Project Management Flashcards
(79 cards)
1
Q
Leaders Versus Managers
A
- Exchange of purpose
- A right to say no
- Joint accountability
- Absolute honesty
2
Q
Differences Between Managers and Leaders
A
Leader
do the right thing
Develop new processes
innovate
originate
earrn their position
command respect
focus on people
inspire trust
focus on potential
have longterm goals
Manager
do things right
maintain status quo
administer
imitate
state their position
demand respect
focus on system
strive for control
focus on the bottom line
have short-term view
3
Q
How the Project Manager Leads (4)
A
Project managers function as mini-CEOs and manage
both “hard” technical details and “soft” people issues.
Project managers:
* acquire project resources
* motivate and build teams
* have a vision and fight fires
* communicate
4
Q
Project are underfunded for a variety of reasons
A
- Vague goals
- Lack of top management support
- Requirements understated
- Insufficient funds
- Distrust between managers
5
Q
Purpose of Meetings
A
- Define project and team players.
- Provide an opportunity to revise, update, and add to knowledge base.
- Assist team members in understanding role in project as part of whole and how to contribute to project success.
- Help stakeholders increase commitment to project.
- Provide a collective opportunity to discuss project.
- Provide visibility for project manager’s role
6
Q
______ is critical for a project manager to maintain strong contact with all stakeholders
A
Communication
7
Q
Project meetings feature ___________ and group maintenance
behaviors
A
task-oriented
8
Q
Task-Oriented Behavior
A
- Structuring process ——— ——Guide and sequence discussion
- Stimulating communication —-Increase information exchange
- Clarifying communication ——-Increase comprehension
- Summarizing ———–Check on understanding and assess progress
- Testing consensus ———–Check on agreement
9
Q
Characteristics of an Effective Project Manager
A
- Leads by example
- Visionary
- Technically competent
- Decisive
- A good communicator
- A good motivator
- Stands up to top management when necessary
- Supports team members
- Encourages new ideas
10
Q
Characteristics of Project Managers Who Are Not Leaders
A
Personal Flaw
* Sets bad example
* Not self-assured
* Lacks technical expertise
* Poor communicator
* Poor motivator
Organizational Factors
* Lack of top management
support
* Resistance to change
* Inconsistent reward system
* A reactive organization
rather than a proactive,
planning one
* Lack of resources
11
Q
Emotional Intelligence
A
refers to leaders’ ability to understand
that effective leadership is part of the emotional and relational
transaction between subordinates and themselves.
12
Q
Five elements characterize emotional intelligence
A
- Self-awareness
- Self-regulation
- Motivation
- Empathy
- Social skills
13
Q
Traits of Effective Project Leaders
A
- Credibility
- Creative problem-solver
- Tolerance for ambiguity
- Flexible management style
- Effective communication skills
14
Q
Essential Project Management Abilities
A
- Organizing under conflict
- Experience
- Decision making
- Productive creativity
- Organizing with cooperation
- Cooperative leadership
- Integrative thinking
15
Q
What Are Project Champions?
A
“fanatics” in the single-minded pursuit of their pet ideas.
Champions can be:
* creative originator
* entrepreneur
* “godfather” or sponsor
* project manager
16
Q
Champion Roles
A
Traditional Duties
* Technical understanding
* Leadership
* Coordination and control
* Obtaining resources
* Administrative
Nontraditional Duties
* Cheerleader
* Visionary
* Politician
* Risk-taker
* Ambassador
17
Q
Creating Project Champions
A
- Identify and encourage their emergence.
- Encourage and reward risk takers.
- Remember the emotional connection.
- Free champions from traditional project management
duties.
18
Q
Four competencies determine a project leader’s success:
A
- Understand and practice the power of appreciation.
- Remind people what’s important.
- Generate and sustain trust.
- Align with the leader
19
Q
Right Management Choices in International Setting
A
- Develop a detailed understanding of the environment.
- Do not stereotype.
- Be genuinely interested in cultural differences.
- Do not assume there is one way (yours) to
communicate. - Listen actively and empathetically.
20
Q
Creating Project Managers
A
- Match personalities with project work.
- Formalize commitment to project work with training
programs. - Develop a unique reward system.
- Identify a distinct career path.
21
Q
PMI Code of Ethics (4)
A
The Project Management Institute’s code of ethics for
project managers consists of:
1. Responsibility
2. Respect
3. Fairness
4. Honesty
22
Q
Normative Versuse Behavioral Ethics
A
Normative ethics: What will a person or organization do in a given
situation?
Behavioral ethics: Why do people behave the way they do in the
workplace?
23
Q
Unethical Behaviors
A
Corruption is the abuse of entrusted power for private
gain.
* Petty corruption: everyday abuse of power by low-level
officials with ordinary citizens.
* Grand corruption: committed by relevant institutions
such as governments, corporations, or legal bodies.
24
Q
Common types of corruption include:
A
- Bribery
- Extortion
- Fraud
- Abuse of Power
- Embezzlement
- Conflict of Interest
- Nepotism
25
Project scope
everything about a project—work content as
well as expected outcomes
26
Scope management
the function of controlling a project in
terms of its goals and objectives and consists of:
1. Conceptual development
2. Scope statement
3. Work authorization
4. Scope reporting
5. Control systems
6. Project closeout
27
Key steps in information development:
* Problem or need statement
* Requirements gathering
* Information gathering
* Constraints
* Alternative analysis
* Project objectives
* Business case
28
Conceptual Development
The process that addresses project objectives by finding the
best ways to meet them.
29
Statement of Work (SOW)
a detailed narrative description of the work
required for a project.
30
Effective SOWs contain:
1. Introduction and background
2. Technical description of the project
3. Timeline and milestones
31
Project Charter
A document issued by the project initiator or sponsor formally
sanctioning existence of the project and authorizes the project
manager to begin applying organizational resources to project
activities.
* Is created once project sponsors have done their “homework” to
verify that:
– there is a business case for the project
– elements of project are understood
– company-specific information for the project has been applied
* It demonstrates formal company approval of the project.
32
Scope Statement (4)
1. Establish project goal criteria to include:
a. cost
b. schedule
c. performance
d. deliverables
e. review and approval “gates”
2. Develop management plan for project
3. Establish a Work Breakdown Structure
4. Create a scope baseline
33
Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
a hierarchical decomposition of the total
scope of work to be carried out by the project team to
accomplish the project objectives and create the project
deliverables. Each deliverable is decomposed, or broken
down, into specific “bite-sized” pieces representing work to
be completed.
34
Work Breakdown Structure Purpose (7)
1. Echoes project objectives
2. Organization chart for the project
3. Creates logic for tracking costs, schedule, and
performance specifications
4. Communicates project status
5. Improves project communication
6. Demonstrates control structure
35
WBS Hierarchy
Level 1 (Highest): Project -- The overall project under development
Level 2: Deliverable -- The major project components
Level 3: Subdeliverable -- Supporting deliverables
Level 4 (Lowest): Work package -- Individual project activities
36
Defining a Work Package
* Lowest level in WBS
* Deliverable result
* One owner
* Miniature projects
* Milestones
* Fits organization
* Trackable
37
Organizational Breakdown Structure(OBS) allows
* work definition
* owner assignment of work packages
* budget assignment to departments
OBS links cost, activity, and responsibility.
38
Defining a Project Work Package
1. Work package forms lowest level in W BS.
2. Work package has a deliverable result.
3. Work package has one owner.
4. Work package may be considered by its owner as a project in itself.
5. Work package may include several milestones.
6. Work package should fit organizational procedures and culture.
7. The optimal size of a work package may be expressed in terms on
labor hours, calendar time, cost, reporting period, and risks.
39
Contractual documentation possesses some key identifiable
features:
* Contractual requirements
* Valid consideration
* Contracted terms
Contracts range from: lump-sum to soct-plus
40
Scope Reporting
Determines what types of information reported, who
receives copies, and when and how information is
acquired and disseminated.
41
Typical project reports contain: (3)
1. Cost status
2. Schedule status
3. Technical performance status
42
Reasons Why Projects Fail
* Politics
* Naïve promises
* Naïve optimism of youth
* Startup mentality of fledgling entrepreneurial companies
* “Marine Corps” mentality
* Intense competition caused by globalization
* Intense competition caused by appearance of new technologies
* Intense pressure caused by unexpected government regulations
* Unexpected and/or unplanned crises
43
Types of Control Systems (6)
* Configuration control
* Design control
* Trend monitoring
* Document control
* Acquisition control
* Specification control
44
Configuration Management
A collection of formal documented procedures used to
apply technical and administrative direction and
surveillance to: identify and document the functional and
physical characteristics of a product, result, service, or
component; control any changes to such characteristics;
record and report each change and its implementation
status; and support the audit of the products, results, or
components to verify conformance to requirements.
45
Project Changes Occur for one of several reasons:(4)
* Initial planning errors, either technological or human
* Additional knowledge of project or environmental
conditions
* Uncontrollable mandates
* Client requests
46
Closeout documentation is used to (3)
* Resolve disputes
* Train project managers
* Facilitate auditing
47
Closeout documentation includes: (3)
* Historical records
* Post-project analysis
* Financial closeout
48
Sustainability
involves efforts to promote the triple bottom line of :
social sustainability,
environmental sustainability,
and economic sustainability.
49
Sustainable development
involves efforts to promote
harmony among human
beings and between
humanity and nature.
50
Sustainability (Concepts) is about:
* Harmonizing the triple bottom line
* Integrating short-term and long-term
* Consuming income, not capital
* Including local and global perspectives
* Values and ethics
* Transparency and accountability
* Stakeholder participation
* Risk reduction
* Waste elimination
51
Sustainable Project Management Practices
* Engaging in sustainable projects that will not cause harm
to the planet or its inhabitants
* Employing sustainable practices while undertaking the
projects themselves
* Developing sustainable supplier practices
* Emphasizing sustainability in project design
Sustainable project management practices require
organizations to pay attention to all aspects of the project
life cycle from conceptualization through termination.
52
Project scheduling
requires us to follow some carefully laid-out
steps, in order, for the schedule to take shape. P MBoK states,
“an output of a schedule model that presents linked activities
with planned dates, durations, milestones, and resources.”
53
Project planning
as it relates to the scheduling process, has
been defined by the PMBoK as:
The identification of the project objectives and the ordered
activity necessary to complete the project including the
identification of resource types and quantities required to
carry out each activity or task.
54
Project Network Diagram
Any schematic display of the
logical relationships of project activities.
55
Node
One of the defining points of a network; a junction
point joined to some or all of the other dependency lines
(paths).
56
Predecessors
Those activities that must be completed
prior to initiation of a later activity in the network.
57
Successors
Activities that cannot be started until
previous activities have been completed. These activities
follow predecessor tasks.
58
Early start (ES) date
The earliest possible date the
uncompleted portions of an activity can start.
59
Late start (LS) date
The latest possible date that an
activity may begin without delaying a specified milestone.
60
Forward pass
Network calculations to determine earliest
start/earliest finish for an activity through working forward
through each activity in network
61
Backward pass
Network calculations to determine late
start/late finish for uncompleted tasks through working
backward through each activity in network
62
Merge activity
An activity with two or more immediate
predecessors.
63
Burst activity
An activity with two or more immediate
successors.
64
Float
The amount of time an activity may be delayed
from its early start without delaying the finish of the
project.
65
Critical path
The path through project network with the
longest duration.
66
Critical Path Method
A network analysis technique used
to determine the amount of schedule flexibility on logical
network paths in project schedule network and to
determine minimum project duration
67
Resource-limited schedule
Start and finish dates
reflect expected resource availability.
68
Serial activities
are those that flow from one to the next, in
sequence
A (id topic) > B (research) > C (paper draft)
69
Concurrent Activities
When the nature of the work allows for more than one
activity to be accomplished at the same time, these
activities are called concurrent, and parallel project
paths are constructed through the network.
70
Merge Activity
Activity D can only begin following the completion of
activities A, B, and C.
71
Burst Activity
Activities B, C, and D can only begin following the
completion of activity A.
72
Complete Activity Network
lost hapening at the same time
73
Constructing the Critical Path
* Forward pass—an additive move through the network
from start to finish
* Backward pass—a subtractive move through the
network from finish to start
* Critical path—the longest path from end to end which
determines the shortest project length
74
Options for Reducing the Critical Path
1. Eliminate tasks on the critical path.
2. Replan serial paths to be in parallel.
3. Overlap sequential tasks.
4. Shorten the duration on critical path tasks.
5. Shorten early tasks.
6. Shorten longest tasks.
7. Shorten easiest tasks.
8. Shorten tasks that cost the least to speed up.
75
Gantt Charts
* Establish a time-phased network
* Can be used as a tracking tool
76
Benefits of Gantt charts (5)
1. Easy to comprehend
2. Identify the schedule baseline network
3. Allow for updating and control
4. Identify resource needs
5. Easy to create
77
Crashing
The process of accelerating a project
78
Primary methods for crashing: (6)
1. Improving existing resources’ productivity
2. Changing work methods
3. Compromise quality and/or reduce project
scope
4. Institute fast-tracking
5. Work overtime
6. Increasing the quantity of resources
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