project management plan Archives - Project Management Knowledge Hub

Group Creativity Techniques

July 19, 2017 No Comments

What are Group Creativity Techniques

There are several techniques been defined to follow when it comes to requirement gathering phase. (Source: PMBOK 5th Edition) Group Creativity Techniques are few of them. Under this concept, there are few methods mentioned for effective requirement gathering sessions. Few of them are as follows;

Brainstorming

This is same as interviewing, but recommended to use when there are multiple stakeholders sharing multiple ideas with regards to project / product requirements. This is sometimes referred to as a conference techniques due to the participation of multiple stakeholders.

Nominal Group Technique

This method works with brainstorming as a joint process. Once the ideas are generated through a brainstorming session, the brought up ideas / requirements will be analyzed and prioritized based on their value using the nominal group technique.

Delphi Technique

This is known to be a method of reaching the consensus of subject matter experts (SME). The facilitator has to prepare a list of questions that need to be answered by SMEs and shared among them. Once the SMEs receive the questionnaire, they will answer based on their knowledge and experience and share their opinions with the facilitator. Through this technique, it reduces the bias in the information shared since this technique is mostly following the anonymous techniques where only the facilitator will receive the SME opinions.

Idea / Mind Mapping

Mind mapping is a technique which consolidates several opinions collected via brainstorming sessions from individuals and form a central opinion. This mapping view visualizes the different ideas and opinions carried by different stakeholders which follows different deviations from the centralized opinion.

Affinity Diagram

This is another technique that goes toe-to-toe with brainstorming and nominal group techniques. It takes ideas from different individuals and group them under different categories for reviewing and analysis purposes.

Multi-criteria Decision Analysis

Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis technique assigns different criteria for requirement evaluation purpose and rank them with a weighted value. Once the requirements are gathered, they will be rated based on the weighted values assigned to each criteria. This technique is mostly used to evaluate risk levels, uncertainties, valuation and other ideas that can be ranked with regards to the weighted criterion value.

Risk Management

Project Risk Management

June 26, 2017 No Comments

What is Project Risk Management

According to PMBOK 5th Edition, a risk can be defined as an uncertain event or a condition that will have a positive or a negative impact on project outcomes / objectives. Project Risk Management is about planning, identifying, responding and controlling the risks on a project. The main objective of this knowledge area is to increase the probability and impact of positive risks while reducing the impact and probability of negative risks. This process should continue throughout the project life cycle.

Risks can popup anywhere in a project and it will have an impact towards scope, schedule, budget and quality of the project. If it’s negative risk, then the tendency towards the project failure is high, hence the project team has to develop proper risk response strategies to overcome them.

There are 2 types of reserves that can be established to minimize or overcome the impact and probability of a project. They are contingency reserves and management reserves. Contingency reserves are used to respond to known risks that cannot be proactively managed. Management reserves are included to respond to unknown risks that cannot be proactively managed.

There are 6 main processes defined under the Project Risk Management knowledge area. They are defined as follows.

Plan Risk Management

This process includes the activities that define how to conduct risk management related functions in a project. This is a very important subsidiary plan of the project management plan which requires the support from every stakeholder of the project to successfully implement and achieve project objectives throughout the entire project life cycle.

Identify Risks

Under this process, the project team has to list down the risks that can have an impact on the project and document them. It supports the project team to realize and proactively work on risk response strategies during the project life cycle. During this period, the project team develops and updates the Project Risk Register.

Perform Qualitative Risk Analysis

During this process, project team can prioritize the risk list based on the risk value calculated by their respective probability and impact values. In addition, it supports the project team to focus on risks with higher values proactively.

Perform Quantitative Risk Analysis

Quantitative Risk Analysis is about analyzing the identified risks in a numerical manner and deciding on the effect they can put on the defined project objectives. Since it produces a numerical value (quantitative information), it helps the project management team to reduce the uncertainty of projects.

Plan Risk Response

Risk response strategies are developed under this process. The project management team works on options and actions to enhance the opportunities of the project while reducing the threats of the project objectives. Based on the risk response, the scope, schedule and budget can be impacted.

Control Risk

This is the last process defined under project risk management knowledge area. During this process, the project team will track and review the risk response strategies for already identified risks, monitor residual risks, identify new risks and control the risk management process throughout the project life cycle. Control Risk process helps to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the risk management process and optimize the project risk responses.

Below table shows under which Project Management Process Group the above processes are performed.

Initiating	Planning	Executing	Monitoring and Controlling	Closing
No Process Performed	1. Plan Risk Management 2. Identify Risks 3. Perform Qualitative Risk Analysis 4. Perform Quantitative Risk Analysis 5. Plan Risk Responses	No Process Performed	Control Risk	No Process Performed

**Please note that each and every individual process mentioned above will be explained further separately.

Schedule Management

Project Time Management

June 22, 2017 No Comments

What is Project Time Management

Project Time Management is another key knowledge area that includes the activities required to manage and complete the project on time. (PMBOK 5th Edition) Time / Schedule is mentioned under the iron triangle which makes it an important factor to define the status of a completed project as successful or unsuccessful. Clients expect vendors to complete the project on time, hence managing the time of a project has become a critical factor for the project management team.

As per the PMBOK, 6 key processes have been identified under Project Time Management. They are;

Plan Schedule Management

This is a subsidiary plan of Project Management plan. Under this, it establishes policies and methods on how to manage the schedule throughout the project life cycle. This maybe formal or informal and the complexity of this document depends on the complexity of the project.

Define Activities

Under this process, the project team has to list down the project activities that need to be completed in order to produce the project deliverables. Through this process, it breaks down the project work packages into smaller activities for time estimations.

Sequence Activities

Sequence Activities process supports the project management team to list the defined activities in a logical sequence in order to obtain the best efficiency to complete the project. Via this process, it gives out a clear picture of relationship between each activity.

Estimate Activity Resources

Once the activities are identified, the project management team can continue to work on identifying the required resource types and quantities to complete the project activities. Estimate Activity Resources process gives the team an idea of what type of resources and how much is required to complete the project activities. By doing so, the team can come up with more accurate cost and schedule estimates for project activities.

Estimate Activity Durations

After the above process is complete, project team can attend to this activity. When the required resources are estimated, base on the type and quantity of the resources, duration required to complete the project activities can be estimated. Based on the output of this process, the duration of the entire project can be calculated. (how long it will take to complete the project)

Develop Schedule

Developing the project schedule model is undertaken here. By considering the defined activities, estimated resources for those activities and the required time duration to complete those activities, the project schedule model is developed. This is a very important task since the entire project team will refer to this to review and track the project performance to see whether the project is ahead or behind the estimated schedule.

Control Schedule

Under the monitoring and controlling project process, schedule controlling takes place. This is to track the project status and update the project progress in terms of its schedule. By following this process, it reveals whether there any deviations from the planned schedule. If there are any deviations, then the project team can work on it to bring the project back to its planned schedule.

Below table shows under which Project Management Process Group the above processes are performed.

Initiating	Planning	Executing	Monitoring and Controlling	Closing
No Process Performed	1. Plan Schedule Management 2. Define Activities 3. Sequence Activities 4. Estimate Activity Resources 5. Estimate Activity Durations 6. Develop Schedule	No Process Performed	Control Schedule	No Process Performed

**Please note that each and every individual process mentioned above will be explained further separately.

Procurement Management

Project Procurement Management

June 21, 2017 No Comments

What is Project Procurement Management

Project Procurement Management consists of processes that are necessary to purchase or acquire products, results or services required from outside the project team. The self organization can either be the buyer or the seller.

When it comes to procurement management, contract negotiation, management and change control procedures need to be implemented in order to follow a successful procurement plan. The contracts are legal documents that mutually bind both the seller and buyer where seller provide something valuable and buyer is bound to return and pay via monetary terms of other compensating methods. These agreements can be simple or complex depending on the magnitude of the need / requirement.

Subcontracting / Sharing to a 3rd party is also sometimes knows as a risk response strategy under project management. When subcontracting, it means that a part of the project is transferred to a 3rd party which reduces the risk level from the project management team, hence the responsibility of taking care of the risk is already handed over to a third party.

Under the Procurement Management process, there are 4 processes identified by PMBOK 5th edition. They are;

Plan Procurement Management

Procurement Management Plan is about documenting how a project should handle procurement related activities such as the approach of purchasing, identifying potential sellers, etc… Through this process, it reveals whether it’s necessary to purchase or not and if it’s necessary to purchase, how, where, when the purchase should take place, etc…

Conduct Procurements

Under this process, choosing a seller / contractor and awarding a contract occurs. At the time of conducting, both parties need to come to a common legal agreement and proceed with the procurement process. There are few techniques used to select a contractor such as bidder conference where a RFP (Request for Proposal) document is built and shared among a set of contractors, hence they can come up with their proposals for the buyer to select the best choice among them.

Control Procurements

Monitoring and tracking the performance of the contractor is done under this process. While the project progresses, the relationship between the buyer and the seller will need to be maintained. Also if there are any necessary changes that need to be integrated with the already agreed contract, both parties can come under one roof, discuss and do the necessary changes to the contract as well. Through this phase, performance of both parties will be tracked to see whether there are any deviations from the agreed contract.

Close Procurements

This is the final process of procurement management process. Under this phase, both parties will formally and legally close the procurement contract. Once it’s done, contracts will be documented for future reference if any issue or concern is raised.

Below table shows under which Project Management Process Group the above processes are performed.

Initiating	Planning	Executing	Monitoring and Controlling	Closing
No Process Performed	Plan Procurement Management	Conduct Procurement	Control Procurement	Close Procurement

**Please note that each and every individual process mentioned above will be explained further separately.

Stakeholder Management

Project Stakeholder Management

June 20, 2017 No Comments

What is Project Stakeholder Management

Stakeholder can be an individual, a group or an organization that can affect or be affected by a decision, an activity or an outcome of a project. Project Stakeholder Management refers to the processes that identify the above mentioned stakeholders, analyze their expectations and develop management strategies to make them effectively engaged with project execution. It also helps to maintain a continuous communication throughout the entire project life-cycle in order to understand their needs and expectations while managing conflicts and issues. This is considered one of the most important knowledge areas in Project Management. If an important stakeholder or a group is missed through an important communication chain, there’s a higher probability for the project to fail due to miscommunication, invalid info: sharing, etc…

Depending on the stakeholder, the impact or the influence that can be put on the project outcome differs. There are certain stakeholder who can negatively effect on project while some can positively effect. Therefore, it’s very important for a project management team to identify and engage in stakeholder management efficiently in order to drive the project towards success.

There are 4 processes identified under Project Stakeholder Management. They are;

Identify Stakeholder

This process works on identifying individuals, groups or organizations that can impact or be impacted by a project activity, decision or outcome and how their interest, involvement, inter-dependencies potentially impact on project success. Throughout this process, it guides the project manager to identify how important each stakeholder is and focus on them accordingly.

Plan Stakeholder Management

This is another subsidiary plan defined under the Project Management Plan. It drives the project management team to develop management strategies to engage with stakeholder based on their interest, involvement and potential impact towards the project success. In addition, it provides a plan on how to interact with stakeholders on project outcomes.

Manage Stakeholder Engagement

Manage Stakeholder Engagement is the process of engaging with stakeholders to meet their needs and expectations, managing conflicts, addressing their issues and following proper stakeholder engagement strategies throughout the project life cycle. Under this phase, project managers tend to reduce the resistance shown by the stakeholders and get their support to drive the project towards success.

Control Stakeholder Engagement

Under controlling phase, project management team monitors and controls the stakeholder relationships and update the management strategies accordingly. Through this process, it supports the project management team to escalate the effectiveness and efficiency of stakeholder engagement as the project progresses.

Below table shows under which Project Management Process Group the above processes are performed.

Initiating	Planning	Executing	Monitoring and Controlling	Closing
Identify Stakeholders	Plan Stakeholder Management	Manage Stakeholder Engagement	Control Stakeholder Engagement	No Process Performed

**Please note that each and every individual process mentioned above will be explained further separately.

Human Resource Management

Project HR Management

June 19, 2017 No Comments

What is Project HR Management

Project HR Management is about managing, organizing and leading the project team throughout the entire project life cycle. When it comes to Project HR Management, different project personnel have different roles and responsibilities which are important to drive the project towards success. Apart from that, they have different set of skills necessary to perform project activities. While the project progresses, team members maybe added, removed, assigned full-time or part-time. It’s important to have a collaborate session with all the project team members when initiating and planning the project since team work always strengthens the commitment towards the project.

Project Management team is a subset of project team. They are responsible for project management related activities such as project initiating, planning, executing, monitoring, controlling and closing project or phase. In terms of Project HR Management related activities, 4 major processes have been identified to perform. They are;

Plan HR Management

This is a subsidiary plan of the Project Management Plan and it includes the activities such as documenting project roles and responsibilities, reporting structures and the staffing management plan. The HR Management Plan supports the project management team to identify team members’ roles and responsibilities, the organizational reporting structure and charts (E.g.: RACI Charts) as well as the staffing management plan that includes the member acquisition and release from the projects.

Acquire Project Team

Under this process, it confirms the human resource availability and acquires the necessary human resources to complete the project activities. Through this process, it guides the project management team to acquire the relevant project personnel for relevant responsibilities required by the project to build a successful project team.

Develop Project Team

Within this process, the competency level of the team members is improved while enhancing their interaction level and performances which will have a direct impact towards the project performance. By doing so, the team work gets improved and the team members get motivated which leads to an enhancement of the project performance.

Manage Project Team

This is another important process defined under project human resource management knowledge area. Among this process, performance of the team members is tracked and the relevant feedback is given to the relevant team member. In addition, issues and conflicts among the team members are resolved to enhance the teamwork efficiency.

Below table shows under which Project Management Process Group the above processes are performed.

Initiating	Planning	Executing	Monitoring and Controlling	Closing
No Process Performed	Plan Human Resource Management	Acquire Project Team Develop Project Team Manage Project Team	No Process Performed	No Process Performed

**Please note that each and every individual process mentioned above will be explained further separately.

Cost Management

Project Cost Management

June 17, 2017 No Comments

What is Project Cost Management

This is one of the key factors that need to be focused thoroughly while managing a project. Being an important node of the iron triangle, cost management has become a critical knowledge area that every project management team needs to be cautious with. Project Cost Management is about managing the the cost of the project so that it can be managed and completed within the given budget. Within this cost management context, activities such as planning, estimating, funding, controlling, etc… are included. (PMBOK 5th edition)

When it comes to project cost management, it’s primal concern is about managing the cost of the resources required to complete the project. The ability to influence the cost of a project is highest at the early stage of the project since the initial scope of the projects are always critical.

Project Cost Management has been defined under 4 major processes. They are;

Plan Cost Management

Through this process, it produces the cost management plan which establishes the policies and procedures to handle, expend, manage and control the cost of a given project. Throughout the project life cycle, the cost management plan directs the project management team on how to control and manage the dedicated budget of the project. In addition, this acts as a subsidiary plan of the project management plan.

Estimate Cost

Estimate Cost process includes the activities to develop an approximation of monetary resources required to complete the project. It gives an idea about how much it will cost to complete the defined project activities. Most of the time, this process is a prediction based on the known information at a certain time. When estimating the cost, risks that will have an impact towards the total budget will need to be considered as well. The accuracy of the project cost becomes higher with the progression of the project via the project life cycle. At the early stages, the cost estimation will range with a rough order of magnitude (ROM) between -25% – +75%, but with the project progresses, this range will come to a range of -5% – +10% accuracy. This range will include all the cost including labor, materials, equipment, services, facilities and other costs such as allowances, contingencies and overhead costs.

Determine Budget

By determining the budget, the cost baseline is prepared. This is achieved by consolidating the estimated cost at each individual activities or work packages. The determined budget can be used to measure the performance of the project and can be monitored and controlled against the determined cost baseline. This is considered the approved version of the time-phased project budget excluding the management reserves.

Control Cost

Control cost is about monitoring and tracking the status of the project to update the cost of the project and managing the changes to the cost baseline. By a careful cost control tracking mechanism, the project management team can review any variances or deviations to the original plan and take corrective actions to bring the project back to the original planned line.

Below table shows under which Project Management Process Group the above processes are performed.

Initiating	Planning	Executing	Monitoring and Controlling	Closing
No Process Performed	1. Plan Cost Management 2. Estimate Cost 3. Determine Budget	No Process Performed	Control Cost	No Process Performed

**Please note that each and every individual process mentioned above will be explained further separately.

Communication Managment

Project Communication Management

June 15, 2017 No Comments

What is Project Communication Management

This is considered one of the top most important knowledge area in project management. Project Communication Management is very important since the success or failure of the end result of the project mostly depends on how effectively project information are communicated. (PMBOK, 5th Edition)

Project Communication Management includes the processes necessary to make sure to drive the project towards success and the ultimate disposition of project information. Among these processes, planning, creation, distribution, storage, control, monitoring, etc… need to be taken care of. When it comes to communication, most of the project managers spend most of the time communicating with stakeholders including the team, client and top management. An effective communication is important to bridge the gap between diverse stakeholders relying on different cultural and organizational backgrounds.

Communication can happen through different dimensions and this depends on the parties involved in a particular communication.

Internal (among the project team) and External (customer, supplier / vendor, etc…)
Formal (reports, documents, meeting minutes, etc..) and informal (emails, reminders, memos, etc…)
Vertical (throughout the organizational structure from top to bottom) and horizontal (among peers)
Official (via newsletters, annual reports, etc…) and unofficial (off the record communications)
Written, oral and verbal (through voice) and nonverbal (via body language)

There are 3 main processes identified under Project Communication Management. They are;

Plan Communication Management

This is the process of developing the proper method of project communications based on stakeholders’ information needs and requirements. This is also a subsidiary plan of Project Management plan and it supports the project team to identify and document approach to effectively and efficiently communicate with each other.

Manage Communication

Under this process, activities such as info: creating, collecting, distributing, storing, retrieving, etc… take place. All these processes occur according to the communication management plan. This process involves in directing an effective communication flow between project stakeholders.

Control Communication

This process includes the activities of monitoring and controlling communications throughout the entire project life cycle. In addition, it also has to make sure that the relevant information needs of the stakeholders are met accordingly. By doing so, it confirms an optimal information flow among all the project stakeholders at any given time.

Below table shows under which Project Management Process Group the above processes are performed.

Initiating	Planning	Executing	Monitoring and Controlling	Closing
No Process Performed	Plan Communication Management	Manage Communication	Control Communication	No Process Performed

**Please note that each and every individual process mentioned above will be explained further separately.

Quality Management

Project Quality Management

June 13, 2017 No Comments

What is Project Quality Management

Project Quality Management is considered as the main knowledge area that the project management team needs to look into while building the project. It includes the processes that define quality policies, objectives and responsibilities, hence the project will satisfy the needs and requirements for which it was undertaken. (PMBOK 5th edition) Project Quality Management always works aligned with the organization’s quality management system. The ultimate objective of this knowledge area is to make sure that the project and product requirements are completed and validated accordingly.

There are 3 main processes mentioned under this knowledge area. They are;

Plan Quality Management

It is the process of identifying quality requirements and standards of the project deliverables and documenting them on how the project will be built according to the relevant quality requirements. This is a subsidiary plan of the project management plan. Its main benefit is that it guides the project team on how the project quality needs to be maintained throughout the project life cycle.

Perform Quality Assurance

This process is focused on project and it audits the quality requirements and the final results from the respective control measuring activities to make sure that suitable quality standards and definitions are used. In addition, it also supports the continuous improvement of quality process.

Control Quality

This process is focused on product and it involves in monitoring, reviewing and recording results of executing the quality maintaining related activities to track the performance and provide recommendations on necessary changes. There are few benefits identified under this process.

It identifies the reasons for weak processes, products with poor quality and provides necessary recommendations to overcome them.
It validates and verifies the product / project deliverables and leads the project management team to drive the project towards its final acceptance criteria defined by stakeholders.

Below table shows under which Project Management Process Group the above processes are performed.

Initiating	Planning	Executing	Monitoring and Controlling	Closing
No Process Performed	Plan Quality Management	Perform Quality Assurance	Control Quality	No Process Performed

**Please note that each and every individual process mentioned above will be explained further separately.

Scope Management

Project Scope Management

June 12, 2017 No Comments

What is Project Scope Management

Project Scope Management includes the activities necessary to make sure that any particular project contains all and only required work to complete the project by achieving its objectives. This is a major knowledge area which is thoroughly followed, tracked and reviewed by the project team continuously since scope is considered one of the critical factors that the success of failure of a project relies on.

There are 6 major processes identified by PMBOK 5th Edition under project scope management knowledge area. They are as follows;

Plan Scope Management

This is the process of developing a plan on how the project activities / work / scope will be defined, validated, controlled and managed. Throughout the entire project, this plan guides the project management team on how to manage the scope of the project. This is a subsidiary plan of the Project Integration Management plan.

Collect Requirements

This process includes the activities to define, determine, manage and document the stakeholders’ needs and requirements to achieve the project objectives. This process segment consists of both the project scope as well as the product scope.

Define Scope

This includes the activities to develop a detailed description of the project and product. It’s important to execute this process carefully since it involves in declining the project boundaries of the project by defining which of the collected requirements will be included and excluded from the agreed project scope.

Create Work Breakdown Structure

This is another important activity defined under project scope management knowledge area. It subdivides the project work and deliverables into smaller, manageable components. The main objective of this process it to provide a more clear, structured vision of what needs to be done and delivered. This is also recognized as a ‘Team Building’ activity and it requires every team member to participate and define the work.

Validate Scope

Validate Scope functions on formalizing the process of accepting the completed project deliverables. It supports the project team to increase the probability of accepting the final product, service or the result by validating each deliverable.

Control Scope

This is the final process stated under project scope management. It monitors the status of the project and product scope handle the changes to the scope baseline. Controlling the project scope ensures that every change request and recommended corrective or preventive action to be undergone via the ‘Perform Integrated Change Control’ process. This is a mandatory process since changes to the project are inevitable and unavoidable, hence there should be some kind of a controlling mechanism to maintain the project scope without unnecessary deviations.

Below table shows under which Project Management Process Group the above processes are performed.

Initiating	Planning	Executing	Monitoring and Controlling	Closing
No Process Performed	1. Plan Scope Management 2. Collect Requirements 3. Define Scope 4. Create WBS	No Process Performed	1. Validate Scope 2. Control Scope	No Process Performed

**Please note that each and every individual process mentioned above will be explained further separately.

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