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Stanley E. Portny. Project Management For Dummies
Project Management For Dummies® To view this book's Cheat Sheet, simply go to www.dummies.com and search for “Project Management For Dummies Cheat Sheet” in the Search box. Table of Contents
List of Tables
List of Illustrations
Guide
Pages
Introduction
About This Book
Foolish Assumptions
Icons Used in This Book
Beyond the Book
Where to Go from Here
Getting Started with Project Management
Project Management: The Key to Achieving Results
Determining What Makes a Project a Project
Understanding the three main components that define a project
Recognizing the diversity of projects
A PROJECT BY ANY OTHER NAME JUST ISN’T A PROJECT
Describing the four phases of a project life cycle
Adopting a Principled Approach to Project Management
Starting with stewardship and leadership
Continuing with team and stakeholders
Delivering value and quality
Handling complexity, opportunities, and threats
Exhibiting adaptability and resilience
Thinking holistically and enabling change
What Happened to Process Groups and Knowledge Areas?
Do You Have What It Takes to Be an Effective Project Manager?
Questions
Answer key
Relating This Chapter to the PMP Exam and PMBOK 7
I’m a Project Manager! Now What?
Knowing the Project Manager’s Role
Looking at the project manager’s tasks
Staving off excuses for not following a structured project management approach
Avoiding shortcuts
Staying aware of other potential challenges
Aligning with the Four Values that Comprise the Code of Ethics
The price of greatness is responsibility
R-e-s-p-e-c-t, find out what it means to…your project
Maintaining fairness
Honesty is the best policy
Relating This Chapter to the PMP Exam and PMBOK 7
Beginning the Journey: The Genesis of a Project
Gathering Ideas for Projects
Looking at information sources for potential projects
Proposing a project in a business case
Developing the Project Charter
Performing a cost-benefit analysis
Conducting a feasibility study
Generating documents during the development of the project charter
Deciding Which Projects to Move to the Second Phase of Their Life Cycle
Tailoring Your Delivery Approach
For the organization
For the project
Identifying the Models, Methods, and Artifacts to Use
Relating This Chapter to the PMP Exam and PMBOK 7
Knowing Your Project’s Stakeholders: Involving the Right People
Understanding Your Project’s Stakeholders
Developing a Stakeholder Register
Starting your stakeholder register
Using specific categories
Considering stakeholders that are often overlooked
DISCOVERING THE REAL END USERS
Examining the beginning of a sample stakeholder register
Ensuring your stakeholder register is complete and up-to-date
Using a stakeholder register template
Determining Whether Stakeholders Are Drivers, Supporters, or Observers
INCLUDING A PROJECT CHAMPION
Deciding when to involve your stakeholders
Drivers
Supporters
Observers
Using different methods to involve your stakeholders
Making the most of your stakeholders’ involvement
Displaying Your Stakeholder Register
Confirming Your Stakeholders’ Authority
Assessing Your Stakeholders’ Power and Interest
Relating This Chapter to the PMP Exam and PMBOK 7
Clarifying What You’re Trying to Accomplish — And Why
Defining Your Project with a Scope Statement
DOCUMENTS CLOSELY RELATED TO THE SCOPE STATEMENT
MAKING A POSITIVE FIRST IMPRESSION: THE PROJECT TITLE
Looking at the Big Picture: Explaining the Need for Your Project
Figuring out why you’re doing the project
Identifying the initiator
Determining who is contributing funds to support the project
Recognizing other people who may benefit from your project
Distinguishing the project champion
Considering people who’ll implement the results of your project
Determining your project drivers’ real expectations and needs
Confirming that your project can address people’s needs
Uncovering other activities that relate to your project
Emphasizing your project’s importance to your organization
Being exhaustive in your search for information
Drawing the line: Where your project starts and stops
Stating your project’s objectives
Making your objectives clear and specific
Probing for all types of objectives
Anticipating resistance to clearly defined objectives
Marking Boundaries: Project Constraints
Working within limitations
Understanding the types of limitations
Looking for project limitations
Addressing limitations in your scope statement
Dealing with needs
Facing the Unknowns When Planning: Documenting Your Assumptions
Presenting Your Scope Statement in a Clear and Concise Document
Relating This Chapter to the PMP Exam and PMBOK 7
Developing Your Game Plan: Getting from Here to There
Divide and Conquer: Breaking Your Project into Manageable Chunks
Thinking in detail
Identifying necessary project work with a work breakdown structure
Asking four key questions
Making assumptions to clarify planned work
Focusing on results when naming deliverables
Using action verbs to title activities
Developing a WBS for large and small projects
Understanding a project’s deliverables-activities hierarchy
CONDUCTING A SURVEY: USING THE WORK BREAKDOWN STRUCTURE
Dealing with special situations
Representing conditionally repeating work
Handling work with no obvious break points
Planning a long-term project
KEEPING A CLOSE EYE ON YOUR PROJECT
Issuing a contract for services you will receive
Creating and Displaying Your Work Breakdown Structure
Considering different schemes to create your WBS hierarchy
Using one of two approaches to develop your WBS
The top-down approach
The brainstorming approach
Categorizing your project’s work
Labeling your WBS entries
Displaying your WBS in different formats
The organization-chart format
The indented-outline format
The bubble-chart format
Improving the quality of your WBS
Using templates
Drawing on previous experience
Improving your WBS templates
Identifying Risks While Detailing Your Work
Documenting What You Need to Know about Your Planned Project Work
Relating This Chapter to the PMP Exam and PMBOK7
Planning Time: Determining When and How Much
You Want This Project Done When?
Picture This: Illustrating a Work Plan with a Network Diagram
Defining a network diagram’s elements
Milestone
Activity
Duration
Drawing a network diagram
Analyzing a Network Diagram
Reading a network diagram
Interpreting a network diagram
The importance of the critical path
The forward pass: Determining critical paths, noncritical paths, and earliest start and finish dates
The backward pass: Calculating the latest start and finish dates and slack times
Working with Your Project’s Network Diagram
Determining precedence
Looking at factors that affect predecessors
Choosing immediate predecessors
Using a network diagram to analyze a simple example
Deciding on the activities
Setting the order of the activities
Creating the network diagram
Developing Your Project’s Schedule
Taking the first steps
Avoiding the pitfall of backing in to your schedule
Meeting an established time constraint
Applying different strategies to arrive at your picnic in less time
Performing activities at the same time
Estimating Activity Duration
Determining the underlying factors
Considering resource characteristics
Improving activity duration estimates
Displaying Your Project’s Schedule
Relating This Chapter to the PMP Exam and PMBOK7
Establishing Whom You Need, How Much of Their Time, and When
Getting the Information You Need to Match People to Tasks
Deciding what skills and knowledge team members must have
Representing team members’ skills, knowledge, and interests in a skills matrix
Estimating Needed Commitment
Using a human resources matrix
Identifying needed personnel in a human resources matrix
Estimating required work effort
Factoring productivity, efficiency, and availability into work-effort estimates
Reflecting efficiency when you use historical data
Accounting for efficiency in personal work-effort estimates
Ensuring Your Project Team Members Can Meet Their Resource Commitments
Planning your initial allocations
Resolving potential resource overloads
Coordinating assignments across multiple projects
Relating This Chapter to the PMP Exam and PMBOK7
Planning for Other Resources and Developing the Budget
Determining Non-Personnel Resource Needs
Making Sense of the Dollars: Project Costs and Budgets
Looking at different types of project costs
Recognizing the three stages of a project budget
Refining your budget as your project progresses
Determining project costs for a detailed budget estimate
The bottom-up approach
The top-down approach
TWO APPROACHES FOR ESTIMATING INDIRECT COSTS
Relating This Chapter to the PMP Exam and PMBOK7
Venturing into the Unknown: Dealing with Risk
Defining Risk and Risk Management
Focusing on Risk Factors and Risks
DON’T PUT ALL YOUR EGGS IN ONE BASKET
Recognizing risk factors
Identifying risks
Assessing Risks: Probability and Consequences
Gauging the likelihood of a risk
Relying on objective info
Counting on personal opinions
Estimating the extent of the consequences
Getting Everything under Control: Managing Risk
Choosing the risks you want to manage
Developing a risk management strategy
Communicating about risks
Preparing a Risk Management Plan
Relating This Chapter to the PMP Exam and PMBOK 7
Group Work: Putting Your Team Together
Aligning the Key Players for Your Project
Defining Three Organizational Environments
The functional structure
Advantages of the functional structure
Disadvantages of the functional structure
The projectized structure
Advantages of the projectized structure
Disadvantages of the projectized structure
The matrix structure
Advantages of the matrix structure
Disadvantages of the matrix structure
Recognizing the Key Players in a Matrix Environment
The project manager
Project team members
Functional managers
The project owner
The project sponsor
Upper management
Working Successfully in a Matrix Environment
Creating and continually reinforcing a team identity
Getting team member commitment
Eliciting support from other people in the environment
Heading off common problems before they arise
Relating This Chapter to the PMP Exam and PMBOK 7
Defining Team Members’ Roles and Responsibilities
Outlining the Key Roles
Distinguishing authority, responsibility, and accountability
Understanding the difference between authority and responsibility
Making Project Assignments
Delving into delegation
Deciding what to delegate
Recognizing the six degrees of delegation
Supporting your delegations of authority
Delegating to achieve results
Sharing responsibility
Holding people accountable — even when they don’t report to you
HOLDING THE LINE WHEN SOMEONE ELSE DROPS THE BALL
Picture This: Depicting Roles with a Responsibility Assignment Matrix
Introducing the elements of a RAM
Reading a RAM
Developing a RAM
Ensuring your RAM is accurate
Including a legend that defines all terms and acronyms
Developing a hierarchy of charts
Getting input from everyone involved
Putting your RAM in writing
Keeping your RAM up-to-date
Dealing with Micromanagement
Realizing why a person micromanages
Gaining a micromanager’s trust
Working well with a micromanager
Relating This Chapter to the PMP Exam and PMBOK 7
Starting Your Project Team Off on the Right Foot
Finalizing Your Project’s Participants
Are you in? Confirming your team members’ participation
Assuring that others are on board
Filling in the blanks
Developing Your Team
Reviewing the approved project plan
Developing team and individual goals
Specifying team member roles
Defining your team’s operating processes
Supporting the development of team member relationships
Resolving conflicts
Minimizing conflict on your team
Acting out conflict resolution with a simple example
All together now: Helping your team become a smooth-functioning unit
Laying the Groundwork for Controlling Your Project
Selecting and preparing your tracking systems
Establishing schedules for reports and meetings
Setting your project’s baseline
Hear Ye, Hear Ye! Announcing Your Project
Setting the Stage for Your Project Retrospective
Relating This Chapter to the PMP Exam and PMBOK 7
Steering the Ship: Managing Your Project to Success
Tracking Progress and Maintaining Control
Holding On to the Reins: Monitoring and Controlling
Establishing Project Management Information Systems
The clock’s ticking: Monitoring schedule performance
Defining the schedule data to collect
Analyzing schedule performance
Collecting schedule performance data
Improving the accuracy of your schedule performance data
Choosing a vehicle to support your schedule tracking system
All in a day’s work: Monitoring work effort
Collecting work-effort data
Choosing a vehicle to support your work-effort tracking system
Improving the accuracy of your work-effort data
Analyzing work effort expended
Follow the money: Monitoring expenditures
Analyzing expenditures
Collecting expenditure data and improving its accuracy
Choosing a vehicle to support your expenditure tracking system
Putting Your Control Process into Action
Heading off problems before they occur
Formalizing your control process
Identifying possible causes of delays and variances
Identifying possible corrective actions
Getting back on track: Rebaselining
Reacting Responsibly When Changes Are Requested
Responding to change requests
Creeping away from scope creep
Relating This Chapter to the PMP Exam and PMBOK 7
Keeping Everyone Informed
I Meant What I Said and I Said What I Meant: Successful Communication Basics
Breaking down the communication process
Distinguishing one-way and two-way communication
Can you hear me now? Listening actively
Choosing the Appropriate Medium for Project Communication
Just the facts: Written reports
Moving it along: Meetings that work
KEEP IT SHORT — AND THAT MEANS YOU!
Planning for a successful meeting
Conducting an efficient meeting
Following up with the last details
Preparing a Written Project Progress Report
Making a list (of names) and checking it twice
Knowing what’s hot (and what’s not) in your report
Earning a Pulitzer, or at least writing an interesting report
USING A PROJECT DASHBOARD
Holding Key Project Meetings
Regularly scheduled team meetings
Ad hoc team meetings
Executive leadership progress reviews
Preparing a Project Communications Management Plan
Relating This Chapter to the PMP Exam and PMBOK 7
Encouraging Peak Performance by Providing Effective Leadership
Exploring the Differences between Leadership and Management
Recognizing the Traits People Look for in a Leader
Developing Personal Power and Influence
Understanding why people do what you ask
Establishing the bases of your power
You Can Do It! Creating and Sustaining Team Member Motivation
Increasing commitment by clarifying your project’s benefits
Encouraging persistence by demonstrating project feasibility
Letting people know how they’re doing
Providing rewards for work well done
Leading a Diverse, Equitable, and Inclusive Project Team
Diversity is an asset worthy of inclusion
Equity is a choice – choose it
Relating This Chapter to the PMP Exam and PMBOK 7
Bringing Your Project to Closure
Staying the Course to Completion
Planning ahead for your project’s closure
Updating your initial closure plans when you’re ready to wind down the project
Charging up your team for the sprint to the finish line
Handling Administrative Issues
Providing a Smooth Transition for Team Members
USING A NOVEL APPROACH TO ANNOUNCE YOUR PROJECT’S CLOSURE
Surveying the Results: The Project Retrospective Evaluation
Preparing for the evaluation throughout the project
Setting the stage for the evaluation meeting
Conducting the evaluation meeting
Following up on the evaluation
Relating This Chapter to the PMP Exam and PMBOK 7
Taking Your Project Management to the Next Level
Using Newer Methods and Resources to Enhance Your Project Management
Taking a Look at the Agile Approach to Project Management
Understanding what drives the Agile approach
Taking a look at the elements of Agile when implemented through Scrum
Comparing the Agile and traditional (Waterfall) approaches
Using Computer Software Effectively
Looking at your software options
Standalone specialty software
Integrated project management software
PROJECT PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE: RAISING THE BAR ON PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Helping your software perform at its best
Introducing project management software into your organization
Using Social Media to Enhance Project Management
Defining social media
Exploring how social media can support your project planning and performance
Using social media to support your project communications
Relating This Chapter to the PMP Exam and PMBOK 7
Monitoring Project Performance with Earned Value Management
Defining Earned Value Management
Getting to know EVM terms and formulas
Spelling out some important terms
Defining the formulas of EVM performance descriptors
Last but not least: Projecting total expenditures at completion
Looking at a simple example
Determining the reasons for observed variances
The How-To: Applying Earned Value Management to Your Project
Determining a Task’s Earned Value
Relating This Chapter to the PMP Exam and PMBOK 7
The Part of Tens
Ten Questions to Ask Yourself as You Plan Your Project
What’s the Purpose of Your Project?
Whom Do You Need to Involve?
What Results Will You Produce?
What Constraints Must You Satisfy?
What Assumptions Are You Making?
What Work Has to Be Done?
When Does Each Activity Start and End?
Who Will Perform the Project Work?
What Other Resources Do You Need?
What Can Go Wrong?
Ten Tips for Being a Better Project Manager
Be a “Why” Person
Be a “Can Do” Person
Think about the Big Picture
Think in Detail
Assume Cautiously
View People as Allies, Not Adversaries
Mean What You Say and Say What You Mean
Respect Other People
Acknowledge Good Performance
Be a Manager and a Leader
Combining the Techniques into Smooth-Flowing Processes
Preparing Your Project Plan
Controlling Your Project during Performance
Index. A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
Y
About the Author
Dedication
Author’s Acknowledgments
WILEY END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT
