Project Management For Dummies

Jonathan L. Portny, MBA, PMP®, has more than 15 years of experience in the field of project management and is a certified Project Management Professional. His father, Stanley E. Portny, PMP®, was an internationally recognized expert in project management and the author of all previous editions of Project Management for Dummies.

Introduction 1

About This Book 2

Foolish Assumptions 2

Icons Used in This Book 3

Beyond the Book 4

Where to Go from Here 4

Part 1: Getting Started With Project Management 7

Chapter 1: Project Management: The Key to Achieving Results 9

Determining What Makes a Project a Project 10

Understanding the three main components that define a project 11

Recognizing the diversity of projects 12

Describing the four phases of a project life cycle 14

Adopting a Principled Approach to Project Management 16

Starting with stewardship and leadership 17

Continuing with team and stakeholders 18

Delivering value and quality 19

Handling complexity, opportunities, and threats 20

Exhibiting adaptability and resilience 22

Thinking holistically and enabling change 23

What Happened to Process Groups and Knowledge Areas? 25

Do You Have What It Takes to Be an Effective Project Manager? 26

Questions 27

Answer key 27

Relating This Chapter to the PMP Exam and PMBOK 7 28

Chapter 2: I’m a Project Manager! Now What? 31

Knowing the Project Manager’s Role 31

Looking at the project manager’s tasks 32

Staving off excuses for not following a structured project management approach 32

Avoiding shortcuts 33

Staying aware of other potential challenges 35

Aligning with the Four Values that Comprise the Code of Ethics 36

The price of greatness is responsibility 36

R-e-s-p-e-c-t, find out what it means to your project 37

Maintaining fairness 37

Honesty is the best policy 38

Relating This Chapter to the PMP Exam and PMBOK 7 39

Chapter 3: Beginning the Journey: The Genesis of a Project 41

Gathering Ideas for Projects 42

Looking at information sources for potential projects 43

Proposing a project in a business case 43

Developing the Project Charter 45

Performing a cost-benefit analysis 46

Conducting a feasibility study 48

Generating documents during the development of the project charter 49

Deciding Which Projects to Move to the Second Phase of Their Life Cycle 50

Tailoring Your Delivery Approach 51

For the organization 52

For the project 53

Identifying the Models, Methods, and Artifacts to Use 54

Relating This Chapter to the PMP Exam and PMBOK 7 60

Chapter 4: Knowing Your Project’s Stakeholders: Involving the Right People 63

Understanding Your Project’s Stakeholders 64

Developing a Stakeholder Register 64

Starting your stakeholder register 65

Ensuring your stakeholder register is complete and up-to-date 70

Using a stakeholder register template 71

Determining Whether Stakeholders Are Drivers, Supporters, or Observers 73

Deciding when to involve your stakeholders 75

Using different methods to involve your stakeholders 78

Making the most of your stakeholders’ involvement 78

Displaying Your Stakeholder Register 79

Confirming Your Stakeholders’ Authority 80

Assessing Your Stakeholders’ Power and Interest 82

Relating This Chapter to the PMP Exam and PMBOK 7 84

Chapter 5: Clarifying What You’re Trying to Accomplish — And Why 85

Defining Your Project with a Scope Statement 86

Looking at the Big Picture: Explaining the Need for Your Project 90

Figuring out why you’re doing the project 90

Drawing the line: Where your project starts and stops 100

Stating your project’s objectives 101

Marking Boundaries: Project Constraints 106

Working within limitations 106

Dealing with needs 109

Facing the Unknowns When Planning: Documenting Your Assumptions 109

Presenting Your Scope Statement in a Clear and Concise Document 110

Relating This Chapter to the PMP Exam and PMBOK 7 111

Chapter 6: Developing Your Game Plan: Getting from Here to There 113

Divide and Conquer: Breaking Your Project into Manageable Chunks 114

Thinking in detail 114

Identifying necessary project work with a work breakdown structure 116

Dealing with special situations 124

Creating and Displaying Your Work Breakdown Structure 127

Considering different schemes to create your WBS hierarchy 128

Using one of two approaches to develop your WBS 129

Categorizing your project’s work 130

Labeling your WBS entries 132

Displaying your WBS in different formats 133

Improving the quality of your WBS 136

Using templates 137

Identifying Risks While Detailing Your Work 138

Documenting What You Need to Know about Your Planned Project Work 140

Relating This Chapter to the PMP Exam and PMBOK 7 141

Part 2: Planning Time: Determining When and How Much 143

Chapter 7: You Want This Project Done When? 145

Picture This: Illustrating a Work Plan with a Network Diagram 146

Defining a network diagram’s elements 146

Drawing a network diagram 148

Analyzing a Network Diagram 149

Reading a network diagram 150

Interpreting a network diagram 151

Working with Your Project’s Network Diagram 156

Determining precedence 156

Using a network diagram to analyze a simple example 160

Developing Your Project’s Schedule 164

Taking the first steps 165

Avoiding the pitfall of backing in to your schedule 166

Meeting an established time constraint 167

Applying different strategies to arrive at your picnic in less time 167

Estimating Activity Duration 172

Determining the underlying factors 173

Considering resource characteristics 174

Improving activity duration estimates 174

Displaying Your Project’s Schedule 176

Relating This Chapter to the PMP Exam and PMBOK 7 179

Chapter 8: Establishing Whom You Need, How Much of Their Time, and When 181

Getting the Information You Need to Match People to Tasks 182

Deciding what skills and knowledge team members must have 183

Representing team members’ skills, knowledge, and interests in a skills matrix 187

Estimating Needed Commitment 189

Using a human resources matrix 189

Identifying needed personnel in a human resources matrix 191

Estimating required work effort 192

Factoring productivity, efficiency, and availability into work-effort estimates 193

Reflecting efficiency when you use historical data 194

Accounting for efficiency in personal work-effort estimates 196

Ensuring Your Project Team Members Can Meet Their Resource Commitments 198

Planning your initial allocations 198

Resolving potential resource overloads 200

Coordinating assignments across multiple projects 202

Relating This Chapter to the PMP Exam and PMBOK 7 205

Chapter 9: Planning for Other Resources and Developing the Budget 207

Determining Non-Personnel Resource Needs 208

Making Sense of the Dollars: Project Costs and Budgets 210

Looking at different types of project costs 210

Recognizing the three stages of a project budget 212

Refining your budget as your project progresses 213

Determining project costs for a detailed budget estimate 215

Relating This Chapter to the PMP Exam and PMBOK 7 219

Chapter 10: Venturing into the Unknown: Dealing with Risk 221

Defining Risk and Risk Management 222

Focusing on Risk Factors and Risks 223

Recognizing risk factors 224

Identifying risks 226

Assessing Risks: Probability and Consequences 229

Gauging the likelihood of a risk 230

Estimating the extent of the consequences 232

Getting Everything under Control: Managing Risk 234

Choosing the risks you want to manage 235

Developing a risk management strategy 236

Communicating about risks 237

Preparing a Risk Management Plan 239

Relating This Chapter to the PMP Exam and PMBOK 7 240

Part 3: Group Work: Putting Your Team Together 243

Chapter 11: Aligning the Key Players for Your Project 245

Defining Three Organizational Environments 246

The functional structure 246

The projectized structure 248

The matrix structure 250

Recognizing the Key Players in a Matrix Environment 253

The project manager 253

Project team members 255

Functional managers 255

The project owner 256

The project sponsor 256

Upper management 257

Working Successfully in a Matrix Environment 258

Creating and continually reinforcing a team identity 258

Getting team member commitment 259

Eliciting support from other people in the environment 259

Heading off common problems before they arise 260

Relating This Chapter to the PMP Exam and PMBOK 7 261

Chapter 12: Defining Team Members’ Roles and Responsibilities 263

Outlining the Key Roles 264

Distinguishing authority, responsibility, and accountability 264

Understanding the difference between authority and responsibility 265

Making Project Assignments 265

Delving into delegation 266

Sharing responsibility 271

Holding people accountable — even when they don’t report to you 272

Picture This: Depicting Roles with a Responsibility Assignment Matrix 276

Introducing the elements of a RAM 277

Reading a RAM 278

Developing a RAM 280

Ensuring your RAM is accurate 281

Dealing with Micromanagement 284

Realizing why a person micromanages 284

Gaining a micromanager’s trust 285

Working well with a micromanager 286

Relating This Chapter to the PMP Exam and PMBOK 7 286

Chapter 13: Starting Your Project Team Off on the Right Foot 287

Finalizing Your Project’s Participants 288

Are you in? Confirming your team members’ participation 288

Assuring that others are on board 291

Filling in the blanks 292

Developing Your Team 293

Reviewing the approved project plan 294

Developing team and individual goals 295

Specifying team member roles 295

Defining your team’s operating processes 296

Supporting the development of team member relationships 297

Resolving conflicts 297

All together now: Helping your team become a smooth-functioning unit 300

Laying the Groundwork for Controlling Your Project 303

Selecting and preparing your tracking systems 303

Establishing schedules for reports and meetings 304

Setting your project’s baseline 305

Hear Ye, Hear Ye! Announcing Your Project 305

Setting the Stage for Your Project Retrospective 306

Relating This Chapter to the PMP Exam and PMBOK 7 306

Part 4: Steering the Ship: Managing Your Project to Success 309

Chapter 14: Tracking Progress and Maintaining Control 311

Holding On to the Reins: Monitoring and Controlling 312

Establishing Project Management Information Systems 314

The clock’s ticking: Monitoring schedule performance 315

All in a day’s work: Monitoring work effort 322

Follow the money: Monitoring expenditures 327

Putting Your Control Process into Action 330

Heading off problems before they occur 330

Formalizing your control process 331

Identifying possible causes of delays and variances 333

Identifying possible corrective actions 334

Getting back on track: Rebaselining 334

Reacting Responsibly When Changes Are Requested 335

Responding to change requests 336

Creeping away from scope creep 337

Relating This Chapter to the PMP Exam and PMBOK 7 338

Chapter 15: Keeping Everyone Informed 339

I Meant What I Said and I Said What I Meant: Successful Communication Basics 340

Breaking down the communication process 341

Distinguishing one-way and two-way communication 341

Can you hear me now? Listening actively 342

Choosing the Appropriate Medium for Project Communication 344

Just the facts: Written reports 345

Moving it along: Meetings that work 346

Preparing a Written Project Progress Report 350

Making a list (of names) and checking it twice 350

Knowing what’s hot (and what’s not) in your report 351

Earning a Pulitzer, or at least writing an interesting report 352

Holding Key Project Meetings 355

Regularly scheduled team meetings 356

Ad hoc team meetings 357

Executive leadership progress reviews 357

Preparing a Project Communications Management Plan 358

Relating This Chapter to the PMP Exam and PMBOK 7 359

Chapter 16: Encouraging Peak Performance by Providing Effective Leadership 361

Exploring the Differences between Leadership and Management 362

Recognizing the Traits People Look for in a Leader 363

Developing Personal Power and Influence 365

Understanding why people do what you ask 365

Establishing the bases of your power 367

You Can Do It! Creating and Sustaining Team Member Motivation 368

Increasing commitment by clarifying your project’s benefits 369

Encouraging persistence by demonstrating project feasibility 370

Letting people know how they’re doing 371

Providing rewards for work well done 372

Leading a Diverse, Equitable, and Inclusive Project Team 373

Diversity is an asset worthy of inclusion 374

Equity is a choice – choose it 375

Relating This Chapter to the PMP Exam and PMBOK 7 375

Chapter 17: Bringing Your Project to Closure 377

Staying the Course to Completion 378

Planning ahead for your project’s closure 379

Updating your initial closure plans when you’re ready to wind down the project 380

Charging up your team for the sprint to the finish line 380

Handling Administrative Issues 381

Providing a Smooth Transition for Team Members 381

Surveying the Results: The Project Retrospective Evaluation 384

Preparing for the evaluation throughout the project 384

Setting the stage for the evaluation meeting 386

Conducting the evaluation meeting 387

Following up on the evaluation 389

Relating This Chapter to the PMP Exam and PMBOK 7 389

Part 5: Taking Your Project Management to the Next Level 391

Chapter 18: Using Newer Methods and Resources to Enhance Your Project Management 393

Taking a Look at the Agile Approach to Project Management 394

Understanding what drives the Agile approach 394

Taking a look at the elements of Agile when implemented through Scrum 396

Comparing the Agile and traditional (Waterfall) approaches 397

Using Computer Software Effectively 398

Looking at your software options 399

Helping your software perform at its best 404

Introducing project management software into your organization 406

Using Social Media to Enhance Project Management 407

Defining social media 408

Exploring how social media can support your project planning and performance 409

Using social media to support your project communications 411

Relating This Chapter to the PMP Exam and PMBOK 7 412

Chapter 19: Monitoring Project Performance with Earned Value Management 413

Defining Earned Value Management 414

Getting to know EVM terms and formulas 414

Looking at a simple example 418

Determining the reasons for observed variances 420

The How-To: Applying Earned Value Management to Your Project 421

Determining a Task’s Earned Value 425

Relating This Chapter to the PMP Exam and PMBOK 7 429

Part 6: The Part of Tens 431

Chapter 20: Ten Questions to Ask Yourself as You Plan Your Project 433

What’s the Purpose of Your Project? 433

Whom Do You Need to Involve? 434

What Results Will You Produce? 434

What Constraints Must You Satisfy? 435

What Assumptions Are You Making? 435

What Work Has to Be Done? 435

When Does Each Activity Start and End? 436

Who Will Perform the Project Work? 436

What Other Resources Do You Need? 437

What Can Go Wrong? 437

Chapter 21: Ten Tips for Being a Better Project Manager 439

Be a “Why” Person 439

Be a “Can Do” Person 440

Think about the Big Picture 440

Think in Detail 440

Assume Cautiously 440

View People as Allies, Not Adversaries 441

Mean What You Say and Say What You Mean 441

Respect Other People 441

Acknowledge Good Performance 442

Be a Manager and a Leader 442

Appendix: Combining the Techniques Into Smooth-Flowing Processes 443

Index 449