Enablers of Project
Success!
Al’s Angle
1
Volume 2, Issue 1
Welcome to our August Newsletter!
August 14th AM 2
on PM Breakfast
Forum
So What’s New?
2
4
MS Project Tip
of the Month
4
LinkedIn and
Twitter updates
and AM on PM
Summary
5
Cases for all of my requirements documentation. It was a great way to simplify
what might otherwise have been an abstract, subjective process.
The Project
Solvers’ office is
located at The Old
Pickle Factory,
Suite 216A, in
Pittsford.
Upcoming Semi- 3
nars
Podcast of the
Month
August 2009 Newsletter
Use Cases will be our topic at August 14’s
AM on PM Breakfast Forum. Plan on attending and sharing your experiences!
We have inside this issue today a podcast
on Use Cases from the Thirsty Developer
blog and in Al’s Angle we hear about how
Ren Square could have used some PMP
help!
Who’d have thought we’d be sitting here in early
August, having just experienced the coldest July
since 1884! Our average for the month was only
66°! I can’t complain too much though, as I am
writing this sitting out on the deck and enjoying
some great weather (for the moment!).
Enjoy,
Joanne
Our monthly theme is a continuation of the
Scope Management Knowledge Area and we
will be focusing in August on Use Cases and how
they aid the requirements gathering and clarification process. When I was with Kodak I used Use
Al’s Angle — Ren Square could use a PMP or two!
Recently I was asked to comment on the
current status of the Ren Square project in a
local newspaper. My comments were based
on the simple concept that PMI has always
instilled in its members and is a major part
of the body of knowledge for PMI and PMP
members. You cannot begin planning unless
you have defined the following:
includes the processes required to ensure that the project includes all the
work required, and only the work required, to complete the project successfully. It is primarily concerned with defining and controlling what is or is not included in the project."

Requirements - A requirement is an objective that must be met.


Project charter/Business Case – a statement of the scope, objectives and participants in a project. It provides a preliminary delineation of roles and responsibilities, outlines the project objectives,
identifies the main stakeholders, and
defines the authority of the project manager.
Scope of the project- According to the
Project Management Body of Knowledge
(PMBOK) "Project Scope Management
All should sound familiar but in the case of
Ren Square these were not followed. Over
$19 Million dollars spent to date and the
business case was never approved. No signatures of approval to go forward from the city
council , the mayor, taxpayers, who by the
way were the stakeholders. It seemed the
County Executive, Bus Authority, RBTL and
Monroe Community College thought they
were the only stakeholders.
Volume 2, Issue 1
(Al’s Angle continued)
Scope of the project went
from a performing arts center and underground bus
garage to a performing arts
center, bus terminal and
downtown college campus.
The taxpayers were never
fully on board with the project. Why? Because the
business case, scope and
requirements were never
spelled out. All of these
were preventable issues
which proper project management could have controlled.
Page 2
Send Al your thoughts:
agubiotti@theprojectsolvers.co
m
AM on PM Forum on
August 14th: Scope
Management: Use Cases
This month we are continuing the Knowledge
Area of Scope Management. In particular we will
be focusing on Use Cases
as an aid to create and
develop requirements.
These forums are informal, interactive discussion formats where we
share best practices, tips
and techniques with each
other. The time is 7:309:00am at our Medaille College facility in Henrietta. If
you pay in advance the
price is $7, and walk-ins are
$10. Coffee, donuts, and
bagels are included.
Earn an easy PDU! Look
ahead in this newsletter to
see a summary of last
month's AM on PM Forum.
Pre-register here!
So What’s New?
July was a quiet month for PMP
exams; after the rush to get in by
June 30th! Let us know if you’ve
heard of anyone who’s passed recently and we will mention their
name here!
All future exams are testing for the
4th Edition. You can get the 4th
Edition of the PMBOK on our
website under Products, then
Books, then PMP Prep Books. I
hear that we have the cheapest
price going right now!
We delivered our first PMP and CAPM
Prep Bootcamps at the end of the July
with the new curriculum from Crosswind. These new courses exceeded
our expectations in many areas including number and quality of exam
prep questions, workbooks, and student reaction.
Here are a few comments from the
classes, “Great class”, “Well done”,
“Examples of test questions were
highly useful”, “Enjoyed the class!
Very helpful.” We are very pleased
that we made the switch to Crosswind and we are confident that our
future students will be too!
Speaking of CAPM (Certified Associate in Project Management)
Prep, this was our first time offering
this course and it went very well.
Please pass the word to those who
you know may have an interest in
project management but do not yet
have the background or number of
practitioner hours to qualify for the
PMP exam. All that is needed to sit
What’s New—continued
for CAPM is a high school diploma
and 23 hours of formal project
management training (which you
receive through our CAPM bootcamp!).
Have you noticed our new Products section on our website? You
can purchase the books we recommend for PMP and CAPM Prep study
through our affiliation with amazon.com.
Even more exciting is our Software
Products line where you can purchase
MS Project 2007 and now a great new
product MindMapper 2009! We are
official resellers of this product, which
facilitates virtually every type of brainstorming technique out there. Remember all of those tools and techniques
from the PMBOK? Ishikawa Diagrams,
Flowcharts, SWOT analysis, Backward
Thinking—all can be drawn with this
tool. Even Gantt Charts! If you are
interested in purchasing MindMapper
2009 you can get a 10% discount if
you use the discount code on our
site.
Click here for more information.
Page 3
Enablers of Project Success!
Upcoming Seminars
PMP PREP BOOTCAMP
CAPM PREP BOOTCAMP
Sept 21-24, 2009
Sept 21-24, 2009
==> Earns 35 Contact Hours/
PDUs!
==> Earns 35 Contact Hours/
PDUs!
Project Solvers is now partnering
with Crosswind, an ISO 9001
certified Registered Education Provider, to provide you with a phenomenal bootcamp experience.
The Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM) is a fairly new credential and now you can get training for
the exam here in Rochester. This
course is designed for:
Includes a CD with 26 complete
practice tests, over 3500 questions!


Click here for more info or to register

The new project manager
Those wanting to make the transition into project management
Those who lack the requisite 3500
All that is needed to sit for the CAPM
exam is a High School diploma and
23 formal project management
training hours, the latter of which
you will receive by taking this
course!
Click here for more info or to register
FINANCE FOR PROJECT MANAGERS
October 14-15, 2009
October 2nd, 2009 in Rochester
===> Earn 16 PDUs!
===> Earn 7 PDUs
Learn what's new in Project 2007.
Learn the basics as well as advanced
techniques such as resource sharing,
creating budgets and tracking costs,
customizing views, and interfacing with
other applications.
Learn financial concepts and techniques in order to better manage
your project costs!
Upcoming Seminars
Do you have a topic area that
you’d really like to learn more
about? Let us know! We can
work towards putting it together in a future seminar
In addition to covering the essentials of project management the
participant will be prepared with the
knowledge necessary to sit for the
CAPM exam.
FUNDAMENTALS OF MS PROJECT
2007
<<Click here for more info or to enroll>>
Look for another offering of
Leveraging LinkedIn for
Effective Projects this Fall.
We had a great turn-out at
the July seminar and will definitely do it again. Keep an
eye on our calendar for it!
documented hours that the PMP
exam requires.
offering or for your organization specifically.
Speaking of which, do you
know that we are more than
simply a ―seminar company‖?
We do consulting on a variety
of project management areas, as well as provide project managers as a resource
for your project.
<<Click here for more info or to register>>
Volume 2, Issue 1
Page 4
Podcast of the Month - Use Cases from The Thirsty Developer
This month we’ve brought
you a podcast from a group
we haven’t looked to before,
The Thirsty Developer bloggers of Dave Bost and Larry
Clarkin. This one features an
interview with Matt Terski,
the President and cofounder of Serlio Software,
the company that created
Case Complete.
Use Cases, Matt says, is
using an outside in approach
rather than an inside out.
How does the user interact
with your product? Users in
Use Case speak are known
as Actors. The Use Case
itself, is a scenario or story
of what happens when the
Actor interacts with the
product.
Matt and Larry talk about
Use Cases and how they fit
into the software development life cycle. The key to
CaseComplete is a Use Case
editor that shows how
things have come a long
way from the days when we
did Use Cases with the
drawing palette of our document editor! CaseComplete
integrates with other tools
such as Rational Rose and
Microsoft Project as well.
Any good rules of thumb
when writing Use Cases?
Yes, there are a few—listen
to the podcast to find out!
Click here to listen to the
podcast
Page 4
An attendee at
July’s AM on PM
Breakfast Forum
said,
―I liked the format
you used - the
combination of
discussion time for
people to share
their challenges
and suggestions
with the structure
of the exercise
was a nice way to
approach the
topic.‖
-KK
MS Project tip this month—Inadvertently Imposing Deadlines
While we are discussing Use
Cases and requirements, let’s
take care when doing our MS
Project schedules to not artificially impose a constraint or
deadline on our tasks—by creating unintended constraints.
Microsoft Project supports six
different task constraint types,
geared towards either the start
of the task or the finish. Those
geared towards the Start range
from start As Soon As Possible,
to Start no Later Than [date], to
Must Start On [date]. The same
is true with the completions of
tasks. Constraints can be set to
As Late As Possible, Finish No
Later Than [date], and Must
Finish On [date]. Every task will
have one of these associated
constraints. By default, in
schedules which are scheduling
forward from the project start
date, the constraint is to start
As Soon As Possible (and this
changes to finish As Late As
Possible for projects scheduling
backward from the finish date. For realistic (accurate) schedules these
are the preferred two constraint types. Always have Project determine
the dates for you. Typing over the start or finish date of a task
with a different date, will automatically change the constraint. If
this is not what you intended then take care! You have now created a
requirement that a task must start or end by a certain date or within a
date range. If you’re not certain whether a task has been given a more
inflexible constraint type, then you can look at the indicator column for
a calendar icon. See the diagram below. If you see the calendar, then
the constraint has indeed changed from the default’s most flexible to a
more inflexible type.
If you type ―NA‖ over the Constraint Date field then you will change the
constraint back to its default of As Soon/Late As Possible.
Page 5
Enablers of Project Success!
AM on PM July Summary, Work Breakdown Structures
The July AM on PM Breakfast Forum kicked off our first event at Medaille College's brand
new facility on Winton Rd. Medaille has definitely kicked it up a couple notches, it's a very
nice venue. Think we will try for room 105 next time though as it is a little bigger. Our
topic was from Scope Management, specifically Work Breakdown Structures.
We had co-presenters Jean Torrens and Joyce Hulings lead a discussion and exercise on
the WBS. The hand-out they provided described the WBS as a hierarchical structure whose
purpose is to break a project down into manageable components. Though it's typically
seen as graphical, it can also be depicted in outline form.
Each layer of a WBS increases the detail and breakdown of the project with the lowest
level comprised of Work Packages. How to break down the layers, or levels, is a simple
matter of preference and a feel towards what works best for that particular project. A WBS
can be organized by deliverables, by project life cycle or phase, by departmental group, by
component, or by function - to name the popular few.
Visit us at
www.theprojectsolvers.
com
How far should one go? What level of detail is too much or not enough? [To see the answer and the rest of the summary please visit the LinkedIn AM on PM Group (and please
join it if you haven’t already done so!)]
Do you use LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter?
We have an AM On PM Group on LinkedIn! From linkedin.com simply do a search on groups
looking for ―AM on PM‖ as the keyword to search. Put in a request to join and we’ll get you
right in.
The AM on PM group serves as a repository for our summaries as well as a place to add to the
discussion and get updates on the next session.
Follow Joanne on Twitter! My Twitter name is ―projectsolvers1‖. I am using Twitter for Project Solvers’ announcements.
send an email to joanne@theprojectsolvers.com .