Project Management FAQ

A brief overview on what Project Management is. How to manage a project. What documents to use and when. And how to identify your project risks. Also what is likely to cause your project to fail.

What are the most commons risks I'm likely to encounter on my project?

Most of your project risks are likely to arise out of the following prioritised areas (according to a study from Tharwon Arnuphaptrairong):

Misunderstanding of the requirements Lack of management commitment and support Lack of adequate user involvement Failure to gain user commitment Failure to manage end user expectation Changes to requirements Lack of an effective project management methodology

A study by Kloppenborg, T. J. & Tesch, D. (2004) lists 70 such risks that you can cross reference, with 745 assigned strategies concerned with risks categorised by Process (56%) and People (44%)

How do I make Agile projects successful?

By understanding the theories behind the human behaviour you can better utilise them and make the most of Agile.

This is covered under a detailed article that describes;

Article #1 — Learning and Motivation.

This ties Kolb’s Experiential Learning Cycle (ELC) to the Scrum Sprint. Linking Intrinsic Motivation Theory to Agile practices

Article #2 — Scrum Ceremonies

Tying the numerous relevant theories, laws and observations to the Scrum Ceremonies;

The Daily Scrum (Stand-up) Meeting, The Planning Ceremony, The Sprint Review / Demonstration Meeting, The Sprint Retrospective Meeting.

Article #3 — Scrum Roles

Applying the relevant Psychological, Business & Management theories to organisational behaviour and the following roles:

Senior management, The Product Owner, The Scrum Master, The Team

Article #4 — Scrum Backlog

Tying the numerous relevant theories, laws and observations to the Scrum Backlog;

The Backlog itself The User Story

What is Earned Value and why do experienced Project Managers use it all the time?

Earned Value Management is a technique in project management that can help you forecast the cost, schedule, and scope of your project. It is an important metric to monitor on your project because it can provide you with clear indications of how well your project is going. The formula for the EVM is as follows:

Earned Value = Cost of the project / Revenue from the project

Cost of the project: The cost for a project is the total amount of money invested in the buying, planning, and creating a product or service. This includes money spent on materials and labor but does not include taxes.

Revenue from the project: Revenue from a product or service is determined by how much people will pay for it.

This can be graphed over time, based on weeks or milestones. From this you can see the Planned Value (PV) that you thought that you could recognize, versus the Actual Cost (AV) that you have spent so far, along with the Earned Value (EV) that you can actually recognize. This is one of the reasons why milestones are so important. Rather than PV & AV running in tandem, you can actually start to see any deviation (Schedule Variance (SV)) if you are overspending & not hitting your targets.

How do I delight with a Project Schedule?

Firstly present your project schedule is a sequential waterfall view, in order for it to be easily understood by your audience.

Secondly, determine the longest related/dependent sequential tasks that must be completed in order to complete the project. This is called a Critical Path. Ideally, you should highlight these tasks and add in suitable buffer time between each one in order to mitigate risk.

Next, review your project schedule and consider reorganising it slightly to allow you to apply the Peak End Rule. The Peak-End Rule is a psychological phenomenon that states that people judge an experience largely based on how it was at its peak and how it ended. The Peak-End rule is a psychological heuristic (rule of thumb) describing the way people judge their experiences. This rule can be applied to projects schedules. Tie the Peak to a major milestone in the middle of the Project. Celebrate this milestone widely. Then focus on the end, the Go-Live or deliverable. Protect this as much as possible by mitigating as much risks from occurring at that time. For example, remove any possibility of a team using your final testing & verification stage as their initial tests. If their testing uncovers major issues then this will sour the Go-Live as everyone scrambles to recover. Instead, set up the end of the project to be a major milestone or victory.

Simply by implementing these three elements will cause the Project Sponsors to be delighted with the project.

How can I identify potential risks on a project?

There are a number of proactive steps that you can take to identify risks on your project. Identifying these in advance means that you can deal with them or mitigate them in advance. Here are a number of risk identification techniques

Interview Questionnaire Brainstorming Constraints and Assumptions Analysis (CAA) Standard deviation from three point estimates Force Field Analysis (FAA) Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) analysis Fishbone/ Ishikawa Diagram (Cause and Effect) Cyclomatic complexity Failure Mode Effects Analysis (FMEA) Delphi Technique Observational gaps in Risk Breakdown Structures Residual Risks & Secondary Risks

What are the Common Project documents used in a project?

Across all projects, you are likely to find similar project documents or artefacts. These are their names and purposes;

Project Plan. Not to be confused with the Project Schedule, this document is similar to the Project Initiation Document (PID) in Prince2. Often overlooked, this can be very useful to quickly bring a person up to speed on a project. It contains background details and useful links and information on the project.

Project Schedule. This is the overall project timeline. It can be a high level overview or a very detailed plan using a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS). It graphically and logically displays the project activities over time. It typically contains arrows which indicate relationships between tasks.

Status Report. This document is a snapshot of the project at a particular time. It can be a email, 1 page PowerPoint presentation or a multi page document. It should clearly show the project status, typically in the form of a traffic-light Red, Amber Green (RAG) status. It should contain the key milestones, ongoing activities and risks.

Risk Register. A weighted document describing each risk and showing probability and potential impact of each risk identified on the project. A mitigation strategy to deal with each risk should be listed.

RAID Log. A Risk, Actions, Issues, Decision log file is a very useful working document to capture all of the key project items in one place.

Close-out report. Once the project is complete a Close out report should capture what went right and what lessons can be learned for future projects. In Agile, these are regularly implemented in the form of Lessons Learned session and help the team improve and optimise.

What are Project Management Methodologies & Frameworks?

Not all projects are equal. There are multiple different ways to manage these different types of projects. Some are better suited to some objectives, groups and company cultures than others. Here are some of the most popular.

Waterfall - Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC). This is the traditional approach to project management, with very structured phases. These projects are planned in advance. The work is done. They are tested. Then they are delivered. If a change to the project is requested, then replanning need to take place. As you can see, this is a linear kind of project management where the team works from bottom to top. The phrase 'Waterfall' refers to the sequential phases which lead from one phase to another until completion. Prince2. Typically found on government projects, this highly controlled methodology leaves nothing to chance. Agile. Change is welcome in Agile project and can be added quickly. Instead of fixed planning, it favors 'Individuals and interactions over processes and tools'. This provides the project with its flexibility and speed. Some level of planning is still required, but it happens all the time (itratively) with the customer heavily involved. Scrum and Kanban are just some of the popular Agile frameworks. Agile; Scrum. This is a of software development approach which requires teams to work in time-boxed sprints to deliver working products at regular intervals. Agile; Kanban. Kanban limits multi-tasking by enforcing Work In Progress (WIP) Limits. For example, this means that a team can not work on any more than 3 tasks at any one time. In order to take another task, they must first finish one. Lean. Lean looks to cut out wasteful efforts in order to streamline the project deliverable. It does this through the mantra of Muda, Mura, & Muri; eliminate anything that doesn't add value, is seen as an overhead or stress. PMI, PMBOK. The Project Management Institute (PMI) Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) is a universal set of standards undertaken by a certified Project Management Professional (PMP). It is an excellent resource that can help you universally understand all project management methodologies by understanding the principles behind them.

What are the Project Management Phases?

Project management is not just about planning. It is about organizing, leading, and controlling resources to achieve specific goals. There are five major phases of project management life cycle, especially in the Waterfall methodology:

Project initiation - the process of determining the strategic goals of a project and engaging in activities that will produce benefits. In other words, this phase is all about setting the plan for your project.

Project planning - the process of defining the scope of a project, outlining initiatives to reach desired goals, determining resources needed to complete the project, and developing an approach for executing the plan -

Project execution - the process of managing projects by monitoring progress against objectives or milestones and adjusting strategies as necessary to keep on track with deadlines

Project control - the process of controlling projects by monitoring progress against objectives or milestones and addressing any deviations from scope or expectations identified during execution

Project closure -the closure phase of a project is called "project closing" or "project termination." This phase involves completing all of the outstanding scope

What are the Project Management Constraints?

Project management constraints are things that restrict the scope of a project and keep the project from going off track. Some common constraints are timeline (schedule), resources and scope. These are sometimes call the Triple Constraints or Iron Triangle. The Quality of the project goal/deliverable sits within this triangle.

Imagine the sides of the Iron Triangle as being measurable by units (tasks, time, money). The Iron Triangle is an equilateral triangle. If one of more of these units is greater than the other, then quality is likely to suffer.

What is Project Management?

The purpose of project management is to ensure that the project is completed successfully and on time. A Project has a start and end date (Schedule), tasks to be completed (Scope) and people, money, materials (Resources) who can be used to complete the project.

The goal of a project manager is to make sure that the project's goals are achieved and that the company achieves its objectives.

Project managers are responsible for planning, organizing, leading, and controlling projects. They also need to monitor progress and identify potential risks or issues with the project. They communicate all of the above to people who are interested in the project; stakeholders.