SMARTLY
PROJECT MANAGEMENT
PROJECT SELECTION AND PLANNING
Project Basics
Project: A time-constrained endeavor with the objective of
delivering certain deliverables using specific resources, within a
specific time frame.
Deliverable: The products, services, or results delivered by a
project.
Constraints: The limitations or boundaries of a project–primarily
the project’s scope, time frame, and costs.
Initiation
Project initiation: The process of getting projects started.
Project identification: Noticing a need or opportunity for a
business and proposing a project to meet it.
Business case: Explains the benefits of a project and the need or
opportunity it would resolve.
Phases of project initiation
project identification
project selection
creating the project charter
Selection criteria: Factors that make a project worth pursuing.
Project selection methods: Techniques for comparing multiple
projects with the goal of selecting or prioritizing one over another.
Payback period method: Ranks project proposals based on the
time it takes for each project's revenue to offset its costs.
Weighted scoring model: Rates potential projects on a set of
ranked criteria to produce an overall score for each project.
Project charter: Guides and authorizes a project by describing its
goal and what stakeholders will do in pursuit of that goal.
Criterion
Weight Frida’s
Profit
40%
4
Risk
25%
2
Customer Satisfaction 20%
3
Length (Time)
15%
5
TOTAL: 3.45
Luka’s
5
1
4
3
3.5
Aliz’s
2
5
5
4
3.65
Request for proposal: A detailed document inviting contractors to
submit proposals for resolving a company’s described need.
Stakeholders: Anyone who can affect or will be affected by a
project.
Project team: Members who perform or oversee a project’s
tasks.
Project sponsor: The person responsible for the project.
Project manager: The person in charge of the day-to-day
operations of the project.
Project customer: The person or group who needs (and will use)
the project’s deliverables.
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PROJECT MANAGEMENT
SMARTLY
PROJECT SCHEDULING AND EXECUTION
Planning and Scheduling
Project planning: The process of working out a project’s scope–
tasks, deliverables, and standards–in detail.
The tasks the project team is supposed to perform, the
deliverables they're supposed to produce, and the standards
they're supposed to meet are in scope.
VR Headset System
Headgear
Cases
Hardware
Straps Pads Output
Software
Computer
OS
Programs
Visual Audio
Project scope statement: A document that spells out the
project’s scope.
Acceptance criteria: The standards used to test the deliverables
and decide if they are acceptable.
Work breakdown structure (WBS): A hierarchical list of a project's
deliverables and activities that articulates its scope.
Work packages: The nodes at the ends of a WBS’s branches,
which are specific enough that the durations and costs of their
tasks can be estimated.
Three point estimation: Estimates the amount of time or
resources needed for a task.
best
most likely worst
+ case
Three
case + 4 ×
case
point =
estimate
6
Tasks: The activities needed to produce or provide the project’s
deliverable(s).
EF = ES + Duration
ES
EF
Task Name
ID# Duration
LS
LF
Earliest start and earliest finish (ES/EF) times: The earliest a task
can start and end.
Latest start and latest finish (LS/LF) times: The latest a task can
start and end without delaying the project’s completion time.
Slack: How much a task’s completion can be delayed without
affecting the start or finish of subsequent tasks in the project.
LS = LF - Duration
Free slack: How much a task’s completion can be delayed
without delaying its successor’s earliest start time.
7 10
Total slack: How much a task’s completion can be delayed
without delaying the completion of the project.
Critical path: The path whose tasks you cannot delay or extend
without delaying the project.
0
7
Resource scheduling: The process of adjusting a project's
schedule to use its resources more efficiently.
0
1
7
Resource smoothing: Shifts resources from one task to another
to minimize fluctuations in resource demands when there is
enough slack to absorb the loss–it does not delay the project.
A
7
B
2
3
9 12
7 12
C
3
5
7 12
12 19
D
4
7
12 19
12 15
E
5
19 20
F
6
1
19 20
3
16 19
Resource leveling: Shifts when tasks begin and end as much as
necessary to lower resource demand–it may delay the project.
©2016 Pedago, LLC. All rights reserved.
PROJECT MANAGEMENT
SMARTLY
PROJECT SCHEDULING AND EXECUTION
Execution and Closure
Project execution: Performing the project’s tasks.
Risks: Events that might cause the project to miss its objective.
Acceptable risks: Risks that are tolerable to the organization
without mitigation.
Risk assessment matrix
Risk register: Lays out the recognition and response plan for
each project risk.
High
RI
SK
OS issues
Employees
do not
use app
H
RI
S
Team
illness
IG
User
learning
curve
H
Risk response planning: Deciding whether, how, and when to
deal with each identified risk.
Probability
Possible Unlikely
Risk assessment matrix: A table that helps to determine how
serious a risk is.
Likely
Risk assessment: Determining the likelihood and impact of a
risk.
Impact
Medium
Low
K
Risk identification: Determining which risks a project faces.
LO
W
Risk management: A process to identify, assess, and mitigate or
avoid the risks facing a project.
Cost Management: Creating budget estimates and comparing the
actual expenses to the amount budgeted as the project unfolds.
Total budgeted cost: The sum of the estimated costs of all the
project’s tasks.
Planned value: How much the project was budgeted to cost up
to a given point in time.
Actual cost: How much the project has actually spent up to a
given point in time.
Cost
Variance
Schedule
Variance
Earned value: How much the work completed up to a given
point in time was originally budgeted to cost.
Cost variance: Earned value minus actual cost.
Schedule variance: Earned value minus planned value.
Scope creep: When changes are made to expand the project’s
scope without proper authorization.
Project closure: The series of steps that brings a project to its
completion, including turning over deliverables, collecting
evaluations, and giving stakeholders a sense of closure.
©2016 Pedago, LLC. All rights reserved.