Project Management Essentials

Project Management Essentials
& Updates for working
professional
Welcome to Seminar
Sriram Srinivasan
1
© 2013 Adept Technology. All rights
reserved.

Agenda
• Introduction to Topic
• What is Best Practices?
• Types of Project Management
• List of Best practices for Successful Project
Management
• Project Management related education &
certifications
• Recent Changes & Updates on PMP
• Q&A
• PDU
reserved.
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Objectives
• Basic elements of Project Management
• Gain Knowledge on different PM
Framework
• Sample on PM related templates
• Changes & Updates on PMP new edition
• Select your path according to your needs
reserved.
3

Project Management
Methodologies
• Most people, when asked to characterize the project methodology or processes
they use, say that their company is either in the banking, construction,
manufacturing, or information technology industry and that they use a tailored
project methodology—often proprietary—that was designed specifically for their
unique environment.
• Hence, the question is: Do we have a universal project management
framework or are there others we can use? There are many organizations
that would profess that theirs is the only true methodology available, but
sometimes it may not be suitable for their environment at all. Project
managers should explore their options more closely, and they will find at
least a dozen project methodologies available for use immediately. The
methodology choice depends on the project type, size, complexity, duration,
and organization.
reserved.
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What is Best Practices?
• Methodology – A Body of practices,
procedures, and rules used by those who
work in a discipline or engage in an inquiry;
a set of working methods.
• Framework – a set of assumptions, concepts,
values, and practices that constitutes a way of
viewing reality.
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Best Practice
• Project Management is a Practice,
Discipline and a growing profession
• It can be part of organization in different
ways. Centralized, de‐centralized,
combination of both or Customized
according to environment.
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Types of Project Management
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Traditional Project Management and Agile or
Adaptive Project Management Methodology

Traditional PM vs. Agile PM
• Traditional Project Management (waterfall) approaches followed in
the Industries are basically assuming that the events affecting a
projectʹs outcome are focused on providing long‐range
predictability as related to cost, schedule, and features. The
complete project is planned up‐front, often leaving very little or no
scope for changing requirements. Generally, it is assumed that an
optimal and predictable solution exists. Traditional approaches can
work well when the risks are low and the technical scope and
project definition are well known and not likely to change too often.
reserved.
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• Agile Project Management emphasizes flexibility and responsiveness at the
expense of predictability by focusing on continuous alignment and
delivery of customer requirements through working software. Agile
methodologies are based on rolling wave planning utilizing incremental
and iterative delivery where the product features with the highest priority
are developed first. By providing working software frequently in fixed
time boxes (iterations), an Agile project can validate business value more
rapidly than a traditional project approach. In addition, frequent customer
feedback leads to an increase in overall product satisfaction by delivering
results based on the overall vision and business value. Agile methods can
work well on many types of projects, but are most effective where project
risks are high and the project definition is continuously changing.
reserved.
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One of the main factors in determining a Project
Management approach for any project is
learning how to achieve a balance between
predictability and responsiveness for a given
organization. While each business domain
shares similarities, each organization has its own
culture, goals, and business drivers which define
strategies for success.
reserved.
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Organizational Approach

Essential points for Successful Project
Management
• Clear Business Case
• Plan the work by utilizing a project definition document.
• Define project management procedures up front.
• Create a planning horizon.
• Look for other warning signs.
• Ensure that the sponsor approves scope‐change requests.
• Guard against scope creep.
• Identify risks up front.
• Continue to assess potential risks throughout the project.
• Resolve issues as quickly as possible.
reserved.
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10 most important question for Business Case
Business Case should present high level overview of project detail. Present as much
justification details as possible and include the goals of the project. Some questions to
guide you prepare project detail description:
1. What do you hope to achieve? What are goals?
2. What does the end state look like? Once the system in place, how do you see it being
used and its use being extended?
3. How is this project aligned with organizational strategy? What strategic goal does it
support?
4. What is the potential revenue gain/cost reduction/productivity gain that is
expected? What is the business benefit? Provide assumptions.
5. Using the following criteria, how would you classify this project and why?
• Infrastructure: These investments provide a shared and standardized base of capability for the
enterprise and lead to greater business flexibility and integration. Think of these as base
technologies such as Network or System type projects that provide a base to build on in the
future.
reserved.
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Continued....
• Transactional: These IT initiatives process and automate the basic transactions of a company.
They are intended to reduce costs and boost productivity and boast an average internal rate of
return of 25 percent to 40 percent.   Think of these projects in terms of automating or streamlining
transactional process such as selling concessions or processing individual customer requests.
• Informational:  These systems provide information for managing a company. Their payoff comes
from shorter time‐to‐market, superior quality and the ability to set premium prices. Think of
these projects as providing information or data that the company can act on to achieve new
capabilities or achieve business goals.  Analytics systems, data capture systems and similar
systems are examples.
• Strategic:  These investments, almost always external‐facing systems, pay off in sales growth,
competitive advantage and stronger market positioning. Think of these projects in terms of doing
something totally new in order to position the company for either changing strategic direction or
something a company may be betting a portion of their future on.  CRM is a typical example of a
strategic project.
6. How would you classify the type of project using the following criteria and why?
a) Type 1: Mission‐Critical: Yes; Differentiating: Yes.  Type 1 processes are mission‐critical and they
differentiate a company within the marketplace. This means performing these functions is essential for
the company to remain in business. They also help facilitate a unique service or product that the
company needs to remain competitive. Product research and development is one example of this type of
process
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Continued….
b)  Type 2:  Mission‐Critical: Yes; Differentiating: No.  Type 2 processes are mission‐critical. They have to be
done well or the business is at risk. They do not differentiate a company within the marketplace,
however. Examples of these types of processes include billing, shipping products and maintaining
finances. These are all necessary for the companyʹs success, but investing heavily in inventive ways to
generate invoices or balance the company finances will not gain customers or increase market share,
even though both of those tasks are indeed vital
c) Type 3: Mission‐Critical: No; Differentiating: Yes.  Type 3 processes are not essential, but they can
provide competitive advantage by differentiating the company. Such projects include partnerships or
collaborations where each company focuses on its core strength, yet the combined result is more than
either could accomplish individually.
d) Type 4: Mission‐Critical: No; Differentiating: No.  Type 4 processes are the least critical to the business.
They can be important, but if interrupted somehow, the business would survive. These processes, such as
cleaning and maintaining office space, typically do not benefit from IT investments.
7. Describe specific requirements with related example
8. Estimated Direct Costs: Attach quotes or break out by system, professional services,
etc.
9. Does it involve vendor or 3rd party ( external to organization)?
10. What are the success criteria?  When do we know the project has met its goals?
What metrics are we going to use to measure success (be specific)?
reserved.
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Planning ‐ Plan the work by utilizing a project
definition document
• The project definition is the primary deliverable from the planning process and
describes all aspects of the project at a high level. Once approved by the customer
and relevant stakeholders, it becomes the basis for the work to be performed. The
project definition should include the following:
• Project overview: Why is the XYZ project taking place? What are the business
drivers? What are the business benefits?
• Objectives: What will be accomplished by the migration? What do you hope to
achieve?
• Scope: What features will be implemented? Which departments will be converted?
What is specifically out of scope?
• Assumptions and risks: What events are you taking for granted (assumptions), and
what events are you concerned about? Example: Will the right hardware and
infrastructure be in place? Do you have enough storage and network capacity?
• Approach: How will the XYZ project unfold and proceed?
• Organization: Show the significant roles on the project. Identifying the project
manager is easy, but who is the sponsor? It might be the CIO for a project like this.
Who is on the project team? Are any of the stakeholders represented?
• Signature page: Ask the sponsor and key stakeholders to approve this document,
signifying that they agree on what is planned.
reserved.
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Project management procedures
• The project management procedures outline the resources that will be used to
manage the project. It will include sections on how the team will manage issues,
scope change, risk, quality, communication, and so on. It is important to be able
to manage the project rigorously and proactively and to ensure that the project
team and all stakeholders have a common understanding of how the project will
be managed. If common procedures have already been established for your
organization, utilize them on your project.
reserved.
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Create a planning horizon
• Project Work Plan – Create a schedule
• Manage & Control ‐ Once the project has been planned sufficiently, execution of the
work can begin. In theory, since you already have agreement on your project
definition and since your work plan and project management procedures are in
place, the only challenge is to execute your plans and processes correctly. Of course,
no project ever proceeds entirely as it was estimated and planned. The challenge is
having the rigor and discipline needed to apply your project management skills
correctly and proactively.
reserved.
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ID
1
2
3
4
5
6
SMTWT F SSMTWT F SSMTWT F SSMTWT F S SMTWT F S SMTWT F SSMTWT F SSMTWT F SSM
Mar 4, '01 Mar 11, '01 Mar 18, '01 Mar 25, '01 Apr 1, '01 Apr 8, '01 Apr 15, '01 Apr 22, '01 Apr

Look for warning signs – Risk Management
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C o s t B y M o n t h a n d V a r ia n c e
0
5 0 0 0
1 0 0 0 0
1 5 0 0 0
2 0 0 0 0
2 5 0 0 0
J a n F e b M a r A p r i l V a r i a n c e
Y T D
Dollars
B u d g e t
A c tu a ls
1. Monitor Schedule
2. Monitor budget

Continued…
• Look for other signs that the project may be in trouble. These could include the
following:
• A small variance in schedule or budget starts to get bigger, especially early in the
project. There is a tendency to think you can make it up, but this is a warning. If the
tendencies are not corrected quickly, the impact will be unrecoverable.
• You discover that activities you think have already been completed are still being
worked on. Users whom you think have been migrated are still not.
• You need to rely on unscheduled overtime to hit the deadlines, especially early in the
project.
• Team morale starts to decline.
• Deliverable quality or service quality starts to deteriorate. For instance, users start to
complain that their converted e‐mail folders are not working correctly.
• Quality‐control steps, testing activities, and project management time starts to be cut
back from the original schedule. This migration project can affect everyone in your
organization. Don’t cut back on the activities that ensure the work is done correctly.
***If these situations occur, raise visibility through risk management, and put together
a plan to proactively ensure that the project stays on track. If you cannot
successfully manage through the problems, raise an issue.
reserved.
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Change Control
• Manage Scope ‐ managing scope is the most important activity required to control a
project. Many project failures are not caused by problems with estimating or team
skill sets but by the project team working on major and minor deliverables that were
not part of the original project definition or business requirements. Even if you have
good scope‐management procedures in place, there are still two major areas of scope‐
change management that must be understood to be successful: understanding who
the customer is and scope creep.
• Ensure that the sponsor approves scope – change requests, follow the procedure and
record sign off. It doesnʹt matter how important a change is to a stakeholder, they
cannot make scope‐change decisions, and they cannot give your team the approval to
make the change. In proper scope‐change management.
• Guard against scope creep ‐ Scope creep is a term used to define a series of small
scope changes that are made to the project without scope‐change management
procedures being used. With scope creep, a series of small changes—none of which
appear to affect the project individually—can accumulate to have a significant overall
impact on the project. Many projects fail because of scope creep, and the project
manager needs to be diligent in guarding against it.
reserved.
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Continuous Monitoring
• Identify risks up front – During the planning stage identify and categorize risk into 3
types. High, Medium and Low respectively.
• Manage Risk ‐ Risks refer to potential events or circumstances outside the project
team’s control that will have an adverse impact on the project.
• Continue to assess potential risks throughout the project ‐ Once the project begins,
periodically perform an updated risk assessment to determine if other risks have
surfaced that need to be managed.
reserved.
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Resolve issues ASAP
• Manage Issues ‐ In spite of your best efforts at risk management, all projects of any
size and complexity will have issues arise that need to be dealt with and resolved. If
you have not done as good a job managing risks, chances are you will have more
issues to deal with than you might have otherwise.
• Sense of Urgency ‐ The project manager should manage open issues diligently to
ensure that they are being resolved. If there is no urgency to resolve the issue or if the
issue has been active for some time, then it may not really be an issue. It may be a
potential problem (risk), or it may be an action item that needs to be resolved at some
later point. Issues, by their nature, must be resolved with a sense of urgency.
reserved.
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Project Management – Professional certification
courses
• PMP ( Project Management Professional)
• PMI – ACP
• PMI – SP
• PMI – RMP
• Prince 2 (Project in Controlled Environment)
• CSM (Certified Scrum Master)
• CSP
• CBAP (Certified Business Analyst Professional)
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PMP® and PMBOK® are registered trademarks of PMI, Prince2® is a registered trademark of OGC.

PMP Edition Change
• PMP 4th Edition changed to PMP 5th Edition.
• What does it mean?
People preparing for PMP certification has to
follow PMBOK5 instead of PMBOK4.
Next slide will talk about changes in PMBOK5.
reserved.
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PMBOK4 vs. PMBOK5
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PMBOK4 vs. PMBOK5
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One New Knowledge Area
Seven New Processes
Two Moved or Deleted Processes
Nine Process names changed
Eleven New Process definition

PMBOK4 vs. PMBOK5
reserved.
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Integrated DIKW (Data – Information – Knowledge – Wisdom)
model.
PMP® and PMBOK® are registered trademarks of PMI,
Prince2® is a registered trademark of OGC.

Sources
• OGC official website
• Tech Republic
• Pmi.org
• PMBOK
– Sriram Srinivasan PMP, ITIL Expert, Cobit, Togaf
– newsriram2004@gmail.com
– in.linkedin.com/pub/sriram‐srinivasan‐pmp®‐
itil®‐expert‐cobit/18/978/514
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Qusetions
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