PMP — Understanding of Basics

Organizational Process Assets (OPA), which contains historical information of all projects of your organization and project management policies / templates, are readily available. PMI advocates constant improvement and continuous learning from project to project. List of OPA items: –

1. Standardized guidelines
2. Proposal evaluation criteria
3. Work breakdown structure templates
4. Project schedule network diagram templates
5. Risk templates
6. Organizational standard processes
7. Project closure guidelines
8. Defect management processes
9. Lessons learned and historical databases
10. Change control procedures
11. Financial control procedures
12. Project files

Enterprise Environment Factors (EEF), which represents all the factors not in the immediate control of the project, is something a Project Manager has to live with.

1. Organizational culture, processes, and infra-structure
2. Product standards (as a project manager you should know this obviously)
3. Quality standards – important one to know
4. Government standards
5. Market standards and conditions
6. Codes of conduct
7. Staffing guidelines
8. Reviews and training records
9. Work authorization systems
10. Political unrest
11. Organizational communication channels
12. Risk databases
13. Project management information systems (PMIS) – Automation tools like schedule tool

• Change Requests include Corrective Action, Preventive Action, Rework and changes that would affect the project configurations / baselines / plans.
• Expert Judgment is the single most important tool and technique which refers to knowledge gained through experience and/or studies. If it appears as one of the choices for an PMP question, it is often the correct answer.

Responsibility OF Project Manager

• The Project Manager has the responsibility to ensure the project is completed on time and within budget.
• The Project Manager should collaborate with stakeholders throughout the project lifecycle. Plans should be developed in collaboration with appropriate stakeholders and subject matter experts.
• The Project Manager should be proactive in identifying problems, solving conflicts and looking for changes for the better. Conflicts should be addressed directly.
• The Project Manager needs to tailor the PMBOK Processes to suit the scope and characteristics of individual projects.
• The Project Manager must carry out impact analysis should something unusual happens before asking for changes.
• The Project Manager may take up a stretch assignment but should first let management know that they lack the experience/expertise.
• The Project Manager should consult sponsors/senior management when they have to make decisions that are believed to be out of their assigned authority. However, the Project Manager to exercise his/her authority to manage the project as far as he/she can without escalating the matter to senior management.
• The Project Manager should not accept request to trim down the budget (or time) while the scope and time (or budget) cannot be changed.
• Project Manager: knowledge, performance, personal – general (organization, planning, meeting, control) management, interpersonal (communication, leadership, motivation, influence, negotiation, trust building, political and cultural awareness) skills are required.
• Leader of the project irrespective of the authority
• Should consider every process to determine if they are needed for individual projects
• May report to the functional manager, program manager, PMO manager, operation manager, senior management, etc., maybe part-time or devoted
• Identifies and documents conflicts of project objectives with organization strategy as early as possible
• PM must balance the constraints and tradeoffs, effectively communicate the info (including bad news) to the sponsor for informed decisions
• PM need to involve project team members in the planning process
• Project Team includes PM, project management staff, project staff, PMO, SME (subject matter experts can be outsourced), customer representative (with authority), sellers, business partners, etc., maybe virtual or collocated
• Senior management must be consulted for changes to high-level constraints

Project Management

• All activities, issues and risks should be assigned to designated project members for handling.
• Competing constraints are time, cost, scope, quality, risk and resources. Change in one constrain will affect at least one other constraints non-linearly, e.g. a reduction in 10% of cost may affect 90% of the quality.
• Risk Management is an almost a must for all projects, project schedule and budget must take risks into consideration.
• Always follow the plan-do-check-act cycle.
• All changes must be handled through the Integrated Change Control Process, proper approvals must be sought and changes documented before work begins (except in the case of implementing workarounds during emergency in which approval may be sought after the change has been carried out).
• Quality is an important consideration which needs constant improvement (through the control quality / process improvement).
• Project Management – the application of (appropriate) knowledge, skills, tools & techniques to project activities to meet the project requirements and achieve customer satisfactions
• The most important task is to align stakeholder expectations with the project requirements, around 90% of the PM’s work is related to communication with stakeholders
• PMBOK Guide is a framework/standard but not methodology (agile, scrum, PRINCE3, etc.)
• Should be aligned with organization governance (through EEF and OPA)
• Competing constraints: time, cost, scope, quality, risk, resources
• Project Management Office (PMO) – standardizes governance, provides training, shares tools, templates, resources, etc. across all projects/programs/portfolios
• 3 forms: supportive, controlling and directing (lead the project as PM)
• Functions: training, resource coordination, methodology, document repository, project management oversight, standards, career management of PMs
• May function as a stakeholder / key decision maker (e.g. to terminate the projects)
• Align portfolios/programs/projects with business objectives and measurement systems
• Control shared resources / interdependence across projects at the enterprise level
• Play a decisive role in project governance
• Organizational Project Management (OPM) ?strategy execution framework utilizing portfolios, programs and projects and organizational enabling practices (technology, culture, etc.) for achieving organizational objectives
• Management by Objectives (MBO) : is a process of defining objectives within an organization so that management and employees agree to the objectives and understand what they need to do in the organization in order to achieve them.
• Organizational Project Management Maturity Model (OPM3) : provides a method for organizations to understand their Organizational Project Management processes and measure their capabilities in preparation for improvement.

Others

• Meetings are used for idea generation, discussion, problem solving or decision making, not status reporting.
• Gold-plating is derogatory to PMI.
• The Project Management Office (PMO) is assumed in most case.
• Work performed by resources (including overtime work) must be compensated. It is NOT recommended to ask resources to work overtime by sacrificing work-life balance.
• The goal of negotiation is to create a win-win result (problem-solving).
• Sunk cost is not to be considered when deciding when to terminate a project.
• Never tolerate sexual discrimination, even if it is customary in other cultures.

Important Terms and Concepts

• Process – a package of inputs, tools and outputs, there are 47 processes defined by PMI
• Phases – a group of logically related activities produces one or more deliverables at the end of the phase (maybe with exit gate/kill point [probably in a sequential relationship])
• Phase-to-Phase relationship = sequential à finish-to-start = overlapping à for schedule compression (fast tracking) = Parallel
• Project – a temporary endeavor to create a unique product, service or result (or enhancement of existing services/products (e.g. v.2 development is a project) ) as opposed to operation, may hand over the product to operation teams
• Operation manages process in transforming resources into output
• Projects have more risks and uncertainties than operations and require more planning
• Program – a group of coordinated projects, taking operations into account, maybe with common goals, achieving benefits not realized by running projects individually, if only the client/technologies/resource are the same, then the projects should be managed individually instead of a program
• Portfolio – group of programs/projects to achieve organizational strategic goals within the organization/operation management, all investments of the organization, maximize the value by examining the components of the portfolio and exclude non-optimal components
• Why projects: market demand, organizational need, customer request, technological advance, legal requirements, to support organization strategic plan -> projects bring values
• Business Value is the total values (tangible and intangible) of the organization
• Organization Strategy may be expressed through mission and vision
• Use of portfolio/program/project management to bridge the gap between organization strategy and business value realization
• Progressive Elaboration (rolling wave planning is one of the methods used in activity planning) – analysis and estimation can be more accurate and elaborated as the project goes (usually in phased projects) such that detailed planning can be made at that point

Organization Types

• Organization Types: Projectized (project manager has the ultimate authority over the project, team members are often collocated), Matrix (Strong, Balanced, Week), Functional
• Composite – a combination of different types, depending on the actual need
• Tight Matrix = co-location, nothing to do with the organization type (not necessarily a matrix org.)
• Functional organizations = the project manager has little authority, often called project expeditor (no authority) or coordinator (little authority), project coordination among functional managers
• Matrix organization = multiple bosses and more complex
• Project Based Organization (PBO) – conduct the majority of their activities as projects and/or privilege project over functional approaches, they can include: departments with functional organizations; matrix organizations; projectized organizations and other forms of organizations that privilege a project approach for conducting their activities, success is measured by final results rather than position/politics

Project Lifecycle vs Project Management Lifecycle vs Product Lifecycle

• Project Lifecycle: initiating, planning and organizing, carrying out/executing work, closing the project
• Predictive [plan driven/waterfall] – scope, time and cost determined early in the lifecycle, may also employ rolling wave planning
• Iterative [incremental] – repeat the phases as understanding of the project increases until the exit criteria are met, similar to the rolling wave planning, high-level objectives, either sequential / overlapping phases, scope/time/resources for each phase may be different
• Adaptive [change driven/agile] – for projects with high levels of change, risk and/or uncertainty, each iterative is very short (2-4 weeks), work is decomposed into product backlog, each with a production-level product, scrum is one of the most effective agile methods, stakeholders are involved throughout the process, time and resources are fixed, allow low change cost/keep stakeholder influence high
• Each project phase within the product lifecycle may include all the five project management process groups
• Product lifecycle: development à production à adoption & growth à maturity à decline à end of life

Other Terms

• Organization Process Assets is a major input in all planning process, which may be kept at PMO, directly related to project management, including Processes and Procedures (including templates (e.g. WBS, schedule network diagrams, etc.), procedures for issuing work authorizations, guidelines, performance measurements) and Corporate Knowledge Base
• The Configuration Management Knowledge Bases contain baselines of all organization standards
• Lessons Learned – focus on the deviances from plan (baseline) to actual results
• Enterprise Environment Factors (often are constraints) are influences not in the immediate control of the project team that affect the project, intra-organization and extra-organization, e.g. organizational culture, organization structure (functional/matrix/projectized structure), existing human resources, work authorization system, PMIS
• The work authorization system (WAS) is a system used during project integration management to ensure that work gets done at the right time and in the right sequence
• EEF are inputs for all initiating, most planning process, not much in the executing/controlling process, none in closing process
• Organization culture: process-oriented/results-oriented, job-oriented/employee-oriented, professional-oriented/parochial-oriented, open system/closed system, tight control/lose control, pragmatic/normative
• Project Governance – for the whole project lifecycle, fits in the organization’s governance model, define responsibilities and accountabilities, controlling the project and making decisions for success, alignment of project with stakeholders’ needs/objectives, provides a framework for PM and sponsors to make decisions to satisfy both parties, should be described in the PM plan
• Analytical Techniques: used to find the root cause or to forecast
• PMIS includes configuration system and change control system
• Never accept a change request to trim down one element of the triple constraint without changing the rest.
• Sponsor – provides resources/support to project, lead the process through initiation (charter/scope statement) through formally authorized, later involved in authorizing scope/budget change/review
• Customer – NOT necessarily provide the financial resources, maybe external to the organization, final acceptance of the product
• Business Partners – certification body, training, support, etc.
• Organizational Groups – internal stakeholders
• Business Case: background, analysis of the business situation, costs and benefits (cost-benefit analysis), to help in selection of project created by the initiator
• Project Statement of Work (SOW): describes the business need, high level scope of deliverables and strategic plan of the organization, created by the sponsor/initiator/buyer
• Project Charter: formally authorizes the project, includes all those from above plus approval criteria, preliminary budget, primary stakeholders, the name of PM, assumptions and decisions etc., usually created by PM (in develop project charter process) and signed by the sponsor, remains fairly the same during project lifecycle, except big changes like sponsor has resigned the current sponsor should initiate the change to the charter before he leaves]

 Project Charter is not a contract

• Project Management Plan: how the project will be performed and managed – documents assumptions & decisions, helps communication between stakeholders, goals, costs & time scheduling (milestones), project management system and subsidiary management plans and documents
• Project Management Plan is NOT a project schedule
• Project Management System: includes a list of project management processes, level of implementation (what actions to take in the management processes), description of tools and techniques, resources, procedures, change control system [forms with tracking systems, approval levels]
• Requirement Traceability Matrix (RTM) – a matrix connecting deliverables to requirements and their sources (for managing scope)
• Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) – a hierarchal chart of decomposing deliverables into work packages
• Activity List – a full list of all activities with indication of relationship to the work packages
• Activity Attributes – further information (duration, start date, end date, etc.) of all the activities in the list (for scheduling)
• Roles and Responsibilities (RAR) – a document listing all the roles and description of their responsibilities in the project (often by category)
• Responsibility Assignment Matrix (RAM) – a matrix connecting people to work packages/activities, e.g. the RACI matrix (responsible, accountable, consult, inform), usually only one person is accountable for each activity
• Resources Breakdown Structure (RBS) – a hierarchical chart listing all the resources by categories, e.g. marketing, design, etc.
• Risk Breakdown Structure (RBS) – a hierarchical chart listing all risks by categories.
• Sunk costs – money already spent, not to be considered whether to terminate a project, similar to committed cost (often through contracts)
• Direct costs, indirect (shared) costs, Fixed costs, Variable costs
• Law of diminishing returns – beyond a point, the more input, the less return
• Working capital – assets minus liability, what the company has to invest in the projects
• Payback period – a time to earn back capital investment
• Benefit-cost ratio (BCR) – an indicator, used in the formal discipline of cost-benefit analysis that attempts to summarize the overall value for money of a project
• Depreciation – straight-line depreciation vs accelerated depreciation (the amount of depreciation taken each year is higher during the earlier years of an asset’s life)
• Under double declining balance, the asset is depreciated twice as fast as under straight line. Using the example above, 10% of the cost is depreciated each year using straight line. Doubling the rate would mean that 20% would be depreciated each year, so the asset would be fully depreciated in 5 years, rather than 10.
• Under sum-of-the-years-digits, the asset is depreciated faster than straight line but not as fast as declining balance. As an example of how this method works, let’s say an asset’s useful life is 5 years. Adding up the digits would be 5+4+3+2+1 or a total of 15. The first year, 5/15 is expensed; the next year 4/15 is expensed, and so on. So if the asset’s cost is $1000, 5/15, or $333.34 would be expensed the first year, $266.67 the second year, and so on.
• Economic value added – the value of the project brought minus the cost of project (including opportunity costs) e.g. for a project cost of $100, the estimated return for 1st year is $5, assuming the same money can be invested to gain 8% per year, then the EVA is $5 – $100 * 8% = -$3
• Net present value (NPV) – the sum of the present values (PVs) of the individual cash flows of the same entity
• Present value (PV) – or called present discounted value, is a future amount of money that has been discounted to reflect its current value, as if it existed today (i.e. with inflation, etc.)
• Future value (FV) – is the value of an asset at a specific date
• Internal Rate of Return (IRR) – The inherent discount rate or investment yield rate produced by the project’s deliverables over a pre-defined period of time.
• Forecast (future) vs Status Report (current status) vs Progress Report (what have been done/delivered)
• Journey to Abilene (Abilene’s Paradox) – committee decisions can have a paradox outcome, the joint decision is not welcome by either party (because of fear of raising objections)
• When something unusual happens, always refer to the PM Plan/Charter for instruction on how to proceed; if not found, ask for direction from the management
• Unresolved issues will lead to conflicts

Planning and Executing are iterative. Monitoring and Controlling is exercised over Planning and Executing.

• A phase is not a process group. The 5 processes can happen in 1 phase.
• The process groups is not in sequence
• The PM should tailor the choices of processes to fit in individual processes (tailoring)
• deliverables are often incremental in nature

Initiating

• Align project purposes with stakeholders’ expectations
• Assign a project manager
• Identify stakeholders and develop project charter
• Document business case (created by initiator, maybe well before the initiating process group) and cost-benefit analysis, identify high-level risks, identify project selection criteria
• Early in the process, the staffing, costs and chance of success are low, risk and stakeholder influence are high
• May be performed at portfolio/program level (i.e. outside the project’s level of control)

Planning

• Create Project Management Plan [why the project? what to deliver? who do what? when accepted? how executed?], subsidiary documents (schedule baseline, cost baseline, performance management baseline, scope baseline (scope statement, WBS, WBS dictionary) and subsidiary management plans (scope, schedule, budget, quality, human resources [roles & responsibility, organization chart and staffing management plan include the staff need, rewards, safety and training need] , stakeholder, requirements, process improvement, communication, change, risk and procurement) – all are not finalized until a thorough risk management has been performed, need to be approved before work begins
• All plan and documents can be formal or informal, generalized or detailed, depending on needs
• Project Management Plan maybe continually updated during the project with rolling wave planning / progressive elaboration
• Obtain approval of plan from designated stakeholders, changes to the project management plan and subsidiary documents/plans need formal procedures described in the change control system
• Hold kick-off meeting
• Planning process group is MOST important, with over 1/2 of all the 47 process in this group
• May need re-planning when significant changes to the baseline is observed in the executing/monitoring processes

Executing

• To satisfy project specifications
• Coordinating human/infrastructure resources in accordance with the project management plan
• Updates and re-base lining the project management plan and subsidiary management plans
• Normal execution, manage contracts, acquire, develop & manager project team, perform quality assurance and manage stakeholder expectation/communication
• Direct and manage project work
• Continuous improvement process (quality assurance)
• Use up the largest share of resources

Monitoring and Controlling

• Measure performance, address change requests, recommend corrective/preventive measures and rectify defects
• Usually performed at regular intervals
• Control the quality, inspection and reporting, problem solving, identify new risks
• Reassess control process
• Should there be any internal deviance from the stated plan, the PM should make correction (use contingency reserve if necessary)
• Monitor and control project work and integrate change control
• Make sure only approved changes (through integrated change control) are incorporated

Closing

• Either project finished or cancelled
• Final product verification, contract closure, produce final report (closeout documentation), obtain formal acceptance, archive, release resources, close project
• Feedback, review and lessons learned (about the process), transition of deliverables to operation
• Procurement closure and administrative closure

Product-oriented Processes

• Initiating
• Planning and organizing
• Executing
• Closing