Week 5

Question 1

what is project planning?

Answer 1

involves planning the budget, resources needed to complete them, the activities - tasks needed to be done and the schedule - order in which activities need to be done
- purpose of it is it to clearly detail: what must be done, when it must be done, what resources are needed and when they’ll be required

Question 2

what is analysis paralysis?

Answer 2

• the over-analysing of plans
• project plan needs to include allowances for risk and alternatives options that allow the plan to be adapted at a later stage
• planning can be challenging due to many parties involvenment

Question 3

what happens during a coordination meeting?

Answer 3

the following are discussed:
1. Reason for the project,
2. Deliverables for the project,
3. Resources required Vs. available,
4. Proposed schedules, and
5. Assumed risks

Question 4

what are the outcomes of the coordination meeting?

Answer 4

• Outcomes of the meeting:
  1. Scope of the project
  2. Basic areas of responsibility
  3. Due dates for deliverables
  4. A risk management group
  = the meeting isn’t there to make decisions but to discuss those points in detail

Question 5

what is a composite plan?

Answer 5

After this meeting, individuals create preliminary
plans to describe how they will accomplish the
tasks assigned to them.
– Plans contain tasks required, as well as estimated budget and schedule, all individual are combined to create the Composite Plan
* This is approved by project manager and then senior management and once endorsed by senior management, any changes to project scope can only be made via change request

Question 6

what do project plans contain?

Answer 6

1. Overview – short summary of the objectives and scope of the project
2. Objectives – more detailed statement of the general goals highlighted in the Overview
3. General Approach – describes how the managerial and technical aspects of the project will be conducted
4. Schedules – outlines the various schedules and lists all the milestones for the project (Baseline Schedule)
5. Resources – includes budget for project, list of all contractual items, and cost of monitoring and controlling
6. Personnel – lists the expected personnel requirements of the project
7. Evaluation Methods – includes the criteria and methods for measuring how the project will be evaluated
8. Potential Problems – identifies potential high level problems of the project

Question 7

what are SMART objectives?

Answer 7

• a project planning tool
  important to consider when objectives for project are: – Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-limited

Question 8

what are mind maps?

Answer 8

A particularly strong brainstorming tool for project planning as it allows you to use both logical / analytical skills and creative skills

Question 9

how can project plans be created?

Answer 9

by listing all activities required to complete the project in a specific sequence (i.e. from start to completion)
- Project Plans also include an action plan to complete these activities, which helps the PM decide the necessary sequence of activities
- Sequencing is very important for determining the schedule of the project and its duration

Question 10

what is WBS?

Answer 10

allows all activities to be identified and sorted appropriately, its created by writing all major tasks needed to be done to achieve project success (level 1) then breaking each task listed here further (Level 2)
- this allows you to easily track progress of each task

Question 11

what are GANTT charts?

Answer 11

these convert the WBS into a visual representation of the schedule, they show a lot of info and are easy to maintain however, becomes difficult to understand for harder projects, here network diagrams can be more helpful

Question 12

what are the 2 components of risk?

Answer 12

1. Probability that Risk will occur
2. Impact of the risk occurring
   - Risk attitude is influenced by:
   Their risk appetite, Tolerance, Threshold and Over-confidence

Question 13

what is the first step of risk management?

Answer 13

1. plan risk management strategy:
   Process of developing and documenting a risk management strategy, including the methods used (and the resources required) to execute this strategy.
   - Risk management strategy includes:
   Objectives, List of responsibilities for specific risk areas, List of any additional technical expertise required, The risk assessment process,

Question 14

what is step 2 of risk management?

Answer 14

2. identify risks:
   - This involves identifying all the risks associated with the project, including internal and external risks
   - Risks vary depending on the environment that the organisation operates in and the individual projects it conducts
   - Example tools used to identify risks include:
   Brainstorming, Checklists, Flowcharts, Cause-and-effect diagrams, SWOT analysis

Question 15

what is step 3 of risk management?

Answer 15

3. perform qualitative risk analysis:
   - Takes the risks identified in previous step and prioritises them:
4. Estimate the probability of each risk occurring
   E.g. Scale of 1-5 or “low”, “medium” or “high”
5. Suggest what the impact of the risk occurring would be
6. Create a Risk Matrix based on these criteria

Question 16

what is step 4 of risk management?

Answer 16

4. perform quantitative risk analysis:
   - Once the critical and monitor Threats have been identified, quantitative risk analysis is usually conducted, typically more precise and therefore more accurate
   - There are 3 main techniques: Decision Tree Analysis, Simulation and Failure Mode Effect Analysis

Question 17

what is decision tree analysis, simulation and failure mode effect analysis (FMEA)?

Answer 17

decision tree: useful for calculating probability of events occurring sequentially
simulation: use software to produce mathematical model that’ll attempt to predict the probability of something occurring in the future
FMEA: FMEA is a scoring model, where for each risk, we need to determine the likelihood that risk will occur (1-10), severity of risk (1-10) and the likelihood the risk will be detected (1-10). these are multiplied these 3 numbers together and a RISK PRIORITY NUMBER (RPN) is calculated for each risk.
= For high RPNs, corrective actions/controls are put in place to try to reduce it  the RPN is then recalculated

Question 18

what is step 5 of risk management?

Answer 18

Once risks are identified and prioritised, a plan should be created that states how these risks will be mitigated. Each risk is categorised into one of the following 4 categories:
Avoid: Eliminate this threat entirely eg use diff resources
Transfer: Do not eliminate the threat but remove danger of threat eg buying insurance
Mitigate: Reduce the danger of the threat by reducing likelihood of occurrence / its impact eg by further investigating impact
Accept: Accept risk, either because no corrective action is available or because actions are too expensive

Question 19

what is step 6 of risk management?

Answer 19

Monitoring and Controlling processes to track and evaluate the effectiveness of risk response actions as the project progresses
- monitoring results are “fed back” to the previous steps, in which the key output is to establish a cost, performance and schedule indicator system that can be used by project manager to evaluate the status of the project
- Monitoring and Control is not a “problem-solving technique”; it is a proactive technique to obtain objective information on the progress of the risk reduction strategies to date

Question 20

what is step 7 of risk management?

Answer 20

For all projects, a “register” (i.e. a repository) of documentation should be created that covers the following:
1. List of all environments that may impact on the project
2. List of all assumptions made in project plan
3. List of all risks identified
4. List of all key words used to categorise risks
5. List of all qualitative and quantitative estimates made on risks
6. Minutes of all project team meetings
7. Actual outcomes of identified risks

Question 21

what are ‘lessons learned’?

Answer 21

For each project, Lessons Learned should be documented so that future project managers can learn from past mistakes
- Purpose is to promote good practices (that resulted in desirable outcomes) and highlight bad practices (that resulted in undesirable outcomes)
- Once collected, Lessons Learned Reports from all projects should be made available to everyone in a central database.