Project Management
LIST OF KNOWLEDGE & SKILLS
I. Elements of Project Charter
a. Project purpose or justification
b. Measurable project objectives, and related criteria
c. High level requirements
d. Project Description and risk
e. Summary milestones, schedule and budget
f. Project approval requirements
g. Assign project manager and their authority level
h. Name and authority of the sponsor and other persons authorizing the project
II. Estimation Tools and techniques
a. Schedule effort, and cost estimation include
i. Analogous (expert judgement)
ii. Parametric (mathematical model )
iii. PERT (Peer Evaluation and Review Technique )
iv. Monte Carlo (what- if - scenarios )
III. Cost Management Planning
a. Provides guidelines in estimating the cost at the activity level, deciding which estimation technique to use, determining the budget & tracking expenditures,
IV. Cost Management Planning
a. Covers the frequency of monitoring and the contingency reserve.
V. Communication Management Planning
a. Describes the communication related needs of the stakeholder and how to manage and control communication
VI. Resource Planning
a. Provides guidelines to assign roles and responsibilities, acquire the team, release the team and set safety and compliance policies for the employees.
b. Define skill levels required to make the project a success
VII. Procurement Planning
a. Outlines the process to select vendors, award contracts, and monitor and control procurement related activities.
b. Covers contract types and source selection criteria
VIII. Quality Management Planning
a. Provides guidelines on how to perform quality assurance and quality auditing
b. Measures quality of deliverables using quality control processes
IX. Requirement Gathering Techniques
a. Consist of focus groups that bring together prequalified stakeholders and subject matter experts to elicit their expectations, opinions, and attitudes for a proposed product, services or result.
b. Include planning sessions to decide who should be involved
c. Who will be the facilitator?
d. Who will schedule meetings?
e. Who will plan the agenda for the meetings?
f. Involve brainstorming techniques to generate ideals
X. Risk Management Planning
a. Provide guidelines for:
i. Risk Management
ii. Identify risk using different techniques
iii. Performing risk analysis
iv. Selecting risk response
v. Controlling risk
XI. Scope Deconstruction Tools
a. Include the Wok Break-down Structure (WBS) which involves the decomposition of scope into smaller components called packages.
b. Includes scope back log, which is a list of all the requirements for an iterative project life cycle
XII. Scope Management Plan
a. Provides guidelines to:
i. Collect requirements
ii. Define scope’
iii. Decompose the scope into measurable components
iv. Accept deliverables after validation
v. Control scope
XIII. Schedule Management Planning
a. Describes estimation techniques for scheduling and effort estimation, such as critical path
b. Covers strategies to maintain the project schedule and track and review progress
XIV. Work Flow Diagram Technique
a. Help to graphically represent the flow of activities and the dependencies:
i. Flow charts
ii. Network diagrams
XV. Continuous Improvement Process
a. Performed throughout the project by conducting process analysis, removing bottlenecks, and identifying redundancies.
XVI. Elements of Statement of Work
a. Include business need
b. Product scope description
c. Strategic plan
XVII. Project Budgeting tools and techniques
a. Include revenue projections models
b. Forecasting expense
c. Budgeting
d. Cash flow for a giving period
e. Depreciation calculations
f. Profit & loss maintenance
g. Use organizational tools or Excel spread sheets for budgeting, accounting and controlling purposes
XVIII. Quality Standard Tools
a. Help in measuring quality and matching it with the standard:
i. Include fishbone diagrams
ii. Control charts
iii. Flow charts
iv. Scatter diagrams
v. Run charts
vi. Pareto charts
vii. Check sheets
XIX. Performance and Tracking Techniques
a. Include earned value management that provides a comparison between planned and actual values that help in predicting the future of the project from a time and cost perspective
XX. Project Control Limits
a. Tolerance – is the limit to which deviation can be withstood
b. Threshold – is the level beyond which corrective action has to be taken.
XXI. Risk Identification Techniques
a. Include qualitative and quantitative techniques like:
i. SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, Threat) Analysis
ii. Assumption Analysis
iii. Documentation Review
b. Qualitative technique
i. Help in prioritizing risk
c. Quantitative technique
i. Provides the numerical vale for the project objectives
XXII. Risk Response Techniques
a. Negative
i. Avoid
ii. Transfer
iii. Mitigate
iv. Accept
b. Positive
i. Exploit
ii. Share
iii. Enhance
iv. Accept
XXIII. Archiving Practices and Statues
a. Outline a set of practices based on organizational rules to store documents and materials once the project is closed.
XXIV. Compliance Requirements
a. Are defined at the country and organizational levels
i. Regulations
1. Include government and industry standards that may impact the project outcome, environmental factors, such as weather, available infrastructure and economical factors.
ii. Standards
iii. Culture
iv. Practices
v. Law
XXV. Contract Closure requirements
a. Include the mode of payment, deliverables, acceptances and sign-off procedures and terms and conditions mentioned in the contract.
i. Final Acceptance
ii. Sign-off
iii. Contract Closure
iv. Lessons Learned Documentation
v. Archival Documents
vi. Customer Satisfaction
1. Feedback techniques
a. Face to face
b. Written
c. Surveys
XXVI. Project Review
a. Involves meetings, use of software such as MS Project, and EMV technique
XXVII. Transitions Planning and Techniques
a. These are defined in the project management plan
b. Transition can happen at the end of every deliverable or at the end of the project
c. The transition plan defines how, when, where, what, and between whom the transition occurs.
XXVIII. Analytical Skills
a. Refer to the ability to visualize and break-down complex problems, and solve them followed by decision making.
XXIX. Benefits Analysis
a. Helps justify the business case and results in the decision whether to start or continue the project under consideration.
b. Is done during the project initiation and start of each Phase
XXX. Strategic Management
a. Is required to achieve project deliverables as well as realize benefits are meeting organizational goals
XXXI. Change Management Planning
a. Outlines procedures to manage, track and document change request
b. Describes the condition for approving change request and tools that can be used.
XXXII. Procurement Management
a. Selection criteria are developed to rate seller proposals and can be either objective or subjective
b. The type of contract depends on the scope and whether the project will be outsourced.
i. Fixed Price
ii. Cost Reimbursable
iii. Time & Material
c. Contract Management
i. Include defining the contract terms and conditions and negotiating with vendors.
XXXIII. Lean Methodology
a. Involves reducing waste to improve efficiency
b. Is a continuous improvement process
XXXIV. Interdependencies among Project Elements
a. Cover how the change in one element can affect the other and in turn affect the project outcome.
XXXV. Vendor Management Technique
a. Involve selecting the best sellers based on source selection criteria.
XXXVI. Process Analysis Techniques
a. Help identify better or faster ways to perform work and optimize process.
b. Involve the application of tools and methodologies such as Lean Six Sigma and Kanban.
XXXVII. Project Finance Principles
a. Covers the different project selection methods using parameters such as PV, NPV, IRR, and other cost and earned value calculation techniques.
XXXVIII. Project Quality Best Practices Standard
a. Provide the mechanism to align to the industry or government
b. ISO or International Organization for Standards, is designed to help organizations ensure that they meet the needs of the customers and other stakeholders while adhering to the statutory and regulatory requirements.
c. The CMMI , Institution helps organizations discover the true value they can deliver by building capability in their people and processes.
XXXIX. Quality Validation and Verification
a. Helps insure that processes are performed in accordance to expectations, follow best practices, and measure the project outputs, to verify if deliverables meets the standards using various techniques such as:
i. Quality Audits
ii. Process Analysis
iii. Problem Analysis
iv. Check Sheets
v. Fishbone
vi. Scatter Diagrams
vii. Run Chats
viii. Bar Charts
ix. Control Charts
x. Pareto Charts
XL. Performance Measurement Techniques (PMT)
a. Involve parameters to decide the acceptance, rejection, or satisfaction criteria
i. Key Performance indicators
1. SLA
2. Baseline
ii. Success Factors
1. Key Deliverables
2. Organizational Benefits
