Introduction to Project Management
- Definition of project management and its importance in achieving project objectives.
- Overview of project lifecycle phases: initiation, planning, execution, monitoring, and closure.
Key Concepts in Project Management
- Project Management Tools: Essential features and top tools like Monday.com, Jira, Trello, Asana, etc. For a deeper understanding of project management methodologies, check out our Comprehensive Overview of Scrum Methodology and Practices.
- Project Planning: Importance of planning in project success, including scope, time, cost, and quality management. This aligns with the principles discussed in The Ultimate Guide to Effective Time Management.
- Roles of Project Managers: Responsibilities, skills required, and the significance of effective communication and leadership.
Project Management Processes
- Detailed explanation of the five process groups: Initiating, Planning, Executing, Monitoring and Controlling, and Closing.
- Discussion on the 10 knowledge areas and their relevance in project management.
Risk Management in Projects
- Understanding risks, their categorization, and the importance of a risk register.
- Techniques for risk identification, analysis, and response planning.
Agile Project Management
- Overview of agile methodologies, principles, and frameworks like Scrum and Kanban. For more on agile practices, refer to our Comprehensive Overview of Online Event Management System Project.
- Benefits of agile project management in enhancing product quality and customer satisfaction.
Certification and Career in Project Management
- Importance of PMP certification and its impact on career growth and salary. This is similar to the insights provided in Unlocking Azure DevOps with the A400 Certification: A Comprehensive Guide.
- Eligibility criteria for PMP certification and the significance of the PMBOK guide.
Conclusion
- Recap of the importance of project management in achieving organizational goals and the role of project managers in leading successful projects.
hey everyone welcome to simply learn today we will be learning the project management's fill course we will begin
this video by talking about what project management is project planning how can it be done using excel cost quality
communication and other forms of management the best project managing tools how you can prepare for the pmp
exam the role of a project manager interview questions and much more by the time you are done you will be well
versed with some of the most important concepts in project management for this training with me we have a specialist
chandra mr and ishan together they will take you through these different topics so let's start by answering our first
question what is project management so before we begin make sure to subscribe to our
youtube channel and don't forget to hit that bell icon so that you can never miss an update from simply learn
hi welcome to project management tutorial from simple learn i am chandra mr a
professional consultant and coach in best practices related to project management and i.t service management
today as part of this tutorial we are going to learn the basic understanding about the project
management and the required knowledge for a project manager to become successful in managing projects so as
part of this tutorial we are going to look at what is project management what is
project components of project management project life cycle key focus areas in project management job roles in project
management and project management certifications so what is project management now as defined in pmis pmbok
project management is application of knowledge skills tools and techniques to project activities to meet project
requirements so every project will have an objective to accomplish similarly the objective of project management is to
make the final deliverables in a finite time and budget this involves having clear understanding about the
deliverables of the project require resources for the project resource in terms of human resources technical
resources financial resources etc project managers should have a full picture of those aspects we can call it
as constraints or aspects and manage those throughout the project life cycle for which a project manager should have
a full view about a project and what is that this project has to accomplish that objective should be clear
so as part of project management the six constraints which project manager should look at are scope time quality cost risk
and resources so each of these areas has very important role to play in project management the clarity in scope the
clarity in terms of schedule within which the project has to be delivered the cost what it incurs to that
particular project once it is finalized one cannot vary when cannot change without any proper approvals similar to
that we have quality management which has to ensure the scope the specifications what are defined project
output will be accordingly achieved risk every project is taken up for a specific reason by organization so organization
should assess the risk associated with the project and similarly as project progresses various different risks has
to be identified like risk related to project management risk related to technology area risk related to
resources risk related to financial things so broadly risk management plays a very important role so there will be
something called contingency reserve kept for a identified risk above the cost what is estimated for various
deliverables from the project so every projects require resources resources may be in terms of human resources financial
resources technology resources environmental resources so all these resources are used to produce the output
of the project so these resources has to be managed with the sufficient optimization and standardizations
required now let us understand the definition of a project so what is the project pmi defines a project as a
temporary endower undertaken to create a unique product service or result the temporary nature of a project indicates
that the project has a definite beginning and end so when i say product unique product it means every output it
may be similar products you are producing with the same features and functionality but the output of every
project is unique because it is unique in terms of all the six constraints what we just discussed now now when i say
product it is very easy for us to visualize it may be a desktop it may be a laptop
it may be a car it may be a machine etc but how do i visualize a service a project output is a service now it is
it's about building a capability a project by through a project a capability can be built to ensure
services can be provided that's what the output of project is service for example if i think about a taxi services for
providing a taxi services i need a mobile app i need taxi i need a server i need a data center
so all these are various different products and services here service example can be internet service so
combination of all the services and products builds the capability for an organizations who can provide the taxi
services so building that capability we say it is an output of a particular project which is called service
similarly results can be improvement of something improvement in customer satisfaction increase in
some specific objectives or specific results needs to be achieved in performance perspective so
output of every project will be unique product or a service or a result this we need to clearly understand so when we
say there is a definite beginning and end every project starts at a certain point in time and ends at certain point
in time so it has a definite beginning and end that is the reason it is temporary in nature it is not an ongoing
business activity right so every project will have a life cycle a beginning and end so when it starts till end until the
result or a service or a product which comes as an output of a project project lifecycle is not ended so interestingly
in a product life cycle or in a service lifecycle you come across many project life cycles so one project
life cycle means one project is initiated to introduce a product or services next project or
initiated would be to enhance the capability of a service or a product next project initiated after some time
is to optimize something similarly at the end of the product lifecycle project is initiated to retire that product or
services so in a given product life cycle there will be multiple project life cycle so what is involved in the
project life cycle it involves five areas five groups we can call it as so initiation planning execution monitoring
and closure so when i say initiation it's all about understanding what is project giving the basic understanding
of the project collating the details and having key stakeholders identified once that is done one will move towards
planning so here in the initiation it is very clearly one has to understand is project is worthwhile of doing so one
has to check the feasibility one has to measure that particular investment is making sense
and then confirm yes it makes sense to invest now next planning as we have a basic understanding of yes this project
has to be done and a discussion with the key stakeholders have happened now that moves towards planning now in
planning one will understand the project in entirety if it is a waterfall approach one has to have a clear
articulation of entire project a comprehensive details holistic approach now if you go if you are going in a
project in a agile way of approach now in this planning you may have a big skeleton as you go in each of the
iteration you may go deep dive into detailed planning if it is agile approach so planning provides you the
clear insight towards what needs to be done in this project how it has to be done and what are the results which can
be achieved out of that particular project so this involves making that a clear blueprint often project objectives
what we are supposed to achieve so this will become a reference point throughout the project lifecycle then execution as
you have a blueprint of the project as the direction of that project is set detailing of the project has been made
one will go ahead and execute the project executing the sense implementation acquiring resources and
implementing it so execution phase involves the allocation of resources and making the deliverables as required you
acquire resources you configure a resource you ensure right resources are required if it is human resource one has
to educate that human resource with the project required knowledge or details or one has to
provide that assignment in such a way that skills of that individuals what they should have is acquired by those
individuals so that deliverables can happen and they need to be managed the entire team needs to be managed for that
a clear structure has to be created similarly when you do technology resource perspective those components
has to be tested configured then integrated again tested for uncheck the performances so collective action of
this results in a deliverable during the execution so as the deliverables are happening in the execution it is quite
obvious project manager has to monitor review control that particular deliverable and also the processes tools
resources used during the project even those needs to be monitored so that they are complying to the defined processes
so during monitoring there may be a deviation one can found during monitoring there may be the project is
running the way it is required so in this monitoring phase it involves an action from project manager to monitor
and control the work of the project so comparing with the blueprint of plan what is accomplished what is created
during the planning phase of this project and as the execution happens monitoring and control
is monitoring it and checking is that activities what is being done is according to the plan or not similarly
the deliverables which comes as an output of our projects are tested thoroughly whether those have a specific
features and functionality and are they functioning the way it is required now project has to be delivered to the scope
what is defined it should not go beyond that or below that similarly the schedule what is made for the project
within that schedule project deliverables needs to be accomplished within the cost what is budgeted for the
project so during the project your project manager may find there are certain
deviations which are occurred there are additional challenges which has come in so for this reason one has to ensure
continued monitoring as the execution happens and identify those deviation and ensure whenever there is a deviation
there is a correction whenever there is an additional things coming in that needs to be considered carefully whether
that need to be involved as part of this deliverable or should be taken it separately so this requires lot of
conversation with all the stakeholders of the project during the entire project life cycle especially during planning
execution monitoring and control since they are not the one which is happening in sequence so planning can also come
back again where there is something which you may require to modify so may require to have a change in the
blueprint itself by adding that new change which is coming in so you go back to planning so planning execution
monitoring and control are going hand in hand so that project deliverables are happening as needed
similarly all the process work instructions all those templates what is given are used one is complying to those
requirement it is very important and project is done within the scope schedule and time and the quality
metrics defined then as the completion of the project happens as the monitoring and control says yes deliverable has
happened according to the requirement then the project moves to the closure the closure may be closure of a specific
project phase a milestone deliverable or a faisal deliverable or it can be a deliverable at the end of
the project which is the ultimate deliverable so processes in closing has to be triggered whenever there is end of
the phase whenever there is a deliverable to conclude and also at the end of the project to conclude the
entire project so during the closure one has to ensure capturing all the details in terms of what is accomplished against
what is defined what went wrong what went well what is a learning one has to take to the next level or the next phase
or to the next project and at the same time a sign-off has to be obtained formally and everything should be
summarized and have a good handshake with the project stakeholder mainly a business or customer and also
disseminating of team means you will dismantle the entire team and send them back to their specific units or
specialization and they may get assigned to new project or if it is a functional they can go back to their functions to
do their functional activities so that was about entire project lifecycle what happens now while doing this i mentioned
there are six constraints that is scope schedule cost quality risk and resources so keeping these in mind one has to
ensure project is successful in all aspects so to become successful there are few key areas which has to be looked
at so first six key areas are scope schedule cost quality resources and stakeholders
now let us look at the scope what does scope means scope is about what needs to be delivered what is in scope what is
out of the scope so this refers to all those deliverable scope all those activity scope basically we speak about
two things one is product scope and project scope product scope is all about ensuring the features functionality of
products are well defined and understood and signed off and while delivering that product that is tested against those
defined features and functionalities whereas projects go focus on all the activities needs to be done all those
templates which has to be used all the process which has to be complied with all the skills which is required to be
applied so it is going as defined so by doing this activities which is defined as part of project scope the result the
deliverable will come out which will be in line with the deliverables features and functionality which is defined as
part of product scope it is very important to ensure entire projects happens within this particular scope
there should not be any deviations from this schedule perspective for that specifications what were defined for a
product and project so these needs to be done in a specific point in time means in a specific schedule there will be
start time and time right so one has to plan how long a project would take and what are the deliverables
should happen in what sequence what activities are required to accomplish this
so all these needs to be understood so while performing the schedule management one has to look at a specific
deliverable at a specific point in time by applying a specific set of activities required so this will tell you the
duration of the project this will provide the sequence of project this will also help you to understand the
dependency between one task to another task this will also help you to understand how the deliverables
happening in what sequence which helps in prioritizing your deliverables third is cost so as we know to do any project
it is very essential to ensure project happens within that budget so project cost is estimated initially then that
estimated cost will be checked checked in terms of is the assumptions considerations are right or wrong is
that really so much of a monetary resource are required for the project and then after understanding the
justification and obtaining the clarity budget is i mean monetary resources are allocated and confirmed approved then it
will become a budget that will be a cost baseline so these estimation allocation of budget once it happens that will
become a base and any deviations from that cannot happen so easily so any deviations because of additional of
scope that can be handled through change management but idealistic scenario the cost should not escalate or come down
organization can also set certain tolerances at the project level considering various different scenarios
like scenario of risks scenario of something which deviated from the deliverable so to what extent it can
deviate that tolerance will also be set at the economic or monetary value perspective that is about cost
now quality as we know quality is a very important area which ensures the project is
delivered in time with all the specifications defined by using all the methods means by
following all the processes work instructions templates and delivering as needed where it
enables the project to monitor it easily so basically the requirement of compliance and standardization and
optimization is to ensure everyone follows the same steps do the activity so what quality management focus is to
ensure the intended objectives of a projects are achieved already there is a definition done in terms of various
different practices or processes needs to be followed similarly specification of each of the products are defined and
from that there should not be any deviation so quality management should focus on ensuring those activities are
done as defined those deliverables are done according to the specifications what is different it is very important
that way so for that there is a layer of quality management there should be a layer of quality management where
auditing or control activities are initiated periodically so that any deviations can be seen easily and
remember a project manager can become cannot become part of quality management like
project manager cannot audit project manager should have a team or take the help of a team who can able to do mostly
the one which is who is not part of the project is always better resources now as i mentioned earlier every project
need resources it may be human resources it may be technology resources it may be any other resources which are required
to do the project so organization acquires resources configured and then deployed
for example in the project you acquire a server you configure a server you deploy a
server technology resource human resource is on board recruited project induction is given then at the same time
the skills and capabilities of individuals are according to the requirement of project that needs to be
ensured and what needs to be delivered and how it has to be delivered should be clear to the particular human resource
so looking at all the aspects of resources to acquire to build and manage it is very important to look at the
resource management so this will help in carrying out a specific task in the project in the best possible manner so
interestingly when i say human resource always there is a possibility that a conflict can occur so when i say
conflict conflict of interest may be in terms of what the individuals has to do conflict in terms of the preferences in
terms of solutions what they are looking at conflict in terms of using resources different opinions different preferences
various reasons conflict can come across so it is very important to project manager to understand this dynamics of
human resources and manage this conflicts project manager cannot shy away from handling
conflicts project manager has to hone and resolve those conflicts in the favor of project not in the fear of any
individuals so there are various techniques to look at resolving conflicts so that is like compromising
problem solving smoothening accommodating so whichever helps for that project
scenario for the project objectives that needs to be applied that technique has to be taken up so here the resolution is
not at the specific individual's preference it is with the objective of other projects as any impact what kind
of impact positive or negative if it is negative no that's not the direction the direction should be ensuring project
gets that value through this conflict resolution so project manager should own it it's an accountability of a project
manager then as the human resources are acquired there are five stages team dynamics are involved so one has to
bring them then educate them about a project as education on the project happens one has
to go and do the job on floor that needs to be observed means one has to manage by looking at it and
any corrections needs to be done that needs to be guided so it is very dynamic thing when it comes to human resources
similarly in technology resources standardization there is no ambiguity as such but right resources with the right
configurations should be acquired that is very important the next stakeholders so who can be stakeholders every project
will have a stakeholder who are internal and external to the project so the internal stakeholders are those who are
part of the project who are part of the organization who are part of the customer organization or part of
supplier organization a competition to my business means my organization's business all this we can call it as a
stakeholders now every stakeholders will have a specific interest a power an ability to influence now through their
position through their distance from the project they will get impacted at the same time
they will also impact the project similarly they influence and they get influenced because of the project so a
project manager should identify all the stakeholders and understand this what is the kind of stakeholder is this in terms
of power in terms of legitimacy in terms of influence in terms of impact after understanding that there should be a
strategy for handling the stakeholders how am i going to engage with these stakeholders it is very important and
accordingly the engagement should happen and then stakeholder engagement should resolve in the favor of projects again
so if it is a customer customer should get that inputs required through review or periodic updates and the engagement
required with the customer so that customer is having up-to-date information about the project if it is a
team continued monitoring and control and ensuring team delivers the results what is required so focus of a
stakeholder should be in such a way that your strategy should enable project to become successful and get a proper
response from the stakeholder means a supporting engagement so next few key focus areas to mention is communication
risk procurement critical success factors deliverables and work breakdown so this
list is not exhaustive as we deep dive into project i think you can just keep listing the key focus areas more than
this but whatever we have indicated are the minimum which needs to be looked at so when i say communication
communication is basically a conversation exchange of message which happens between two entities now
whenever we communicate it is necessary to understand that it has to happen with two individuals or two entities there
should be sender there should be a receiver in the absence of receiver if sending is happening that communication
doesn't make any sense there should be a receiver and there should be an acknowledgement from the receiver now
this is one of the most ignored area in many of the projects even the communication happens more often more
frequently but what people face difficulty in realizing that as they communicate generally informally
formally they just take those for granted now when you identify the stakeholder one has to understand what
is the communication requirement for those stakeholders what is that communication why is that communication
what is the content of that communication how frequently we should do that
interactions or communications intent of that particular communication what is the expected action or response from
that communication all this needs to be very very clear and this can be articulated it has to be articulated so
when it is articulated once there is a picture in terms of what kind of communication has to happen it is quite
obvious there should not be any deviation from the agreed communications requirements and whenever there is a
need of change to the communication requirements from the stakeholders that needs to be updated for this one has to
have a stakeholders identified so stakeholder management and communication are very closely linked and associated a
engagement with the stakeholder will become successful within effective communication approaches next is risk so
every project which is undertaken by organization that will have certain amount of risk which organization will
evaluate similarly within the project life cycle lot of risk comes up which would have such an impact to the project
now risk refers to by definition an uncertain event it has an uncertainty an event which is uncertain and when it
occurs it will have an impact on the project positively or negatively now current scenario in everywhere in the
projects what you observe closely people tend to look at the risk which are threats that is negative only but they
fail to recognize the risks which are opportunities the positive risks so another gap which we see when do the
risk management is that is done in the initial phase of the project as the project is kicked off someone will do
the risk assessment have a list of risk identified but unfortunately there is no categorizations for that risk and how is
that going to impact the project that is not clear thirdly risk management or list of risk
are created only once it is not done repeatedly so risk identification and analysis and assessment of that risk has
to be done throughout the life cycle of a project reason being the risk which looks as in high impact when project is
initiated as the project progresses the impact levels will vary maybe in the middle of the project the impact may be
very high or low so likewise the impacts of the risk will vary throughout the project life cycle it may be positive it
may be negative so as you identify the stakeholder throughout the project life cycle as i said that is also a dynamic i
cannot just have a list of stakeholders and i keep it as it is i need to update that also regularly risk identification
assessment and analysis should also be done regularly periodically so that one will have a clear understanding about is
that risk still valid is that risk is there still or not what is the level of variations in terms of impact of the
risks so this clarity will be there so that neces organization or project manager can get ready to face those risk
if it is a negative risk definitely should have a mitigation or avoidance or acceptance whatever the mitigation plan
you have to eliminate the negative impact of the risk when it occurs if it is a positive risk it's quite obvious
one has to take the advantage of that one has to enhance exploit share a positive risk so that organization is
benefited further procurement so whenever a project is initiated whenever a project is taken up the organization
who is doing the project cannot create everything cannot develop everything in that project life cycle so organization
would take a decision make a decision stating that some of the deliverables we make ourselves some of the products we
make ourselves some of the products we purchase some of the services we purchase so to purchase that has to
happen from a specific supplier you cannot go with every supplier you should evaluate the
suppliers qualify the suppliers and then select onboard the supplier and then get the services or products supplied by
that particular supplier so while doing this one has to understand what type of contracting they need to enter with so
three types of contracts we speak basically one is about a cost plus contract where cost is fully
known to the project manager and to the organization so apart from known cost a fee will be paid to the supplier another
one is fixed price where project manager or the organization who is awarding that contract to a supplier will not know
what is the cost instead it is a fixed price but important here is the scope of work needs to be clearly articulated and
defined another type of contracting can be time and material where the building will happen based on the
amount of time one is spent on that particular i hire a resource or on-board resource on a timeline material basis
and what is that effort that resource has been put based on that building will happen so three types of contracts
depending on the different scenarios of the project will be signed with the contractor however before doing that it
is very essential to identify those suppliers sign off with them and monitor and manage them so if deliverables are
not there it is very essential to look at the termination one has to terminate
otherwise one has to ensure instead of uh terminating should be able to put some
effort to educate them also so that they come up to the mark so project is benefited so depending on what needs to
be done that call has to be taken on a regular basis then critical success factor so for every project there should
be an articulation of critical success factor so based on that one can confirm yes project has achieved his objectives
our project has not achieved his objectives so key critical success factor should be supported through the
metrics key performance indicators so key performance indicators provide those metrics to say critical success factor
is achieved for example if i want to become successful in an exam critical success factor is scoring or passing the
examination or let me say to pass the examination key performance indicator is scoring 60 percent and above so critical
success factor for me to get promoted is to pass in this particular exam so to pass in this exam minimum i should score
is 60 percent that is kpi passing in the exam that is critical success factor so how will i measure that success factor
is kpi so every project which it produces a specific product or services by using a specific resources and each
of these the resources the processes the templates the deliverables all these needs to be measured on a continual
basis so there are critical success factors defined and those are measured by defining kpis to that critical
success factors so basically critical success factor provides the insight towards what needs to be measured and
when you measure what should be the focus and to achieve those critical success factors the indicator is key
performance indicators when you measure yes the moment you achieve that your csf is achieved next deliverables so
deliverables are those which comes as an output of the project right it may be a product it may be a service it may be a
result so this refers to the output within the scope of a project so there can be one or more deliverables within a
single project so these deliverables may be the items that are to be sent externally to a customer or a
stakeholder so every deliverable will have a defined scope will have a defined specification so those deliverables has
to be measured tested and one has to confirm yes this deliverable is performing as we are intended to have
the performance accordingly the decision will happen should we accept this particular deliverable or not if there
is deviation that has to go back for correction so that's the reason we have monitoring and control all the control
processes like control quality focused on the product state whether it has achieved the results or not is that
functional as needed or not one has to ensure these deliverables has all those features and functionalities only then
that can be handed over to the respective stakeholder customer or operation whoever the stakeholder it is
next is work breakdown structure so when we say work breakdown structure when i look at a specific piece of product or
services and have a bigger picture i cannot even visualize the various different components various different
actions involved in achieving that bigger deliverable so if i say a car so i can think of a body external i can
think of a mirror on that body i can think of a glass in the front side as well as the
back side and also i can think of interiors like seat then accelerator steering dashboard all this i can
visualize but since i am not a technology expert relating to car can i visualize all those parts which are
working inside for car to move like engine the battery assembly i don't know what to say further so all these can be
visualized by an expert so every product or services should be broken down into multiple pieces i'm not saying go and
break that product i am saying that product will have multiple components which are involved those needs to be
segregated for example if i say cars exteriors cars interior so cars exteriors external items you can see
whatever you visualize body body structure mirror mirror assembly headlights uh then tires so likewise
whatever i can visualize i will make it as a line items under the exterior so under for example under a mirror mirror
i can speak about mirror glass mirror cap mirror pedestal and mirror of assembly where it moves where you can
move the mirror so these are the various components involved in a mirror so i need to ensure
by breaking down the product into multiple levels but depos decomposing it to multiple levels i can able to
visualize the product very clearly what is there in detail so once i have the details i will articulate those what is
that particular work breakdown element is product breakdown element is then i will look at what skills and
capabilities required for that product and i will assign the resources accordingly so once activities resources
everything is assigned automatically this will become our breakdown structure further after creating our breakdown
structure one will go and sequence the activity look at sequencing will happen based on in what priority deliverable
should happen what order deliverable should happen then once the sequencing is done it will be checked to see
whether anything can be optimized anything can be done in such a way that smooth flow of
the project can happen there is no dependencies which will make project to delay like as the flow happens smoothly
so you would find the various techniques like critical path method network diagramming critical chain method so all
these are used the floats of an activities are checked then leads and lags of the activities the relationship
between activities so accordingly full visualization in terms of how the project will flow and how in what order
the deliverables are happening can be easily visualized so that is the reason first activity is to do the product
breakdown which would result in work regular structure so those are the points still now whatever i mentioned
are the basic understanding one should have about a project and project management so as you deep dive into
various best practices like pmp by pmi prince2 by axelos scrum mass fragile scrub master similarly you have
certified scrum master so many agile practices so when you look at any of the best practices that will tell you
clearly articulate what should be the practice for you to adopt and adapt that practices so that
your project can become successful so any of those approach you touch upon all those refers to these basic things in
the absence of these basic things none of those best practices discusses the project management now typically in the
industry there are a lot of job roles to the project management which we have seen so based on that this information
is captured here on various job rules in a project management so some of them are like project manager senior project
manager project lead resource manager pmo that is project management office analyst steering committee member
so not necessarily all the project management roles are limited to this so
these are the roles which commonly you see and we are trying to capture that to give the insight right when i say
project manager the project manager is the owner one has to take an accountability for the project right so
project managers takes the project according to the plan and plays a lead role in all the steps of the project
management right so responsibilities should be managing reviewing and prioritizing the task wherever necessary
looking after risk management stakeholder management and project communication management some of the
salary what we found while we were doing the survey the success ratio of a project depends majorly on the project
manager so the demand for project management is rapidly increasing in the market so accordingly uh
thousand four seven four per year that is the usd in inr it is fifteen hundred thousand so this is what the salary uh
on an approximation what was found next role we look at senior project manager where senior project manager is ahead of
the overall project management plan the role demands in-depth knowledge of all the project aspects on a specific on the
specifics of the project the responsibilities would be planning and coordinating complex projects visiting
project sites to check progress and handle complex issues so salary looks like one or four thousand dollars
per year here 20 92 000 inr per year so the role of senior project manager is one of the highest paying rules in the
industry as we have seen having several allowances and bonuses because of the criticality involved in the project and
the accountability level of that particular individuals in the organization next role project lead so
project leads are the one who leads the people throughout the project and provide them with all the information
required throughout so responsibilities involve motivating the team beneath taking care of their needs and paying
attention to what they feel ordering or controlling the project team since the project lead has more freedom than the
project manager salary project lead makes sure that project gives the best possible outcome and is hence the demand
for the project lead in the company never reduces so in usd 82 000 per year whereas in inr it is one million two
sixty nine thousand per year next role we look at on resource manager so resource manager is the human resource
needed to make the project success right so one has to manage those resources responsibility involved assigning the
right people to the right projects at the right time managing employees currently and determining hiring needs
depending on the project's requirements so salary would be around 64 000 usd which comes around 966 794 in inr
project management office analyst for this role the project management office analyst works with pmo means project
management office and does not look at the project or manage the project directly instead does most of the data
driven work which required for a project to have our project to get supported by that so that project managers will have
a better insight analyzing and interpreting the data concerning the project figuring out the future risks to
the project finding new ways to advance the idea of the project management so salary would be one or six thousand two
fifty three per year in usd whereas four forty nine thousand three thirty seven in inr per year so steering committee
member so the steering committee members are the members who do not work on the project themselves they are there to
help the project manager like providing inputs during the development of a project advising on the budget and
evaluating the project strategies taking regular feedback from the project managers and asking necessary questions
so salary would be around 68 497 dollars per year so those were the various roles and that is not that list is not an
exhaustive list various different roles we come across but these are the basic roles which is seen in the industry
these roles are being recruited now there are various project management certifications which are offered as i
mentioned earlier so those certifications are pmp that is project management professional from pmi agile
certified practitioner that is pmi acp again from pmi then certified associate in project management so difference
between capm and pmp is like capm would act as a basic level of certification for those who does not have a sufficient
project experience project management experience whereas pmp is for those who has some project management experience
similarly pmi sap is the one who is aspiring to look at agility in project management and they can go for it
certified scrum master yes it is a scrum master certificate which will explain the role of a scrum master in detail
similarly prince to a certification from axolotls which also speak about all the aspects of the
project what we discussed and provides the framework for project management axilla's also provides prince2
certification in agile also agile prince2 certification so we will look at each one of this certain details which
are required for us to know so project management professional as i mentioned is most acknowledged and value the
certificate value what it carries which has resulted to the certified professionals in landing up in highest
paid jobs in the world so certified managers gets 20 more salary than the average salary so to take up an
examination one has to go through the formal training of 35 hours that is one of the prerequisites and there should be
some experience of 400 hours of project managing project by leading various activities of a project and once the
person becomes eligible with that prerequisites person will become register in the pmi's website becomes
member and then go for examination so examination fee for pmp would be 4.5 dollars for the members who are
registered with pmi and for those who are not registered as a member with pmi it is 555 dollars the duration of the
examination is 4 hours and the number of questions will be 200 which are multiple choice questions so each questions
carries one marks there is no negative scoring now prerequisites one has to have 4 500 hours directing and leading
the projects that experience has to be filled in while filling the application if a person is a bachelor degree holder
and along with that 35 contractors of pmi pm education now prerequisites for the one who is not a graduate who may be
high school or diploma is 7500 hours of directing and leading projects 35 hours of pm education so those are the
prerequisites before one will go and appear for examination so once an individual passes pmp examination that
certificate is valid for three years so now after three years if the person aspires to keep the certificate
continued they need to produce 60 pdus professional development units which has to be acquired during those three years
how to acquire one has to go through additional learning one has to contribute towards project management
knowledge base so those needs to be evidenced and then renewable fee has to be paid and certificate has to be
renewed then agile certified practitioner as we saw for pmp here a gel certified practitioner demonstrates
that one has relevant experience and education to handle and lead agile projects the organization has started
shifting towards agile as we know in today's industry which makes this certification
fast growing in the world so examination fee would be 435 dollars for pmi members 495 for non-pmi members duration is
three hours and multiple choice questions 120 questions prerequisites is 2 000 hours project management
experience with 100 hours agile experience and 21 contact hours of agile practices so maintenance 30 videos are
required for every three years and after paying the renewal fee that can be renewed now certified associate in
project management so here this is an entry level certificate of pmi especially for those people who has less
project experience it intends to demonstrate fundamental knowledge terminologies and processes of effective
project management so examination fee would be dollar 225 for pmi members whereas three hundred dollars for
non-members of pmi so duration of examination is 3 hours and examination will have 150 multiple choice questions
so prerequisites someone who has secondary diploma 23 contact hours of pm education is enough there is no
experience of doing the project is required as we saw in pmp so maintenance is again three years
someone who need to continue the certification has to retake the examination every three years next
certified scrum master so certified scrum master is an entry level certification that helps the
professionals to begin as the scrum practitioners is one of the most sought-after certifications as other
after this one can get the designation of certified scrum master which is offered by scrum alliance so examination
fee which will change time to time which is not revealed so one has to approach the training organization where they
will get trained on certified scrum master so duration of examination is 60 minutes and pattern would be 16 hours 2
days of training and 50 multiple choice questions after that particular two days of training then prerequisite is done
for maintaining these credentials so one has to ensure it has renewed every two years then projects in controlled
environment that is prince2 so prince2 is a method which is effective mostly from the base of uk all the
organizations who are from uk region prefers to have prince to certification and it is as popular as any other
project management certifications like pmp so examination fee would vary from nine hundred dollars to thousand dollars
depending on where exactly you're taking the examination and certification will happen at two levels one is at
foundation level and other one is practitioner so in foundation it is 60 questions multiple choice and in
practitioner it's 68 questions now 60 questions or 68 questions each carries one marks for correct answer any wrong
answer there will not be any negative scoring one has to score 55 percent to clear the examination so prerequisites
for prince2 foundation is none whereas prince2 foundation is a prerequisite for princeton practitioner examination so to
maintain the certificate one has to achieve 20 cpds every year continued professional development hi guys my name
is ishan and i welcome you all to this session of project planning today we will be learning about different aspects
of project planning but before we begin let's have a look at an incident here's max an assistant project manager who
looks tensed and is pacing around the room then jack a project manager who works with him walks into the room and
asks him why does he seem so tensed to which max replies he is facing difficulty in estimating the budget jack
responds it might be because he is not planning the project properly jack reassures max and begins to tell him
about project planning so today we will be learning about what is project planning and check out the fundamentals
of project planning then we will see why project planning is so essential for a project to be successful after that we
will check the tools for project planning and finally we will have a look at the steps for project planning so
without any further ado let's begin with what is project planning project planning is the second step or phase of
the project life cycle project life cycle has five different phrases from initiation to closure today we will be
learning about this phase that comes immediately after initiation in which the project plan is documented and
further requirements are defined project planning includes the following things the first and foremost thing is
describing the objectives or outputs we are expecting the project to yield second we have is the elaboration of the
scope to make sure what the project is all about and what all can be expected from the project the third step we have
is forming a schedule this schedule is important to run or perform different tasks of a project each task having its
own start date and end date this helps the project to finish in the scheduled time and limit lastly we have making and
generating progress reports in which all that went during the tenure of the project is documented this helps in
evaluating the project and helps in the forthcoming projects now let's have a look at the project planning
fundamentals the first fundamental that we have is the determination of scope cost and resources that determination
helps us in having a rough estimate about the time that is required to finish the project it helps us in
determining the number of people required and what should be their skill set we can divide the project into
smaller manageable sections and this is made possible with the help of work breakdown structure the second
fundamental refers to identifying the problem there are several techniques by which we can collect information and
discover issues there may be several problems in a project and in that case several risks or issues are prioritized
and the risk that requires immediate attention is dealt with first then comes identification of stakeholders when we
can identify the stakeholders we can know who all will be affected and in what way which helps us having a better
understanding of the project stakeholders may be anybody they may be the part of the project team or project
managers or customers they help during the project and contribute to its success then the last fundamental we
will discuss is defining project objectives a project plan is made keeping in mind the requirements of the
project team and expectations of the stakeholders if the project team can meet the expectations of the
stakeholders then only we can say that the project is successful now when we know about project planning and its
fundamentals it's time to see why project planning is so important project planning reduces the cost and time of
the project as every step is monitored and optimized in the best possible manner project planning increases
employee satisfaction as every employee who is a part is engaged in the team for improved project performance project
planning helps in the implementation of quality assurance as the output of every step is duly tested lastly project
planning helps in reducing project risk as planning helps to analyze prioritize and deal with that risk moving on let's
have a look at the tools for project planning the first tool that we have is a gantt chart today gantt charts are one
of the most popular project management tools they help in tracking the status of the work at a particular time and
their independencies on each other gantt charts help in showing different phases and steps involved in a project the
second tool we will talk about is critical path method or cpm critical path method helps in scheduling the
project activities so that the project runs properly the critical path method focuses on the longest stretch of
dependent tasks and determines the time needed to complete them the next tool is project evaluation and review technique
or pert chart bird provides a graphical representation of the project's timeline explaining the independencies of
different tasks this tool not only helps in making a schedule but also helps in coordinating with all the team members
the fourth tool we will check is work breakdown structure work breakdown structure is a very common tool that
makes it possible for the team to break its work into manageable sections work breakdown structure is a step two step
process that helps in completing the project efficiently the last tool we will see is project documentation
project documentation is an integral part of the project life cycle project documentation helps in understanding the
mistakes done during the project and more importantly provides guidelines for the upcoming project now when we know
about different tools for project planning it becomes essential that we know the necessary steps of project
planning there are seven steps in project planning let's have a look at each of them in detail the first step is
identification of stakeholders as we have discussed stakeholders could be anybody they could be a part of the team
or a project manager or a customer when we identify stakeholders we can find out the expectations and requirements that
are to be looked upon in this project this gives us a clearer picture of the project and helps in establishing the
project scope so the next step we have is defining the project scope this helps in determining a list of specific
project goals and deliverables that are to be achieved during the course of the project after we have defined the
project scope it is time to set project objectives and prioritize them the initial ideas that were there before are
now elaborated and final steps to complete the project are defined in the next step the deliverables are
determined after all project deliverables are the only reason why the project is being created this step
involves finding out what these deliverables will be and the deadlines of the delivery then the step that comes
into picture is creating a project schedule the project schedule refers to the guidelines when a particular task is
to be started and when it is supposed to end this helps in monitoring the growth of the project and later helps in
generating progress reports the next step is the step of risk analysis this step plays an extremely important role
in the success of the overall project it helps in identifying the risk prioritizing them and taking steps to
limit them the last step in project planning is to generate progress reports in this step we update the stakeholders
about the project growth and it is done so that all the concerned team members can have a look at the progress of the
project after all this information max thanks jack for the explanation and looks forward to plan projects within
the budget and of better quality in this session we will talk about project plan in excel we will learn about a project
plan and how we can make an effective plan in microsoft excel before we begin let's have a look at all the topics we
will be covering today first we will see the basics of a project plan then we will check the process of project
management microsoft excel and why should one refer to microsoft excel apart from this we will learn about how
to make a gantt chart in excel towards the end we will check some microsoft excel templates so without any further
ado let's get started let's see what is a project plan project plan is a basic thing that is needed to execute a
project according to project management book of knowledge a project can be defined as an approved elaborative
document that guides the team during project execution and project control when we are making a project plan a
project plan must answer several questions for us these questions are like what are we expecting our project
to deliver how are we expecting to get our deliverables within the desired time who all will be a part of a project and
what tasks they will have in the project when will the project start and when it is expected to end that is the deadlines
of the project now let us learn about project management in excel microsoft excel is one of the most common
applications these days it is used in both offices and at homes microsoft excel is an easy project management tool
that allows the team members to easily see the tasks in a project develop a plan and track its progress before we
learn more about project management in excel let's first have a look why do we use excel microsoft excel is an easy
tool to plan a project so it can be used by people who are beginners in terms of project management in excel one can find
several analytical tools like concatenate len and counter so this makes data analysis easy and effective
as the entry of data is easy same is tracking and controlling of project status then there are several project
management templates in excel that help us to have an effective distribution of project data we will be checking several
project management templates towards the end of this video now let's have a look at the process of making a gantt chart
in excel before we begin this it's important we know what is a gantt chart a gantt chart is like an horizontal bar
chart that is used for project management with the help of a gantt chart we can check the status of the
task the date they start the date the end and the dependencies on each other gantt chart helps in coordinating and
monitoring different tasks in a project now let's have a look at the steps that will help us in making a gantt chart
first step we have is make a project table we have several rows and columns like here we have three columns in the
first column we have the tasks in the second we have our start date and in the third column we have the duration or
tenure of the task the second step is to make a bar chart in excel for this we will select the entire second column
then we will go on the insert tab and click on the bar graph chart there we can select stack bar graph in 2d bar
charts as a result we will have the entitled bar graph on the screen in the third step we will add the duration to
the bar graph we will right click on the chart and in the menu that appears we will select select data option a window
that appears on the screen in that window we will select add option as shown we can also see the start date is
already in the entry section then in the dialog box that appears type tenure in the series name and click on the rain
selection icon that's shown in the figure now select the relevant data from the tenure column and click on ok now we
can see a bar graph that has two colors on the screen this bar graph now has the duration of the tasks the fourth step we
have is adding description to the gantt chart now we will open the box again and in that box we will select the edit
option as shown in the figure then we will select the tasks as we had selected the duration of the tasks before and
click on ok we can now see the tasks have appeared towards the left side of the gantt chart the fifth and the
remarkable step will help us convert this bar graph into a gantt chart we will now click on the bars and select
the format data series option from the menu that appears then in the format data series dialog box we will select no
fill option we can find our gantt chart on the screen now in accordance with the data that we had entered now we can see
the tasks on the left side are in the reverse order so what we will do next is we will click on the task panel then go
to the format access dialog box and select the categories in reverse order option now we can find our tasks in the
right order one more thing we can notice is gantt chart is starting with some other date and not with the dates that
we had entered so for this we will copy the first date in some other cell then clicking on the copied cell we will go
to the home menu to select the dialog box as shown in the figure then in that drop down menu we will select the number
option we can now find a value displayed in the copied cell we'll copy that value click on the dates on the chart and as
the format access dialog box opens we will paste that value in the box that says minimum shown in the figure as a
result we will have our final gantt chart on the screen in the last step we can give several designs to a gantt
chart change colors and make it more presentable for us now when we know the basic steps of making a gantt chart i
will show that practically to you in microsoft excel our first step is to open microsoft excel and in microsoft
excel we will make a project table in our project table we will have three columns the first column will be task
the second column will have the start date the third column will have tenure or the duration of the task so beginning
with tasks we have task 1 in task 1 we have 1.1 1.2 1.3 then comes task 2. in task 2 we have 2.1
2.2 2.3 and 2.4 then we have task 3 in task 3 we will have two subsections 3.1 and 3.2 then we will start with the
starting dates in starting dates we will put 1 january the task 1 1.1 will be 1st of january then this will be 4th january
let's say this is 5th january then we will put this as 11th of january and this will be again 11th january only
this will be 15th january let's put this as 17th january let this be 19th january task 3 begins
on 23rd january and it the 3.2 section begins at 26th of january now let's put the tenure or the
duration of the task we will begin with task 1 it takes 12 days then 1.1 takes 7 days we say this takes 4 days and this
takes 8 days then for task 2 it again takes 12 days it takes 5 days 5 days
and let's say this takes six days and this takes four days then we come to task three this takes eight days and
let's say this takes six days and the three point two section takes five days so this is how our project table is
ready in the second step we will select the entire second column after we have selected this column we will go to the
insert tab in the insert tab we will go to the bar columns and in this we will select 2d stacked bar charts now we have
the entitled bar chart in accordance to our data on the screen then comes the third step we will add the duration of
the tasks to the bar graph we will click on the chart and after we click on the chart we will select
select data option in the select data source dialog box we find the start date is already there now we will click on
add and after we click on add in the series name section we will put tenure then in the series value
we will click on this icon and select the entire tenure series and click on ok so this is the bar graph that we have
now this is now in two colors the orange color and the blue color this bar graph now has the duration of all the tasks in
our project table now in the fourth step now it's time for us to add description to our gantt chart instead of this 1 2 3
4 5 we will put task 1 task 2 and the sub tasks so what we will do is we will again go to that box we will left click
on the gantt chart select the select data option and then we'll go to the start date here we'll select the edit
option in the edit option we will select all the tasks and click on ok now we can see all the tasks are aligned towards
the left of the bar chart as we can see this is a bar chart or a bar graph and not a gantt chart the next step we have
is converting this bar graph into a gantt chart so we will click on the bars and select the format data series option
from the menu that appears here we have this format data series option now we can see the dialog box on the screen
here we'll go into the color section fill section and then we will select no fill now we
can see the blue lines have disappeared so this looks like a gantt chart so now when we have a gantt chart on the screen
we can notice that the tasks here are in the reverse order so what we will do is we will click on these tasks and select
the format access option here we will select categories in reverse order we can see our gantt chart is now in order
like we have a task 1 on the top and task 3 at the bottom the dates are starting from 11th of december but the
dates we have provided are from 1st of january now we will copy this cell then go on the dates box here we'll go to
format access in the format axis we can see minimum in this minimum we will paste
this value and press enter as we press enter we can see our gantt chart starting from the date that we wanted to
start and that too in the correct order starting from task 1 to task 3. now as a result we have our final gantt chart on
the screen in the last step what we can do is make our gantt chart more representable we can change the color of
these bars we can give them shapes and we can do many other things to make it more presentable we will first select
the bars like what we will do is we will select task 1 and let's say we give it the color blue then task 2 we will give
it color green and in task 3 we'll give give it the color black so here the sub sections will give different colors to
the sub sections as well then we come to task 2.1 this is how we can change the color of these cells or apart from
changing colors we can select a bar graph and do the gradient fill so this is how we can make a gantt chart more
presentable after changing the colors or changing the shapes we have our final gantt chart on the screen finally let's
have a look at some microsoft excel templates for project management microsoft excel templates help in
collecting data putting them into order and check the dependencies with each other with the help of these templates
we can monitor the status of the tasks and we can also check the progress our project has made moving forward we will
check some important microsoft excel templates the first template we have is excel project review template this
template helps us have an overview of the project we can have a clear understanding of all the tasks that are
planned and that are completed this helps project managers to measure the progress of the project and take further
steps accordingly second template we will check is excel budget template in this template we can monitor all the
expenditures of our project it helps us in managing the budget of a project and also helps in comparing the budget of
our project at different phases let's have a look at the budget template in excel once we can download this template
from officetimeline.com the gantt chart towards the right is in accordance with the dates towards the left if we
fluctuate the date we can see the template working the start date for task 1 could be changed to 10th june if we
change this date to 10 june we can see the fluctuation in the gantt chart so this is how we can use this template
directly let's have a look at the third template now third template we will see is excel sprint project tracker template
this template is used majorly in agile projects where the project is made in several sprints or sessions this
template includes the start date the end date and the duration of each task we can also see the percentage completed of
each task let's have a look at this print project tracker template as well we can see the gantt chart towards the
right and the data towards the left so if we change any data we can see the gantt chart changing for example we can
change the data in sprint to feature 3. let's change the start date to july 2nd we can see the gantt chart changing
this is how we can use this template directly to track our sessions let's have a look at the fourth excel template
this template is excel project tracker in this template we have the data of all the tasks with the status and owners we
can track the percentage of tasks completed and also compare the plan duration of the task to the actual
duration of the task after the critical part tracker let's check the excel project schedule template this template
helps in effective management of the project as it helps in monitoring the time that each task of the project takes
it provides a clear view of all the work associated with the project let's have a look at this template in excel once we
can see the gantt chart in accordance to the data if we change the estimated hours at two places let's say at the
design review we make it 15 hours instead of 5 hours and at the create staffing plan we make it 2 hours instead
of 20 hours we can see the gantt chart fluctuating this is how we can use this template to manage the schedule in a
project moving forward the next template we will see is excel project status report template this template helps us
having a list of project deliverables and the risks associated with that project this template helps the project
managers about different crucial activities involved in a project after this we have excel milestone tracker the
milestone tracker helps us in tracking or monitoring different tasks in a project project managers use this
template to monitor the project performance with respect to the timelines the last template we will see
is excel project planner excel project planner includes a list of tasks with the respected owners along with the
start date and the end date of that task this helps in monitoring each task and comparing the estimated task date with
the actual ones let's have a look at this template in excel we can see the gantt chart with respect to the data
entered let's make changes at several places in the data we can make this 22 to 24 we will make this 23 go to 2 and
we can make this 5th september go to 15 september and when we make the changes we can realize the gantt chart is
fluctuating so this is how we can use this template to plan a project effectively and efficiently in this
lesson we will focus on project time management let us begin with the objectives of this lesson
after completing this lesson you will be able to define project time management
explain project schedule get charts and network diagrams identify the key terms used in project
time management describe the project time management processes
explain various schedule network analysis techniques in the next screen let us take a quick
look at the project management process map there are 47 processes in project
management grouped into 10 knowledge areas and mapped to five process groups in this lesson we will look at the third
knowledge area that is project time management and its processes let us begin with the first topic of
this lesson project time management the purpose of project time management
is to ensure that the projects get completed on time this knowledge area is primarily
concerned with developing a project schedule and ensuring that project goes as per the agreed schedule
if there is a need to change the project schedule the change should happen by following a proper change control
procedure another term used in the pmp examination is schedule management plan
schedule management plan is part of the project management plan and has information on the planned project
schedule and its management and control let us discuss the key activities of project time management in the next
screen the key activities that are part of the project time management include
identifying activities estimating time and resources and sequencing activities it is important to identify a list of
activities that would be a part of the project next an estimation of time and resources
required for completing the identified activities are done finally these activities need to be
sequenced as per the dependencies in the next screen let us discuss project schedule
project schedule represents the time dimension of the project plan and has information like when the project would
start when each of the project activities would happen in what order the project activities
would happen when project would be completed etc usually software system is used to
develop the project schedule the project team can enter the list of activities in the software as well as
their dependencies and the software can produce the project schedule as the output microsoft project is the most
popular tool used for project schedule development generally project schedule is considered similar to project
management plan project management plan is different from project schedule
project management plan not only has information about the project's schedule but also other important project related
plans like risk management plan cost management plan etc let us focus on gantt chart in the next
screen gantt chart is a type of bar chart that illustrates a project schedule
it shows the dependencies between the project activities as well as their percent completion
a sample gantt chart is shown on the screen two summary elements of the work
breakdown structure are depicted to complete those elements there are a number of activities under them
some of these activities have dependencies for example activity b and c have a dependency
activity c can start only when activity b is completed the chart gives you an idea about when
specific activities are planned to finish and when the overall wbs element will
get delivered create tasks and work with the gantt chart this will make answering gantt
chart based questions easy and fun in the next screen let us understand the relationships that exist among project
activities network diagram is extensively used in the project time management knowledge
area to plot the activity dependencies this is a graphical representation of the project activities in the form of a
network there are two ways to draw a network diagram
in precedence diagramming model pdm or activity on node aon boxes represent activities and the
arrows indicate the dependency this type of network can have all four types of relationships between the
activities in arrow diagramming model adm or activity on arrow aoa
the arrows represent activities the relationships and sequences can be inferred from the direction of the
arrows and linkages between the activities in such types of network only finish to
start relationships can be shown such diagrams may need to make use of dummy activities to indicate some
dependency between the activities there may be questions in the pmp exam based on the network diagram so create
and work with the diagram this will make answering network diagram based questions easy and fun
in the next screen let us look at a network diagram a sample network diagram is shown on the
screen activities a and c can happen in parallel
b and d require both a and c to complete whereas e requires both b and d to complete activity on aero network
diagram makes use of hammock activities they are used to show a comprehensive summary activity combining several other
activities underneath for control and reporting purposes in the next screen let us look at a few important terms in
time management when a successor activity can start before the predecessor activity can
complete it is considered lead for example you can start preparing the test environment two weeks before the
development activity finishes when the successor activity has to wait for a few days after the predecessor
activity has been completed it is considered lag for example one needs to wait for two
days for the foundation to settle before work on the pillars for the next floor starts
rolling wave planning is an iterative planning technique in which the work to be accomplished in the near term is
planned in detail while the work in the future is planned at a higher level it is a form of progressive elaboration
in the context of estimating techniques analogous estimating is based on the previous project data
therefore if the last five similar projects took six months to complete the next one will also take six months
this technique employs expert judgment another estimating technique is parametric estimating
this technique uses a mathematical model to calculate projected time for an activity based on the historical records
from previous projects and other information a few common parameters are identified
based on the previous project data and that parameter is used to predict the time required to complete the next
activity or project for example you can normally complete 10 kilometers of highway construction lanes a week
effort is the total amount of work required to complete the activity duration is the amount of time it takes
in terms of a lab store calendar days if you have an activity that requires 10 people to work for 5 days the total
effort is 50 person days but the duration is only 5 days in the next screen let us look at the
project time management processes there are seven project time management processes
they are plan schedule management define activities sequence activities
estimate activity resources estimate activity durations develop schedule and control schedule
the first six processes are executed during the planning process group the ultimate goal of these planning
processes is to develop the project schedule the seventh and the last process is a
part of the monitoring and controlling process group in the next few screens let us discuss
these processes in detail we will begin with plan schedule management
as defined in pmbok guide plan schedule management is the process of establishing the policies procedures and
documentation for planning developing managing executing and controlling the project schedule
it belongs to the planning process group let us look at the inputs to this process
the project management plan provides other subsidiary plans and will guide the schedule planning activities on the
project the project charter provides an overall context and the high level product and
project description which might help determine the approach for schedule management
few projects might have scheduling constraint for example
projects of olympics 2016 should be completed at the same time enterprise environmental factors provide
the organizational context to the project including the culture of the organization the infrastructure like
scheduling systems available key personnel and so on organizational process assets provide inputs such as
policies and procedures templates past performance data and estimates historical information and
knowledge base now let us look at the tools and techniques employed in this process
expert judgment refers to input received from knowledgeable and experienced resources
experts can draw from their previous experiences the proper approach to govern the schedule on a project
meetings may be organized to determine the schedule management plan anybody responsible for the project
schedule management such as the project manager sponsor customer and other stakeholders must attend these meetings
several analytical techniques may be used to determine the schedule management plan
these may include different planning approaches and philosophies such as rolling wave planning or
different scheduling software that allowed to build what-if scenarios
and study the effect of advanced scheduling techniques like leveling fast tracking and crashing
now let us look at the outputs of this process schedule management plan is a component
of the project management plan that describes the criteria and activities required to arrive at the project
schedule as well as how the project may be baselined monitored and controlled
in the next screen let us define activities process define activities is the process of
identifying the specific actions to be performed to produce the project deliverables
it belongs to the planning process group the important input for the define activities process is the scope baseline
scope baseline is a term used collectively to refer to project deliverables constraints and assumptions
of the project in addition to the scope baseline the other inputs in this process are
enterprise environmental factors organizational process assets and schedule management plan
a reason why enterprise environmental factors is an input to define activities is because the organization might be
using project management software to define activities and that may influence the activity definition process the
knowledge base containing historical information regarding activities lists used by previous similar projects is a
good example of organization process assets applied to scheduling the tools and techniques used in
defining activities are decomposition and rolling wave planning the last technique is expert judgment
where the experience of project team members is used in developing detailed activity lists
the output of the process is activity list activity attributes and milestone list
activity list contains a list of identified activities activity attributes are the additional
information about the activity itself a milestone is a significant point or event in the project
a milestone list identifies all the milestones and indicates whether the milestone is mandatory
or optional let us move on to the next process sequence activities
sequence activities is the process of identifying and documenting relationships among the project
activities and is also part of the planning process group for every activity and milestone except
the first and last one is connected to or at least one predecessor and one successor
the inputs to this process are activity list activity attributes and milestone list
all these are the outputs of the define activity process the other inputs are schedule management
plan and project scope statement schedule management plan provides guidance in terms of methodology to be
employed for many of the scheduling activities on the project organization process assets are also an
input to sequencing activities because the organization might have some kind of knowledge base for scheduling project
activities the enterprise environmental factors relevant to this process may be
scheduling tools in use project management information systems work authorization systems etc
one of the important tools and techniques used in sequencing activities is the precedence diagramming method
in this method the activities are drawn on a network diagram and all the different kinds of dependencies between
the activities are determined while determining activity dependency it is important to identify the type of
relationship or dependency between the activities the other technique is leads and lag
which is widely used for sequencing activities the output of the process is the project
schedule network diagram which is a graphical representation of the project activities in a form of
network which also shows the activity dependencies while designing the network diagram new
activities might be identified and that would result in some of the project document updates especially the ones
that list all the project activities in the next screen let us look at the estimate activity resources process
after sequencing the activities the next step in project time management is estimating the resources required to
accomplish each of the identified activities estimate activity resources process also belongs to the planning
process group here resources do not mean only the human resources but includes all other
resources like equipment raw materials machinery etc schedule management plan is the first
input schedule management plan provides guidance in terms of methodology to be
employed for many of the scheduling activities on the project the other inputs to this process are an
activity list and activity attributes that are the outputs of the time management processes
risk register is another input risks to the project may influence the decisions about the resources that need
to be deployed hence risk register becomes an input to this project in addition activity cost estimates are
another input cost and resource estimates on a project are interrelated and influence each
other for example the cost might dictate the number and type of resources that can be
employed or the time might dictate the cost that may need to be incurred along with this the resource calendar is
also an important input because it has the information about the availability of each of the resources
some of the enterprise environmental factors that can influence estimating activity resources are
availability of required resources within the organization the organizational process assets is
also an important input as the organization might have standard policies for staffing or for hiring
contractors on the project with all these inputs available for estimating activity resources
there are various techniques used for estimating the required resources the first technique is using expert
judgment in this technique an expert in resource planning and estimating can estimate
each of the activities the next technique used is alternative analysis
in this the activities are analyzed to identify different ways of completing them
this is to ensure only the required resources are assigned to each of the activities
this helps in resource optimization along with the two techniques many organizations routinely publish their
estimating data and this could be used in activity resource estimation another technique that is routinely used
in activity estimation is bottom-up estimating which is decomposing the activity
further down to understand it in more detail and estimating at that level later all such estimates are added to
arrive at the estimate of the activity in real projects one has to use all the estimate each of the activities
sometimes the project management software also helps in estimating the software estimates are based on the
inputs provided to it software should only be considered as a supporting tool in estimation and never
fully rely on its output clearly the output of this process is the activity resource requirements
along with this resource breakdown structure is also prepared the resource breakdown structure is the
categorization of all the required resources in various categories that is human resources equipment raw
materials etc in the process of estimation several other project documents may also be
updated for example the resource estimates are directly correlated with cost estimates
let us now move on to the next process estimate activity durations the next process is to estimate the
duration required to complete each of the activities the duration estimation should be done
by someone who is familiar with the project for example the same activity if done by
a high skilled resource would take less time compared to a less skilled resource this may vary regardless of the resource
used due to the project requirements in addition the activity duration estimation should be updated
continuously as you move ahead with the project because as the project progresses there
will be more clarity on the project the inputs of this process are similar to the ones in sequence activities
process schedule management plan is the first input
schedule management plan provides guidance in terms of methodology to be employed for many of the scheduling
activities on the project for instance it may contain information about the estimation techniques to be
employed and the people who need to be involved in the estimation process
activity resource requirements is also an input to this process because resources assigned to an activity would
significantly affect the activity duration that is the lower skilled resources
would take more time than the high skilled resources the other inputs include activity list
activity attributes and resource breakdown structure resource calendars are also an input to this process
the type and skill set of resources available to the team may have an impact on the time it would take to complete
the activities risks to the project may influence the decisions about the time required to
complete the activity hence risk register becomes an input to this process
the project scope statement defines the constraints and assumptions affecting the project duration
an example of enterprise environmental factor that can affect duration is organizations productivity metrics
which is collected based on the experiences from multiple projects the last input in this process is
organizational process assets now let us look at the tools and techniques used for estimating activity
durations first is the expert judgment which means using previous project experiences and
estimating the current project duration this can be used with other estimation techniques and used to reconcile
differences if different techniques result in different estimates three-point estimating is a method where
three estimates are used instead of one it is part of a project management philosophy known as program evaluation
and review technique pert estimating activity durations is often
done as a team exercise as each activity may require multiple skill sets to be applied
therefore it is important to use group decision making techniques to arrive at a consensus or at least an estimate that
is acceptable to all the team members reserve analysis adds buffer into the project schedule to deal with any
uncertainty the contingency reserve may be added as a percentage of the activity duration or fixed number of work periods
the other tools and techniques are analogous estimating and parametric estimating
the outputs of this process are the activity duration estimates and project documents updates
the activity duration estimates is represented in terms of the range of possible results for example
10 days plus minus two days that is the activity would take minimum eight days and maximum twelve days
in the next screen let us look into a business scenario to understand this concept better
after reading the problem statement click the solution button to look at a possible answer
develop schedule is the process of analyzing activity sequences durations resource requirements and schedule
constraints to create the project schedule it belongs to the planning process group
generally scheduling software is used for developing the project schedule entering the activities durations and
resources into a scheduling tool generates a schedule with planned dates for completing project activities
developing a project schedule is an iterative process revising and maintaining a realistic
schedule is a task in itself and it continues throughout the project as the work progresses
the most of the inputs of this process are the outputs of estimate activity durations process
they are risk register project scope statement project staff assignments resources calendars organizational
process assets enterprise environmental factors schedule management plan
activity list activity attributes project schedule network diagrams
activity resource requirements resource breakdown structure and activity duration estimates
various tools and techniques are used to develop schedule process schedule network analysis is a technique
that generates project schedule it employs various analytical techniques such as critical path method critical
chain method modeling techniques and resource optimization techniques to create the project schedule
the other tools and techniques include leads and lags schedule compression and scheduling tool
let us now look at the outputs of this process the project schedule consists of a
minimum plan start date and planned finish date for each activity although project schedule can be
represented in tabular format it is more often represented graphically using either bar charts or network diagrams
or a combination of the two the final schedule which is the output of the developed schedule process is
also called schedule baseline once the schedule is baselined it can be changed only through formal approvals
meeting the schedule baseline is one of the measures of project success scheduled data produced may include
number of resources key milestones etc project calendars specify the available working days and the number of shifts in
each day it indicates how many hours and days are available for the work of the project to
be completed project management plan updates are a result of the develop schedule process
many of the other subsidiary plans of the project plan may get impacted which may include cost management plan scope
management plan risk management plan etc this may also result in other project documents being updated
in the next few screens let us discuss schedule network analysis techniques it is essential to know if the required
resources are available at that time along with the time estimate of each of the activities
since schedule is calendar based it helps in estimating the same schedule network analysis technique
generates project schedule there are various schedule network techniques
critical path method relies on determining the critical path on a project schedule
critical chain method is a variant of the critical path method wherein the critical chain is determined based on
the logical resource and other kinds of dependencies between the activities what if scenario analysis is about
trying to vary a certain parameter to observe the impact on the schedule for instance you may want to check
result if you put in more resources on a particular activity to reduce its duration
resource optimization techniques try to arrive at the optimal utilization of the resources used on a project
ideally you would want the resources to be fully utilized but you would also want to build insufficient buffers in
case a certain resource is not available due to various reasons in the next screen let us look at the
program evaluation and review technique program evaluation and review technique is based on three-point estimates for an
activity the pessimistic estimate refers to the worst case scenario
whereas most likely estimate is what you expect to happen in a realistic scenario the optimistic estimate on the other
hand represents the amount of time an activity would take in the best case scenario
based on these three estimates the expected duration of the estimate is calculated as per the formula given on
the screen the formula for calculating standard deviation of an activity and variance of
an activity is also given there is no question asked on variance but the formula is important because if
the standard deviation of the whole project is to be calculated the process is to calculate the variance of the
whole project and then take its square root to calculate the standard deviation of the project
concept-based questions on pert can be expected in the pmp exam so make a note of the formulae while you
prepare for the exam in the next screen let us understand pert with an example
let us now figure out how we can apply the three-point estimation that pert uses in order to draw some useful
conclusions assume that the optimistic pessimistic and most likely estimates are 20 70 and
30 respectively using these values you can determine the expected duration and the standard
deviation as indicated now if the causes of variation are random you can assume that the actual
values would be evenly distributed about the mean and will follow the normal distribution
sometimes referred to as the bell curve further you can use the properties of the normal distribution
there is a 68 probability of the actual value falling within first sigma from the mean
95.4 percent probability for the second sigma and 99.7 percent probability of the
actual value falling within third sigma extending this logic the notion of six sigma is reaching a level of confidence
that only 3.4 times out of a million would the actual value fall outside the stated range pert allows you to plan
based on the intended level of confidence in the outcome and determine buffers accordingly
let us discuss the critical path method in the next screen critical path is defined as the longest
duration path through a network diagram which determines the shortest time to complete the project
float can be considered as a buffer time available to complete an activity float is calculated once the network
diagram is ready it is also called as slack there are three kinds of float
the first being the total float which is the amount of time an activity can be delayed without delaying the project end
date or an intermediary milestone the second type of float is free float which is the amount of time an activity
can be delayed without delaying the early start date of its successor or successors activities
the last type is independent float which is the amount of time an activity can be delayed if all the predecessors finish
at their latest finish dates and you want to start all the immediate successors at their earliest start dates
the slack of the activities on the critical path is zero because there is no scope to delay
activities on the critical path critical path actually represents the project duration delaying activities on
the critical path is as good as delaying the project duration concept-based questions on critical path
can be expected in the exam so it is essential to have a clear understanding of the concept
in the next screen let us learn how to calculate float float of an activity can be calculated
by two methods however the first step in critical path method is to identify the critical path
of the network once the critical path is identified follow the forward pass to find early
start and early finish for each activity the float of the activities on the critical path is zero
so they represent the overall project duration use forward pass or backward pass to
calculate the total activity time calculate late finish and late start using backward pass method
note the total float formula before you start for the exam in the next screen let us look at
forward pass and backward pass methods in detail in forward pass you can either go
through the network starting with time zero and keep calculating the time required to complete each of the
activities until you reach the last activity of the project the starting time for each of the
activity in this approach is called early start and the end time for each activity is called the early finish
alternatively in backward pass you can travel through the network from the project end date and calculate the time
required to complete each activity the end date in this approach is called the late finish and the start date of
the activity in this approach is called the late start the float of the activity is either the
difference between the late start and early start or the difference between the late finish and early finish
both the differences work out to be the same before the start of the pmp exam please
make a note of the total float formula let us understand the critical path calculation with an example in the next
screen let us look at an example for critical path
there are five activities in this project and two paths in the network diagram
start one two four five and is one path and start one three five and is the
second path since the duration of the path start 1 2 4 5 end is 18 days which is more than
the duration of the path start 1 3 5 and the critical path of the project is start one two four five end
let us take activity three as an example first calculate the early start and early finish dates
activity three can start only after activity 1. since the early finish of activity 1 is
3 it becomes the early start of activity 3. activity 3 cannot start earlier than 3
because activity 1 can be completed only by then therefore early start of activity 3 is 3
since the duration of the activity is 4 days the early finish of activity 3 is 3 plus
4 equals seven days now let us calculate the late start and late finish of activity three
late start of activity five is fourteen days the activity three happens just before
activity five so the late finish of activity 3 is 14 days
to calculate the late start you can subtract the duration from late finish therefore the late start of activity 3
is 14 minus four equals ten in the next screen let us focus on schedule compression
look at the four activities in the table the normal cost of executing each of the activities as well as how much each of
the activities can be crashed is also provided which activity would you crash to reduce
the project time by one day activity a will be crashed if the duration of the project is reduced by
one day as the per unit cost of crashing the activity a is the least all the activities are assumed to be on
the critical path here while crashing if you end up saving time on a path which is not the critical path
you will not end up saving time on the project in the next screen let us look into the
impact of schedule compression different schedule compression techniques have different impact on the
project the impact of fast track leads to risk additions and increase in management
time for the project manager crash leads to cost addition and increase in management time for the
project manager reduce scope on the other hand saves cost and resources but increases
customer dissatisfaction likewise cut quality saves cost and resources but increases risk resource
reallocation does not add cost or increase risk in the next screen
let us look into the other techniques used in scheduling there are several techniques that are
used in scheduling projects what-if scenario analysis in this technique questions like
what if a particular scenario changed on the project would that produce a shorter schedule
are put forth to understand the impact of specific changes on the schedule the goal is to produce a realistic schedule
monte carlo analysis in this method a computer simulates the outcomes of a project making use of
randomly generated values that map the probability distribution of the input variables
together these two techniques are called modeling techniques resource optimization techniques
these are also used to produce a resource limited schedule resource optimization results in more
stable number of resources used in the project critical chain method
this technique develops the project schedule that takes into account both the activity and resource dependencies
in the next screen let us look at the last process in project time management control schedule control schedule is
concerned with determining the status of the project schedule determining that the project schedule has changed and
managing the actual changes as they occur the project schedule is an important
input to this process it is the actual schedule that needs to be controlled
scheduled data contains information related to the schedule that may need to be monitored in order to take actions to
bring the project back on schedule project calendar describes the working hours and days for the project
work performance data has information like which activities have started their progress and which activities have
finished the other inputs of this process are project management plan and
organizational process assets the key tools and techniques of this process are the performance reviews
performance review is measuring comparing and analyzing schedule performance such as actual start and
finish dates percent complete and remaining duration for work in progress the other tools and techniques include
resource optimization techniques modeling techniques schedule compression leads and lags scheduling tool
and project management software in development schedule process
these techniques are used for the first time to develop the project schedule whereas in control schedule process
these techniques are used to update the project schedule the key output of the control schedule
process is the work performance information this is represented in the form of
schedule variants sv and schedule performance index spi as a part of the control schedule
process the project team will generate forecasts likely schedule for forthcoming
activities and project as a whole the other outputs include organizational process assets updates
change requests project management plan updates and project document updates in the next
screen let us look into a business scenario to understand this concept better after reading the problem
statement click the solution button to look at a possible answer here is a quick recap of what was
covered in this lesson project time management includes the processes required to manage the timely
completion of the project a project schedule defines the start and end dates of the project and the project
activities these activities are assigned a duration and sequenced in a logical order
gantt charts and network diagrams are used to identify project activities and determine the relationships and
dependencies between them gat chart displays the start and end dates of project activities the overall
project schedule and the logical task relationships while network diagram is used to plot the activity dependencies
plan schedule management define activities sequence activities estimate activity resources estimate activity
durations develop schedule and control schedule are the seven processes under project
time management schedule network analysis technique generates project schedule based on the
estimates of time and resource requirements in this lesson we will focus on project cost management
let us begin with the objectives of this lesson after completing this lesson you will be
able to define project cost management differentiate between cost estimation
and cost budgeting explain control accounts describe the project cost management
processes apply earned value management technique to track project performance
identify key terminologies used in project cost management in the next screen let us take a quick
look at the project management process map there are 47 processes in project
management grouped into 10 knowledge areas and mapped to five process groups in this lesson we will look at the
fourth knowledge area that is project cost management and its processes in the next screen let us understand the
concept of project cost management project cost management involves activities like estimating the cost of
each of the project activities adding the cost estimates of the related activities to arrive at the cost budget
and controlling the cost to ensure that project activities are completed within the defined budget in the next screen
let us discuss cost management plan the cost management plan is a vital step in project cost management it contains
information like planning the project cost managing and controlling the project in relation to the cost baseline
and managing cost variances project cost management plan is a part of the project management plan
the methods used in estimating the cost of each of the project activities are similar to the ones used in estimating
project time for example time estimation methods like expert
judgment analogous estimating bottom up estimating and reserve analysis are few of the techniques that are also used in
estimating activity cost let us discuss control account in the next screen
control account is an important concept in the project cost management project cost is generally estimated at
individual activity level it becomes difficult to manage cost at the activity level in large projects
therefore the cost is managed at a higher level this requires related activities to be
clubbed and their cost being managed together as one unit
this unit is called control account while estimating the project time wbs is created to break down the project
into smaller deliverables these deliverables are broken down into work packages and these work packages
are in turn broken into activities control account is defined at a level higher than the work packages for
example if five work packages are part of the one control account
the cost of all activities belonging to these five work packages are managed as one unit
in the next screen let us discuss the project cost management process project cost management has four
processes they are plan cost management estimate costs determine budget and control costs
the three processes plan cost management estimate costs and determined budget are a part of planning process group and
control cost process is a part of monitoring and controlling process group let us look at each of these processes
in detail let us begin with the first process that is plan cost management in the next
screen managing costs on a project is a critical exercise if the activities are
planned well it becomes easier to achieve harmony with the overall cost and budget of the project
plan cost management is the process of establishing the policies procedures and documentation for planning managing
expending and controlling the project costs let us look at the inputs required for
this process the project management plan provides other subsidiary plans and guides the
cost planning activities on the project the project charter provides an overall context and high level product and
project description which help determine the approach for cost management
for example for some projects budget could be a constraint whereas for others budget
would not be a constraint but subject to the other objectives enterprise environmental factors provide
the organizational context to the project including the culture of the
organization and the infrastructure for instance the scheduling systems available the key personnel and so on
organizational process assets provide inputs such as policies and procedures templates past performance data and
estimates historical information and knowledge base now let us look at the tools and
techniques employed in this process expert judgment refers to input received from knowledgeable and experienced
resources experts can devise an approach to govern the costs on a project by using their
previous experiences meetings may be organized to determine the cost management plan
everyone responsible for the project schedule management such as the project manager representatives from the
appropriate accounting or financial organization sponsor customer and other stakeholders must attend these meetings
several analytical techniques may be used to determine the cost management plan
these techniques help to map the impact of various decisions on cost for example how do risk management
processes impact cost etc cost management plan is the primary output of this process
it establishes the units of measure levels of precision organizational process links control accounts to be
used rules for performance measurement and reporting frequency and methodology of monitoring the costs and various
other details that lay the overall framework for cost management on a project
in the next screen let us discuss the second process under project cost management
estimate cost estimate cost is the approximation of the monetary resources required to
complete a project activity cost of a specific activity is estimated based on the information available at
that point of time as the project team gets more information about the project the
activity cost estimation may change let us look at the inputs of this process
scope baseline is the most important input as it details out the project scope of work
along with that project schedule is also important this contains information like when and
which resource is required for the project it is good to remember that the same kind of resources may have
different costs at different points of time human resource management plan is
another important input various elements like personnel rates rewards or recognition programs etcetera
are covered in the human resource management plan which is important in approximating the cost estimate
human resource management plan will be discussed in detail in the human resource management knowledge area
risk register is also an input because risk mitigation costs should be considered in cost planning
more information on risk and its effect in the project will be looked at in detail in risk management knowledge area
another input enterprise environmental factors provides organizational context to the project
organization process asset is listed as an input as organizations might have standard set of cost estimation policies
or templates cost management plan is another important input
the cost management plan lays the framework for the cost management processes in the project
it provides guidelines such as the units of measure accuracy desired methodologies and tools to be used etc
let us now look at the tools and techniques used in this process expert judgment reserve analysis
analogous estimating cost of quality parametric estimating project management software
up estimating three point estimating vendor bid analysis and group decision making are the various tools and
techniques used in this process most of the tools and techniques used here are similar to the ones used in the
time management knowledge area vendor bid analysis is a technique used to estimate project cost
for example a project requires material procured externally through suppliers in order to get that you invite bids from
three or four suppliers and assess their quotations based on their quotations you can get an
idea of the cost that will be involved in getting the material for the project group decision making technique is
another important technique for project cost estimation cost estimation is an exercise which may
be carried out by a group or committee in order to gather well-rounded input therefore group decision making
techniques may be used to arrive at a decision that team can work with the outputs of this process are quite
straightforward estimates of each of the activities are arrived at
basis of the estimate includes things like how the estimate was developed what were the assumptions made in estimating
etc project document updates is also one of the outputs because the cost estimates
may result in updates to other aspects of the project for example quality risk time etc
in the next screen let us discuss the third process under project cost management determine budget
once the estimate of each of the activities is arrived at the next project cost management process is to
determine budget it is the process of aggregating the estimated cost of individual activities
or work packages to establish an authorized cost baseline this is where the control account
concept comes into picture the estimated costs of the activities are aggregated to arrive at the cost
budget at the control account level once approved this cost budget becomes the cost baseline of the project
project cost performance is measured against the cost baseline that is how much more would the project cost be
compared to the original cost baseline the cost baseline includes all authorized budgets but excludes
management reserves the inputs used in determining the project budget are the activity cost
estimates and the basis of estimates which are the output of the previous cost management process
the cost management plan lays the framework for the cost management processes in the project
it provides guidelines such as the budgeting cycle tools and techniques used to prepare and approve the budget
etcetera in addition to these two important inputs scope baseline is also looked at
project schedule provides aggregate cost in a particular calendar period to ensure how much money can be made
available during that time similarly resource calendar provides information
on the resource which is assigned to the project at a particular point of time this information is then used to
indicate resource costs over the duration of the project risk register gives an understanding of
the overall level of risk on the project and therefore the level of contingency
reserves that need to be built into the budget agreements entered into with the
suppliers are also required to finalize the budget again organizational process asset is an
input because organization may have few policies for reporting the cost budget or there might be some cost budgeting
tools being used there are various tools and techniques used in determining budgets
cost aggregation technique involves adding up the cost and aggregating them at the control account level
so that the cost can be managed in a better way in reserve analysis once the costs are
estimated some extra amount is added to the estimate as a management reserve to take care of any unplanned activities
expert judgment is a technique in which an expert's help is sought to estimate the activity cost
expert is someone who might have worked on a similar project in the past and has a good idea to estimate the activity
cost involved historical relationships are used to predict the total project cost using
mathematical model this is similar to analogous estimate or parametric estimate method
funding limit reconciliation technique is used to ensure that cost on the project is budgeted or spent as per the
availability of the fund for example if the project can get the funding of only fifty thousand dollars a month the
project budget should be planned accordingly the output of this process is the cost
baseline this is an authorized project budget over a period
this is used to measure monitor and control overall cost performance of the project
in addition to this the project funding requirements are also arrived at funding requirements means how much fund the
project requires monthly quarterly or yearly for the execution the last output of this process is
project document updates an understanding of determining budget may be useful when answering questions
in the pmp exam so make a note of the inputs tools and techniques and outputs of determining budget
in the next screen let us discuss the last process of project cost management that is control cost
control costs is the process of monitoring the status of the project to update the project budget and managing
changes to the cost baseline updating the budget involves recording actual costs spent until date
any increase to the authorized budget can only be approved through the perform integrated change control process
some of the typical activities that happen as part of the control cost process
are ensuring that cost expenditure does not exceed the authorized funding monitor the cost performance to
understand variants and monitoring the work performance against the funds expended
the inputs to the process are project management plan organizational process assets
project funding requirements and work performance data performance data contains the
information about the project progress the important tools and techniques used in controlling costs are
earned value analysis management forecasting to complete performance index
other important aspects of controlling costs are the review the performance analyze the reserves to make sure the
project has enough budgetary reserves to meet the expenses and project management software which helps in tracking and
managing costs now let us look at the output of this
process the key outputs of this process are work performance information in terms of cost
variance cv schedule variance sv and earned value ev and forecasts about the cost performance
this process may also result in change requests arising out of cost control measures as well as updates to project
documents the project management plan and organizational process assets business scenario based questions on
project cost control can be expected in the exam so if you have questions on these concepts get them cleared as that
will help you score higher in the next screen let us learn about earned value management and its related
terms earned value technique is an excellent way to track the project progress
against the project plan it is a method of measuring the project performance objectively and comparing it
against the project baseline results from an earned value analysis indicate deviation of the project from
cost and schedule baselines baseline is the initial approved value along with approved changes
therefore schedule baseline is the first approved project schedule along with approved changes
there are various terms used in earned value technique planned value is the authorized budget
assigned to the scheduled work earned value is the work performed in terms of budget authorized for that work
actual cost is the cost incurred in work performed budget at completion is the budgeted
amount for the total work estimate at completion is the expected total cost for the project
estimate to complete is the expected cost to finish all the remaining project work
variance at completion is the projected budget surplus or deficit at the end of the project
all the parameters displayed on the screen are measured in terms of cost you may come across business scenario
based questions on earned value management in the pmp exam so ensure that you develop a clear understanding
of this topic let us look at an example of a planned value in the next screen
planned value is the estimated value of the work planned this value is measured in terms of
currency say dollar if the plan value is three hundred forty dollars then the work plan is worth three hundred forty
dollars how do you calculate earned value the solution is
add the budget allocated to each of the activities that have been completed at the point of time
the resulting value is the earned value in the next screen let us look at the formula used to calculate earned value
in cost variance negative means the project is over budget positive means the project is under
budget similarly in schedule variance negative means the project is behind schedule
whereas positive means the project is ahead of schedule the value of the next two parameters
cost performance index cpi and schedule performance index spi values vary between zero and one
for example a cpi of 0.8 implies that 80 cents of work is obtained for every dollar spent in the project
similarly if spi is 0.9 it implies that project is progressing at only 90 percent of the speed
originally planned the next parameter is estimate at completion or eac
there are different ways of calculating the eac value the method used depends on how the cost and schedule variances are
expected to play for the rest of the project bac by cpi is used if you expect that
the current cost performance will continue until the end of the project ac plus bac minus ev is used if you
expect that the rest of the project will be managed at the budgeted rate ac plus
bac minus ev by the product of cpi and sbi is used if you want to factor in the
impact of the cost as well as schedule variances ac plus etc is used if you want to
re-evaluate the project based on a forecast value for the estimated cost of the remainder of the project
the next parameter is estimate to complete or etc which is the cost of project from this
point to the end this is calculated by subtracting the actual cost from the estimate at
completion in addition variance at completion can be calculated by subtracting the
estimate at completion from the budget at completion variance at completion is the cost estimation whether it is over
or under budget another parameter is the to complete performance index or tcpi
this is the cost performance needed to achieve a desired outcome for example
if the project needs to be managed to the original budget bac then tcpi that is the cpi that must be maintained for
the rest of the project is calculated as bac minus ev by bac minus ac similarly if it has to be managed within
a revised target say eac then tcpi is calculated as bac minus ev by eac minus ac
before the start of the pmp exam please make a note of the formulas of earned value technique
in the next screen let us look into a business scenario to understand this concept better after reading the problem
statement click the solution button to look at a possible answer let us take the example of a software
development project there are four phases and each phase takes a month to complete and is expected to cost ten
thousand dollars the phases are planned to be completed one after the other the status of the
project at the end of the month three is summarized in the table requirements definition is completed and
actual spending on this is ten thousand dollars architecture and design is done and
actual spending on this is twelve thousand dollars development and unit testing is only
fifty percent done though it was supposed to be completed by third month it has cost nine thousand dollars until
date system testing and go live has not yet started
note s indicates start time f indicates finish time and pf indicates that it is partly finished at the end of
the month based on the above information calculate the cv sv cpi and spi of the project
let us look at a solution in the next screen before we end this lesson let us also
look at a few definitions that might be useful for your pmp examination law of diminishing return this means the
more you put into something the less you get out of it for example doubling the number of resources working on a project
will not necessarily have the time working capital the amount of money the company has to invest on the project and
the day-to-day company operations funding limit reconciliation the process of comparing the planned expenditure in
a given period with the available funding for that period large assets purchased by the company
lose value over time this is called depreciation there are two forms of depreciation
straight line and accelerated same amount of depreciation is taken every year for instance a car with a
price tag of ten thousand dollars and useful life of ten years is depreciated one thousand dollars per year
at the end of the tenth year the value of the car is considered zero for all accounting purposes accelerated
depreciation depreciates faster than the straight-line depreciation for instance a car with a price tag of ten thousand
dollars depreciates three thousand dollars the first year one thousand five hundred the next year one thousand the
third year and so on let us now check your understanding of the topics covered in this lesson
here is a quick recap of what was covered in this lesson project cost management includes the
processes involved in estimating budgeting and controlling costs so that the project can be completed within the
approved budget cost management plan contains details on how to plan manage and control the
project cost in relation to the cost baseline and manage the cost variances cost estimate is an educated guess of
how much an activity or project will cost budget considers the cost estimate and
accordingly sets aside funds for the completion of the project under control account technique related
activities are clubbed and their costs are managed as one unit the four project cost management
processes are plan cost management estimate costs determine budget control costs
earned value management technique indicates potential deviation of the project from the cost and or schedule
baselines in this lesson we will focus on project quality management let us begin with the objectives of this lesson
after completing this lesson you will be able to define quality and quality management differentiate between quality
planning quality assurance and quality control explain cost of quality and its
categories describe the project quality management processes
explain the seven basic tools of quality explain six sigma in the next screen
let us take a quick look at the project management process map there are 47 processes in project
management grouped into 10 knowledge areas and mapped to five process groups in this lesson we will look at the fifth
knowledge area that is project quality management and its processes in the next screen let us understand what quality is
the project manager is responsible for quality in a project however it is also the responsibility of each and every one
in the project to ensure that whatever they do meets project quality expectations quality is defined as the
degree to which a set of inherent characteristics fulfills requirements a project is said to meet quality
expectations when all the project requirements agreed in the beginning of the project are met and the resulting
product is usable usable means that the intended users can use the product without any problem in
the next screen let us look at some quality related terms it is important to discuss a few terms
to understand the concept of quality better customer satisfaction is defined as conformance to requirements and
fitness for use it is important to understand the subtle distinction between quality and grade
grade is a classification based on technical characteristics low quality is always a problem but low grade may not
be a problem rather it would be a matter of choice similarly it is important to understand
the distinction between precision and accuracy precision is the granularity of measurement that is how fine grained can
you measure the outcome accuracy is how correct you are that is how close you are to the desired value in the next
screen let us understand the concept of optimal level of quality quality comes at a cost more effort put
in quality will give better results however you cannot keep on investing on increasing the quality as there is no
limit to how much a product can be improved investment in quality is determined by knowing the optimal level
of quality optimal level of quality as shown in the diagram is said to be achieved at the
point where the incremental revenue from improvement equals the incremental cost to secure it suppose you are the
manufacturer of toys but the toys are below quality and the sales are low to improve the quality you invest in
identifying the demands of children sharing few samples and recording their feedbacks
once all these are captured and implemented in the products you lure the parents to buy them as the investment is
increased to manufacture good quality toys the cost will therefore increase and it might become prohibitive for
parents to buy optimal level of quality is reached at a point where you get maximum number of
buyers for the toys manufactured now that we are clear on the concept of quality in the next screen let us
discuss quality management quality management involves performing activities like creating standard
policies and procedures and ensuring that those standard procedures are being followed properly in the project it aims
to ensure that project meets all the initial agreed requirements without any deviation and that the specified
approach to quality is implemented on the project three broad activities are done as part of quality management they
are quality planning quality assurance and quality control quality planning is the first step when
quality related activities of the project are planned quality assurance is the next stage of
implementing those quality plans and quality control is the last stage when periodic checks are done to see if
project quality is improving in the next screen let us look into the differences between the three aspects of
quality management it is important to understand the different kinds of activities that come
under quality planning quality assurance and quality control once the quality planning is done the
quality management plan is ready this quality management plan has standards templates policies and
procedures to be followed in the project it contains information on the level of quality being aimed and the plan to
achieve that level it is the aim of quality assurance activities to ensure that the activities planned under
quality planning phase gets executed for the project it is the task of quality assurance to determine if the project is
complying with the organizational as well as project policies and procedures this is ensured by conducting regular
process audits to identify deviation from what is planned in the quality management plan
these audits are generally done by quality department of the organizations quality assurance focuses on the process
not on specific products the role of quality control is to measure specific project data or results against
standards to inspect and verify the project's product defect repair and measure whether quality indicators are
improving quality control is about the product and data for example
it was planned as part of quality management that project would get completed plus or minus 10 percent
within the cost budget three months back when the measurement was done project was over budget by 20
when the measurement was done a day before it was only 15 percent over budget
therefore the project has showed an improvement of five percent in the last three months and it is quite likely that
over the next three months project may get within the planned limit of 10 percent
instead of showing improvement if the data shows cost increase then corrective and preventative actions are required to
get the project within the ten percent limit this is quality control
in the next screen let us discuss a few quality management concepts let us look at some terms that are
commonly used in quality management parlance total quality management or tqm is a quality management philosophy that
involves holistic thinking about meeting the objectives of an organization it places the responsibility of quality
squarely on the management kaizen is a japanese term that stands for change for better kaizen philosophy is one that
should always be looking for small and continuous improvements in the process deeming cycle or pdca cycle that is plan
do check act is a process control and improvement approach propagated by the famous
quality guru edward deming it means you plan for something executed check the output and based on the lessons you act
to bring the deviations under control kanban is a poll-based management system that originated in japan based on just
in time jit inventory management the idea behind kanban is to minimize the work in progress and achieve a
smooth flow in the process from start to finish because building up inventory only to paper over the imperfections in
the system tends to hide the problems in the next screen let us focus on cost of quality
cost of quality is the cost that needs to be incurred to make a quality product the sum of all the costs incurred is
ensuring that project conforms to requirement is cost of quality cost of quality can be broken down into
two major categories first is the cost of conformance or the money spent during the project to avoid
failures this can further be subdivided into prevention costs which is the cost to
prevent errors like training the team creating documents on equipment and in time to do
it right the other subdivision is appraisal costs or the cost for assessing quality like testing
destructive testing loss and inspections the second category is the cost of non-conformance it is the money spent
during and after the project because of failures this is subdivided into internal failure costs it is the cost of
failures that occur before the product is released to customers for example rework and scrap the second subdivision
is external failure costs it is cost incurred on failures that occur after it has been released by the team for
example liabilities warranty work and lost business concept based questions on cost of
quality can be expected in the exam so please make a note of the categories of cost of quality
let us look at the project quality management processes in the next screen there are three project quality
management processes of which the first process plan quality management is done as part of the
planning process group the next process perform quality assurance is done as part of the executing process group and
the last process control quality is done as part of the monitoring and controlling process group
in the next three screens let us look into each of these processes in detail the aim of the plan quality management
process is to identify the relevant requirements or standards to execute the project effectively to achieve the
desired quality level quality planning results in the creation of the quality management plan
aim of the plan quality process is to identify the standards a standard is an agreed-upon process to work or achieve a
result a standard can be set from within the organization or government once all the standards for the project
are identified the aim of the quality planning activities involves determining what work needs to be done to meet those
standards before adhering to the standards you should question their relevance with the
project implementing all possible standards applicable to the project in random will
have cost and time implications let us look at the inputs to this process
the project management plan provides the scope schedule and cost baseline all of which have an implication on the
quality management plan quality plan has a direct correlation with these
it might also have an impact on and be impacted by other subsidiary management plans such as risk management the
stakeholders of the project may have specific requirements and views about the quality parameters of the project
and these have to be considered the risk register gives an indication about the kind of risks that are
inherent in the project and also those which must be considered while planning the activities to ensure
quality the requirements for the project need to be considered for planning quality related activities
because quality is all about meeting the requirements in addition to these enterprise environmental factors and
organization process assets are also listed as inputs because the standards can be either from within the
organization or from government or other external bodies standards from within the organizations
are usually the best practices learned over a period while executing numerous projects an example of government
standards can be standards to control air pollution by the motor vehicles which vehicle manufacturers must adhere
to to accomplish quality planning first analyze the benefits versus the costs of meeting quality requirements next
identify the cost of quality and confirm if that kind of investment in quality is justified
in addition to these two benchmarking helps in analyzing the quality of activities of similar projects executed
in the past this helps in identifying the particular quality of output of the previous project which in turn acts as a
basis for the current project's quality planning design of experiments can also be used
for quality planning this is a statistical way to determine what variables will improve quality the
most for example in case of manufacturing doors it can be determined that increasing the quality of the wood
can have maximum impact on improving the quality of the door in addition the 76 quality tools also known as the seven qc
tools are used to determine the plan to achieve the desired level of quality statistical sampling as a tool becomes
relevant whenever the quality plan cannot be applied to all the artifacts produced
for example if destructive testing is a requirement then it can be carried out only on a sample not on the entire
population statistical sampling helps in arriving at a representative sample that can give
useful information other additional tools such as brainstorming force field analysis etc
may be used to determine the quality management plan for the project conducting regular meetings is another
important tool the quality management plan has to be determined in a collaborative manner by consulting the
team members and other stakeholders quality management plan is a key output of this process
checklist is a list of items to inspect for example many of the office buildings have housekeeping checklists to ensure
that all floors cabins etc are cleaned checklists are created during quality planning and used in quality control
metrics are project specific data that need to be measured to check the status of the project
the simplest project metrics can be cost and schedule metrics are also decided during quality planning and used in
quality control one of the roles of the project manager is to not only manage the project but
also improve processes in the project to decrease the instances of defects which in turn saves time and money such
activities are listed in the process improvement plan which eventually becomes part of project
management plan as a result of the planning activities other project documents may also get
updated for example the quality management plan may result in updates to the cost or resource requirements
there may be questions in the pmp exam based on the plan quality management process so please ensure you have a fair
understanding of the concept before you take the exam in the next screen
let us discuss the second quality management process once the quality planning is over the
next process and project quality management is quality assurance which involves determining whether the
standards are being met and the processes are being followed therefore the input for this process is the work
that has been completed during the quality planning stage they are project documents quality
management plan process improvement plan quality metrics and quality control measurements
let us look at the tools and techniques used in this process quality audit is the process to check whether the project
is complying with the organization policies standards and procedures and determine whether these policies
standards and procedures used are efficient and effective so a good audit not only looks at this compliance but
also for the new lessons learned from the current project that can help make the future projects better
process analysis involves using the lessons learned from doing the initial few work to make the remaining work more
efficient for example if the project involves installing a software package then the
lesson learned from the first few installations can be used to improve the process on remaining installations
apart from these all the quality management and control tools such as the seven basic quality tools will be
relevant to this process the key output of this process is project documents updates to ensure that
if there is any deviation from agreed standards it is corrected also if there are any lessons learned
that can help improve the future projects the organization process assets get updated
this quality assurance may result in improvement suggestions change requests may be generated and the project
management plan may need to be updated understanding characteristics of quality assurance tools and techniques may be
useful while answering the exam so prepare this topic well before you take the exam
in the next screen let us discuss the last process of quality management
the key focus of the quality control activities is on the correctness of the work
quality control helps answer questions like is everything okay with the project does the project plan require changes to
successfully execute the project will the project succeed etcetera let us look at the inputs to this
process the quality metrics measurements are done continuously to see whether the
project quality is improving the project deliverables are inspected against the planned checklists quality control acts
upon the deliverables and work performance data produced in execution it also refers to the project management
plan for understanding deviations from the plan it also considers the approved change requests information from other
project documents and organizational process assets there are seven popular tools and techniques used in doing the
quality control activities they are collectively known as seven basic tools of quality other relevant
tools are statistical sampling inspection or testing and review of the approved changes quality control
activities result in quality control measurements the verified deliverables validated changes information about the
work being performed recommended changes and updates to the organizational process assets project management plan
and other project documents in the next screen let us look into a business scenario to understand this
concept better after reading the problem statement click the solution button to look at a possible answer
six sigma is a highly disciplined process that focuses on developing and delivering near perfect products and
services consistently if large volume of data is plotted over a period of time you would most probably have a
bell-shaped graph such graphs are also called normal distribution graph it's called as normal distribution
because any large volume of data is plotted with the intent to track variations would most probably be in a
bell-shaped curve the line corresponding to the top of the bell curve is the median of the data sample
standard deviation concept is used to measure how far any data is from the mean
standard deviation is also called sigma one standard deviation from the mean covers 68 of the data
six sigma means six standard deviations from the mean this would cover
99.99966 percent of the data we will look at an example of six sigma in the following screen
to understand six sigma let us look at an example a tire manufacturing company produces one hundred thousand tires a
day it is not possible to verify each and every tire manually to ensure it is defect-free instead random sample of
these manufactured tires are taken and checked for defects assuming that the thickness of the tires is a parameter to
measure defect any tire that has a thickness more than or less than 10 millimeters is considered to be
defective now if you measure the actual thickness of all 100 000 tires manufactured daily
and plot them on a graph you get normal distribution graph one standard deviation from the mean covers sixty
eight percent of the data meaning if the thickness of the one hundred thousand tires are plotted sixty
eight thousand of them lie within one standard deviation above or below the mean
now if a company operates at six sigma level they would ensure that all tires that
are up to six standard deviations from the mean are defect-free therefore in such cases you can expect
only three defective tires out of a million tires manufactured let us now check your understanding of the topics
covered in this lesson here is a quick recap of what was covered in this lesson
a project is said to meet quality expectations when all the project requirements agreed in the beginning of
the project are met and the resulting product is usable quality management includes creating and
following policies and procedures that meet the project's defined quality needs quality planning defines the standards
templates policies and procedures quality assurance determines if the project is complying with the policies
and procedures quality control measures specific project results against standards
plan quality management perform quality assurance and control quality are the three project quality management
processes seven basic quality tools are used to plan and achieve the desired levels of
quality at six sigma level there would be only three defects out of a million units
manufactured in this lesson we will focus on project management framework let us begin with
the objectives of this lesson after completing this lesson you will be able to
define project project management program management and portfolio management
recognize the roles of project management office identify the project constraints and
their impact on the project explain the role of a project manager in stakeholder management describe
different organization structure differentiate between a project life cycle and a product life cycle
let's begin this lesson with understanding what a project is in the next screen
a project is a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product service or result for example developing
a new product service or result constructing a building industrial plant or infrastructure and implementing
improving or enhancing existing business processes and procedures in the next screen we will focus on the
characteristics of a project a project can be distinguished based on its characteristics
the definition describes two characteristics of a project first it is temporary in nature
temporary here does not mean short in duration a project can extend for long duration based on the requirements for
example creating a new indigenous missile defense system for a country however there is always a definite
planned start and end date for a project it cannot go on indefinitely secondly the project is supposed to
produce a unique output the output could be a product service or result
there can be many common activities between two projects but the outcome of each project should be unique in some
way or the other now let us look at what marks the end of a project
a project ends when either the objectives are met or the project is terminated because the objectives will
not or cannot be met the other reason to terminate the project can be that the need for the
output of the project does not exist anymore usually the sponsor of the project takes
a call about the closure of the project it is important to differentiate project work from regular operational work
for example your office receptionist does the same work every day of picking any incoming call and directing the call
to the right person in the office this is an ongoing repetitive work and can be classified as operation
operations unlike projects are neither temporary nor unique creating a new software system to
effectively track your customer complaint can be an example of a project when the software is successfully
developed the project objective is met which marks the end of the project when you start using this software to
track customer complaints you are entering into the operations phase in the next screen let us now look into
project management as defined in the pmbok guide project management is the application of
knowledge skills and tools and techniques applied to project activities to meet the project requirements
project management is achieved by proper application and integration of the 47 processes project application and
integration means these processes should be executed in the right manner as well as in the right order
in the next screen let us discuss how to manage a project program management is defined as the
application of knowledge skills tools and techniques to a program to meet the program requirements and to obtain
benefits and control not available by managing projects individually as defined in pmbok guide a program is a
group of related projects which when managed as a group in a coordinated fashion provides benefits and control
that are not available while managing them individually these benefits could be from decreased risk economies of
scale improved management of dependencies delivery of additional capabilities
optimal utilization of shared resources and so on let us now learn the various features of
program management random projects cannot be grouped together as a program
the projects in a program should be related in some way or the other and there should be some value added in
managing them together a project may not be a part of any program but a program will always have
projects a project can also be executed as a standalone project a program is designed to deliver some
strategic benefits value to the organization these benefits can be tangible or
intangible examples of tangible benefit could be increased profit margins or operational
cost savings examples of intangible benefits could be improved team morale or building up
certain competencies while a project manager focuses relentlessly on the fulfillment of the
project's requirements that is scope cost time quality a program manager needs to focus on ensuring that the
organizational benefits are realized in the next screen let us understand what a portfolio is
portfolio is yet another term used along with project and program a portfolio may have multiple projects
and programs that are managed as a group to achieve strategic objectives note that all projects and programs in a
portfolio may not be necessarily interdependent or directly related a portfolio can be created based on the
business objectives for example an i t service company can have a portfolio named japanese projects
which is formed with an aim to take over the japanese market by giving more attention to these projects
within this portfolio similar projects can be managed as a program and all banking projects from japan can
be managed as a banking program in the next screen let us discuss portfolio management
portfolio management is the centralized management of one or more portfolios this includes identifying prioritizing
authorizing managing and controlling projects programs and other related work to achieve strategic business objectives
therefore whether the company should have japanese projects as portfolio or not is decided by portfolio management
in the next screen let us understand the relationship between portfolios programs and projects
the image on the screen will help you to understand the terms portfolios programs and projects a portfolio is part of an
organization's overall strategy it represents a conscious decision by an organization to invest in the portfolio
the overall objectives of a portfolio are then cascaded down to the lower level components
the components could be sub-portfolios programs or projects these components can further be broken
down into smaller components for ease of management although a project may not contain
operations a program or a portfolio it can include other work this other work may comprise training
and development customer support and services etcetera if the other work has synergy with the
overall objectives and adds to the capability to deliver the higher level benefits
then it can be included in the program or portfolio as well in the next screen we will discuss
project management office project management office or pmo is a specific type of body or department
within an organization pmo performs several roles in the organization and these can broadly be
classified as primary roles and other roles typically the pmo may take up any one or
a combination of the three primary roles it provides the policies methodologies and tools and templates for managing
projects within the organization it provides support and training in organization on how to manage projects
and finally it provides project managers for different ongoing projects in the organization
pmo may also help in managing interdependencies between the projects selecting managing and deploying shared
or dedicated project resources if need be terminating a project and organizing lessons learnt sessions and maintaining
the project management knowledge base for an organization in the next screen we will discuss how to manage the triple
constraints any project can be done successfully if there is no constraint on time or there
is unlimited budget available unfortunately that is not true in real life
a project is performed within some constraint and these constraints are usually competing
therefore if you change one it would affect the other for example if the project duration increases it would lead
to increase in the project cost as well triple constraint is a term that originally referred to the three
competing project constraints within which the projects are performed these constraints are cost time and
scope quality is a primary concern for a project manager
therefore the project manager has to make trade-offs to keep the scope cost time quality plane in balance
to achieve the balance the project manager also needs to manage other aspects of the project for instance the
people stakeholders risks communication and procurements the project manager plays the essential
role of integrating all these different aspects of project management in the pmp examination you can expect
business scenario based questions focusing on the triple constraints in the next screen
let us understand who a stakeholder is a stakeholder can be defined as the one whose interests may positively or
negatively be affected or perceived to be affected by the decision activity or outcome of the project
as per the definition the project team project manager project sponsor pmo office customer etcetera are the
stakeholders of the project a project sponsor is the one who gives a go ahead for a project and provides the
necessary resources to execute the project therefore the head of projects in the
organization who provides a green signal to start a project and allocates required resources to the project is the
project sponsor a project sponsor is usually somebody placed high up in the organizational hierarchy of the
performing organization that is the organization in which the work of the project is being carried out
in the next screen let us look at stakeholder management one of the key responsibilities of a
project manager is to manage stakeholders a project manager has to involve the stakeholders from the
beginning of the project until the end so they are aware of every step a project manager has to take up
specific activities for stakeholder management identifying both internal and external
stakeholders missing out any stakeholder can be disastrous for a project
a stakeholder who has identified towards the end of the project may come up with his own requirement at that stage and
incorporating them can be risky determining stakeholder requirements after identifying all the stakeholders
the project manager also needs to ensure that their requirements are clearly identified
sometimes stakeholders might themselves not know of their requirement and it is the job of the project manager to get
them right by doing a proper stakeholder requirement analysis determining stakeholder expectations
stakeholders might also have some unstated expectations which need to be clarified to see if it
can become a project requirement it is again the role of the project manager to determine the stakeholders
expectation communicating with stakeholders once all the stated and unstated
stakeholder requirements are known the project manager as part of stakeholder analysis should focus on communicating
them regularly to keep stakeholders involved in the project once you understand the practices of stakeholder
management it will be easier for you to answer scenario based questions in the examination
in the next screen let us look at the various organization structure projects are performed in an
organization and the functioning of the organization might affect the project the different organization structure
types explained here are based on the level of authority that a project manager gets into in those organizations
in a functional type of organization the organization is grouped by the area of specialization within different
functional areas for instance marketing accounting engineering etc are departments within
the organization each employee typically reports to a functional manager
in such types of organization normally projects are undertaken within the department itself
if a project requires any assistance from another department the request moves from the head of the requesting
department to the head of the concerned department the team members do their normal departmental work in addition to
the project work the next type of organization is projectized organization in such
organizations there are no departments the organization's resources mostly work on projects team members report to a
project manager the project manager has complete control over the resources when the project is
completed either they move on to another project or they look for some job outside the company
they do not have a department for themselves the third type of organization is a
matrix organization which is a blend of functional and projectized organizational structure
a team member belongs to a department as well as they are part of a project team in such organization team members have
two bosses one their department head and the second their project manager since there are two bosses here this
type of organization is further classified into three different types they are weak strong and balanced matrix
organization so out of the two bosses that team members have in matrix organization if
the project manager has more authority over the team member such organizations are called strong matrix
where the functional manager has more authority it's a weak matrix organization
if they both share equal authority then it is a balanced organization there is another term that you might
find in the exam called tight matrix this generally refers to a co-located team that is a team that has been placed
in the same location to enhance their performance in the pmp exam if there is no mention
of the organization type you can assume it to be a matrix organization let us look at each of these
organization structures in detail in the next screen let us look at functional organization
in a functional organization the resources of the organization are grouped by functions sometimes called
departments examples of functions could be sales finance administration manufacturing etc
each function plays a definite role in the organization and is headed by a functional head or supervisor
all the resources in such an organization report directly into their functions
therefore a salesperson would report into the sales organizational hierarchy a purchase executive would report into
procurement and so on you would notice that in a functional organization
the project manager's role is not explicitly called out when a functional organization embarks
on a project each of the functions that are involved may volunteer some resources to work on the project
one of these resources may end up playing the project manager's role the resource assignments may not even be
full time and sometimes even the project manager is part-time since the project manager has no
authority over any of the resources they are dependent on the functional heads this makes it more challenging for the
project manager to coordinate in the team however functional organizations provide
an opportunity for specialization for example if a purchase executive was reporting into the purchase department
that executive would have exposure to all the purchasing that happens within the organization and has a well-defined
career path in functional organizations project management happens at the functional
head level next let us look at the projectized organization in the next
screen the projectized organization has all the resources aligned around projects
the project managers have complete control over the resources working on their projects
the biggest advantage of the projectized organization is that the resources have loyalty to their projects and project
execution becomes easier this kind of structure is suitable for organizations whose work is in the
nature of projects there are few disadvantages in this structure as well
firstly the role of the resource is over once the project is completed secondly highly specialized roles within a
project may not be fully occupied all the time for example a purchase executive may have worked for selected
periods on a project while purchase activities are going on however for the rest of the period their
capability may not be optimally utilized there is less scope for functional specialization as the project boundaries
limit the kind of work for the resources each project manager is in charge of a project and its resources
next let us look at the matrix organization in a matrix organization the resources
report to the functional managers and are managed by the project managers as well
there might even be a function that represents all the project managers in the organization which provides project
management expertise the matrix structure has three variants commonly referred to as weak balanced
and strong in a weak matrix the authority of the project manager is the weakest and
strongest in a strong matrix structure the titles given to project managers and functional or weak matrix organizations
are project expediter or project coordinator they would be called project managers in
a balanced or strong matrix structure and have slightly more authority over the time of the team members
the advantage of the matrix structure is that resources can be optimally utilized while preserving the capacity of the
project managers to get projects executed efficiently resources can specialize in their
functions and have stability in their careers also contribute to the projects at the same time potentially
the disadvantage of matrix organization is that the communication overhead increases significantly
this is because every resource in the organization belongs into a project and into a function
leading to a dual reporting structure in a matrix organization project management happens at project resource
level in the next screen let us summarize the advantages and disadvantages of
different organizational structures each organization structure has its own set of advantages and disadvantages
the advantage of functional organizations is that resources may find clearly defined career paths and achieve
specialization and skill development in their respective fields it will be a flexible workforce since
only one manager will be responsible avoiding confusion the disadvantage of such organization type is that project
work is hampered department work is always given higher priority than the project work
in addition there is no career path in project management which leads to lower interest in projects
in the case of the projectized organization one of the clear advantages is better
communication within the projects since project work is the only work team members are doing it also leads to
loyalty towards the project goals the disadvantage of such organization type is the inefficient use of resources
because every project team has their own support function therefore this might lead to the
duplication of effort it also leads to the resources being left with no work since their roles are
over once the project is completed it also hampers skill development because the project requirements dictate
what kind of work team members perform at different stages on a project now let us look at the matrix
organization it also has the advantage of better coordination and maximum utilization of
resources however the disadvantage is the higher potential for conflict among the
managers which might lead to communication complexity and overhead management
in the next screen let us focus on the comparison on project lifecycle and product lifecycle
project lifecycle spans the initiation of a project until the closure of the project the product life cycle on the
other hand also encompasses the operational and maintenance phases a typical product life cycle starts with
conception of the product and goes until its withdrawal from the market the withdrawal might be because it
becomes obsolete or there is no further need for the product in the market a product has a long life cycle
a product can require or spawn many projects over its life for example a project in product
conception phase could be to determine customer needs whereas a project during product maturity phase could be used to
perform competitive analysis typically a product life cycle is longer than the project life cycle
a project also has its own life cycle and this life cycle depends upon the industry and the organization within
which the project is being executed sometimes different organizations within the same industry use different life
cycles there can be questions in the exam based on the comparison of project life cycle
and product life cycle so understanding the differences will be useful in answering such questions
in the next screen let us discuss more on project life cycle a life cycle is composed of phases each
phase represents a discrete unit of work required to be done on the project there are different ways of classifying
project life cycles let us first discuss the sequential versus overlapping life cycle
in sequential phases the subsequent phase starts only after the previous phase has been completed whereas in
overlapping phases two or more phases may run in parallel for some time this could help fast tracking and
compressing the amount of time required the other way of classifying life cycles is how they go about the process of
planning in predictive life cycles there is a large upfront planning phase where all
the details of scope cost time are planned before beginning the subsequent phases
these phases then are executed in either sequential or overlapping modes they are suitable for large projects
where all the requirements are likely to be known in advance and where upfront planning effort is required to get the
necessary approvals another feature of predictive life cycles is that each phase may
potentially be different in the nature of activities and may require people with different skill sets for example
traditional software development life cycle has phases like requirements feasibility planning design construction
testing and transition we will continue project life cycles in the next screen
incremental and iterative life cycles have a short upfront high level definition and planning phase
the product is then developed through a series of iterations where iteration increments or adds to
the functionality by a little all the activities are intentionally repeated in iterations
adaptive or agile life cycles are variants of incremental and iterative life cycles where iteration is very
short typically two to four weeks agile methodologies are becoming very popular in the software development
industry and in other industries where the requirements are highly changeable and frequent feedback is beneficial
let us now check your understanding of the topics covered in this lesson here is a quick recap of what was
covered in this lesson project management is the application of knowledge skills and tools and
techniques applied to project activities to meet the project requirements pmo provides the policies methodologies
and tools and templates for managing projects within the organization project manager has to integrate various
project aspects like the people stakeholders risks communication and procurements with the project
constraints time scope cost and quality identifying internal and external stakeholders determining their
requirements and communicating with them regularly is an important role of a project manager
functional projectized and matrix are the three types of organization structures based on the level of
authority given to the project manager project lifecycle spans the initiation of a project until the closure while
product life cycle also encompasses the operational and maintenance phases if getting your learning started is half
the battle what if you could do that for free visit skill up by simply learn click on the link in the description to
know more in this lesson we will focus on project communications management let us begin
with the objectives of this lesson after completing this lesson you will be able to define communication and project
communications management identify the different communication methods technology and channels explain the
elements of a basic communication model describe the project communications management processes in the next screen
let us take a quick look at the project management process map there are 47 processes and project
management grouped into 10 knowledge areas and mapped into five process groups in this lesson we will look at
the seventh knowledge area that is project communications management and its processes in the next screen let us
understand communication communication can be best defined as a
two-way process of exchanging information between two entities as you can see on the screen if project is an
entity the project needs to communicate with other entities in the organization like project managers senior management
of the organization and any other stakeholder of the project similarly these entities may also have to
communicate with the projects the communication between project and the stakeholders is always two-sided project
manager is responsible for ensuring proper communication to and from the project in fact a project manager spends
almost 90 percent of his or her time on communication you can now understand how important it is for a project manager to
plan this activity well in the next screen let us discuss communication methods
communication can be done in two ways it can be done written or verbal both written as well as verbal communication
can either be formal or informal formal means communicating by following some basic rules whereas informal means
taking a casual approach these two combinations result in four different communication methods they are
formal written formal verbal informal written and informal verbal formal written method is used for project
management plans project charter and over long distance communication formal verbal method is used during
presentations whereas informal written method is applicable while writing notes or emails informal verbal on the other
hand is applied during conversations you can expect questions in the pmp exam which require choosing a communication
method for a given situation so a fair understanding of the communication methods can help you score higher in the
next screen let us look at the various communication technologies communication technology refers to the
different media used for communicating a few such technologies are listed on screen
among which email fax and telephone are a few popular communication technologies in the next screen
let us understand the communication channel with the help of an example communication takes place between four
people in a team the lines across the members represent there can be six unique channels of
communication existing within the team now if the team comprises ten members how many unique channels of
communication will be calculated you can use the formula n multiplied with n minus one and the
resulting sum divided by two n is the total number of people involved in communication in this case n equals to
10. if this is put into the formula you will get 45 as the result therefore 45 unique communication
channels exist in a team of ten people it is difficult to manage such a large number of communication channels
therefore it is important to structure communication otherwise everyone starts communicating everything to everyone
and it can become a real chaos in the project in the pmp exam you may be asked to calculate the number of communication
channels in a scenario based question so please make a note of the formula to answer the question correctly
in the next screen let us discuss the basic communication model project communications management
includes the processes required to ensure that information about timely and appropriate generation collection
distribution storage and ultimate disposition of project is prepared and circulated to all project stakeholders
it is the responsibility of a project manager to ensure that the information requested by the stakeholder is
communicated to them the frequency at which the information needs to be shared may also vary from
stakeholder to stakeholder for example think about a simple process of sharing a project status report with the
customer and senior management this knowledge area explains how it should be done as per pmi
in the next screen let us discuss the project communications management processes
there are three project communications management processes process is carried during different
process groups plan communication management is done during planning process group
managed communications is done during executing process group and control communications is done during monitoring
and controlling process group in the next few screens we will cover each of these processes in detail
plan communications management is the process of developing an appropriate approach and plan for project
communications based on stakeholders information needs and requirements and available organizational assets
this belongs to the planning process group stakeholder register is an important
input to this process it is a list of all the stakeholders the project management plan has information
about a large number of the project's requirements and the stakeholders who need to receive communication of various
kinds are therefore a critical input to this process in addition to these two
organization process assets and enterprise environmental factors are also inputs to this process
many organizations have standard templates to prepare communication management plan which are part of the
organizational process assets and enterprise environmental factors the first technique used in this process is
the communication requirements analysis where the communication requirements of each of the stakeholders are analyzed
and categorized in this you try to find how many of the stakeholders need similar kind of information which can be
grouped together if you send information through an email system all those stakeholders who need similar
information can be marked in cc in the email next you can decide on the communication technology these days
email is the most widely used technology but in few cases you might have to send information using some other technology
like fax or registered post for example all government communications are done using registered post to keep a written
record finally you need to understand how communication really happens
that is the communication models and the various communication methods used you may need to conduct meetings before
agreeing on and finalizing the communications management plan the communications management plan is the
primary output of this process which lays down the procedures around communications in the organization
communication management plan has information like which stakeholder needs what kind of information at what
frequency and how as a result of this process some other project documents may also
get updated there may be questions in the pmp exam based on the planned communications
management process so a fair understanding of the process will help you answer such questions correctly in
the next screen let us look into a business scenario to understand this concept better after reading the problem
statement click the solution button to look at a possible answer manage communications is the process of
creating collecting distributing storing retrieving and the ultimate disposition of project information in accordance to
the communications management plan it belongs to the executing process group managed communications is done
throughout the project life cycle everything cannot be planned during communication planning so manage
communications takes care of responding to unexpected requests for information as well communications management plan
is an important input work performance reports have information regarding project performance and status
information organizational process assets are the standard templates created for the status report by
organizations in some organizations there are guidelines for communication distribution enterprise environmental
factors are the other inputs to this process various tools and techniques are used in this process communications
technology represents the means of technology that is email instant messaging telephone conferencing
etcetera that are used to exchange information the use of communication models helps you determine the technique
that is best suited for a particular situation communication methods are the various
methods used to communicate for example whether it is interactive or offline whether information is being pushed by
the provider or pulled by the recipient etc information management systems help design a framework for managing the
information within a project that is how it is acquired where it is stored and how it is distributed and
destroyed in performance reporting all the information is synthesized in the form of performance reports that are
later distributed to the appropriate stakeholders and forms an important part of the communications strategy on a
project the first and primary output of this process is the communications messages that are generated during the
project the other outputs include project management plan updates project document updates and organizational
process assets updates in the next screen let us discuss control communications process
control communications is the process of monitoring and controlling communications throughout the entire
project life cycle to ensure the information needs of the project stakeholders are met
it is part of the monitoring and controlling process group the inputs to this process are the project
communications project management plan and issue log which has a list of issues that are raised by different project
stakeholders data related to the work being performed on the project and various other project documents which
may have to be communicated other inputs include work performance data and organizational process assets let us
look at the tools and techniques in detail the information management systems provide tools to collect
consolidate and present the information in the form of cogent concise communications expertise must be sought
from different stakeholders on how you should go about this process several meetings may be needed to ensure
the efficiency and efficacy of the communications the major outputs of this process is the work performance
information which indicates that the work performance data has been analyzed interpreted and presented in an easily
comprehensible form this process may also give rise to change requests updates to the project management plan
project documents and organizational process assets in the next screen let us look into a business scenario to
understand this concept better after reading the problem statement click the solution button to look at a possible
answer here is a quick recap of what was covered in this lesson
communication is a two-way process of transferring information from one entity to another the four commonly used
communication methods are formal written formal verbal informal written and informal verbal the total number of
unique channel of communication can be calculated using the formula n multiplied with n minus 1 and the
resulting sum divided by two by analyzing the communication model problems in project communication can be
identified project manager is responsible for timely availability of information to
all stakeholders the three project communications management processes are
plan communication management management communications and control communications
in this lesson we will focus on project human resource management there are 47 processes in project
management grouped into 10 knowledge areas and mapped to five process groups in this lesson we will look at the sixth
knowledge area that is project human resource management and its processes in the next screen let us understand
project human resource management project human resource management includes the processes that organize
manage and lead the project team one of the key elements of human resource management is that each of the
project team members should have clear assignment of their roles and responsibilities
in addition even the team working on project management tasks should be a part of the project team and they are
responsible for project management functions like initiating planning executing monitoring and controlling and
closing along with other leadership activities in the next screen let us understand the difference between
functional and project manager an organization may have both functional managers and project managers the
difference functional manager is the one who handles a business function or
department for instance the hr manager is responsible for the hr department in an organization
therefore an hr manager will be a functional manager generally a functional manager is also a
subject matter expert the roles and responsibilities of the functional manager depend upon the core
business of the organization and overall organization structure functional managers normally own the resources and
provide the projects with necessary resources they also negotiate with the project manager regarding resources the
project manager on the other hand is responsible and accountable for the success or failure of a project and the
quality of the project they are not technical experts the project manager may not have authority
over the resources depending upon the organizational structure they often have to negotiate with the
functional manager for the resources and are responsible for the product quality a project manager will credit the team
with the success of the project and accept the blame for the failure now let us look at an example to
understand the roles played by functional and project managers the ceo of an organization initiates a
new project to secure an iso 9001 2008 certification for the company now this project would require team
members from each of the company departments and whoever is the project manager of
this project will have to request the functional manager to assign one of their team members to the project
resources assigned to the project go back to their respective departments once the project is completed
let us now discuss the project human resource management processes in the next screen
there are four project human resource management processes the first process plan human resource
management is done as part of the planning process group the next three processes are part of the
executing process group these processes are acquire project team develop project team and manage project team let us now
look into each of these processes in detail in the next screen let us begin with plan human resource management
plan human resource management is the process of identifying and documenting project roles
responsibilities required skills reporting relationships and creating a
staffing management plan this process is part of the planning process group in addition to that finalizing the project
hierarchy of who reports to whom and designing the staffing management plan is also part of this process
the first input to this process is the project management plan there could be a lot of information in the project
management plan and subsidiary plans that may be relevant to the creation of the human resource management plan for
example the project life cycle processes the timelines how the work will be accomplished etc the other key input for
this process is the activity resource requirement team members can be identified based on these requirements
in addition to this enterprise environmental factors like current employment outlook etc are also
important for example if the economy is booming and there are ample job opportunities for the team members the
reward and recognition system can keep the project team interested in the project
organizational process asset is also an input to this process an example of the organization process
assets can be template or a form to request for a new resource let us now look at the tools and
techniques used to develop human resource plan the roles and responsibilities are
captured in the form of organization charts and position descriptions there are various ways to draw this
chart it can be either hierarchical chart which shows the reporting function or it can be text based
the other technique used for developing the human resource plan is networking this involves formal or informal
interactions within the organization and outside by the project manager to identify the best team for the project
depending upon various interpersonal factors organizational theory helps to
understand how individuals come together and function as an organization expert judgment and meetings are
required to put the human resource plan together the output of this process is human
resource management plan this plan contains documents like staffing management plan
project organization chart and roles and responsibilities matrix the staffing management plan is a
comprehensive document that describes when and how team members would be added to and released from the project
another component of the staffing management plan is the recognition and reward system
recognition and reward system helps project managers motivate their team the staffing management plan is relevant
to the projects of a functional or matrix organization where project team members are always caught in a dilemma
about prioritizing project work against regular departmental work in the next screen let us discuss
organization charts and role descriptions a project manager needs to make sure
that there is an organization chart prepared specifically for the project it should clearly identify the roles and
the reporting relationships between them a sample organization chart is shown on the slide
another way of clearly delineating responsibilities among team members is by using a responsibility assignment
matrix one form of responsibility assignment matrix is the raci chart in the raci chart r stands for responsible
a for accountable c for concerned or consulted and i for informed for each important activity or deliverable on the
project it needs to be clearly identified who is responsible or contributes to it who is ultimately
accountable who is merely concerned about the success and who needs to be informed or kept in the loop an example
of the raci chart is shown on the screen in this case project manager john is accountable for the project plan and the
other team members chris sally and ting are responsible for completing the plan similarly you can note the roles of each
resource in the other activities in the next screen let us understand resource histogram
resource histogram is a method of depicting how many resources are required for the life of a project if
you observe the chart shown on the screen it indicates that the number of staff hours required on the project
increases to a peak in 2014 and then slowly tapers off especially for long running projects the level of staffing
needed may vary considerably over a period this has implications for other parts of the plan as well for example
the cost will vary as the number of resources change this piece of information helps a
project manager to understand at what time they need to onboard and off board resources on a project in the next
screen let us look into the second human resource management process that is acquire project team
acquire project team is the process of confirming human resource availability and obtaining the team necessary to
complete project activities this process belongs to the executing process group
acquiring resources may not be required in the planning phase therefore it is done in execution phase though you may
plan to acquire few in the planning phase major acquisition is done in execution phase
this may be true where large projects are run spanning over many years with several detailed activities
the key input is the human resource management plan enterprise environmental factors help
understand which team members will be available to work on the project how much they will cost etc
organizational process assets will help understand the hiring procedure of the company the policies that govern the use
of team members on the project etc the key technique for acquiring the project team is negotiation as a project manager
you have to negotiate with the company's senior management resource manager or with prospective candidates to secure
the most suitable resources on the project sometimes the resources may be pre-assigned to a project
this typically happens when they are the key resources without which the project cannot take off sometimes the project
team is acquired by getting required resources through external vendors most of the bigger organizations have
approved a list of vendors who provide resources on a contractual basis nowadays the concept of virtual team is
also quite popular to get a project team so even though the project is being conceived in one country a big part of
the team can be in another country for example if the project is conceived in the usa
majority of the team can be in germany and both the teams can coordinate over the phone email chat etc
multi-criteria decision analysis is also an important tool to achieve the objectives while acquiring the human
resources for the project it is important to consider a number of factors such as availability cost skill
set experience attitude relocation needs etc these criteria have to be considered in totality and balanced out against the
project's requirements the output of this process is project staff assignments resource calendars and
updates on project management plan let us now discuss the next process develop project team
once the project team is acquired the next step is developing the project team develop project team is the process of
improving competencies team member interaction and overall team environment to enhance project
performance this process belongs to the executing process group
the inputs to this process include project staff assignments resource calendars and human resource management
plan one of the techniques used in developing project team is interpersonal skills
it is more of an art than a science and this is where individual characteristics of project managers matter a lot if the
project manager genuinely commands trust and respects the team members developing the team becomes easy team members look
up to the project manager not only for getting project specific instructions but also for their career advancement as
well social activities like celebrating a team member's birthday going for parties outside the office etc helps in
team building training is also an important tool for developing the project team as it helps in increasing
the knowledge of competencies of the team members sometimes co-locating the team members at a single place also
helps in developing team bonding this is especially important if team members work from different geographical
locations knowing a person face to face does help in reducing conflict project managers
can also encourage the team members by providing recognition and rewards personnel assessment tools give the
project manager insights into the strengths and opportunities for improvement in the team members these
tools also help in understanding members aspirations so that the project manager can better align the project goals with
the individual aspirations finally the project manager should also set some ground rules in the project to ensure
that team performs their work without any problems some such rules can be everyone should reach office for daily
meeting by 9 30 a.m sharp if there is more than a 10 percent delay in completing any activity assigned it
should immediately be escalated to project manager if there are any unforeseen circumstances it should be
immediately brought to the notice of the project manager etc the output of this process is team performance assessments
this is done by the project manager to evaluate and enhance the effectiveness of the team as a whole this is a
document which explains team effectiveness as information about the team evolves
the enterprise environmental factors may also be updated questions that test a project manager's role in developing a
project team can be expected in the pmp exam so ensure that you have a fair understanding of the role before you
take the exam in the next screen let us discuss the manage project team process managing the project team is different
from developing the project team though it is also done during the execution process group it relates to measuring
team members performance providing feedback resolving issues and managing changes to optimize project performance
to measure team members performance the manager should know the work assigned to them as well as their performance on the
assigned work hence project staff assignments and team performance assessments are listed as input to this
process the human resource management plan serves as a guideline for managing project teams some organizations have
templates and procedures to do such assessment and that being the reason why organization process asset is also one
of the inputs to this process the work performance reports as well as issue logs will be inputs because the team
management activities have to be performed in this context observation and conversation is a
technique where the project manager monitors and discusses the tasks done by the team this does not imply formal
project status reports but having an informal interaction with the team before documenting the project status
report knowing about the issue early helps in resolving them early formal performance appraisals are helpful in
evaluating the team members performance on the project the project manager creates these with the help of the team
supervisors it is an established practice in most organizations to evaluate team members for their work
this may have a bearing on their future assignments salary promotions etc since the power of appraising lies within the
project manager the project manager can use this as an effective tool for managing the team
since multiple resources work on a single project it is quite natural to expect conflicts
it is the responsibility of project manager to resolve conflicts conflict management has been discussed
in detail later in the lesson you can expect questions on conflict management in the exam
the other tool is interpersonal skills the output of managing a project team includes corrective action
recommendations like which team members to be changed implementing some reward system to motivate the team etc updating
the project management plans documents organization process asset and enterprise environmental factors are the
other outputs of this process there can be questions in the pmp exam that test a project manager's skill in managing a
project team so ensure that you are aware of the inputs tools and techniques and outputs
of managing a project team let us discuss team dynamics in the next screen any team naturally goes through
several stages as it gets together these stages are forming storming norming performing and adjourning in forming
stage a team formally comes together for the first time in storming stage disagreements start to surface this is
followed by norming when the teams start working together and trusting each other in performing stage they are able to
deliver results as a team finally the team is adjourned when the work of the project is completed or the project is
terminated in the next screen let us discuss conflict management
many organizations look for people with diverse background to get different perspectives about work
if people with diverse backgrounds and culture work on a project it is quite natural to expect conflict conflict
often results in opportunities for improvement the root causes of conflict can be scarce resources scheduling
priorities and personal work styles while the popular belief is that personality or ego can be the key reason
for conflict it is the least possible reason for conflict as a project manager if you find
yourself in between a conflict with a team member sit across the table and resolve it if not they should get their
immediate managers involved and try to resolve it to avoid conflicts a project manager should let everyone involved
have complete clarity about the project assign the roles and responsibilities to each of the team members clearly ensure
that there are no overlapping responsibilities which could be a possible cause for conflict sometimes
boredom at work can also lead to conflict so one of the responsibilities of project manager is to keep motivating
the team members and let them work on interesting and challenging assignments business scenarios based questions on
conflict management can be expected in the pmp exam so it is essential to have a fair understanding of the topic
in the next screen let us look at conflict resolution techniques there are five techniques of resolving
conflict they are withdraw or avoid smooth or accommodate compromise or reconcile force or direct collaborate or
problem solve in withdrawal or avoid one retreats from a potential conflict situation or defers the resolution to a
later date this does not resolve the conflict but allows for more time in smooth or accommodate areas of agreement
are emphasized to reduce the intensity of the conflict again this does not on its own result in a resolution but it
may succeed in changing the perceptions about the situation in compromise or reconcile there is some give and take in
order to bring some satisfaction to all parties depending on how the process went this may be perceived as a win-win
or a lose-lose situation because none of the parties really get what they want in force or direct a person in a position
of authority directs how the matter should be resolved it may be necessary to do this when the matter has to be
resolved immediately however this may result in upsetting one or more of the conflicting parties
in collaborate or problem solving the parties in the conflict are asked to come together to collaborate and look
for a resolution to the problem this offers the greatest likelihood of a satisfactory and permanent resolution
and should be resorted to whenever possible business scenario based problems where a
resolution technique has to be selected can be expected in the pmp exam so understanding the conflict resolution
techniques is essential in the next screen let us look into a business scenario to understand this
concept better after reading the problem statement click the solution button to look at a possible answer
one of the key responsibilities of a project manager is to get work done by the team there are certain powers that a
project manager can use to get the work done a project manager has to use a
combination of techniques to get this accomplished various powers of a project manager are legitimate or formal reward
penalty expert and referent in legitimate or formal project manager can formally assign a work to a team member
that he or she has to do project manager can reward and recognize the team members the reward could be as simple as
assigning challenging or sought after work to a team member this can motivate good performers on the project sometimes
project manager can penalize the team members for poor performance some project managers are able to command
authority because of their expertise in a certain field project manager can be considered as a reference of higher
authority to get the work done sometimes referent authority also arises from the personal charm or charisma of
the project manager legitimate reward and penalty are the powers derived from the project manager's position in the
company expert power exists when the project manager is an expert on the subject matter reward and expert are
usually the best forms of authority to use penalty is the worst way of influencing and managing the team a
project manager should resort to this only as a last option regardless of the project manager having formal reporting
authority over the team they are naturally looked upon as the leaders for their projects project managers need to
be familiar with the leadership styles and be able to tailor their style according to the needs of the project
and that of the team there are three leadership styles the first one is authoritarian or autocratic in this
style the leader sets clear expectations of the team and expects complete compliance in a participative or
democratic style the leader offers guidance but also involves the team in decision making
in a delegative or laissez-faire style the leader leaves the work to the team without offering much guidance in most
circumstances you would want your leader to employ a participative style but there may be occasions when other styles
might be appropriate in the next screen let us discuss mckenzie's 7s framework a popular framework in management
science is the mackenzie's 7s framework there are seven elements that are divided into two categories
an organization working on a project will have these elements already in place and hence these become the hard
elements the first three elements of the 7s framework are the strategy structure and systems the leader or project
manager is expected to step in and exhibit soft elements to earn the mantle of leadership
the next four elements are shared values skills style and staff there are 47 processes in project
management grouped into 10 knowledge areas and mapped to five process groups in this lesson we will look at the
eighth knowledge area that is project risk management and its processes risk is an uncertain event or condition that
can affect a project positively or negatively although most of the time you view this uncertainty as bad sometimes
it also has a likely positive outcome let us look at an example of risk having a positive outcome you are using a
software for managing timesheet of your team members due to budget constraints you are forced to use a new software
though you were initially reluctant to use it you found the new software to do better than the current one it is more
efficient and has better reporting facility an example of bad uncertainty can be swine flu government declares
mandatory holiday to check flu spread which may affect your project work risks can be managed only if they are
measured quantitatively suppose there are many risks identified in a project and you have limited resources to manage
them you should know which risk is most important that has to be managed first therefore measuring risk becomes very
critical risk is measured by assigning a monetary value to it and that value is arrived at by multiplying the
probability and impact of the risk can be categorized in various ways one such categorization is external internal
technical or project management related risk external risk arises out of external
policies or regulations for example government policy that the river water can be used for drinking purposes may
hinder your production which is dependent on the river water internal risk arises from within the
project for example the complexity of the work may result in time and cost escalation
technical risks arise from the technology being used projects in space exploration have a lot of technical
complexity risks could be related to project management for example if there are many interdependencies between the
sub projects it is a risk from the project management standpoint the categorization of risk can be based
on the origin risks can be classified as scope risk resource risk
schedule risk cost risk and quality risk
scope risk can include redoing the same task if the scope is not well understood when the only resource is assigned to
some other project it is called resource risk a decision tree helps in analyzing risk
and its impact on making decisions in a scenario where there is uncertainty on the outcome suppose you want to buy a
car you can buy either a new car or an old car which one should you buy
which has more risk over a period of five years consider the concept of decision tree to
solve this problem the initial cost of buying a new car is twenty thousand dollars and the cost of buying an old
car is fifteen thousand dollars for a new car the probability of it having any problem fail scenario is only ten
percent that is there is a ninety percent likelihood that it will just work without any problems past scenario
and if it does have any at all the impact of the problem is fifteen thousand dollars the reason is that it
was bought at a higher cost an old car has seventy percent probability of having a problem the
reason being the probability is high because the car was already used by someone else in the past
however the impact here is low say ten thousand dollars if you add probability multiplied by
impact of both the options at the decision nodes you will find buying an old car over a period more risky than
buying a new car the project cost will be arrived at after considering the risk reserves of
both the known risks and unknown risks there is a specific order in which these reserves are calculated in the project
cost first the cost of all activities is identified
activities are the smallest unique project tasks all the activity costs add up to the cost of the work packages work
packages are the last level of classification in a work breakdown structure work packages cost adds up to
the control account cost one or more work packages are clubbed together to create a control account and manage the
cost of the work packages next the project costs are identified there can be multiple control accounts
in a project now once the project cost is calculated some reserve is added to take care of
any uncertainties you may have made some assumptions to calculate the cost of the activities and by adding some reserve
you would want to take care of those uncertainties in this case make a note that you are accounting for the
assumptions made and it can be said that this reserve takes care of known uncertainties this reserve is also
called contingency reserve at this point you have arrived at the cost baseline that is the cost for the
project that will be used for budgeting and tracking purposes once the planned cost is arrived there
is another reserve that gets added called management reserve note that management reserves are not part of the
cost baseline and are used during emergencies only by adding contingency reserve you have taken care of known
uncertainties and by adding management reserve you take care of unknown uncertainties that is those risks that
perhaps have not yet been identified unknown uncertainties are added based on experience or expert judgment
project risk management includes the processes of conducting risk management planning
identification analysis response planning and controlling risk on a project
the key objective of risk management is to increase the probability and or impact of positive events and decrease
the probability and or impact of negative events there are six risk management processes
plan risk management identify risks perform qualitative risk analysis perform quantitative risk analysis and
plan risk responses belong to the project planning group and control risks belong to the monitoring and controlling
process group in this lesson we will focus on project stakeholder management there are 47 processes in project
management grouped into ten knowledge areas and mapped to five process groups in this lesson we will look at the tenth
knowledge area that is project stakeholder management and its processes in the next screen let us understand who
stakeholders are a stakeholder is anybody who has a stake in the project a stakeholder may be an individual a group
or an organization who may affect or be affected by or perceived to be affected by a decision activity or outcome of a
project further the nature of the impact can be positive or negative thus giving rise to the notion of positive or
negative stakeholders irrespective of whether a stakeholder is positive or negative it is important to engage with
the stakeholders and get them involved in the project this can make a critical difference to the success or failure of
the project a single disgruntled stakeholder can bring the entire project to its knees whereas an actively engaged
and influential stakeholder can have the opposite effect let us understand who the common stakeholders of a project are
there are several categorizations of stakeholders the project managers themselves are important stakeholders
the project team members represent stakeholders in the project the senior management of the organization which is
working on the project has a stake in the project the sponsor that is the person or entity that provides the money
and resources for the project and essentially champions the project is an important stakeholder the customer which
may be different from the sponsor is a stakeholder as well for instance and many of the projects in the social
sector the sponsor may be the government or a development agency whereas the customers would be the people who
actually benefit from it the end users which may be different from the customers or the sponsors are
stakeholders too the vendors or suppliers who provide goods or services to the project are
important stakeholders people whose lives may be impacted by the output of the project are also stakeholders
for example if a highway project requires possession of privately owned land people whose land is being taken
away are the stakeholders if the construction of a dam or water reservoir benefits the downstream farming
communities they are the stakeholders here competitors who provide alternative goods or services are stakeholders too
sometimes environmentalists or other social groups may become stakeholders the government or political leadership
may become stakeholders for projects in the public domain it is sufficient to state that there could potentially be
hundreds of stakeholders for a large project it is in the interest of the project manager and the project team to
clearly identify all such stakeholders up front and then actively manage them throughout the project in the next
screen let us discuss the classification models for stakeholder analysis not all the stakeholders have the same
amount of influence or power over the project therefore the way to manage each
stakeholder needs to be calibrated based on a proper classification of the stakeholders
this is the role of the classification model you can come up with a grid that maps the power of the stakeholders the
interest they have the influence they may have or the impact that they can have on the project through the power
interest power influence or influence impact grids it can be represented by mapping stakeholders to a power or
interest grid the diagram on the screen has x-axis which represents interest level and y-axis which represents the
power level based on the various combinations of power levels and interest levels the grid can be divided
into four quadrants the stakeholders on the top right quadrant with high power and high
interest need to be managed closely that is you have to monitor their involvement and engagement very closely
the stakeholders on the bottom right quadrant with high interest but low power need to be kept in the loop that
is you should share information with them and keep them regularly informed the stakeholders on the top left
quadrant with high power but low interest can be managed by keeping them happy for example by making sure that
their interests and opinions are taken into consideration the stakeholders on the left bottom quadrant with low power
and low interest may be managed less actively by simply monitoring how things are going with them the salience model
describes classes of stakeholders based on their power ability to impose their will
urgency need for immediate attention and legitimacy appropriateness of their involvement level this is a useful
framework to guide the stakeholder management strategy on a project practice creating power grids for
business scenarios this will help in understanding the level of engagement a project manager needs to maintain with
various stakeholders in the next screen let us discuss the stakeholder
engagement assessment matrix the stakeholder engagement assessment matrix allows visualizing the current
and desired states of a stakeholder's involvement in the project the five levels of involvement are as unaware
resistant neutral supportive and leading unaware is where the stakeholder is not aware of the project or its impact
resistant is where the stakeholder is aware of the impacts and is resistant to change
neutral is where the stakeholder is aware of the project and is neither supportive nor in opposition to the
project supportive is where the stakeholder is aware of the project and its impact and is supportive of the
change leading is where the stakeholder is aware of the project and impacts and is actively engaged to ensure that the
project is successful let us now look at the matrix the table has one row per stakeholder identified
you place c in the column which best indicates the current level of engagement for that stakeholder then you
place d in the column which best indicates the desired state of engagement this table can be a quick
visualization tool that helps understand where work has to be done in the stakeholder management activities in the
next screen let us discuss the skills required for stakeholder management stakeholder management is both an art
and a science since it involves dealing with people and people are inherently non-linear and
unpredictable there is no one size that fits all strategies or tools that will work while managing them
however a project manager may use a few traits and techniques while managing stakeholders which are classified as
interpersonal skills and managerial skills a project manager must possess good
interpersonal skills that is must invest the time and energy to build trust this involves multiple things such as
establishing a personal rapport following through on commitments being punctual etc once the trust is
established it helps in smoothing many difficult bends conflict management is an important skill for a project manager
while communicating with stakeholders the project manager must practice active listening
they must not assume that they have all the answers instead they should spend some time to
understand the issues and the stakeholders points of view this alone can go a long way in smoothing ruffled
feathers and building constructive relationships resistance to change is natural a project manager must know how
to convert that into a positive energy in its favor managerial skills that may help in accomplishing the project
objectives a project manager must be able to build consensus among the group while absolute uniformity may not always
be possible or desirable the project manager must use techniques to ensure widespread discussions and arrive at a
path that the group can buy into the project manager must be able to influence people often without
necessarily being in the position of authority the project manager must be skillful to
negotiate agreements the project manager must be able to understand and modify organizational behavior in order to move
the project in a certain direction network diagram is extensively used in the project time management knowledge
area to plot the activity dependencies this is a graphical representation of the project activities in the form of a
network there are two ways to draw a network diagram
in precedence diagramming model pdm or activity on node aon boxes represent activities and the
arrows indicate the dependency this type of network can have all four types of relationships between the
activities in arrow diagramming model adm or activity on arrow aoa
the arrows represent activities the relationships and sequences can be inferred from the direction of the
arrows and linkages between the activities in such types of network only finish to
start relationships can be shown such diagrams may need to make use of dummy activities to indicate some
dependency between the activities there may be questions in the pmp exam based on the network diagram
so create and work with the diagram this will make answering network diagram based questions easy and fun
in the next screen let us look at a network diagram a sample network diagram is shown on the
screen activities a and c can happen in parallel
b and d require both a and c to complete whereas e requires both b and d to complete activity on aero network
diagram makes use of hammock activities they are used to show a comprehensive summary activity combining several other
activities underneath for control and reporting purposes in this lesson we will focus on project
scope management there are 47 processes in project management grouped into 10 knowledge
areas and mapped to five process groups in this lesson we will look at the second knowledge area that is project
scope management and its processes let us begin with the first topic of this lesson that is project scope
management project scope management includes the processes required to ensure that a
project comprises all and only the work required to complete the project successfully
the project scope management is concerned about the scope what is not there in the scope is also clearly
identified in the next screen let us look at the key activities performed under project
scope management let us look at a few of the typical activities that happen as part of the
project scope management constant monitoring is essential to make sure that all the project work is being
completed the gradual uncontrolled increase in scope of the project is referred as
scope creep it is necessary to define the project scope boundaries and not let people
randomly add to the project scope gold plating is doing more than what is required as part of the project scope
this has to be avoided in projects as per the published statistics about projects done globally less than forty
percent of projects can be considered successful therefore the focus should be on what is
required rather than squandering around with what is not required forty percent might be considered less
but a project is classified as successful only if it meets all its objectives and is done within time and
cost budgets in the next screen let us understand the differences between product scope and
project scope project scope management deals with managing both the product scope as well
as the project scope product scope refers to the features and functions that characterize a product
service or result the word product may also include creation of a service for example in the
banking industry each of their services is called a product likewise a savings account is one of
their products mutual fund is another on the other hand project scope is the work that needs to be accomplished to deliver
the output of the project which could be a product service or result with the specific features and functions
for instance to deliver a product you may also need to produce a requirements document or a design document
these are not part of the product scope but it may very well be part of the project scope
in the next screen let us discuss a few key terms used in the project scope management
wbs stands for work breakdown structure it means breaking the project deliverables into smaller and more
manageable components called work packages the last level of work in such
subdivision is called work packages and the whole structure is called wbs for example a typical software
development project would have various activities like finalizing requirements designing the new system coding testing
and going live with the new system each of these translates into high level deliverables which can be further
subdivided into smaller activities which are more predictable wbs dictionary like any dictionary
contains the explanation of the terms used in wbs a typical wbs dictionary has details
like the control account name of the work package description of the work package resource assigned if there are
any assumptions or dependencies to complete the work package the due date to finish the work package technical
dependencies and so on wbs dictionary is useful for the person or group working on the work packages as
it further elaborates the decomposed work package control account is a level within wbs at
which management wishes to exercise control for example perform earned value analysis track performance etc in this
lesson we will focus on project integration management there are 47 processes in project
management grouped into 10 knowledge areas and mapped to five process groups in this lesson we will look at the first
knowledge area that is project integration management and its processes in the next screen let us understand the
concept of project integration management project integration management involves
unification consolidation articulation and integrative actions that are crucial for successfully completing the project
the project integration management is high level work that project manager does and it involves managing
interdependencies among the other knowledge areas the other nine knowledge areas involve detailed work in a
specific direction for example project cost management deals only with how to manage cost in a project
the project management processes do not happen independently for example a new resource added to the project may
require changes in cost or schedule or both in dealing with such situations the
project manager integrates the processes of project management the need for integration drives much of the
communication and the work of the project manager let us discuss the key role of project
manager sponsor and team in the next screen project manager team members and project
sponsors have different roles to play in a project the project manager is supposed to play
multiple roles in the project the key role is to perform integration the project manager puts all the pieces
of the project together into a cohesive whole in doing so the project manager tries to
ensure that the project is done faster cheaper and utilizes resources optimally while meeting the project objectives
as the project progresses the team members work on completing the project activities
the role of the project sponsor is to protect project from any unnecessary changes and to ensure that it has the
required resources for completion the project sponsor is the champion for the project within the performing
organization that is the organization in which the work is being performed in the next screen we will cover the
project selection methods an organization can undertake a project under contract with an external
organization or take up a project driven by internal business needs there should be a formal process of
selecting project in all organizations to ensure that it is making the best possible use of limited corporate
resources for example if the organization has an option to
take up any one out of the two projects both of which use the same corporate resources the organization would
naturally select the one which is more profitable there are two broad ways to select a
project one way is the benefit measurement method where one project is compared
with other competing projects another approach is based on mathematical models wherein you examine
the most optimal selection of projects by trying to optimize a goal for example maximize operating profits
such methods may be called constrained optimization methods there are different methods under both
these categories and you should be familiar with the names of these methods broadly the benefit measurement methods
focus on ascertaining the costs and benefits of undertaking the project the methods under benefit measurement
method include murderboard where a panel of experts shoots down a new project idea peer review scoring models economic
models and benefit compared to cost the constrained optimization methods rely on mathematical modeling techniques
to determine the best selection of projects to achieve certain business objectives
the methods of constrained optimization method include linear programming in reality you might not have seen these
methods to be followed in project selection often personal relationship with the
sponsor may be more important than anything else this is quite normal and any
organization worldwide works this way however as a certified project manager it is important for you to be familiar
with more scientific methods of project selection a typical question on the pmp exam could
be what type of project selection technique is peer review
and the right answer is benefit measurement method you need to understand the
characteristics of various project selection methods to answer scenario based questions
in the next screen we will focus on the project selection methods there are five project management
processes which are part of project integration management knowledge area they are the develop project charter
done in the initiation process group develop project management plan undertaken in the planning process group
direct and manage work carried out in the executing process group monitor and control project and perform
integrated change control undertaken in the monitoring and controlling process group and close project or phase done in
the closing process group develop project charter is an initiating process
a project charter is essentially a document that authorizes a project once a project has received a charter it
means that the project manager can start employing the organization's resources for the project activities
let us look at the key inputs to be considered in preparing the project charter
the first input is the project statement of work this is created by project sponsor
or the customer describing their needs project scope and how the project fits into their strategic goal
if the project is taken up under a contract the request for proposal that is rfp can be considered as project
statement of work the next input is the business case this document establishes whether the
investment in a project is worth from a business point of view the business need for the project and
the cost benefit analysis it provides important information to the project manager about the goals of the
project and the boundaries in terms of the desired results cost etc if the project is being undertaken as
part of a contract or agreement the agreement provides an important input for the project manager that establishes
what must be done in the project the next input to be considered for project charter is enterprise
environmental factors any project to be executed within the organization
has to deal with the organization culture and existing systems you can consider this as an organization baggage
that comes with the project this is the reason a project being executed in two different organizations
may be done differently another factor to be considered is organizational process assets
this is a broad term and includes all the organizational processes procedures and policies corporate knowledge base
and historical project information every organization develops a set of processes procedures and policies that
are based on the best practices learned by the organization over time the historical information includes past
project management plans risks lessons learned etc of similar projects executed now let us look at the tools and
techniques used in this process the first technique is expert judgment expert judgment is an invaluable input
to the process of formally authorizing a project because an expert can provide insights into why a project makes
business sense or why it does not from experience they may be able to shed light about the validity of the business
drivers feasibility assumptions and constraints that need to be considered for the project
facilitation techniques is another technique used the chartering process is often a
collaborative activity involving many influential stakeholders in an organization
facilitation techniques help bring all these stakeholders together and engage in fruitful discussions in order to
arrive at an informed decision whether to go ahead with a project or not the only output of this project is the
project charter let us try to understand what the project charter might contain the project charter usually contains the
high level project requirement and it should be created by the project sponsor and handed over to the project manager
the project manager can do the groundwork to prepare the project charter but it must be signed by the
project sponsor or somebody in the performing organization who is higher in authority than the project manager it is
important to point out that a project charter is not a project management plan the detailed risk schedule cost analysis
etc is part of the project management plan and should be done during the project planning phase when there is
more detail on the availability of the project to do so the charter should be sufficiently high
level to accommodate the minor changes that might arise in the project in this lesson we will focus on project
management processes project life cycle addresses the question what to do to get the work done
it varies industry wise for example let us look at a typical project life cycle in a software industry
first you understand what is required and analyze it as part of the requirement analysis phase
then as part of the design phase you figure out the implementation of it and arrive with the approach
next you implement the functionality by writing the code as part of the coding phase
the code is then verified to ensure it works right as part of the testing phase the tested and verified software is then
installed at the customer locations as part of the installation phase after the installation the system then
moves into operations and support phase the project management process addresses the question
what to do to manage the project the processes for managing the projects are likely to be the same across
industries for instance in the develop schedule process one needs to develop the project
schedule irrespective of the industry or domain you are working in the next screen let us understand the
project management process groups the project management processes are divided into five process groups
they are initiating process group planning process group executing process group monitoring and controlling process
group and closing process group the initiating process happens at the
beginning of the project or phase the planning executing ads monitoring and controlling processes go together
therefore you plan execute and re-plan based on the execution result the project closing processes are
performed when the project work or a phase within the project is completed the typical project management process
in the closing phase releases resources back to the resource pool so the team members can be assigned to another
project note the iteration of processes within the phases is dependent on the scale of
the projects small projects may have only one iteration whereas bigger projects may have multiple iterations
before they enter a new phase project management processes are overlapping activities
let us look at the interaction between these activities in the next screen process groups have overlapping
activities that occur throughout the project life cycle the output of one process group is
generally the input to another or a deliverable of the project for example project management plan is
an output of planning process group and an input to execution process group note that production of the plan is not
a one-time activity as the project progresses the project management plan may get updated as a
result of the monitoring and controlling processes the updated project management plan once
again forms an input to the execution process group in the next screen we will discuss the
project management process group knowledge area and project management process mapping
given on the screen is the list of the 47 project management processes 10 knowledge areas and 5 process groups
the table shows how each of them is interrelated you can see that the project integration
management processes can be mapped back to all five process groups while project scope management processes are mapped
back to only planning and monitoring process group study the table to identify processes under project
management and the knowledge area they belong to all the 47 processes are described in
detail in this tutorial each knowledge area is covered in detail as a lesson it also covers how the
processes map to process groups to help you understand the big picture further the inputs and outputs of each
of these processes tools and techniques that are used in these processes and what exactly happens during these
processes are also discussed earned value technique is an excellent way to track the project progress
against the project plan it is a method of measuring the project performance objectively and comparing it
against the project baseline results from an earned value analysis indicate deviation of the project from
cost and schedule baselines baseline is the initial approved value along with approved changes
therefore schedule baseline is the first approved project schedule along with approved changes
there are various terms used in earned value technique planned value is the authorized budget assigned to the
scheduled work earned value is the work performed in terms of budget authorized for that work
actual cost is the cost incurred in work performed budget at completion is the budgeted
amount for the total work estimate at completion is the expected total cost for the project
estimate to complete is the expected cost to finish all the remaining project work
variance at completion is the projected budget surplus or deficit at the end of the project all the parameters displayed
on the screen are measured in terms of cost you may come across business scenario
based questions on earned value management in the pmp exam so ensure that you develop a clear understanding
of this topic let us look at an example of a planned value in the next screen
planned value is the estimated value of the work planned this value is measured in terms of
currency say dollar if the plan value is three hundred forty dollars then the work plan is worth three hundred forty
dollars how do you calculate earned value the solution is add the budget allocated to
each of the activities that have been completed at the point of time the resulting value is the earned value
in the next screen let us look at the formula used to calculate earned value in cost variance negative means the
project is over budget positiv
