creates “work performance information” and other metrics of performance; updated schedule, budget, or any other knowledge area metric.
Data analysis - SWOT analysis
This technique examines the project from each of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) perspectives. For risk identification, it is used to increase the breadth of identified risks by including internally generated risks. The technique starts with the identification of strengths and weaknesses of the organization, focusing on either the project, organization, or the business area in general. SWOT analysis then identifies any opportunities for the project that may arise from strengths, and any threats resulting from weaknesses. The analysis also examines the degree to which organizational strengths may offset threats and determines if weaknesses might hinder opportunities.
Data analysis - Assumption and constraint analysis
Every project and its project management plan are conceived and developed based on a set of assumptions and within a series of constraints. These are often captured in the scope baseline and project estimates. Assumption and constraint analysis explores the validity of assumptions and constraints to determine which pose a risk to the project, Threats may be identified from the inaccuracy, instability, inconsistency, or incompleteness of assumptions. Constraints may give rise to opportunities through removing or relaxing a limiting factor that affects the execution of a project or process.
Data analysis - Assessment of other risk parameters
The project team may consider other characteristics of risk (in addition to probability and impact) when prioritizing individual project risks for further analysis and action, These characteristics may include but are not limited to: Urgency, Proximity, dormancy, manageability, control-ability, detect-ability, connectivity, strategic impact, and propinquity.
Data analysis - Risk data quality assessment
Risk data quality assessment evaluates the degree to which the data about individual project risks is accurate and reliable as a basis for qualitative risk analysis. The use of low-quality risk data may lead to a qualitative risk analysis that is of little use to the project. If data quality may be assessed via a questionnaire, measuring the project's stakeholder perceptions of various characteristics, which may include completeness, objectivity, relevancy, and timeliness. A weighted average of selected data quality characteristics can then be generated to give an overall quality score.
Data analysis - Decision tree analysis
Decision trees are used to support selection of the best of several alternative courses of action. Alternative paths through the project are shown in the decision tree using branches representing different decisions or events, each of which can have associated costs and related individual project risks (including both threats and opportunities). The end-points of branches in the decision tree represent the outcome from following that particular path, which can be negative or positive.
Data analysis - Influence diagrams
Influence diagrams are graphical aids to decision making under uncertainty. An influence diagram represents a project or situation within the project as a set of entities, outcomes, and influences, together with the relationships and effects between them. Where an element in the influence diagram is uncertain as a result of the existence of individual project risks or other sources of uncertainty, this can be represented in the influence diagram using ranges of probability distributions. The influence diagram is then evaluated using a simulation technique, such as Monte Carlo analysis, to indicate which elements have the greatest influence on key outcomes. Outputs from influence diagram are similar to other quantitative risk analysis methods, including S-curves and tornado diagrams.
Data analysis - Sensitivity analysis
Sensitivity analysis helps to determine which individual project risks or other sources of uncertainty have the most potential impact on project outcomes. It correlates variations' in project outcomes with variations in elements of the quantitative risk analysis model. One typical display of sensitivity analysis is the tornado diagram, which presents the calculated correlation coefficient for each element of the quantitative risk analysis model that can influence the project outcome.
Data analysis - Technical performance analysis
Technical performance analysis compares technical accomplishments during project execution to the schedule of technical achievement.
Data analysis - Reserve analysis
*An analytical technique to determine the essential features and relationships of components in the project management plan to establish a reserve for the schedule duration, budget, estimated cost, or funds for a project.
Data analysis - Cost-benefit analysis
Cost-benefit analysis helps to determine the best corrective action in terms of cost of ease of project deviations.
Data analysis - Variance analysis
Variance analysis reviews the differences (or variance) between planned and actual performance. This can include duration estimates, cost estimates, resources utilization, resources rates, technical performance, and other metrics, Variance analysis may be conduced in each Knowledge Area based on its particular variable. In Monitor and Control Project Work, the variance analysis reviews the variances from an integrated perspective considering cost, time, technical and resource variances in relation to each other to get an overall view of variance on the project.
Data analysis - Trend analysis
Trend analysis is used to forecast future performance based on past results. It looks ahead in the project for expected slippages and warns the project manager ahead of time that there may be problems later in the schedule if established trends persist. This information is made available early enough in the project timeline to give the project team time to analyze and correct any anomalies. The results of trend analysis can be used to recommend preventive actions if necessary.
Data analysis - Document analysis
Document analysis is used to elicit requirements by analyzing existing documentation and identifying information relevant to the requirements.
Data analysis - Root cause analysis
Root Cause analysis focuses on identifying the main reasons of a problem. It can be used to identify the reasons for a deviation and the areas the project manager should focus on in order to achieve the objectives of the project.
Data analysis - Iteration burndown chart
This chart tracks the work that remains to be completed in the iteration backlog. It is used to analyze the variance with respect to an ideal burndown based on the work committed from iteration planning. A forecast trend line can be used to predict the likely variance at iteration completion and take appropriate actions during the course of the iteration.
Data analysis - What-if scenario analysis
What-if scenario analysis is the process of evaluating scenarios in order to predict their effect, positive or negative, on project objectives. This is an analysis of the question, "What if the situation represented by scenario X happens?"
Data analysis - Performance reviews
Performance reviews measure, compare, and analyze the project activities and compare it against the project baselines for variances.
Data analysis - Process analysis
Process analysis identifies opportunities for process improvements. This analysis also examines problems, constraints, and non-value-added activities that occur during a process.
Data analysis - Cost of quality
Assumptions about costs of quality may be used to prepare the estimates, This includes evaluating the cost impact of additional investment in conformance versus the cost of non-conformance. It can also include looking at short-term cost reductions versus the implication of more frequent problems later on in the product life cycle.
Data analysis - Make-or-buy analysis
A make-or-buy analysis is used to determine whether work or deliverables can best be accomplished by the project team or should be purchased from an outside source. Factors to consider in the make-or-buy decision include the organization's current resource allocation and their skills and abilities , the need for specialized expertise, the desire to not expand permanent employment obligations, and the need for independent expertise. It also includes evaluating the risks involved with each make-or-buy decision.
Make-or-buy analysis may use payback period, return on investment (ROI), internal rate of return (IRR), discounted cash flow, net present value (NPV), benefit/cost analysis (BCA), or other techniques in order to decide whether to include something as part of the project or purchase it externally.
Data analysis - Proposal evaluation
*The process of reviewing proposals provided by suppliers to support contract award decisions.
Data analysis - Alternatives analysis
Alternatives analysis is used to select the corrective actions or a combination of corrective and preventive actions to implement when a deviation occurs.
Data analysis - Stakeholder analysis
Stakeholder analysis results in a list of stakeholders and relevant information such as their position in the organization, roles on the project, "stakes," expectations, attitudes (their levels of support for the project), and their interest in information about the project.
Data analysis - Earned value analysis
Earned value provides an integrated perspective on scope, schedule, and cost performance.
Data analysis - Regression analysis
This technique analyzes the interrelationships between different project variables that contributed to the project outcomes.
Representing data (work performance data) or information (work performance information) in a format that is easy to understand and or explain. Data representation can be for meetings, analysis, for team use, or for stakeholder updates.
Data representation - Affinity diagrams
Affinity diagrams allow large numbers of ideas to be classified into groups for review and analysis.
Data representation - Mind mapping
Mind mapping consolidates ideas created through individual brainstorming sessions into a single map to reflect commonality and differences in understanding and to generate new ideas.
Data representation - Logical data model
Logical data models are a visual representation of an organization's data, described in business language and independent of any specific technology. The logical data model can be used to identify where data integrity or other quality issues can arise.
Data representation - Flowcharts
Flowcharts are also referred to as process maps because they display the sequence of steps and the branching possibilities that exist for a process that transforms one or more inputs into one or more outputs. Flowcharts show the activities, decision points, branching loops, parallel paths, and the overall order of processing by mapping the operational details of procedures that exist within a horizontal value chain. One version of a value chain, known as SIPOC (suppliers, inputs, process, outputs, and customers) model.
Data representation - Matrix diagrams
Matrix diagrams help find the strength of relationships among different factors, causes, and objectives that exist between the rows and columns that form the matrix. Depending on how many factors may be compared, the project manager can use different shapes of matrix diagrams; for example, L, T, Y, X, C, and roof-shaped. In this process they facilitate identifying the key quality metrics that are important for the success of the project.
Data representation - Cause-and-effect diagrams
Cause-and-effect diagrams are also know as fishbone diagrams, why-why diagrams, or Ishikawa diagrams. This type of diagram breaks down the causes of the problem statement identified into discrete branches helping to identify the main or root cause of the problem.
Data representation - Histograms
Histograms show a graphical representation of numerical data. Histograms can show the number of defects per deliverable, a ranking of a process, environment, or activity on one axis and a quality defect on the other axis.
Data representation - Scatter diagrams
A scatter diagram is a graph that shows the relationship between two variables. Scatter diagrams can demonstrate a relationship between any element of a process, environment, or activity on one axis and a quality defect on the other axis.
Data representation - Control charts
Control charts are used to determine whether or not a process is stable or has predictable performance. Upper and lower specification limits are based on the requirements and reflect the maximum and minimum values allowed. Upper and lower control limits are different from specification limits. The control limits are determined using standard statistical calculations and principles to ultimately establish the natural capability for a stable process. The project manager and appropriate stakeholders may use the statistically calculated control limits to identify the points at which corrective action will be taken to prevent performance that remains outside the control limits. Control charts can be used to monitor various types of out put variables. Although used most frequently to track repetitive activities required for producing manufactured lots, control charts may also be used to monitor cost and scheduie variances, volume, frequency of scope changes, or other management results to help determine if the project management processes are in control.
Data representation - Responsibility assignment matrix
A RAM that shows the project resources assigned to each work package. An example of a matrix-based chart is a responsibility assignment matrix (RAM) that shows the project resources assigned to each work package. It is used to illustrate the connections between work packages, or activities, and project team members.
Data representation - Text-oriented formats
Team member responsibilities that require detailed descriptions can be specified in text-oriented formats. Usually in outline form, these documents provide information such as responsibilities, authority, competencies, and qualifications. The documents are known by various names including position descriptions and role-responsibility-authority forms. These documents can be used as templates for future projects, especially when the information is updated throughout the current project by applying lessons learned.
Data representation - Hierarchical charts
The traditional organizational chart structure can be used to show positions and relationships in a graphical, top-down format. WBS (Work Breakdown Structure) OBS (Organizational Breakdown Structure) RBS (Resource Breakdown Structure)
Data representation - Probability and impact matrix
A probability and impact matrix is a grid for mapping and probability of each risk occurrence and its impact on project objectives if that risk occurs.
Data representation - Stakeholder mapping/representation
A data representation technique that may be used in this process includes, but is not limited to stakeholder mapping/representation. Stakeholder mapping and representation is a method of categorizing stakeholders using various methods. Categorizing stakeholders assists the team in building relationships with the identified project stakeholders. Common methods include: Power/interest grid, power/influence grid, or impact/influence grid. Stakeholder cube, Salience model, and Directions of influence.
Data representation - Stakeholder engagement assessment matrix
A stakeholder engagement assessment matrix supports comparison between the current engagement levels of stakeholders and the desired engagement levels required for successful project delivery. One way to classify the engagement level of stakeholders is shown in analysis "Stakeholder engagement assessment matrix". The stakeholders can be classified as follows: Unaware, Resistant, Neutral, Supportive, and Leading. Then graph the current engagement compared to the desired engagement.
Interpersonal and team skills are utilized to have effective collaboration and relationships within the team and with stakeholders. These skills enhance the project manager to be effective in his position. These skills utilized by the team will enhance the relationships with all stakeholders.
Interpersonal and team skills - Meeting management
Meeting management includes preparing the agenda, ensuring that a representative for each key stakeholder group is invited, and preparing and sending the follow-up minutes and actions.
Interpersonal and team skills - Conflict management
The project manager needs to resolve conflicts in a timely manner and in a constructive way in order to achieve a high-performing team.
Interpersonal and team skills - Facilitation
Facilitation is the ability to effectively guide a group event to a successful decision, solution, or conclusion. Thus facilitation involves all, so that effective buy-in occurs.
Interpersonal and team skills - Active listening
Active listening helps reduce misunderstandings and improves communication and knowledge sharing.
Interpersonal and team skills - Leadership
Leadership is used to communicate the vision and inspire the project team to focus on the appropriate knowledge and knowledge objectives.
Interpersonal and team skills - Networking
Networking allows informal connections and relations among project stakeholders to be established and creates the conditions to share tacit and explicit knowledge.
Interpersonal and team skills - Political awareness
Political awareness helps the project manager to plan communications based on the project environment as well as the organization's political environment.
Interpersonal and team skills - Nominal group technique
The nominal group technique enhances brainstorming with a voting process used to rank the most useful ideas for further brainstorming or for prioritization.
Interpersonal and team skills - Observation and conversation
Observation and conversation provide a direct way of viewing individuals in their environment and how they perform their jobs or task and carry out processes. it is particularly helpful for detailed processes when the people who use the product have difficulty or are reluctant to articulate their requirements. Observation is also known as "job shadowing."
Interpersonal and team skills - Negotiation
Negotiation among team members is used to reach consensus on project needs.
Interpersonal and team skills - Motivation
Teams are motivated by empowering them to participate in decision making and encouraging them to work independently.
Interpersonal and team skills - Team building
Team building activities can vary from a 5-minute agenda item in a status review meeting to an offsite, professionally facilitated event designed to improve interpersonal relationships. The objective of team-building activities is to help individual team members work together effectively.
Interpersonal and team skills - Influencing
An influencing skill used in this process is gathering relevant and critical information to address important issues and reach agreements while maintaining mutual trust.
Interpersonal and team skills - Decision making
Decision making involves the ability to negotiate and influence the organization and the project management team. Some guidelines for decision making include: Focus on goals to be served, follow a decision-making process, study the environmental factors, analyze available information, stimulate team creativity, and account for risk.
Interpersonal and team skills - Emotional intelligence
The team can use emotional intelligence to reduce tension and increase cooperation by identifying, assessing, and controlling the sentiments of project team members, anticipating their actions, acknowledging their concerns, and following up on their issues.
Interpersonal and team skills - Communication styles assessment
This is used to assess communication styles and plan the most efficient communication activities and artifacts for targeted information to unsupportive stakeholders. This assessment may follow
Interpersonal and team skills - Cultural awareness
Cultural awareness is an understanding of the differences between individuals, groups, and organizations and adapting the project's communication strategy in the context of these differences. This awareness and any consequent actions minimize misunderstandings and miscommunication that may result from cultural differences within the project's stakeholder community. Cultural awareness and cultural sensitivity help the project manager to plan communications based on the cultural differences and requirements of stakeholders and team members.
Decision making techniques are ways of coming to a decision. How a decision can be reached.
Decision making - Prioritization/ranking
Decision-making techniques that can be used for this process include but are not limited to prioritization/ranking. Stakeholder requirements need to be prioritized and ranked, as do the stakeholders themselves. Stakeholders with the most interest and the highest influence are often prioritized at the top of the list.
Decision making - Autocratic decision making
In this decision-making technique, one individual takes the responsibility for making the decision for the entire group.
Decision making - Voting
Voting is a decision-making technique and an assessment process having multiple alternatives with an expected outcome in the form of future actions. These techniques can be used to generate, classify, and prioritize product requirements. There are various methods of reaching a group decision, such as: Unanimity, Majority, Plurality, autocratic.
Decision making - Multicriteria decision analysis
A technique that uses a decision matrix to provide a systematic analytical approach for establishing criteria, such as risk levels, uncertainty, and valuation, to evaluate and rank many ideas.
*Those processes performed to define a new project or a new phase of an existing project by obtaining authorization to start the project or phase.
2Planning
*Those processes required to establish the scope of the project, refine the objectives, and define the course of action rquired to attain the objectives that the project was undertaken to achieve.
3Executing
*Those processes performed to complete the work defined in the project management plan to satisfy the project specifications.
4Monitoring & Controlling
*Those processes required to track, review, and regulate the progress and performance of the project; identify any areas in which changes to the plan are required; and initiate the corresponding changes.
5Closing
*Those processes performed to finalize all activiities across all Process Groups to formally close a project or phase.
1Integration
*Project Integration Management includes the processes and activities to identify, define, combine, unify, and coordinate the various processes and project management activities within the Project Management Process Groups.
1PMO/Performing Organization
Project Managers do not work in a vacuum of information. Direction for project initiation and the metrics of successful completion of a project are maintained and updated by the PMO or the performing organization. These records should be maintained on a Template that can be updated during the project.The performing organization has a body of knowledge that is maintained to pass on lessons learned. These items include but are not limited to the following:
Lessons Learned
Enterprise Environmental Factors
Organizational Process Assets
Business Documents: A. Business Case B. Benefits Management Plan
The jobs and functions of the PMO vary with the type of organizational structure. Some items that may be included are:
Define and implement a project management process or methodology
Provide training to the organization on project management
Serve as a base for project managers who are loaned to business units for their projects
Consult on or run the organization’s projects, ensuring consistency and best practice
Select and maintain project management technology such as software and applications
Manage the organization’s portfolio of projects
Perform resource allocation and budgeting for projects
Handle project scheduling
Maintain information resources
Provide Templates for documents and plans
Track and analyze project performance and PMO effectiveness
Expert Judgement may be purchased from a consultant or vendor. Having the right experience, training, or education may be critical to any situation in any knowledge area or process on the process chart.
The project manager always uses his expert judgement during the project life cycle. Knowing you do not have the knowledge required is part of that judgement.
The business case can be from any of the following reasons:
Market demand
Organizational need
Customer request
Technological advance
Legal requirement
Ecological impacts
Social need
The business case can be used before project initiation and may result in a go/no-go decision for the project.
Business case is developed prior to the project being developed.
In the case of multi phase projects, the business case is reviewed at every phase review to ensure that the project is on track to deliver the business benefits. Throughout the project life cycle, periodic review of the business case by the sponsoring organization also helps to confirm that the project is still aligned with the business case. The project manager is responsible for ensuring that the project effectively and efficiently meets the goals of the organization and those requirements of a broad set of stakeholders, as defined in the business case
The benefits management plan explains the requirements of the organization to create a project. What key benefits and or outcomes are expected from projects? The following could be articulated in the benefits management plan:
Targeted benefits
Strategic alignment
Timetable for benefits realization
Benefits owner
Metric of success
Assumptions inherent
Risks
This plan, although created prior to the project is updated with current project information. The project should follow the measurement system of the performing organization.
The project manager works with the sponsor to ensure that the project charter, project management plan, and the benefits management plan remain in alignment throughout the life cycle of the project.
Developing the Benefits management plan makes use of the data and information documented in the Business case and needs assessment.
The sponsor, and stakeholders in the performing organization need to know how the chosen project will deliver to meet the requirements of the performing organization. Therefore the project manager and or his designee needs to articulate how the project will deliver the return on investment required.
The input “agreements” in the project charter is the agreement between the sponsor or customer that includes all the detail to be successful with the project. Scope, schedule, cost, quality, and any other requirements should be stated.
Agreements can be either oral or written. If oral, the Project manager or sponsor should commit the agreement to writing and have the agreement signed by both parties to the agreement.
Agreements can take different forms; Purchase Order, Memorandum, Email, whatever, what is important is to capture the intent and the detail required to definitize the new project so that a decision can be reached to move forward. If a decision is made to move forward than the detail required to complete the project charter should be available.
You are in the business of making headphones for the music industry. You have designed and built hundreds of styles. A purchase order is issued for a particular common style but with unique colors and decals and a challenging timetable for delivery is required. The agreement for the project charter is the purchase order including all the procurement documents.
Your production manager needs a tool designed and developed to reduce the manufacturing time. The production manager has written up a memorandum to management with his ideas; also an ROI estimate of the new tool when used in production. He has provided a drawing and specifications for the tool. If the Sponsor or project manager needs more information, a request should be made of the production manager to furnish this information. The combinations of these conversation minutes, memos and memorandum is the agreement.
There is only one agreement output in project management ITTO’s. That is in the procurement area, and applies to Purchase orders, or purchase contracts. This output is in the execution process group in the Conduct procurement’s process.
The input “agreement” that is attached to the project charter is also an input to the determine budget process. The agreement may give information to the accounting staff to improve the estimates or establish a budget.
You run a worldwide consulting business. A large customer has given you a contract to manage the construction of a refinery in Columbia. Your team of engineers and project managers do not speak Spanish and live in three different countries. The EEF’s that must be considered are long and challenging. Your budget better include a long list of contingent reserves.
The EEF’s that should be considered are:
Columbian internal EEF’s
Environmental laws
Construction fees, and licenses, laws and standards
Culture of the Columbian labor
Attitude of the Columbian population toward refineries
Other unknown local impediments due to culture
Culture of existing project staff
Infrastructure of country surrounding building site
As you can tell this could go on and on.
EEF’s Internal to the organization:
Organizational culture, structure, and governance:
Company vision, mission, values, beliefs, cultural norms, leadership style, relationships, style, ethics, code of conduct
Geographic location
Factory location, virtual teams, shared systems, and cloud computing
Infrastructure
Facilities, equipment, organizational communication channels, availability and capacity
Information technology software
Software tools, configuration management systems, web interfaces, work authorization systems
Your company builds custom computers for large service companies. Your expertise in this field is recognized and sought after. Your competition is amazed at your ability to produce a quality product on a short schedule and at a very competitive price. What they don’t know is your OPA’s guide your team through all the planning and execution areas so that unnecessary and wasteful processes have been eliminated from the planning and production process.
Through years of experience the performing organization has built up the OPA’s by improving each of the procedures and processes to be efficient and quality and cost effective.
OPA’s are the things that your company considers assets to them uniquely. Proprietary information, lessons learned, tools, procedures that improve the likelihood of project success.
Your company builds custom computers for large service companies. Your expertise in this field is recognized and sought after. Your competition is amazed at your ability to produce a quality product on a short schedule and at a very competitive price. What they don’t know is your OPA’s guide your team through all the planning and execution areas so that unnecessary and wasteful processes have been eliminated from the planning and production process.
Through years of experience the performing organization has built up the OPA’s by improving each of the procedures and processes to be efficient and quality and cost effective.
OPA’s are the things that your company considers assets to them uniquely. Proprietary information, lessons learned, tools, procedures that improve the likelihood of project success.
(This process is for understanding and teaching, this is not a process on the PMBOK 6 process chart). The PMO / Performing organization maintains and produces business documents, listings, registers and lessons learned. These template records are used by project mangers to understand the constraints and requirements for projects. Metrics are also provided to determine feasibility of a potential project or for a successful project.
2Develop Project Charter
The “Develop project charter”, should provide a link to the business strategic objectives. The project charter should define how the current project achieves the business strategic objectives. This document should basically establish a partnership between the performing organization and the project.
The project charter is an input to each of the “Plan management” and “Plan engagement” processes. Therefore there should be time spent in the development of the project charter to address each of the knowledge areas input requirements.
You are a PM (Project Manager) in a large company which employs a PMO (Project Management Office). You are asked to prepare a document that will describe and communicate the scope and potential benefits of a certain project. You as the PM will utilize a template project charter document to prepare a project charter for the sponsor and stakeholders to review and approve to start the project.
Once approved the project charter will not be updated, it will be utilized as an input document for other processes to start and develop the Project Management Plan, other subsidiary project plans and other important project documents.
The Develop Project Charter, once documented, is in essence the birth certificate of the project and constitutes the first document in the lifespan of the project. (MAD 10/24/2015)
The business case can be from any of the following reasons:
Market demand
Organizational need
Customer request
Technological advance
Legal requirement
Ecological impacts
Social need
The business case can be used before project initiation and may result in a go/no-go decision for the project.
Business case is developed prior to the project being developed.
In the case of multi phase projects, the business case is reviewed at every phase review to ensure that the project is on track to deliver the business benefits. Throughout the project life cycle, periodic review of the business case by the sponsoring organization also helps to confirm that the project is still aligned with the business case. The project manager is responsible for ensuring that the project effectively and efficiently meets the goals of the organization and those requirements of a broad set of stakeholders, as defined in the business case
The input “agreements” in the project charter is the agreement between the sponsor or customer that includes all the detail to be successful with the project. Scope, schedule, cost, quality, and any other requirements should be stated.
Agreements can be either oral or written. If oral, the Project manager or sponsor should commit the agreement to writing and have the agreement signed by both parties to the agreement.
Agreements can take different forms; Purchase Order, Memorandum, Email, whatever, what is important is to capture the intent and the detail required to definitize the new project so that a decision can be reached to move forward. If a decision is made to move forward than the detail required to complete the project charter should be available.
You are in the business of making headphones for the music industry. You have designed and built hundreds of styles. A purchase order is issued for a particular common style but with unique colors and decals and a challenging timetable for delivery is required. The agreement for the project charter is the purchase order including all the procurement documents.
Your production manager needs a tool designed and developed to reduce the manufacturing time. The production manager has written up a memorandum to management with his ideas; also an ROI estimate of the new tool when used in production. He has provided a drawing and specifications for the tool. If the Sponsor or project manager needs more information, a request should be made of the production manager to furnish this information. The combinations of these conversation minutes, memos and memorandum is the agreement.
There is only one agreement output in project management ITTO’s. That is in the procurement area, and applies to Purchase orders, or purchase contracts. This output is in the execution process group in the Conduct procurement’s process.
The input “agreement” that is attached to the project charter is also an input to the determine budget process. The agreement may give information to the accounting staff to improve the estimates or establish a budget.
You run a worldwide consulting business. A large customer has given you a contract to manage the construction of a refinery in Columbia. Your team of engineers and project managers do not speak Spanish and live in three different countries. The EEF’s that must be considered are long and challenging. Your budget better include a long list of contingent reserves.
The EEF’s that should be considered are:
Columbian internal EEF’s
Environmental laws
Construction fees, and licenses, laws and standards
Culture of the Columbian labor
Attitude of the Columbian population toward refineries
Other unknown local impediments due to culture
Culture of existing project staff
Infrastructure of country surrounding building site
As you can tell this could go on and on.
EEF’s Internal to the organization:
Organizational culture, structure, and governance:
Company vision, mission, values, beliefs, cultural norms, leadership style, relationships, style, ethics, code of conduct
Geographic location
Factory location, virtual teams, shared systems, and cloud computing
Infrastructure
Facilities, equipment, organizational communication channels, availability and capacity
Information technology software
Software tools, configuration management systems, web interfaces, work authorization systems
Your company builds custom computers for large service companies. Your expertise in this field is recognized and sought after. Your competition is amazed at your ability to produce a quality product on a short schedule and at a very competitive price. What they don’t know is your OPA’s guide your team through all the planning and execution areas so that unnecessary and wasteful processes have been eliminated from the planning and production process.
Through years of experience the performing organization has built up the OPA’s by improving each of the procedures and processes to be efficient and quality and cost effective.
OPA’s are the things that your company considers assets to them uniquely. Proprietary information, lessons learned, tools, procedures that improve the likelihood of project success.
Your company builds custom computers for large service companies. Your expertise in this field is recognized and sought after. Your competition is amazed at your ability to produce a quality product on a short schedule and at a very competitive price. What they don’t know is your OPA’s guide your team through all the planning and execution areas so that unnecessary and wasteful processes have been eliminated from the planning and production process.
Through years of experience the performing organization has built up the OPA’s by improving each of the procedures and processes to be efficient and quality and cost effective.
OPA’s are the things that your company considers assets to them uniquely. Proprietary information, lessons learned, tools, procedures that improve the likelihood of project success.
Expert Judgement may be purchased from a consultant or vendor. Having the right experience, training, or education may be critical to any situation in any knowledge area or process on the process chart.
The project manager always uses his expert judgement during the project life cycle. Knowing you do not have the knowledge required is part of that judgement.
Focus Groups are unique – They bring together a group of “prequalified stakeholders and subject matter experts (SME’s)”. In other words, stakeholders with a specific knowledge, or desire. This collaboration is valuable to extract specific details for project success.
A moderator could be used to lead the discussion and record the results.
All focus groups are brought together to find answers to specific questions. This is why only people with potential answers to these questions are invited.
Focus groups are a part of qualitative market research where a group of 6-10 people, usually 8, are asked to share their feedback, opinions, knowledge, and insights about technologies, products, services, marketing plans, sales strategies or any other topic.
All the participants are free to convince the other participants to change their opinions and openly put their respective points forward.
The mediator, in the meanwhile, would take notes and make records from this discussion.
Due to the impact that this focus group can have on the result, a researcher needs to be extremely picky in the process of selecting participants for this focus group.
Focus groups have a long history and were used during the Second World War (1939-1945) to examine the effectiveness of propaganda. Associate director sociologist Robert Merton set up focus groups at the Bureau of Applied Social Research in the USA prior to 1976. Psychologist and marketing expert Ernest Dichter coined the term “focus group” itself before his death in 1991.
The project charter is the first document of any project. During the develop project charter process the project manager must answer two basic questions:
Can my project team supported by the performing organization complete this project successfully?
Do we have the talent or skills necessary?
Do we have the resources required? Budget, Schedule
Do we have the will to complete the project? Risks
Should we do this project?
Can we meet the target metrics for success?
The Project charter should articulate the project at a high level to communicate all aspects to the project sponsor or customer. It should include but not limited to the following items:
Project purpose
Aspects of project performance:
Scope: boundaries, exclusions
Schedule: best estimate
Budget: best estimate
Quality requirements
Resource requirements
Communication requirements
Risks identified
Procurement necessities
Stakeholder listing
This document is an input to all other knowledge areas and should contribute to each of those areas.
*The process of developing a document that formally authorizes the existence of a project and provides the project manager with the authority to apply organizational resources to project activities.
3Develop Project Management Plan
The “Project Management Plan” contains all the plans and baselines literally. This feature of the project management plan means that all the requirements for execution, monitoring and controlling and closing are spelled out in detail in this Record or File. The project management plan is not a project document by definition, Project Records are anything that is not called a plan or baseline.
The Project Management Plan is Progressively Elaborated or iteratively developed during the project. The term to use is “Progressively Elaborated”. There are nineteen (19) outputs of “Project Management Plan Updates”, the use of this output is to update any of the plans or baselines with more definitive information. Project Management Plan Updates is not used for project Changes. All changes use the output, “Change Request”. Change Requests are then processed through “Perform Integrated Change Control” process.
The Project Management Plan is a voluminous file. Examples on the internet are available and the size and scope is determined by the size and scope of the project itself.
There are many companies that continue to develop the project charter and utilize the project charter as the project management plan. For smaller projects this may serve the needs of the organization. Any project of size and complexity would be served better by following all the processes in the PMP process chart.
The project charter is the first document of any project. During the develop project charter process the project manager must answer two basic questions:
Can my project team supported by the performing organization complete this project successfully?
Do we have the talent or skills necessary?
Do we have the resources required? Budget, Schedule
Do we have the will to complete the project? Risks
Should we do this project?
Can we meet the target metrics for success?
The Project charter should articulate the project at a high level to communicate all aspects to the project sponsor or customer. It should include but not limited to the following items:
Project purpose
Aspects of project performance:
Scope: boundaries, exclusions
Schedule: best estimate
Budget: best estimate
Quality requirements
Resource requirements
Communication requirements
Risks identified
Procurement necessities
Stakeholder listing
This document is an input to all other knowledge areas and should contribute to each of those areas.
You run a worldwide consulting business. A large customer has given you a contract to manage the construction of a refinery in Columbia. Your team of engineers and project managers do not speak Spanish and live in three different countries. The EEF’s that must be considered are long and challenging. Your budget better include a long list of contingent reserves.
The EEF’s that should be considered are:
Columbian internal EEF’s
Environmental laws
Construction fees, and licenses, laws and standards
Culture of the Columbian labor
Attitude of the Columbian population toward refineries
Other unknown local impediments due to culture
Culture of existing project staff
Infrastructure of country surrounding building site
As you can tell this could go on and on.
EEF’s Internal to the organization:
Organizational culture, structure, and governance:
Company vision, mission, values, beliefs, cultural norms, leadership style, relationships, style, ethics, code of conduct
Geographic location
Factory location, virtual teams, shared systems, and cloud computing
Infrastructure
Facilities, equipment, organizational communication channels, availability and capacity
Information technology software
Software tools, configuration management systems, web interfaces, work authorization systems
Your company builds custom computers for large service companies. Your expertise in this field is recognized and sought after. Your competition is amazed at your ability to produce a quality product on a short schedule and at a very competitive price. What they don’t know is your OPA’s guide your team through all the planning and execution areas so that unnecessary and wasteful processes have been eliminated from the planning and production process.
Through years of experience the performing organization has built up the OPA’s by improving each of the procedures and processes to be efficient and quality and cost effective.
OPA’s are the things that your company considers assets to them uniquely. Proprietary information, lessons learned, tools, procedures that improve the likelihood of project success.
Your company builds custom computers for large service companies. Your expertise in this field is recognized and sought after. Your competition is amazed at your ability to produce a quality product on a short schedule and at a very competitive price. What they don’t know is your OPA’s guide your team through all the planning and execution areas so that unnecessary and wasteful processes have been eliminated from the planning and production process.
Through years of experience the performing organization has built up the OPA’s by improving each of the procedures and processes to be efficient and quality and cost effective.
OPA’s are the things that your company considers assets to them uniquely. Proprietary information, lessons learned, tools, procedures that improve the likelihood of project success.
Expert Judgement may be purchased from a consultant or vendor. Having the right experience, training, or education may be critical to any situation in any knowledge area or process on the process chart.
The project manager always uses his expert judgement during the project life cycle. Knowing you do not have the knowledge required is part of that judgement.
Focus Groups are unique – They bring together a group of “prequalified stakeholders and subject matter experts (SME’s)”. In other words, stakeholders with a specific knowledge, or desire. This collaboration is valuable to extract specific details for project success.
A moderator could be used to lead the discussion and record the results.
All focus groups are brought together to find answers to specific questions. This is why only people with potential answers to these questions are invited.
Focus groups are a part of qualitative market research where a group of 6-10 people, usually 8, are asked to share their feedback, opinions, knowledge, and insights about technologies, products, services, marketing plans, sales strategies or any other topic.
All the participants are free to convince the other participants to change their opinions and openly put their respective points forward.
The mediator, in the meanwhile, would take notes and make records from this discussion.
Due to the impact that this focus group can have on the result, a researcher needs to be extremely picky in the process of selecting participants for this focus group.
Focus groups have a long history and were used during the Second World War (1939-1945) to examine the effectiveness of propaganda. Associate director sociologist Robert Merton set up focus groups at the Bureau of Applied Social Research in the USA prior to 1976. Psychologist and marketing expert Ernest Dichter coined the term “focus group” itself before his death in 1991.
A change management plan defines activities and roles to manage and control change during the execute and control stage of the project. Change is measured against the project baseline, which is a detailed description of the project’s scope, budget, schedule, and plans to manage quality, risk, issues, and change. During the execute and control stage, changes may require one or more revised project baselines to be issued.
Rationale/Purpose
Change can occur throughout the project life cycle. A Change Management Plan helps control the effect of changes during the execute and control stage, thereby avoiding overruns in cost and schedule, incoherent scope, poor quality, etc. The Change Management Plan is critical to the success of the project. There should be no change without evaluation and approval.
Who is involved
Project Team
Project Manager
Project Sponsor
Customer
Project Stakeholders
Result
Change Management Plan component of the Project Plan
Change Management Plan
Project Name:
TEMPLATE
Title:Prepared By:
Version No:
Document Change Control
The following is the document control for revisions to this document.
Version Number
Date of Issue
Author(s)
Brief Description of Change
Definition
The following are definitions of terms, abbreviations and acronyms used in this document.
[Identify the driving constraints for the project. These are the assumptions against which change is managed. Examples:
fixed budget set at $_______
hard deadline
minimum quality threshold.]
2. Change management guidelines and purview.
The following items will be subject to change management.
[Specific list of primary deliverables and the documents that describe them, and secondary deliverables that will fall under change management. Examples:]
Primary deliverables
Software application as described in these specifications documents
Hardware deployment as described in these bill of materials and configuration plan documents and machine room blueprint
Secondary deliverables
Project WBS
Project budgetary and scheduling documents
Project quality control planning document
Project reporting requirements
The project team has latitude [is strictly bound] to interpret requirements in the following areas:
[Specific list of areas in the product specification or requirements where the project team is either strictly bound by the documents or has the prerogative to interpret the requirements more loosely.]
3. Estimate of change volume
The budgetary impact of change in this project is expected to fall within the range of [lower] to [higher] dollars. We assume the number of change requests will be roughly ____. We estimate change evaluation and management to require _____ hours.
4. Roles and responsibilities
[For evaluators, note any special expertise that may be required given the sorts of changes you can anticipate. This sets the stage for ensuring access to that expertise.]
The change manager is responsible to
receive and log change requests
monitor project and recognize changes that result from realized risks and issues
track and facilitate the timely evaluation of change requests
track and facilitate timely decisions on changes
incorporate changes into the appropriate project documents
communicate changes to the project team and others as the communication plan below dictates
report change management activity as outlined in the reporting section below
analyze patterns in change requests to identify underlying systemic causes
ensure that the evaluation team is appropriately staffed to meet the volume and expertise requirements of the change queue
The change requestor, who is any key stakeholder, may submit project change requests following the submittal process indicated below.
The lead change evaluator is charged to
organize and perform the timely and adequate evaluation of changes in terms of their impacts on project deliverables and constraints
outline options and recommend courses of action and priorities for changes
ensure that appropriate expertise is brought to bear in the evaluation of all changes
Change evaluators work under the direction of the lead evaluator to
apply their particular expertise and judgment to the evaluation of changes assigned to them
develop options and recommend courses of action for these changes
The change decision maker is responsible to
approve, reject, or park changes
request further evaluation if insufficient information is available to support the decision
5. The change management process
For each change the following process will be followed. Note that logging occurs at various points in the process, e.g. after evaluation and after the decision, not shown in this diagram.
5.1 Submittal and Logging: Change requests will be submitted using the change request form referenced below. A change resulting from a realized risk or issue will be documented through a change request form. The change manager will scan risks and issues for likely changes every ____ [days, weeks]. The change manager will identify checkpoints in the WBS critical path at which to survey the project team, customer, sponsor, and stakeholders for changes. These checkpoints will be chosen with the aim of minimizing the impact of changes on the project constraints.
5.2 Evaluation: The lead change evaluator will note any special expertise required to effectively evaluate a change request.
[Note any likely areas of expertise required and identify the resources you will use to secure the expertise. It would be prudent before the onset of the execute and control stage to have verified the availability of these resources. Example: your project involves the development of licenses for which legal advice is required. You will obtain that advice from whom?]
Unless otherwise noted, change requests will be evaluated within ____ days of submission to the evaluators.
5.3 Decision: Unless otherwise noted, changes will be approved, rejected, or parked within _____ days of submission to the change decision maker. The decision maker may also request further evaluation.
5.4 Integration: The change manager will update project documentation as changes are approved. All changes will be recorded in the document change control block. Project drawings, diagrams, and specifications will be reissued when accumulated change notations render the documents confusing, ambiguous, or otherwise unclear. Project documentation will be posted to this site [http://myproject.doit.wisc.edu]. A running summary of changes will be posted to this page [http://myproject.doit.wisc.edu/approved_changes/].
5.5 Communication: The project team and sponsor will be notified of changes as they are approved through email. A summary of recent changes will be reviewed in weekly team meetings. A change summary will be published to stakeholders and customers with the [note reporting period, e.g. monthly] project status report.
6. Tools
Change request form
See attached change request template.
Change log
See attached change log template.
7. Appendices
[Add additional information as needed.]
This plan will identify the responsible person or team that will be reviewing and approving all change requests.
This Configuration Management (CM) Plan establishes the technical and administrative direction and surveillance for the management of configuration items (i.e., software, hardware, and documentation) associated with the <Project Name (Acronym)> that are to be placed under configuration control. This document defines the project’s structure and methods for:
Identifying, defining, and baselining configuration items (CIs);
Controlling modifications and releases of CIs;
Reporting and recording status of CIs and any requested modifications;
Ensuring completeness, consistency, and correctness of CIs; and
Controlling storage, handling, and delivery of CIs.
As the project matures, appropriate sections of this plan will require periodic updating.
Examples of “Configuration Management Plans” are readily available on the internet. Just Google the plan. These plans are detailed and should be completed for large projects that will require a long schedule. Simple projects may not require a configuration management plan.
The configuration management plan should not be confused with the change management plan. The configuration management plan details how the project will maintain the integrity of the scope of the deliverable. The change management plan details how changes will be captured, approved, implemented, and verified after implementation.
*The process of defining, preparing, and coordinating all subsidiary plans and integrating them into a comprehensive project management plan.
4Direct & Manage Project Work
Direct & Manage Project Work is the execution of ALL project physical work. This process includes all the work of the processes of the Execute Process Group.
The purpose of this process is to produce the deliverable as outlined in the Project Management Plan. One of the outputs of this process is indeed the “Deliverable“. All the work on the deliverable is done in this process, all other processes in the execute process group, support this process.
A second very important output here is “Work Performance Data“. All the data collected throughout the execution is contained in this output. This output becomes the input to Nine (9) other processes. All the processes in Monitoring and Controlling except those in the Integration Knowledge area.
Direct & Manage Project Work is the execution of the Project Management Plan.
Execution means the work on the deliverable. All the physical work is done here. Planning and Monitoring and Controlling is done in other process groups.
Direct & Manage Project Work is the only process where the deliverable is produced. All the work is done in execution. All approved change requests are implemented and completed in this process.
You run a worldwide consulting business. A large customer has given you a contract to manage the construction of a refinery in Columbia. Your team of engineers and project managers do not speak Spanish and live in three different countries. The EEF’s that must be considered are long and challenging. Your budget better include a long list of contingent reserves.
The EEF’s that should be considered are:
Columbian internal EEF’s
Environmental laws
Construction fees, and licenses, laws and standards
Culture of the Columbian labor
Attitude of the Columbian population toward refineries
Other unknown local impediments due to culture
Culture of existing project staff
Infrastructure of country surrounding building site
As you can tell this could go on and on.
EEF’s Internal to the organization:
Organizational culture, structure, and governance:
Company vision, mission, values, beliefs, cultural norms, leadership style, relationships, style, ethics, code of conduct
Geographic location
Factory location, virtual teams, shared systems, and cloud computing
Infrastructure
Facilities, equipment, organizational communication channels, availability and capacity
Information technology software
Software tools, configuration management systems, web interfaces, work authorization systems
Your company builds custom computers for large service companies. Your expertise in this field is recognized and sought after. Your competition is amazed at your ability to produce a quality product on a short schedule and at a very competitive price. What they don’t know is your OPA’s guide your team through all the planning and execution areas so that unnecessary and wasteful processes have been eliminated from the planning and production process.
Through years of experience the performing organization has built up the OPA’s by improving each of the procedures and processes to be efficient and quality and cost effective.
OPA’s are the things that your company considers assets to them uniquely. Proprietary information, lessons learned, tools, procedures that improve the likelihood of project success.
Your company builds custom computers for large service companies. Your expertise in this field is recognized and sought after. Your competition is amazed at your ability to produce a quality product on a short schedule and at a very competitive price. What they don’t know is your OPA’s guide your team through all the planning and execution areas so that unnecessary and wasteful processes have been eliminated from the planning and production process.
Through years of experience the performing organization has built up the OPA’s by improving each of the procedures and processes to be efficient and quality and cost effective.
OPA’s are the things that your company considers assets to them uniquely. Proprietary information, lessons learned, tools, procedures that improve the likelihood of project success.
Expert Judgement may be purchased from a consultant or vendor. Having the right experience, training, or education may be critical to any situation in any knowledge area or process on the process chart.
The project manager always uses his expert judgement during the project life cycle. Knowing you do not have the knowledge required is part of that judgement.
*The PMIS provides access to information technology software tools, such as scheduling software tools work authorization systems, configuration management systems, information collection and distributions systems, as well as interfaces to other online automated systems such as corporate knowledge base repositories. Automated gathering and reporting on key performance indicators (KPI) can be part of this system.
The Outcome of a project. The deliverable is what the customer wants from you, the project manager. At the beginning of a project. The Sponsor and or the project manager must articulate what the customer wants? This information is listed in the project charter:
Scope
Schedule
Budget
Quality requirements
Resource requirements
Communication requirements
Risks (known at the time)
Procurement requirements (known at the time)
Stakeholders
As you can see, the project charter touches on all aspects of a project. The metrics of success are also articulated in the project charter.
Once the project charter is approved by the sponsor and the project manger. The project manager knows the deliverable he needs to deliver.
A deliverable of a project to build a house – House
A deliverable of a project to build a website – Website
A deliverable to market a product – A marketing program
The overriding definition of the deliverable of a project is a combination of the customers and users desires articulated so that all other stakeholders can understand how to accomplish a positive and successful project.
Change request forms are the primary project management tool used for requesting any changes to a specific project and are one piece of the change management process. All project managers must manage change carefully and implement a thorough change control process to ensure projects remain within their approved constraints. Some projects have many stakeholders with varying levels of interest in the project and change is an inevitable part of any project lifecycle.
The change request form is filled out by the individual who identifies the need for a change and submitted to the project team in accordance with the change control process. The project manager then leads the team in identifying the impacts of the change, whether it will benefit the project, and if it will allow the project to proceed within its approved constraints. The request is then submitted to the change control board with the project team’s findings where it is reviewed and either approved, rejected, or deferred until clarification can be sought.
If the change is approved, all project documentation must be updated accordingly, and the change must be communicated to all stakeholders. Some changes may also require re-baselining of the costs, schedule, or scope. There are many formats for change requests depending on the organization.
Describe any Technical Changes Required to Implement this Change:
Describe Risks to be Considered for this Change:
Estimate Resources and Costs Needed to Implement this Change:
Describe the Implications to Quality:
Disposition:
□ Approve □ Reject □ Defer
Justification of Approval, Rejection, or Deferral:
Change Board Approval:
Name
Signature
Date
Are change requests done for 100% of changes?
No! Some changes may be minor in nature and would only create voluminous unnecessary documentation. The Project manager or designate would make that decision.
Even in the case that the change is not controlled through the “Perform integrated change control” It still needs to be documented and communicated to all affected stakeholders.
*The process of leading and performing the work defined in the project management plan and implementing approved changes to achieve the project’s objectives.
5Manage Project Knowledge
Knowledge is commonly split into two different categories:
1 Explicit Knowledge – knowledge that can be readily codified using words, pictures, and numbers, and
2 Tacit Knowledge – knowledge that is personal and difficult to express, such as beliefs, insights, experience, and Know-how.
It is a common misconception that managing knowledge involves just documenting it so it can be shared. Another common misconception is that managing knowledge involves just obtaining lessons learned at the end of the project, in order to use it in the future projects. Only codified explicit knowledge can be shared in this way. But codified explicit knowledge lacks context and is open to different interpretations, so even though it can easily be shared, it isn’t always understood or applied in the right way. Tacit knowledge has context built in but is very difficult to codify. It resides in the minds of individual experts or in social groups and situations, and is normally shared through conversations and interactions between people.
The Outcome of a project. The deliverable is what the customer wants from you, the project manager. At the beginning of a project. The Sponsor and or the project manager must articulate what the customer wants? This information is listed in the project charter:
Scope
Schedule
Budget
Quality requirements
Resource requirements
Communication requirements
Risks (known at the time)
Procurement requirements (known at the time)
Stakeholders
As you can see, the project charter touches on all aspects of a project. The metrics of success are also articulated in the project charter.
Once the project charter is approved by the sponsor and the project manger. The project manager knows the deliverable he needs to deliver.
A deliverable of a project to build a house – House
A deliverable of a project to build a website – Website
A deliverable to market a product – A marketing program
The overriding definition of the deliverable of a project is a combination of the customers and users desires articulated so that all other stakeholders can understand how to accomplish a positive and successful project.
You run a worldwide consulting business. A large customer has given you a contract to manage the construction of a refinery in Columbia. Your team of engineers and project managers do not speak Spanish and live in three different countries. The EEF’s that must be considered are long and challenging. Your budget better include a long list of contingent reserves.
The EEF’s that should be considered are:
Columbian internal EEF’s
Environmental laws
Construction fees, and licenses, laws and standards
Culture of the Columbian labor
Attitude of the Columbian population toward refineries
Other unknown local impediments due to culture
Culture of existing project staff
Infrastructure of country surrounding building site
As you can tell this could go on and on.
EEF’s Internal to the organization:
Organizational culture, structure, and governance:
Company vision, mission, values, beliefs, cultural norms, leadership style, relationships, style, ethics, code of conduct
Geographic location
Factory location, virtual teams, shared systems, and cloud computing
Infrastructure
Facilities, equipment, organizational communication channels, availability and capacity
Information technology software
Software tools, configuration management systems, web interfaces, work authorization systems
Your company builds custom computers for large service companies. Your expertise in this field is recognized and sought after. Your competition is amazed at your ability to produce a quality product on a short schedule and at a very competitive price. What they don’t know is your OPA’s guide your team through all the planning and execution areas so that unnecessary and wasteful processes have been eliminated from the planning and production process.
Through years of experience the performing organization has built up the OPA’s by improving each of the procedures and processes to be efficient and quality and cost effective.
OPA’s are the things that your company considers assets to them uniquely. Proprietary information, lessons learned, tools, procedures that improve the likelihood of project success.
Your company builds custom computers for large service companies. Your expertise in this field is recognized and sought after. Your competition is amazed at your ability to produce a quality product on a short schedule and at a very competitive price. What they don’t know is your OPA’s guide your team through all the planning and execution areas so that unnecessary and wasteful processes have been eliminated from the planning and production process.
Through years of experience the performing organization has built up the OPA’s by improving each of the procedures and processes to be efficient and quality and cost effective.
OPA’s are the things that your company considers assets to them uniquely. Proprietary information, lessons learned, tools, procedures that improve the likelihood of project success.
Expert Judgement may be purchased from a consultant or vendor. Having the right experience, training, or education may be critical to any situation in any knowledge area or process on the process chart.
The project manager always uses his expert judgement during the project life cycle. Knowing you do not have the knowledge required is part of that judgement.
The process of using existing knowledge and creating new knowledge to achieve the project objectives and contribute to organizational learning.
6Monitor & Control Project Work
What do we do in “Monitor and Control Project Work”?
Compare plan performance against actual Difference is variance
Assess performance to determine if corrective or preventive actions are required
Check on project risks
Maintain information base of project progress to completion
Provide status reporting of project progress to stakeholders
Provide updated forecasts of scope, schedule, budget
Monitor implementation of “Approved Change Requests”
Ensure that the project stays aligned with the business needs
Monitoring and Controlling the project is critical to project success. In this process we track, review, and report the progress. We need to be sensitive to the life-cycle of the project.
Collection and Reporting are the two main functions of this process. As reflected by the main output of “Work Performance Reports“.
The project manager is responsible for the collection and reporting of the project parameters. Tracking and evaluating the current state of the project and reporting the same to stakeholders is critical to project success.
Within this process we can act on items that are discovered that need to be changed, by using a change request.
But the biggest value of this process is to communicate the project life-cycle metrics to the team and stakeholders in the other processes, that can act on their critical areas of expertise, This is done through the “Work Performance Reports”.
The input “agreements” in the project charter is the agreement between the sponsor or customer that includes all the detail to be successful with the project. Scope, schedule, cost, quality, and any other requirements should be stated.
Agreements can be either oral or written. If oral, the Project manager or sponsor should commit the agreement to writing and have the agreement signed by both parties to the agreement.
Agreements can take different forms; Purchase Order, Memorandum, Email, whatever, what is important is to capture the intent and the detail required to definitize the new project so that a decision can be reached to move forward. If a decision is made to move forward than the detail required to complete the project charter should be available.
You are in the business of making headphones for the music industry. You have designed and built hundreds of styles. A purchase order is issued for a particular common style but with unique colors and decals and a challenging timetable for delivery is required. The agreement for the project charter is the purchase order including all the procurement documents.
Your production manager needs a tool designed and developed to reduce the manufacturing time. The production manager has written up a memorandum to management with his ideas; also an ROI estimate of the new tool when used in production. He has provided a drawing and specifications for the tool. If the Sponsor or project manager needs more information, a request should be made of the production manager to furnish this information. The combinations of these conversation minutes, memos and memorandum is the agreement.
There is only one agreement output in project management ITTO’s. That is in the procurement area, and applies to Purchase orders, or purchase contracts. This output is in the execution process group in the Conduct procurement’s process.
The input “agreement” that is attached to the project charter is also an input to the determine budget process. The agreement may give information to the accounting staff to improve the estimates or establish a budget.
You run a worldwide consulting business. A large customer has given you a contract to manage the construction of a refinery in Columbia. Your team of engineers and project managers do not speak Spanish and live in three different countries. The EEF’s that must be considered are long and challenging. Your budget better include a long list of contingent reserves.
The EEF’s that should be considered are:
Columbian internal EEF’s
Environmental laws
Construction fees, and licenses, laws and standards
Culture of the Columbian labor
Attitude of the Columbian population toward refineries
Other unknown local impediments due to culture
Culture of existing project staff
Infrastructure of country surrounding building site
As you can tell this could go on and on.
EEF’s Internal to the organization:
Organizational culture, structure, and governance:
Company vision, mission, values, beliefs, cultural norms, leadership style, relationships, style, ethics, code of conduct
Geographic location
Factory location, virtual teams, shared systems, and cloud computing
Infrastructure
Facilities, equipment, organizational communication channels, availability and capacity
Information technology software
Software tools, configuration management systems, web interfaces, work authorization systems
Your company builds custom computers for large service companies. Your expertise in this field is recognized and sought after. Your competition is amazed at your ability to produce a quality product on a short schedule and at a very competitive price. What they don’t know is your OPA’s guide your team through all the planning and execution areas so that unnecessary and wasteful processes have been eliminated from the planning and production process.
Through years of experience the performing organization has built up the OPA’s by improving each of the procedures and processes to be efficient and quality and cost effective.
OPA’s are the things that your company considers assets to them uniquely. Proprietary information, lessons learned, tools, procedures that improve the likelihood of project success.
Your company builds custom computers for large service companies. Your expertise in this field is recognized and sought after. Your competition is amazed at your ability to produce a quality product on a short schedule and at a very competitive price. What they don’t know is your OPA’s guide your team through all the planning and execution areas so that unnecessary and wasteful processes have been eliminated from the planning and production process.
Through years of experience the performing organization has built up the OPA’s by improving each of the procedures and processes to be efficient and quality and cost effective.
OPA’s are the things that your company considers assets to them uniquely. Proprietary information, lessons learned, tools, procedures that improve the likelihood of project success.
Expert Judgement may be purchased from a consultant or vendor. Having the right experience, training, or education may be critical to any situation in any knowledge area or process on the process chart.
The project manager always uses his expert judgement during the project life cycle. Knowing you do not have the knowledge required is part of that judgement.
Change request forms are the primary project management tool used for requesting any changes to a specific project and are one piece of the change management process. All project managers must manage change carefully and implement a thorough change control process to ensure projects remain within their approved constraints. Some projects have many stakeholders with varying levels of interest in the project and change is an inevitable part of any project lifecycle.
The change request form is filled out by the individual who identifies the need for a change and submitted to the project team in accordance with the change control process. The project manager then leads the team in identifying the impacts of the change, whether it will benefit the project, and if it will allow the project to proceed within its approved constraints. The request is then submitted to the change control board with the project team’s findings where it is reviewed and either approved, rejected, or deferred until clarification can be sought.
If the change is approved, all project documentation must be updated accordingly, and the change must be communicated to all stakeholders. Some changes may also require re-baselining of the costs, schedule, or scope. There are many formats for change requests depending on the organization.
Describe any Technical Changes Required to Implement this Change:
Describe Risks to be Considered for this Change:
Estimate Resources and Costs Needed to Implement this Change:
Describe the Implications to Quality:
Disposition:
□ Approve □ Reject □ Defer
Justification of Approval, Rejection, or Deferral:
Change Board Approval:
Name
Signature
Date
Are change requests done for 100% of changes?
No! Some changes may be minor in nature and would only create voluminous unnecessary documentation. The Project manager or designate would make that decision.
Even in the case that the change is not controlled through the “Perform integrated change control” It still needs to be documented and communicated to all affected stakeholders.
*The process of tracking, reviewing, and reporting the progress to meet the performance objectives defined in the project management plan.
7Perform Integrated Change Control
Perform integrated change control is a very active process in project management. If the 49 processes were a river the “Perform Integrated Change Control” process would be a whirlpool. All material changes to a project flow through this process.
Perform Integrated Change Control is the process of reviewing all change requests: approving changes and managing changes to deliverable’s, organizational process assets, project documents, and the project management plan: and communicating their disposition.
Material changes to:
Deliverables
Corrective Action
Preventive Action
Defect Repair
Organizational Process Assets
Project Management Plan
Plans
Baselines
Project Documents
Discovery of a mistake in the scope of the project was discovered and rectification is required. A change request would be completed and sent to the CCB within the process (Perform integrated change control).
Changes may be requested by any stakeholder, but changes should be placed on a change request to be formally input into the perform integrated change control process. These procedures should be followed by all stakeholders and should be performed throughout the project life cycle.
Change request forms are the primary project management tool used for requesting any changes to a specific project and are one piece of the change management process. All project managers must manage change carefully and implement a thorough change control process to ensure projects remain within their approved constraints. Some projects have many stakeholders with varying levels of interest in the project and change is an inevitable part of any project lifecycle.
The change request form is filled out by the individual who identifies the need for a change and submitted to the project team in accordance with the change control process. The project manager then leads the team in identifying the impacts of the change, whether it will benefit the project, and if it will allow the project to proceed within its approved constraints. The request is then submitted to the change control board with the project team’s findings where it is reviewed and either approved, rejected, or deferred until clarification can be sought.
If the change is approved, all project documentation must be updated accordingly, and the change must be communicated to all stakeholders. Some changes may also require re-baselining of the costs, schedule, or scope. There are many formats for change requests depending on the organization.
Describe any Technical Changes Required to Implement this Change:
Describe Risks to be Considered for this Change:
Estimate Resources and Costs Needed to Implement this Change:
Describe the Implications to Quality:
Disposition:
□ Approve □ Reject □ Defer
Justification of Approval, Rejection, or Deferral:
Change Board Approval:
Name
Signature
Date
Are change requests done for 100% of changes?
No! Some changes may be minor in nature and would only create voluminous unnecessary documentation. The Project manager or designate would make that decision.
Even in the case that the change is not controlled through the “Perform integrated change control” It still needs to be documented and communicated to all affected stakeholders.
A change management plan defines activities and roles to manage and control change during the execute and control stage of the project. Change is measured against the project baseline, which is a detailed description of the project’s scope, budget, schedule, and plans to manage quality, risk, issues, and change. During the execute and control stage, changes may require one or more revised project baselines to be issued.
Rationale/Purpose
Change can occur throughout the project life cycle. A Change Management Plan helps control the effect of changes during the execute and control stage, thereby avoiding overruns in cost and schedule, incoherent scope, poor quality, etc. The Change Management Plan is critical to the success of the project. There should be no change without evaluation and approval.
Who is involved
Project Team
Project Manager
Project Sponsor
Customer
Project Stakeholders
Result
Change Management Plan component of the Project Plan
Change Management Plan
Project Name:
TEMPLATE
Title:Prepared By:
Version No:
Document Change Control
The following is the document control for revisions to this document.
Version Number
Date of Issue
Author(s)
Brief Description of Change
Definition
The following are definitions of terms, abbreviations and acronyms used in this document.
[Identify the driving constraints for the project. These are the assumptions against which change is managed. Examples:
fixed budget set at $_______
hard deadline
minimum quality threshold.]
2. Change management guidelines and purview.
The following items will be subject to change management.
[Specific list of primary deliverables and the documents that describe them, and secondary deliverables that will fall under change management. Examples:]
Primary deliverables
Software application as described in these specifications documents
Hardware deployment as described in these bill of materials and configuration plan documents and machine room blueprint
Secondary deliverables
Project WBS
Project budgetary and scheduling documents
Project quality control planning document
Project reporting requirements
The project team has latitude [is strictly bound] to interpret requirements in the following areas:
[Specific list of areas in the product specification or requirements where the project team is either strictly bound by the documents or has the prerogative to interpret the requirements more loosely.]
3. Estimate of change volume
The budgetary impact of change in this project is expected to fall within the range of [lower] to [higher] dollars. We assume the number of change requests will be roughly ____. We estimate change evaluation and management to require _____ hours.
4. Roles and responsibilities
[For evaluators, note any special expertise that may be required given the sorts of changes you can anticipate. This sets the stage for ensuring access to that expertise.]
The change manager is responsible to
receive and log change requests
monitor project and recognize changes that result from realized risks and issues
track and facilitate the timely evaluation of change requests
track and facilitate timely decisions on changes
incorporate changes into the appropriate project documents
communicate changes to the project team and others as the communication plan below dictates
report change management activity as outlined in the reporting section below
analyze patterns in change requests to identify underlying systemic causes
ensure that the evaluation team is appropriately staffed to meet the volume and expertise requirements of the change queue
The change requestor, who is any key stakeholder, may submit project change requests following the submittal process indicated below.
The lead change evaluator is charged to
organize and perform the timely and adequate evaluation of changes in terms of their impacts on project deliverables and constraints
outline options and recommend courses of action and priorities for changes
ensure that appropriate expertise is brought to bear in the evaluation of all changes
Change evaluators work under the direction of the lead evaluator to
apply their particular expertise and judgment to the evaluation of changes assigned to them
develop options and recommend courses of action for these changes
The change decision maker is responsible to
approve, reject, or park changes
request further evaluation if insufficient information is available to support the decision
5. The change management process
For each change the following process will be followed. Note that logging occurs at various points in the process, e.g. after evaluation and after the decision, not shown in this diagram.
5.1 Submittal and Logging: Change requests will be submitted using the change request form referenced below. A change resulting from a realized risk or issue will be documented through a change request form. The change manager will scan risks and issues for likely changes every ____ [days, weeks]. The change manager will identify checkpoints in the WBS critical path at which to survey the project team, customer, sponsor, and stakeholders for changes. These checkpoints will be chosen with the aim of minimizing the impact of changes on the project constraints.
5.2 Evaluation: The lead change evaluator will note any special expertise required to effectively evaluate a change request.
[Note any likely areas of expertise required and identify the resources you will use to secure the expertise. It would be prudent before the onset of the execute and control stage to have verified the availability of these resources. Example: your project involves the development of licenses for which legal advice is required. You will obtain that advice from whom?]
Unless otherwise noted, change requests will be evaluated within ____ days of submission to the evaluators.
5.3 Decision: Unless otherwise noted, changes will be approved, rejected, or parked within _____ days of submission to the change decision maker. The decision maker may also request further evaluation.
5.4 Integration: The change manager will update project documentation as changes are approved. All changes will be recorded in the document change control block. Project drawings, diagrams, and specifications will be reissued when accumulated change notations render the documents confusing, ambiguous, or otherwise unclear. Project documentation will be posted to this site [http://myproject.doit.wisc.edu]. A running summary of changes will be posted to this page [http://myproject.doit.wisc.edu/approved_changes/].
5.5 Communication: The project team and sponsor will be notified of changes as they are approved through email. A summary of recent changes will be reviewed in weekly team meetings. A change summary will be published to stakeholders and customers with the [note reporting period, e.g. monthly] project status report.
6. Tools
Change request form
See attached change request template.
Change log
See attached change log template.
7. Appendices
[Add additional information as needed.]
This plan will identify the responsible person or team that will be reviewing and approving all change requests.
This Configuration Management (CM) Plan establishes the technical and administrative direction and surveillance for the management of configuration items (i.e., software, hardware, and documentation) associated with the <Project Name (Acronym)> that are to be placed under configuration control. This document defines the project’s structure and methods for:
Identifying, defining, and baselining configuration items (CIs);
Controlling modifications and releases of CIs;
Reporting and recording status of CIs and any requested modifications;
Ensuring completeness, consistency, and correctness of CIs; and
Controlling storage, handling, and delivery of CIs.
As the project matures, appropriate sections of this plan will require periodic updating.
Examples of “Configuration Management Plans” are readily available on the internet. Just Google the plan. These plans are detailed and should be completed for large projects that will require a long schedule. Simple projects may not require a configuration management plan.
The configuration management plan should not be confused with the change management plan. The configuration management plan details how the project will maintain the integrity of the scope of the deliverable. The change management plan details how changes will be captured, approved, implemented, and verified after implementation.
The scope baseline is the approved version of a scope statement, WBS, and its associated WBS dictionary.
Project Scope Statement – The project scope statement includes the description of the project scope, major deliverables, assumptions, and constraints.
WBS – the WBS is a hierarchical decomposition of the total scope of work to be carried out by the project team to accomplish the project objectives and create the required deliverables. Each descending level of the WBS represents an increasingly detailed definition for the project work.
WBS Dictionary – The detail of each line item of the WBS. This documents the level of detail required to understand the WBS.
You run a worldwide consulting business. A large customer has given you a contract to manage the construction of a refinery in Columbia. Your team of engineers and project managers do not speak Spanish and live in three different countries. The EEF’s that must be considered are long and challenging. Your budget better include a long list of contingent reserves.
The EEF’s that should be considered are:
Columbian internal EEF’s
Environmental laws
Construction fees, and licenses, laws and standards
Culture of the Columbian labor
Attitude of the Columbian population toward refineries
Other unknown local impediments due to culture
Culture of existing project staff
Infrastructure of country surrounding building site
As you can tell this could go on and on.
EEF’s Internal to the organization:
Organizational culture, structure, and governance:
Company vision, mission, values, beliefs, cultural norms, leadership style, relationships, style, ethics, code of conduct
Geographic location
Factory location, virtual teams, shared systems, and cloud computing
Infrastructure
Facilities, equipment, organizational communication channels, availability and capacity
Information technology software
Software tools, configuration management systems, web interfaces, work authorization systems
Your company builds custom computers for large service companies. Your expertise in this field is recognized and sought after. Your competition is amazed at your ability to produce a quality product on a short schedule and at a very competitive price. What they don’t know is your OPA’s guide your team through all the planning and execution areas so that unnecessary and wasteful processes have been eliminated from the planning and production process.
Through years of experience the performing organization has built up the OPA’s by improving each of the procedures and processes to be efficient and quality and cost effective.
OPA’s are the things that your company considers assets to them uniquely. Proprietary information, lessons learned, tools, procedures that improve the likelihood of project success.
Your company builds custom computers for large service companies. Your expertise in this field is recognized and sought after. Your competition is amazed at your ability to produce a quality product on a short schedule and at a very competitive price. What they don’t know is your OPA’s guide your team through all the planning and execution areas so that unnecessary and wasteful processes have been eliminated from the planning and production process.
Through years of experience the performing organization has built up the OPA’s by improving each of the procedures and processes to be efficient and quality and cost effective.
OPA’s are the things that your company considers assets to them uniquely. Proprietary information, lessons learned, tools, procedures that improve the likelihood of project success.
Expert Judgement may be purchased from a consultant or vendor. Having the right experience, training, or education may be critical to any situation in any knowledge area or process on the process chart.
The project manager always uses his expert judgement during the project life cycle. Knowing you do not have the knowledge required is part of that judgement.
Change control tools include input from two plans:
Change Management Plan and Configuration Management Plan
Both of these plans need to executed and verified that they are completed properly. Therefore tools are created by the project manager or his designee to accomplish this task.
Some of the tasks that might need to be completed depending on the project, are as follows:
Identify the configuration items, to the detail required by the project.
Record and report configuration items status.
Perform configuration item verification and audit.
Tools to support these activities could be some of the following:
Identify changes
Document changes
Decide on changes
Track changes
Close attention should be given to this process. The biggest error in any project is just “Getting the Deliverable Wrong!”
Examples of “Configuration management plan”, are on the internet. Good Luck
*The process of reviewing all change requests; approving changes and managing changes to deliverables, organizational process assets, project documents, and the project management plan; and communicating their disposition.
8Close Project or Phase
The project manager must close all lose ends before he formally closes a project. The filing of the project files or documents should only be done when all these files have been properly reviewed and approved.
The deliverable should be delivered per the Project Management Plan, the details of the delivery should be spelled out. An easy hand-off, or a complex transition may be required. Success can be determined by this transition.
The key benefit of closing properly is to leave a trail of the project activities that can be followed by subsequent projects. Lessons learned is a valuable asset to the company. If a similar project occurs then these lessons learned will be critical to understanding the scope, schedule, cost, not to mention the other plans in all the knowledge areas.
The project just completed the “Validate Scope” process. The customer was pleased with the results and is pushing for delivery. Upon reviewing the delivery requirements in the project management plan it is noted that a two week testing period before delivery is required, to verify all the features of the deliverable are working.
The project manager will follow the plan as required. The customer will be advised and if any change is required it will be discussed and a change request will be completed and sent through “Perform Integrated Change Control”.
The change can be output in several processes.
This is one of the most important processes of a project. Why? In this process we leave a trail of breadcrumbs to the whole project. These closed file documents are the asset of the performing organization. These files are the only remnants of the project. They have incredible value.
The input “agreements” in the project charter is the agreement between the sponsor or customer that includes all the detail to be successful with the project. Scope, schedule, cost, quality, and any other requirements should be stated.
Agreements can be either oral or written. If oral, the Project manager or sponsor should commit the agreement to writing and have the agreement signed by both parties to the agreement.
Agreements can take different forms; Purchase Order, Memorandum, Email, whatever, what is important is to capture the intent and the detail required to definitize the new project so that a decision can be reached to move forward. If a decision is made to move forward than the detail required to complete the project charter should be available.
You are in the business of making headphones for the music industry. You have designed and built hundreds of styles. A purchase order is issued for a particular common style but with unique colors and decals and a challenging timetable for delivery is required. The agreement for the project charter is the purchase order including all the procurement documents.
Your production manager needs a tool designed and developed to reduce the manufacturing time. The production manager has written up a memorandum to management with his ideas; also an ROI estimate of the new tool when used in production. He has provided a drawing and specifications for the tool. If the Sponsor or project manager needs more information, a request should be made of the production manager to furnish this information. The combinations of these conversation minutes, memos and memorandum is the agreement.
There is only one agreement output in project management ITTO’s. That is in the procurement area, and applies to Purchase orders, or purchase contracts. This output is in the execution process group in the Conduct procurement’s process.
The input “agreement” that is attached to the project charter is also an input to the determine budget process. The agreement may give information to the accounting staff to improve the estimates or establish a budget.
The business case can be from any of the following reasons:
Market demand
Organizational need
Customer request
Technological advance
Legal requirement
Ecological impacts
Social need
The business case can be used before project initiation and may result in a go/no-go decision for the project.
Business case is developed prior to the project being developed.
In the case of multi phase projects, the business case is reviewed at every phase review to ensure that the project is on track to deliver the business benefits. Throughout the project life cycle, periodic review of the business case by the sponsoring organization also helps to confirm that the project is still aligned with the business case. The project manager is responsible for ensuring that the project effectively and efficiently meets the goals of the organization and those requirements of a broad set of stakeholders, as defined in the business case
The benefits management plan explains the requirements of the organization to create a project. What key benefits and or outcomes are expected from projects? The following could be articulated in the benefits management plan:
Targeted benefits
Strategic alignment
Timetable for benefits realization
Benefits owner
Metric of success
Assumptions inherent
Risks
This plan, although created prior to the project is updated with current project information. The project should follow the measurement system of the performing organization.
The project manager works with the sponsor to ensure that the project charter, project management plan, and the benefits management plan remain in alignment throughout the life cycle of the project.
Developing the Benefits management plan makes use of the data and information documented in the Business case and needs assessment.
The sponsor, and stakeholders in the performing organization need to know how the chosen project will deliver to meet the requirements of the performing organization. Therefore the project manager and or his designee needs to articulate how the project will deliver the return on investment required.
The project charter is the first document of any project. During the develop project charter process the project manager must answer two basic questions:
Can my project team supported by the performing organization complete this project successfully?
Do we have the talent or skills necessary?
Do we have the resources required? Budget, Schedule
Do we have the will to complete the project? Risks
Should we do this project?
Can we meet the target metrics for success?
The Project charter should articulate the project at a high level to communicate all aspects to the project sponsor or customer. It should include but not limited to the following items:
Project purpose
Aspects of project performance:
Scope: boundaries, exclusions
Schedule: best estimate
Budget: best estimate
Quality requirements
Resource requirements
Communication requirements
Risks identified
Procurement necessities
Stakeholder listing
This document is an input to all other knowledge areas and should contribute to each of those areas.
Procurement documentation can include any information concerning a procurement, and the needs change with the process being performed. For example there are four inputs for “Procurement documents” and each input process has unique requirements:
Close Project or Phase – To close the contract, all procurement documentation is collected, indexed, and filed. Information on contract schedule, scope, quality, and cost performance along with all contract change documentation, payment records, and inspection results are cataloged “As-built” plans/drawing or “as-developed” documents manuals, troubleshooting, and other technical documentation should also be considered as part of the procurement documents when closing a project This information can be used for lessons learned information and as a basis for evaluating contractors for future contracts.
Identify Risks – Items unique to this process would be:
Seller performance reports
Approved change requests and
Information on inspections
Conduct Procurements – Items required or unique to this process”:
Bid documents
Procurement statements of work
Independent cost estimates
Source selection criteria
Control procurements – Items unique to this process:
Your company builds custom computers for large service companies. Your expertise in this field is recognized and sought after. Your competition is amazed at your ability to produce a quality product on a short schedule and at a very competitive price. What they don’t know is your OPA’s guide your team through all the planning and execution areas so that unnecessary and wasteful processes have been eliminated from the planning and production process.
Through years of experience the performing organization has built up the OPA’s by improving each of the procedures and processes to be efficient and quality and cost effective.
OPA’s are the things that your company considers assets to them uniquely. Proprietary information, lessons learned, tools, procedures that improve the likelihood of project success.
Your company builds custom computers for large service companies. Your expertise in this field is recognized and sought after. Your competition is amazed at your ability to produce a quality product on a short schedule and at a very competitive price. What they don’t know is your OPA’s guide your team through all the planning and execution areas so that unnecessary and wasteful processes have been eliminated from the planning and production process.
Through years of experience the performing organization has built up the OPA’s by improving each of the procedures and processes to be efficient and quality and cost effective.
OPA’s are the things that your company considers assets to them uniquely. Proprietary information, lessons learned, tools, procedures that improve the likelihood of project success.
Expert Judgement may be purchased from a consultant or vendor. Having the right experience, training, or education may be critical to any situation in any knowledge area or process on the process chart.
The project manager always uses his expert judgement during the project life cycle. Knowing you do not have the knowledge required is part of that judgement.
Regression analysis is used to understand which among the independent variables are related to the dependent variable, and to explore the forms of these relationships. In restricted circumstances regression analysis cam be used to infer causal relationships between the independent and dependent variables.
At the end of a project, it is valuable to determine which project variables or factors contributed to project success or failure. These discoveries should be documented for future use in the Lessons Learned register.
The regression analysis is a technique that involves examining the series of input variables in relations to the corresponding output results. This particular project management technique is used in establishing the statistical relationship between two variables. It is used to determine whether one variable, the independent variable, is used to predict the dependent variable.
In regression analysis, the stronger the relationship is between the two variables, the greater the accuracy in predicting their relationship. Project managers can easily see the relationship between two variables by using a simple linear formula and plotting the results on a chart.
Using this tool provides project managers a clearer understanding on the relationship of two things. Used together with the other analytical tools, they can use information for the better decision-making.
A scatter diagram is an example of a “Regression Analysis”. An analysis of two variables and their relationship is a regression analysis.
This technique is used extensively in the quality area. Scatter diagrams are used to display the results of observation data to understand the relationship between two variables. The dependant and independent variables are measured on a timeline and graphed to determine their dependency.
*The process of finalizing all activities across all of the Project Management Process Groups to formally complete a project or phase.
2Scope
*Project Scope Management includes the processes required to ensure that the project includes all the work required, and only the work required, to complete the project successfully.
1Plan Scope Management
The creation of a scope management plan is to provide guidance and direction on how the scope will be managed during the project.
The scope management plan is a subsidiary to the project management plan.
The project manager has seen alternatives to the project that have features different to the current project, He decides he wants to investigate the current scope, He first reviews the scope management plan for direction in his investigation.
Scope must be determined before any schedule or budget can be completed. Developing a scope statement, WBS and WBS Dictionary are critical to project success.
The project charter is the first document of any project. During the develop project charter process the project manager must answer two basic questions:
Can my project team supported by the performing organization complete this project successfully?
Do we have the talent or skills necessary?
Do we have the resources required? Budget, Schedule
Do we have the will to complete the project? Risks
Should we do this project?
Can we meet the target metrics for success?
The Project charter should articulate the project at a high level to communicate all aspects to the project sponsor or customer. It should include but not limited to the following items:
Project purpose
Aspects of project performance:
Scope: boundaries, exclusions
Schedule: best estimate
Budget: best estimate
Quality requirements
Resource requirements
Communication requirements
Risks identified
Procurement necessities
Stakeholder listing
This document is an input to all other knowledge areas and should contribute to each of those areas.
You run a worldwide consulting business. A large customer has given you a contract to manage the construction of a refinery in Columbia. Your team of engineers and project managers do not speak Spanish and live in three different countries. The EEF’s that must be considered are long and challenging. Your budget better include a long list of contingent reserves.
The EEF’s that should be considered are:
Columbian internal EEF’s
Environmental laws
Construction fees, and licenses, laws and standards
Culture of the Columbian labor
Attitude of the Columbian population toward refineries
Other unknown local impediments due to culture
Culture of existing project staff
Infrastructure of country surrounding building site
As you can tell this could go on and on.
EEF’s Internal to the organization:
Organizational culture, structure, and governance:
Company vision, mission, values, beliefs, cultural norms, leadership style, relationships, style, ethics, code of conduct
Geographic location
Factory location, virtual teams, shared systems, and cloud computing
Infrastructure
Facilities, equipment, organizational communication channels, availability and capacity
Information technology software
Software tools, configuration management systems, web interfaces, work authorization systems
Your company builds custom computers for large service companies. Your expertise in this field is recognized and sought after. Your competition is amazed at your ability to produce a quality product on a short schedule and at a very competitive price. What they don’t know is your OPA’s guide your team through all the planning and execution areas so that unnecessary and wasteful processes have been eliminated from the planning and production process.
Through years of experience the performing organization has built up the OPA’s by improving each of the procedures and processes to be efficient and quality and cost effective.
OPA’s are the things that your company considers assets to them uniquely. Proprietary information, lessons learned, tools, procedures that improve the likelihood of project success.
Your company builds custom computers for large service companies. Your expertise in this field is recognized and sought after. Your competition is amazed at your ability to produce a quality product on a short schedule and at a very competitive price. What they don’t know is your OPA’s guide your team through all the planning and execution areas so that unnecessary and wasteful processes have been eliminated from the planning and production process.
Through years of experience the performing organization has built up the OPA’s by improving each of the procedures and processes to be efficient and quality and cost effective.
OPA’s are the things that your company considers assets to them uniquely. Proprietary information, lessons learned, tools, procedures that improve the likelihood of project success.
Expert Judgement may be purchased from a consultant or vendor. Having the right experience, training, or education may be critical to any situation in any knowledge area or process on the process chart.
The project manager always uses his expert judgement during the project life cycle. Knowing you do not have the knowledge required is part of that judgement.
*The process of creating a scope management plan that documents how the project scope will be defined, validated, and controlled.
2Collect Requirements
Collect requirements is the process of collecting and documenting ALL stakeholder requirements. It is important to speak to all stakeholders when looking for these requirements. Even try to find things that the customer does not know he wants. Also look for alternatives to the requirements as this will also expose possible requirements.
Knowing all the requirements will assist in managing the project scope. These requirements will also help with scheduling and costing.
Requirements can be broken down into categories, to mention a few:
Business requirements
Stakeholder requirements
Solution requirements
Part to Part requirements
Transition requirements
Special skill requirements
Quality requirements
The project manager is unfamiliar with the customer, so he has a meeting with the prior PM who has had dealing with the customer to determine any special needs the customer has required in the past. He also reviews the lessons learned to determine special circumstances in the last project with this customer.
Collect Requirements is the same as Voice of the Customer in Six Sigma or when doing the tool “Quality Function Deployment”.
The Industry and product must be taken into consideration when collecting requirements as there may be SME’s required.
The project charter is the first document of any project. During the develop project charter process the project manager must answer two basic questions:
Can my project team supported by the performing organization complete this project successfully?
Do we have the talent or skills necessary?
Do we have the resources required? Budget, Schedule
Do we have the will to complete the project? Risks
Should we do this project?
Can we meet the target metrics for success?
The Project charter should articulate the project at a high level to communicate all aspects to the project sponsor or customer. It should include but not limited to the following items:
Project purpose
Aspects of project performance:
Scope: boundaries, exclusions
Schedule: best estimate
Budget: best estimate
Quality requirements
Resource requirements
Communication requirements
Risks identified
Procurement necessities
Stakeholder listing
This document is an input to all other knowledge areas and should contribute to each of those areas.
The input “agreements” in the project charter is the agreement between the sponsor or customer that includes all the detail to be successful with the project. Scope, schedule, cost, quality, and any other requirements should be stated.
Agreements can be either oral or written. If oral, the Project manager or sponsor should commit the agreement to writing and have the agreement signed by both parties to the agreement.
Agreements can take different forms; Purchase Order, Memorandum, Email, whatever, what is important is to capture the intent and the detail required to definitize the new project so that a decision can be reached to move forward. If a decision is made to move forward than the detail required to complete the project charter should be available.
You are in the business of making headphones for the music industry. You have designed and built hundreds of styles. A purchase order is issued for a particular common style but with unique colors and decals and a challenging timetable for delivery is required. The agreement for the project charter is the purchase order including all the procurement documents.
Your production manager needs a tool designed and developed to reduce the manufacturing time. The production manager has written up a memorandum to management with his ideas; also an ROI estimate of the new tool when used in production. He has provided a drawing and specifications for the tool. If the Sponsor or project manager needs more information, a request should be made of the production manager to furnish this information. The combinations of these conversation minutes, memos and memorandum is the agreement.
There is only one agreement output in project management ITTO’s. That is in the procurement area, and applies to Purchase orders, or purchase contracts. This output is in the execution process group in the Conduct procurement’s process.
The input “agreement” that is attached to the project charter is also an input to the determine budget process. The agreement may give information to the accounting staff to improve the estimates or establish a budget.
The business case can be from any of the following reasons:
Market demand
Organizational need
Customer request
Technological advance
Legal requirement
Ecological impacts
Social need
The business case can be used before project initiation and may result in a go/no-go decision for the project.
Business case is developed prior to the project being developed.
In the case of multi phase projects, the business case is reviewed at every phase review to ensure that the project is on track to deliver the business benefits. Throughout the project life cycle, periodic review of the business case by the sponsoring organization also helps to confirm that the project is still aligned with the business case. The project manager is responsible for ensuring that the project effectively and efficiently meets the goals of the organization and those requirements of a broad set of stakeholders, as defined in the business case
You run a worldwide consulting business. A large customer has given you a contract to manage the construction of a refinery in Columbia. Your team of engineers and project managers do not speak Spanish and live in three different countries. The EEF’s that must be considered are long and challenging. Your budget better include a long list of contingent reserves.
The EEF’s that should be considered are:
Columbian internal EEF’s
Environmental laws
Construction fees, and licenses, laws and standards
Culture of the Columbian labor
Attitude of the Columbian population toward refineries
Other unknown local impediments due to culture
Culture of existing project staff
Infrastructure of country surrounding building site
As you can tell this could go on and on.
EEF’s Internal to the organization:
Organizational culture, structure, and governance:
Company vision, mission, values, beliefs, cultural norms, leadership style, relationships, style, ethics, code of conduct
Geographic location
Factory location, virtual teams, shared systems, and cloud computing
Infrastructure
Facilities, equipment, organizational communication channels, availability and capacity
Information technology software
Software tools, configuration management systems, web interfaces, work authorization systems
Your company builds custom computers for large service companies. Your expertise in this field is recognized and sought after. Your competition is amazed at your ability to produce a quality product on a short schedule and at a very competitive price. What they don’t know is your OPA’s guide your team through all the planning and execution areas so that unnecessary and wasteful processes have been eliminated from the planning and production process.
Through years of experience the performing organization has built up the OPA’s by improving each of the procedures and processes to be efficient and quality and cost effective.
OPA’s are the things that your company considers assets to them uniquely. Proprietary information, lessons learned, tools, procedures that improve the likelihood of project success.
Your company builds custom computers for large service companies. Your expertise in this field is recognized and sought after. Your competition is amazed at your ability to produce a quality product on a short schedule and at a very competitive price. What they don’t know is your OPA’s guide your team through all the planning and execution areas so that unnecessary and wasteful processes have been eliminated from the planning and production process.
Through years of experience the performing organization has built up the OPA’s by improving each of the procedures and processes to be efficient and quality and cost effective.
OPA’s are the things that your company considers assets to them uniquely. Proprietary information, lessons learned, tools, procedures that improve the likelihood of project success.
Expert Judgement may be purchased from a consultant or vendor. Having the right experience, training, or education may be critical to any situation in any knowledge area or process on the process chart.
The project manager always uses his expert judgement during the project life cycle. Knowing you do not have the knowledge required is part of that judgement.
Context diagrams are visual tools that depict the scope of the product showing the business system and how it relates and interacts with the other systems as well. It is a good example of a project management scope model. It shows the inputs to the system, the main players that provide the input as well as the output of the system and the actors receiving them.
Simply put, it shows the name of the product or system in a circle. Outside it is the entities that are involved with the product or system. These include the other business systems, organizations, actors and user classes. Context diagrams also show arrows which indicate the relationship between the system and the external entities.
It helps project managers understand the flow of the project’s system as it depicts the scope in abstraction. Since the project scope is indicated as an abstraction, it does not reveal the functionality and architecture of the system. It also does not identify the features. It simply serves as a tool to aid stakeholders to communicate about the system and what lies outside its boundaries.
Focus Groups are unique – They bring together a group of “prequalified stakeholders and subject matter experts (SME’s)”. In other words, stakeholders with a specific knowledge, or desire. This collaboration is valuable to extract specific details for project success.
A moderator could be used to lead the discussion and record the results.
All focus groups are brought together to find answers to specific questions. This is why only people with potential answers to these questions are invited.
Focus groups are a part of qualitative market research where a group of 6-10 people, usually 8, are asked to share their feedback, opinions, knowledge, and insights about technologies, products, services, marketing plans, sales strategies or any other topic.
All the participants are free to convince the other participants to change their opinions and openly put their respective points forward.
The mediator, in the meanwhile, would take notes and make records from this discussion.
Due to the impact that this focus group can have on the result, a researcher needs to be extremely picky in the process of selecting participants for this focus group.
Focus groups have a long history and were used during the Second World War (1939-1945) to examine the effectiveness of propaganda. Associate director sociologist Robert Merton set up focus groups at the Bureau of Applied Social Research in the USA prior to 1976. Psychologist and marketing expert Ernest Dichter coined the term “focus group” itself before his death in 1991.
*The process of determining, documenting, and managing stakeholder needs and requirements to meet project objectives.
3Define Scope
Define Scope Statement process articulates the project scope in writing. It must be descriptive enough to inform the project team, the details of the project activities and the form and features of the deliverable.
The “Scope Statement” should include the following, but is not limited to the following:
The project charter is the first document of any project. During the develop project charter process the project manager must answer two basic questions:
Can my project team supported by the performing organization complete this project successfully?
Do we have the talent or skills necessary?
Do we have the resources required? Budget, Schedule
Do we have the will to complete the project? Risks
Should we do this project?
Can we meet the target metrics for success?
The Project charter should articulate the project at a high level to communicate all aspects to the project sponsor or customer. It should include but not limited to the following items:
Project purpose
Aspects of project performance:
Scope: boundaries, exclusions
Schedule: best estimate
Budget: best estimate
Quality requirements
Resource requirements
Communication requirements
Risks identified
Procurement necessities
Stakeholder listing
This document is an input to all other knowledge areas and should contribute to each of those areas.
You run a worldwide consulting business. A large customer has given you a contract to manage the construction of a refinery in Columbia. Your team of engineers and project managers do not speak Spanish and live in three different countries. The EEF’s that must be considered are long and challenging. Your budget better include a long list of contingent reserves.
The EEF’s that should be considered are:
Columbian internal EEF’s
Environmental laws
Construction fees, and licenses, laws and standards
Culture of the Columbian labor
Attitude of the Columbian population toward refineries
Other unknown local impediments due to culture
Culture of existing project staff
Infrastructure of country surrounding building site
As you can tell this could go on and on.
EEF’s Internal to the organization:
Organizational culture, structure, and governance:
Company vision, mission, values, beliefs, cultural norms, leadership style, relationships, style, ethics, code of conduct
Geographic location
Factory location, virtual teams, shared systems, and cloud computing
Infrastructure
Facilities, equipment, organizational communication channels, availability and capacity
Information technology software
Software tools, configuration management systems, web interfaces, work authorization systems
Your company builds custom computers for large service companies. Your expertise in this field is recognized and sought after. Your competition is amazed at your ability to produce a quality product on a short schedule and at a very competitive price. What they don’t know is your OPA’s guide your team through all the planning and execution areas so that unnecessary and wasteful processes have been eliminated from the planning and production process.
Through years of experience the performing organization has built up the OPA’s by improving each of the procedures and processes to be efficient and quality and cost effective.
OPA’s are the things that your company considers assets to them uniquely. Proprietary information, lessons learned, tools, procedures that improve the likelihood of project success.
Your company builds custom computers for large service companies. Your expertise in this field is recognized and sought after. Your competition is amazed at your ability to produce a quality product on a short schedule and at a very competitive price. What they don’t know is your OPA’s guide your team through all the planning and execution areas so that unnecessary and wasteful processes have been eliminated from the planning and production process.
Through years of experience the performing organization has built up the OPA’s by improving each of the procedures and processes to be efficient and quality and cost effective.
OPA’s are the things that your company considers assets to them uniquely. Proprietary information, lessons learned, tools, procedures that improve the likelihood of project success.
Expert Judgement may be purchased from a consultant or vendor. Having the right experience, training, or education may be critical to any situation in any knowledge area or process on the process chart.
The project manager always uses his expert judgement during the project life cycle. Knowing you do not have the knowledge required is part of that judgement.
Requirements are captured at at high level and decomposed to the level of detail needed to design the final product. Examples of product analysis techniques include but are not limited to:
*The process of developing a detailed description of the project and product.
4Create WBS
Create WBS is the process of subdividing project deliverables and project work into smaller, more manageable components. This provides a framework of the work to be delivered. This process could be performed just once in small or short projects, but it may be done many times in large or iteratively developed projects.
The WBS provides a hierarchical decomposition of the total scope of the work to be carried out by the project team. This hierarchical decomposition is done in tandem with the product and project. Both must be accounted for.
You run a worldwide consulting business. A large customer has given you a contract to manage the construction of a refinery in Columbia. Your team of engineers and project managers do not speak Spanish and live in three different countries. The EEF’s that must be considered are long and challenging. Your budget better include a long list of contingent reserves.
The EEF’s that should be considered are:
Columbian internal EEF’s
Environmental laws
Construction fees, and licenses, laws and standards
Culture of the Columbian labor
Attitude of the Columbian population toward refineries
Other unknown local impediments due to culture
Culture of existing project staff
Infrastructure of country surrounding building site
As you can tell this could go on and on.
EEF’s Internal to the organization:
Organizational culture, structure, and governance:
Company vision, mission, values, beliefs, cultural norms, leadership style, relationships, style, ethics, code of conduct
Geographic location
Factory location, virtual teams, shared systems, and cloud computing
Infrastructure
Facilities, equipment, organizational communication channels, availability and capacity
Information technology software
Software tools, configuration management systems, web interfaces, work authorization systems
Your company builds custom computers for large service companies. Your expertise in this field is recognized and sought after. Your competition is amazed at your ability to produce a quality product on a short schedule and at a very competitive price. What they don’t know is your OPA’s guide your team through all the planning and execution areas so that unnecessary and wasteful processes have been eliminated from the planning and production process.
Through years of experience the performing organization has built up the OPA’s by improving each of the procedures and processes to be efficient and quality and cost effective.
OPA’s are the things that your company considers assets to them uniquely. Proprietary information, lessons learned, tools, procedures that improve the likelihood of project success.
Your company builds custom computers for large service companies. Your expertise in this field is recognized and sought after. Your competition is amazed at your ability to produce a quality product on a short schedule and at a very competitive price. What they don’t know is your OPA’s guide your team through all the planning and execution areas so that unnecessary and wasteful processes have been eliminated from the planning and production process.
Through years of experience the performing organization has built up the OPA’s by improving each of the procedures and processes to be efficient and quality and cost effective.
OPA’s are the things that your company considers assets to them uniquely. Proprietary information, lessons learned, tools, procedures that improve the likelihood of project success.
The scope baseline is the approved version of a scope statement, WBS, and its associated WBS dictionary.
Project Scope Statement – The project scope statement includes the description of the project scope, major deliverables, assumptions, and constraints.
WBS – the WBS is a hierarchical decomposition of the total scope of work to be carried out by the project team to accomplish the project objectives and create the required deliverables. Each descending level of the WBS represents an increasingly detailed definition for the project work.
WBS Dictionary – The detail of each line item of the WBS. This documents the level of detail required to understand the WBS.
Expert Judgement may be purchased from a consultant or vendor. Having the right experience, training, or education may be critical to any situation in any knowledge area or process on the process chart.
The project manager always uses his expert judgement during the project life cycle. Knowing you do not have the knowledge required is part of that judgement.
The scope baseline is the approved version of a scope statement, WBS, and its associated WBS dictionary.
Project Scope Statement – The project scope statement includes the description of the project scope, major deliverables, assumptions, and constraints.
WBS – the WBS is a hierarchical decomposition of the total scope of work to be carried out by the project team to accomplish the project objectives and create the required deliverables. Each descending level of the WBS represents an increasingly detailed definition for the project work.
WBS Dictionary – The detail of each line item of the WBS. This documents the level of detail required to understand the WBS.
*The process of subdividing project deliverables and project work into smaller, more manageable components.
5Control Scope
Control scope process is monitoring the scope throughout the project. Any changes to product or project scope must be documented and implemented properly. Uncontrolled scope variations are detrimental to project management.
All changes to scope, especially:
Corrective actions
Preventive actions
Defect repairs
These items must be prepared and documented in a “Change Request” and sent to “Perform integrated change control” for approval.
NO changes to scope can be implemented any other way. Period
Terms to know:
Gold Plating – Scope improvement with the project managers knowledge that has not gone through a change request.
Scope Creep – Scope change without the project managers knowledge that has not gone through a change request.
The scope baseline is the approved version of a scope statement, WBS, and its associated WBS dictionary.
Project Scope Statement – The project scope statement includes the description of the project scope, major deliverables, assumptions, and constraints.
WBS – the WBS is a hierarchical decomposition of the total scope of work to be carried out by the project team to accomplish the project objectives and create the required deliverables. Each descending level of the WBS represents an increasingly detailed definition for the project work.
WBS Dictionary – The detail of each line item of the WBS. This documents the level of detail required to understand the WBS.
A change management plan defines activities and roles to manage and control change during the execute and control stage of the project. Change is measured against the project baseline, which is a detailed description of the project’s scope, budget, schedule, and plans to manage quality, risk, issues, and change. During the execute and control stage, changes may require one or more revised project baselines to be issued.
Rationale/Purpose
Change can occur throughout the project life cycle. A Change Management Plan helps control the effect of changes during the execute and control stage, thereby avoiding overruns in cost and schedule, incoherent scope, poor quality, etc. The Change Management Plan is critical to the success of the project. There should be no change without evaluation and approval.
Who is involved
Project Team
Project Manager
Project Sponsor
Customer
Project Stakeholders
Result
Change Management Plan component of the Project Plan
Change Management Plan
Project Name:
TEMPLATE
Title:Prepared By:
Version No:
Document Change Control
The following is the document control for revisions to this document.
Version Number
Date of Issue
Author(s)
Brief Description of Change
Definition
The following are definitions of terms, abbreviations and acronyms used in this document.
[Identify the driving constraints for the project. These are the assumptions against which change is managed. Examples:
fixed budget set at $_______
hard deadline
minimum quality threshold.]
2. Change management guidelines and purview.
The following items will be subject to change management.
[Specific list of primary deliverables and the documents that describe them, and secondary deliverables that will fall under change management. Examples:]
Primary deliverables
Software application as described in these specifications documents
Hardware deployment as described in these bill of materials and configuration plan documents and machine room blueprint
Secondary deliverables
Project WBS
Project budgetary and scheduling documents
Project quality control planning document
Project reporting requirements
The project team has latitude [is strictly bound] to interpret requirements in the following areas:
[Specific list of areas in the product specification or requirements where the project team is either strictly bound by the documents or has the prerogative to interpret the requirements more loosely.]
3. Estimate of change volume
The budgetary impact of change in this project is expected to fall within the range of [lower] to [higher] dollars. We assume the number of change requests will be roughly ____. We estimate change evaluation and management to require _____ hours.
4. Roles and responsibilities
[For evaluators, note any special expertise that may be required given the sorts of changes you can anticipate. This sets the stage for ensuring access to that expertise.]
The change manager is responsible to
receive and log change requests
monitor project and recognize changes that result from realized risks and issues
track and facilitate the timely evaluation of change requests
track and facilitate timely decisions on changes
incorporate changes into the appropriate project documents
communicate changes to the project team and others as the communication plan below dictates
report change management activity as outlined in the reporting section below
analyze patterns in change requests to identify underlying systemic causes
ensure that the evaluation team is appropriately staffed to meet the volume and expertise requirements of the change queue
The change requestor, who is any key stakeholder, may submit project change requests following the submittal process indicated below.
The lead change evaluator is charged to
organize and perform the timely and adequate evaluation of changes in terms of their impacts on project deliverables and constraints
outline options and recommend courses of action and priorities for changes
ensure that appropriate expertise is brought to bear in the evaluation of all changes
Change evaluators work under the direction of the lead evaluator to
apply their particular expertise and judgment to the evaluation of changes assigned to them
develop options and recommend courses of action for these changes
The change decision maker is responsible to
approve, reject, or park changes
request further evaluation if insufficient information is available to support the decision
5. The change management process
For each change the following process will be followed. Note that logging occurs at various points in the process, e.g. after evaluation and after the decision, not shown in this diagram.
5.1 Submittal and Logging: Change requests will be submitted using the change request form referenced below. A change resulting from a realized risk or issue will be documented through a change request form. The change manager will scan risks and issues for likely changes every ____ [days, weeks]. The change manager will identify checkpoints in the WBS critical path at which to survey the project team, customer, sponsor, and stakeholders for changes. These checkpoints will be chosen with the aim of minimizing the impact of changes on the project constraints.
5.2 Evaluation: The lead change evaluator will note any special expertise required to effectively evaluate a change request.
[Note any likely areas of expertise required and identify the resources you will use to secure the expertise. It would be prudent before the onset of the execute and control stage to have verified the availability of these resources. Example: your project involves the development of licenses for which legal advice is required. You will obtain that advice from whom?]
Unless otherwise noted, change requests will be evaluated within ____ days of submission to the evaluators.
5.3 Decision: Unless otherwise noted, changes will be approved, rejected, or parked within _____ days of submission to the change decision maker. The decision maker may also request further evaluation.
5.4 Integration: The change manager will update project documentation as changes are approved. All changes will be recorded in the document change control block. Project drawings, diagrams, and specifications will be reissued when accumulated change notations render the documents confusing, ambiguous, or otherwise unclear. Project documentation will be posted to this site [http://myproject.doit.wisc.edu]. A running summary of changes will be posted to this page [http://myproject.doit.wisc.edu/approved_changes/].
5.5 Communication: The project team and sponsor will be notified of changes as they are approved through email. A summary of recent changes will be reviewed in weekly team meetings. A change summary will be published to stakeholders and customers with the [note reporting period, e.g. monthly] project status report.
6. Tools
Change request form
See attached change request template.
Change log
See attached change log template.
7. Appendices
[Add additional information as needed.]
This plan will identify the responsible person or team that will be reviewing and approving all change requests.
This Configuration Management (CM) Plan establishes the technical and administrative direction and surveillance for the management of configuration items (i.e., software, hardware, and documentation) associated with the <Project Name (Acronym)> that are to be placed under configuration control. This document defines the project’s structure and methods for:
Identifying, defining, and baselining configuration items (CIs);
Controlling modifications and releases of CIs;
Reporting and recording status of CIs and any requested modifications;
Ensuring completeness, consistency, and correctness of CIs; and
Controlling storage, handling, and delivery of CIs.
As the project matures, appropriate sections of this plan will require periodic updating.
Examples of “Configuration Management Plans” are readily available on the internet. Just Google the plan. These plans are detailed and should be completed for large projects that will require a long schedule. Simple projects may not require a configuration management plan.
The configuration management plan should not be confused with the change management plan. The configuration management plan details how the project will maintain the integrity of the scope of the deliverable. The change management plan details how changes will be captured, approved, implemented, and verified after implementation.
Your company builds custom computers for large service companies. Your expertise in this field is recognized and sought after. Your competition is amazed at your ability to produce a quality product on a short schedule and at a very competitive price. What they don’t know is your OPA’s guide your team through all the planning and execution areas so that unnecessary and wasteful processes have been eliminated from the planning and production process.
Through years of experience the performing organization has built up the OPA’s by improving each of the procedures and processes to be efficient and quality and cost effective.
OPA’s are the things that your company considers assets to them uniquely. Proprietary information, lessons learned, tools, procedures that improve the likelihood of project success.
Your company builds custom computers for large service companies. Your expertise in this field is recognized and sought after. Your competition is amazed at your ability to produce a quality product on a short schedule and at a very competitive price. What they don’t know is your OPA’s guide your team through all the planning and execution areas so that unnecessary and wasteful processes have been eliminated from the planning and production process.
Through years of experience the performing organization has built up the OPA’s by improving each of the procedures and processes to be efficient and quality and cost effective.
OPA’s are the things that your company considers assets to them uniquely. Proprietary information, lessons learned, tools, procedures that improve the likelihood of project success.
Change request forms are the primary project management tool used for requesting any changes to a specific project and are one piece of the change management process. All project managers must manage change carefully and implement a thorough change control process to ensure projects remain within their approved constraints. Some projects have many stakeholders with varying levels of interest in the project and change is an inevitable part of any project lifecycle.
The change request form is filled out by the individual who identifies the need for a change and submitted to the project team in accordance with the change control process. The project manager then leads the team in identifying the impacts of the change, whether it will benefit the project, and if it will allow the project to proceed within its approved constraints. The request is then submitted to the change control board with the project team’s findings where it is reviewed and either approved, rejected, or deferred until clarification can be sought.
If the change is approved, all project documentation must be updated accordingly, and the change must be communicated to all stakeholders. Some changes may also require re-baselining of the costs, schedule, or scope. There are many formats for change requests depending on the organization.
Describe any Technical Changes Required to Implement this Change:
Describe Risks to be Considered for this Change:
Estimate Resources and Costs Needed to Implement this Change:
Describe the Implications to Quality:
Disposition:
□ Approve □ Reject □ Defer
Justification of Approval, Rejection, or Deferral:
Change Board Approval:
Name
Signature
Date
Are change requests done for 100% of changes?
No! Some changes may be minor in nature and would only create voluminous unnecessary documentation. The Project manager or designate would make that decision.
Even in the case that the change is not controlled through the “Perform integrated change control” It still needs to be documented and communicated to all affected stakeholders.
The scope baseline is the approved version of a scope statement, WBS, and its associated WBS dictionary.
Project Scope Statement – The project scope statement includes the description of the project scope, major deliverables, assumptions, and constraints.
WBS – the WBS is a hierarchical decomposition of the total scope of work to be carried out by the project team to accomplish the project objectives and create the required deliverables. Each descending level of the WBS represents an increasingly detailed definition for the project work.
WBS Dictionary – The detail of each line item of the WBS. This documents the level of detail required to understand the WBS.
*The process of monitoring the status of the project and product scope and managing changes to the scope baseline.
6Validate Scope
Formal acceptance of the deliverable is a best practice of project management. This assists the project manager if there are questions after the project has been closed.
The deliverable is reviewed by the customer and it is similar to the review done in “Control quality” but it is done for a different purpose. Validate scope is to get the acceptance of the deliverable, control quality is done to verify that the deliverable meets the specifications and metrics required by the project.
Validate scope and Control quality can be done at the same time. If separated, Control quality will always be done first.
The scope baseline is the approved version of a scope statement, WBS, and its associated WBS dictionary.
Project Scope Statement – The project scope statement includes the description of the project scope, major deliverables, assumptions, and constraints.
WBS – the WBS is a hierarchical decomposition of the total scope of work to be carried out by the project team to accomplish the project objectives and create the required deliverables. Each descending level of the WBS represents an increasingly detailed definition for the project work.
WBS Dictionary – The detail of each line item of the WBS. This documents the level of detail required to understand the WBS.
Change request forms are the primary project management tool used for requesting any changes to a specific project and are one piece of the change management process. All project managers must manage change carefully and implement a thorough change control process to ensure projects remain within their approved constraints. Some projects have many stakeholders with varying levels of interest in the project and change is an inevitable part of any project lifecycle.
The change request form is filled out by the individual who identifies the need for a change and submitted to the project team in accordance with the change control process. The project manager then leads the team in identifying the impacts of the change, whether it will benefit the project, and if it will allow the project to proceed within its approved constraints. The request is then submitted to the change control board with the project team’s findings where it is reviewed and either approved, rejected, or deferred until clarification can be sought.
If the change is approved, all project documentation must be updated accordingly, and the change must be communicated to all stakeholders. Some changes may also require re-baselining of the costs, schedule, or scope. There are many formats for change requests depending on the organization.
Describe any Technical Changes Required to Implement this Change:
Describe Risks to be Considered for this Change:
Estimate Resources and Costs Needed to Implement this Change:
Describe the Implications to Quality:
Disposition:
□ Approve □ Reject □ Defer
Justification of Approval, Rejection, or Deferral:
Change Board Approval:
Name
Signature
Date
Are change requests done for 100% of changes?
No! Some changes may be minor in nature and would only create voluminous unnecessary documentation. The Project manager or designate would make that decision.
Even in the case that the change is not controlled through the “Perform integrated change control” It still needs to be documented and communicated to all affected stakeholders.
*The process of formalizing acceptance of the completed project deliverables.
3Schedule
*Project time Management includes the processes required to manage the timely completion of the project.
1Plan Schedule Management
The “Schedule management plan” outlines the criteria for developing, monitoring, and controlling the project schedule. It can be either a formal or informal plan, and may be either very detailed or broad.
The Schedule Management Plan can establish the following:
Project schedule methodology and scheduling tool to be used
Level of accuracy for determining activity duration estimates and contingency amounts
Units of measure for time and quantity
Performance measurement rules and procedures for updating schedule status and progress
Variance control thresholds for monitoring schedule performance
The project charter is the first document of any project. During the develop project charter process the project manager must answer two basic questions:
Can my project team supported by the performing organization complete this project successfully?
Do we have the talent or skills necessary?
Do we have the resources required? Budget, Schedule
Do we have the will to complete the project? Risks
Should we do this project?
Can we meet the target metrics for success?
The Project charter should articulate the project at a high level to communicate all aspects to the project sponsor or customer. It should include but not limited to the following items:
Project purpose
Aspects of project performance:
Scope: boundaries, exclusions
Schedule: best estimate
Budget: best estimate
Quality requirements
Resource requirements
Communication requirements
Risks identified
Procurement necessities
Stakeholder listing
This document is an input to all other knowledge areas and should contribute to each of those areas.
You run a worldwide consulting business. A large customer has given you a contract to manage the construction of a refinery in Columbia. Your team of engineers and project managers do not speak Spanish and live in three different countries. The EEF’s that must be considered are long and challenging. Your budget better include a long list of contingent reserves.
The EEF’s that should be considered are:
Columbian internal EEF’s
Environmental laws
Construction fees, and licenses, laws and standards
Culture of the Columbian labor
Attitude of the Columbian population toward refineries
Other unknown local impediments due to culture
Culture of existing project staff
Infrastructure of country surrounding building site
As you can tell this could go on and on.
EEF’s Internal to the organization:
Organizational culture, structure, and governance:
Company vision, mission, values, beliefs, cultural norms, leadership style, relationships, style, ethics, code of conduct
Geographic location
Factory location, virtual teams, shared systems, and cloud computing
Infrastructure
Facilities, equipment, organizational communication channels, availability and capacity
Information technology software
Software tools, configuration management systems, web interfaces, work authorization systems
Your company builds custom computers for large service companies. Your expertise in this field is recognized and sought after. Your competition is amazed at your ability to produce a quality product on a short schedule and at a very competitive price. What they don’t know is your OPA’s guide your team through all the planning and execution areas so that unnecessary and wasteful processes have been eliminated from the planning and production process.
Through years of experience the performing organization has built up the OPA’s by improving each of the procedures and processes to be efficient and quality and cost effective.
OPA’s are the things that your company considers assets to them uniquely. Proprietary information, lessons learned, tools, procedures that improve the likelihood of project success.
Your company builds custom computers for large service companies. Your expertise in this field is recognized and sought after. Your competition is amazed at your ability to produce a quality product on a short schedule and at a very competitive price. What they don’t know is your OPA’s guide your team through all the planning and execution areas so that unnecessary and wasteful processes have been eliminated from the planning and production process.
Through years of experience the performing organization has built up the OPA’s by improving each of the procedures and processes to be efficient and quality and cost effective.
OPA’s are the things that your company considers assets to them uniquely. Proprietary information, lessons learned, tools, procedures that improve the likelihood of project success.
Expert Judgement may be purchased from a consultant or vendor. Having the right experience, training, or education may be critical to any situation in any knowledge area or process on the process chart.
The project manager always uses his expert judgement during the project life cycle. Knowing you do not have the knowledge required is part of that judgement.
*The process of establishing the policies, procedures, and documentation for planning, developing, managing, executing, and controlling the project schedule.
2Define Activities
The “Define activities” process takes the “work packages” developed in the “Create WBS” process, and decomposes them. Each work package is broken down to the activity level that can be understood, to create the component or subassembly being produced.
The activity level is what is used for the detail schedule activities. These activities are used to find the critical path of the project. The longest path to finish the project.
The scope baseline is the approved version of a scope statement, WBS, and its associated WBS dictionary.
Project Scope Statement – The project scope statement includes the description of the project scope, major deliverables, assumptions, and constraints.
WBS – the WBS is a hierarchical decomposition of the total scope of work to be carried out by the project team to accomplish the project objectives and create the required deliverables. Each descending level of the WBS represents an increasingly detailed definition for the project work.
WBS Dictionary – The detail of each line item of the WBS. This documents the level of detail required to understand the WBS.
You run a worldwide consulting business. A large customer has given you a contract to manage the construction of a refinery in Columbia. Your team of engineers and project managers do not speak Spanish and live in three different countries. The EEF’s that must be considered are long and challenging. Your budget better include a long list of contingent reserves.
The EEF’s that should be considered are:
Columbian internal EEF’s
Environmental laws
Construction fees, and licenses, laws and standards
Culture of the Columbian labor
Attitude of the Columbian population toward refineries
Other unknown local impediments due to culture
Culture of existing project staff
Infrastructure of country surrounding building site
As you can tell this could go on and on.
EEF’s Internal to the organization:
Organizational culture, structure, and governance:
Company vision, mission, values, beliefs, cultural norms, leadership style, relationships, style, ethics, code of conduct
Geographic location
Factory location, virtual teams, shared systems, and cloud computing
Infrastructure
Facilities, equipment, organizational communication channels, availability and capacity
Information technology software
Software tools, configuration management systems, web interfaces, work authorization systems
Your company builds custom computers for large service companies. Your expertise in this field is recognized and sought after. Your competition is amazed at your ability to produce a quality product on a short schedule and at a very competitive price. What they don’t know is your OPA’s guide your team through all the planning and execution areas so that unnecessary and wasteful processes have been eliminated from the planning and production process.
Through years of experience the performing organization has built up the OPA’s by improving each of the procedures and processes to be efficient and quality and cost effective.
OPA’s are the things that your company considers assets to them uniquely. Proprietary information, lessons learned, tools, procedures that improve the likelihood of project success.
Your company builds custom computers for large service companies. Your expertise in this field is recognized and sought after. Your competition is amazed at your ability to produce a quality product on a short schedule and at a very competitive price. What they don’t know is your OPA’s guide your team through all the planning and execution areas so that unnecessary and wasteful processes have been eliminated from the planning and production process.
Through years of experience the performing organization has built up the OPA’s by improving each of the procedures and processes to be efficient and quality and cost effective.
OPA’s are the things that your company considers assets to them uniquely. Proprietary information, lessons learned, tools, procedures that improve the likelihood of project success.
Expert Judgement may be purchased from a consultant or vendor. Having the right experience, training, or education may be critical to any situation in any knowledge area or process on the process chart.
The project manager always uses his expert judgement during the project life cycle. Knowing you do not have the knowledge required is part of that judgement.
Change request forms are the primary project management tool used for requesting any changes to a specific project and are one piece of the change management process. All project managers must manage change carefully and implement a thorough change control process to ensure projects remain within their approved constraints. Some projects have many stakeholders with varying levels of interest in the project and change is an inevitable part of any project lifecycle.
The change request form is filled out by the individual who identifies the need for a change and submitted to the project team in accordance with the change control process. The project manager then leads the team in identifying the impacts of the change, whether it will benefit the project, and if it will allow the project to proceed within its approved constraints. The request is then submitted to the change control board with the project team’s findings where it is reviewed and either approved, rejected, or deferred until clarification can be sought.
If the change is approved, all project documentation must be updated accordingly, and the change must be communicated to all stakeholders. Some changes may also require re-baselining of the costs, schedule, or scope. There are many formats for change requests depending on the organization.
Describe any Technical Changes Required to Implement this Change:
Describe Risks to be Considered for this Change:
Estimate Resources and Costs Needed to Implement this Change:
Describe the Implications to Quality:
Disposition:
□ Approve □ Reject □ Defer
Justification of Approval, Rejection, or Deferral:
Change Board Approval:
Name
Signature
Date
Are change requests done for 100% of changes?
No! Some changes may be minor in nature and would only create voluminous unnecessary documentation. The Project manager or designate would make that decision.
Even in the case that the change is not controlled through the “Perform integrated change control” It still needs to be documented and communicated to all affected stakeholders.
*The process of identifying and documenting the specific actions to be performed to produce the project deliverables.
3Sequence Activities
In this process we define the logical sequence of work to obtain the greatest efficiency.
In “Sequence activities” we define the logical sequence of work activity to be completed. We place these activities in order, of work activity.
We are creating a diagram that shows each activity as it is worked, to be able to determine how long it will take us to complete each group of activities for a subassembly or for the entire product or project.
The scope baseline is the approved version of a scope statement, WBS, and its associated WBS dictionary.
Project Scope Statement – The project scope statement includes the description of the project scope, major deliverables, assumptions, and constraints.
WBS – the WBS is a hierarchical decomposition of the total scope of work to be carried out by the project team to accomplish the project objectives and create the required deliverables. Each descending level of the WBS represents an increasingly detailed definition for the project work.
WBS Dictionary – The detail of each line item of the WBS. This documents the level of detail required to understand the WBS.
You run a worldwide consulting business. A large customer has given you a contract to manage the construction of a refinery in Columbia. Your team of engineers and project managers do not speak Spanish and live in three different countries. The EEF’s that must be considered are long and challenging. Your budget better include a long list of contingent reserves.
The EEF’s that should be considered are:
Columbian internal EEF’s
Environmental laws
Construction fees, and licenses, laws and standards
Culture of the Columbian labor
Attitude of the Columbian population toward refineries
Other unknown local impediments due to culture
Culture of existing project staff
Infrastructure of country surrounding building site
As you can tell this could go on and on.
EEF’s Internal to the organization:
Organizational culture, structure, and governance:
Company vision, mission, values, beliefs, cultural norms, leadership style, relationships, style, ethics, code of conduct
Geographic location
Factory location, virtual teams, shared systems, and cloud computing
Infrastructure
Facilities, equipment, organizational communication channels, availability and capacity
Information technology software
Software tools, configuration management systems, web interfaces, work authorization systems
Your company builds custom computers for large service companies. Your expertise in this field is recognized and sought after. Your competition is amazed at your ability to produce a quality product on a short schedule and at a very competitive price. What they don’t know is your OPA’s guide your team through all the planning and execution areas so that unnecessary and wasteful processes have been eliminated from the planning and production process.
Through years of experience the performing organization has built up the OPA’s by improving each of the procedures and processes to be efficient and quality and cost effective.
OPA’s are the things that your company considers assets to them uniquely. Proprietary information, lessons learned, tools, procedures that improve the likelihood of project success.
Your company builds custom computers for large service companies. Your expertise in this field is recognized and sought after. Your competition is amazed at your ability to produce a quality product on a short schedule and at a very competitive price. What they don’t know is your OPA’s guide your team through all the planning and execution areas so that unnecessary and wasteful processes have been eliminated from the planning and production process.
Through years of experience the performing organization has built up the OPA’s by improving each of the procedures and processes to be efficient and quality and cost effective.
OPA’s are the things that your company considers assets to them uniquely. Proprietary information, lessons learned, tools, procedures that improve the likelihood of project success.
*The PMIS provides access to information technology software tools, such as scheduling software tools work authorization systems, configuration management systems, information collection and distributions systems, as well as interfaces to other online automated systems such as corporate knowledge base repositories. Automated gathering and reporting on key performance indicators (KPI) can be part of this system.
The scope baseline is the approved version of a scope statement, WBS, and its associated WBS dictionary.
Project Scope Statement – The project scope statement includes the description of the project scope, major deliverables, assumptions, and constraints.
WBS – the WBS is a hierarchical decomposition of the total scope of work to be carried out by the project team to accomplish the project objectives and create the required deliverables. Each descending level of the WBS represents an increasingly detailed definition for the project work.
WBS Dictionary – The detail of each line item of the WBS. This documents the level of detail required to understand the WBS.
You run a worldwide consulting business. A large customer has given you a contract to manage the construction of a refinery in Columbia. Your team of engineers and project managers do not speak Spanish and live in three different countries. The EEF’s that must be considered are long and challenging. Your budget better include a long list of contingent reserves.
The EEF’s that should be considered are:
Columbian internal EEF’s
Environmental laws
Construction fees, and licenses, laws and standards
Culture of the Columbian labor
Attitude of the Columbian population toward refineries
Other unknown local impediments due to culture
Culture of existing project staff
Infrastructure of country surrounding building site
As you can tell this could go on and on.
EEF’s Internal to the organization:
Organizational culture, structure, and governance:
Company vision, mission, values, beliefs, cultural norms, leadership style, relationships, style, ethics, code of conduct
Geographic location
Factory location, virtual teams, shared systems, and cloud computing
Infrastructure
Facilities, equipment, organizational communication channels, availability and capacity
Information technology software
Software tools, configuration management systems, web interfaces, work authorization systems
Your company builds custom computers for large service companies. Your expertise in this field is recognized and sought after. Your competition is amazed at your ability to produce a quality product on a short schedule and at a very competitive price. What they don’t know is your OPA’s guide your team through all the planning and execution areas so that unnecessary and wasteful processes have been eliminated from the planning and production process.
Through years of experience the performing organization has built up the OPA’s by improving each of the procedures and processes to be efficient and quality and cost effective.
OPA’s are the things that your company considers assets to them uniquely. Proprietary information, lessons learned, tools, procedures that improve the likelihood of project success.
Your company builds custom computers for large service companies. Your expertise in this field is recognized and sought after. Your competition is amazed at your ability to produce a quality product on a short schedule and at a very competitive price. What they don’t know is your OPA’s guide your team through all the planning and execution areas so that unnecessary and wasteful processes have been eliminated from the planning and production process.
Through years of experience the performing organization has built up the OPA’s by improving each of the procedures and processes to be efficient and quality and cost effective.
OPA’s are the things that your company considers assets to them uniquely. Proprietary information, lessons learned, tools, procedures that improve the likelihood of project success.
Expert Judgement may be purchased from a consultant or vendor. Having the right experience, training, or education may be critical to any situation in any knowledge area or process on the process chart.
The project manager always uses his expert judgement during the project life cycle. Knowing you do not have the knowledge required is part of that judgement.
*The process of estimating the number of work periods needed to complete individual activities with estimated resources.
5Develop Schedule
Developing an acceptable project schedule is a iterative process. The schedule model is used to determine the planned start and finish dates for the project activities and milestones based on the best available information. schedule development can require the review of and revision of duration estimates, resource estimates, and schedule reserves to establish an approved project schedule that can serve as a baseline to track progress.
Key steps include defining the project milestones identifying and sequencing activities, and estimating durations. Once the activity start and finish dates have been determined, it is common to have th project staff assigned to the activities review their assigned activities. The staff confirms that the start and finish dates present no conflict with resource calendars or assigned activities on other projects or tasks and thus are still valid.
The schedule is then analyzed to determine conflicts with logical relationships and if resource leveling is required before the schedule is approved the baselined. Revising and maintaining the project schedule model to sustain a realistic schedule continues throughout the duration of the project.
The input “agreements” in the project charter is the agreement between the sponsor or customer that includes all the detail to be successful with the project. Scope, schedule, cost, quality, and any other requirements should be stated.
Agreements can be either oral or written. If oral, the Project manager or sponsor should commit the agreement to writing and have the agreement signed by both parties to the agreement.
Agreements can take different forms; Purchase Order, Memorandum, Email, whatever, what is important is to capture the intent and the detail required to definitize the new project so that a decision can be reached to move forward. If a decision is made to move forward than the detail required to complete the project charter should be available.
You are in the business of making headphones for the music industry. You have designed and built hundreds of styles. A purchase order is issued for a particular common style but with unique colors and decals and a challenging timetable for delivery is required. The agreement for the project charter is the purchase order including all the procurement documents.
Your production manager needs a tool designed and developed to reduce the manufacturing time. The production manager has written up a memorandum to management with his ideas; also an ROI estimate of the new tool when used in production. He has provided a drawing and specifications for the tool. If the Sponsor or project manager needs more information, a request should be made of the production manager to furnish this information. The combinations of these conversation minutes, memos and memorandum is the agreement.
There is only one agreement output in project management ITTO’s. That is in the procurement area, and applies to Purchase orders, or purchase contracts. This output is in the execution process group in the Conduct procurement’s process.
The input “agreement” that is attached to the project charter is also an input to the determine budget process. The agreement may give information to the accounting staff to improve the estimates or establish a budget.
The scope baseline is the approved version of a scope statement, WBS, and its associated WBS dictionary.
Project Scope Statement – The project scope statement includes the description of the project scope, major deliverables, assumptions, and constraints.
WBS – the WBS is a hierarchical decomposition of the total scope of work to be carried out by the project team to accomplish the project objectives and create the required deliverables. Each descending level of the WBS represents an increasingly detailed definition for the project work.
WBS Dictionary – The detail of each line item of the WBS. This documents the level of detail required to understand the WBS.
You run a worldwide consulting business. A large customer has given you a contract to manage the construction of a refinery in Columbia. Your team of engineers and project managers do not speak Spanish and live in three different countries. The EEF’s that must be considered are long and challenging. Your budget better include a long list of contingent reserves.
The EEF’s that should be considered are:
Columbian internal EEF’s
Environmental laws
Construction fees, and licenses, laws and standards
Culture of the Columbian labor
Attitude of the Columbian population toward refineries
Other unknown local impediments due to culture
Culture of existing project staff
Infrastructure of country surrounding building site
As you can tell this could go on and on.
EEF’s Internal to the organization:
Organizational culture, structure, and governance:
Company vision, mission, values, beliefs, cultural norms, leadership style, relationships, style, ethics, code of conduct
Geographic location
Factory location, virtual teams, shared systems, and cloud computing
Infrastructure
Facilities, equipment, organizational communication channels, availability and capacity
Information technology software
Software tools, configuration management systems, web interfaces, work authorization systems
Your company builds custom computers for large service companies. Your expertise in this field is recognized and sought after. Your competition is amazed at your ability to produce a quality product on a short schedule and at a very competitive price. What they don’t know is your OPA’s guide your team through all the planning and execution areas so that unnecessary and wasteful processes have been eliminated from the planning and production process.
Through years of experience the performing organization has built up the OPA’s by improving each of the procedures and processes to be efficient and quality and cost effective.
OPA’s are the things that your company considers assets to them uniquely. Proprietary information, lessons learned, tools, procedures that improve the likelihood of project success.
Your company builds custom computers for large service companies. Your expertise in this field is recognized and sought after. Your competition is amazed at your ability to produce a quality product on a short schedule and at a very competitive price. What they don’t know is your OPA’s guide your team through all the planning and execution areas so that unnecessary and wasteful processes have been eliminated from the planning and production process.
Through years of experience the performing organization has built up the OPA’s by improving each of the procedures and processes to be efficient and quality and cost effective.
OPA’s are the things that your company considers assets to them uniquely. Proprietary information, lessons learned, tools, procedures that improve the likelihood of project success.
*The PMIS provides access to information technology software tools, such as scheduling software tools work authorization systems, configuration management systems, information collection and distributions systems, as well as interfaces to other online automated systems such as corporate knowledge base repositories. Automated gathering and reporting on key performance indicators (KPI) can be part of this system.
Change request forms are the primary project management tool used for requesting any changes to a specific project and are one piece of the change management process. All project managers must manage change carefully and implement a thorough change control process to ensure projects remain within their approved constraints. Some projects have many stakeholders with varying levels of interest in the project and change is an inevitable part of any project lifecycle.
The change request form is filled out by the individual who identifies the need for a change and submitted to the project team in accordance with the change control process. The project manager then leads the team in identifying the impacts of the change, whether it will benefit the project, and if it will allow the project to proceed within its approved constraints. The request is then submitted to the change control board with the project team’s findings where it is reviewed and either approved, rejected, or deferred until clarification can be sought.
If the change is approved, all project documentation must be updated accordingly, and the change must be communicated to all stakeholders. Some changes may also require re-baselining of the costs, schedule, or scope. There are many formats for change requests depending on the organization.
Describe any Technical Changes Required to Implement this Change:
Describe Risks to be Considered for this Change:
Estimate Resources and Costs Needed to Implement this Change:
Describe the Implications to Quality:
Disposition:
□ Approve □ Reject □ Defer
Justification of Approval, Rejection, or Deferral:
Change Board Approval:
Name
Signature
Date
Are change requests done for 100% of changes?
No! Some changes may be minor in nature and would only create voluminous unnecessary documentation. The Project manager or designate would make that decision.
Even in the case that the change is not controlled through the “Perform integrated change control” It still needs to be documented and communicated to all affected stakeholders.
The scope baseline is the approved version of a scope statement, WBS, and its associated WBS dictionary.
Project Scope Statement – The project scope statement includes the description of the project scope, major deliverables, assumptions, and constraints.
WBS – the WBS is a hierarchical decomposition of the total scope of work to be carried out by the project team to accomplish the project objectives and create the required deliverables. Each descending level of the WBS represents an increasingly detailed definition for the project work.
WBS Dictionary – The detail of each line item of the WBS. This documents the level of detail required to understand the WBS.
Your company builds custom computers for large service companies. Your expertise in this field is recognized and sought after. Your competition is amazed at your ability to produce a quality product on a short schedule and at a very competitive price. What they don’t know is your OPA’s guide your team through all the planning and execution areas so that unnecessary and wasteful processes have been eliminated from the planning and production process.
Through years of experience the performing organization has built up the OPA’s by improving each of the procedures and processes to be efficient and quality and cost effective.
OPA’s are the things that your company considers assets to them uniquely. Proprietary information, lessons learned, tools, procedures that improve the likelihood of project success.
Your company builds custom computers for large service companies. Your expertise in this field is recognized and sought after. Your competition is amazed at your ability to produce a quality product on a short schedule and at a very competitive price. What they don’t know is your OPA’s guide your team through all the planning and execution areas so that unnecessary and wasteful processes have been eliminated from the planning and production process.
Through years of experience the performing organization has built up the OPA’s by improving each of the procedures and processes to be efficient and quality and cost effective.
OPA’s are the things that your company considers assets to them uniquely. Proprietary information, lessons learned, tools, procedures that improve the likelihood of project success.
*The PMIS provides access to information technology software tools, such as scheduling software tools work authorization systems, configuration management systems, information collection and distributions systems, as well as interfaces to other online automated systems such as corporate knowledge base repositories. Automated gathering and reporting on key performance indicators (KPI) can be part of this system.
Change request forms are the primary project management tool used for requesting any changes to a specific project and are one piece of the change management process. All project managers must manage change carefully and implement a thorough change control process to ensure projects remain within their approved constraints. Some projects have many stakeholders with varying levels of interest in the project and change is an inevitable part of any project lifecycle.
The change request form is filled out by the individual who identifies the need for a change and submitted to the project team in accordance with the change control process. The project manager then leads the team in identifying the impacts of the change, whether it will benefit the project, and if it will allow the project to proceed within its approved constraints. The request is then submitted to the change control board with the project team’s findings where it is reviewed and either approved, rejected, or deferred until clarification can be sought.
If the change is approved, all project documentation must be updated accordingly, and the change must be communicated to all stakeholders. Some changes may also require re-baselining of the costs, schedule, or scope. There are many formats for change requests depending on the organization.
Describe any Technical Changes Required to Implement this Change:
Describe Risks to be Considered for this Change:
Estimate Resources and Costs Needed to Implement this Change:
Describe the Implications to Quality:
Disposition:
□ Approve □ Reject □ Defer
Justification of Approval, Rejection, or Deferral:
Change Board Approval:
Name
Signature
Date
Are change requests done for 100% of changes?
No! Some changes may be minor in nature and would only create voluminous unnecessary documentation. The Project manager or designate would make that decision.
Even in the case that the change is not controlled through the “Perform integrated change control” It still needs to be documented and communicated to all affected stakeholders.