Building the Project Management Framework

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Have you ever watched a house being built? Or built your own home? There's all the pre-building excitement: blueprints, permits, inspectors, approval, contracts, aspirin, and more planning. Finally, the workers come together and build a foundation and the house begins to appear. In the first few months, what do you have? You've nothing more than a skeleton of a house: the frame. If you were to look at other homes, big or small, they'd have a similar launch process-and a similar way of having the house created.

On a project, any project, there are fundamental activities that must happen before the work begins. The rules, management principles, planning, and general guidelines for a project are the project management framework. The project management framework is the skeleton of projects. And, just like a house, even though every project has a general framing, the end results are typically different.

The management of a project, the day-to-day activities, is the bones of successful project management. A project manager must monitor, maintain, and control the work of the project to ensure timeliness, accountability, quality, and success. Just as you wouldn't randomly build a home without plans and a level of control, a project requires a level of detail and management to guarantee completion and acceptability.

The five processes of a project are initiation, planning, execution, control, and closure (known as IPECC; you can remember these by thinking of syrup of ipecac-hopefully without the same unpleasant results.). The five processes interact with one another and allow the project manager, the project sponsor, the project team, and even the stakeholders to witness the progress, success, and, sometimes, failure of a project. These processes are cyclic, iterative, progressively elaborated, and chockablock full of work, documentation, and project manager participation. The following illustration shows the relationship between the five process groups.

If you were to skim through the PMBOK Guide, you wouldn't see any chapters related directly to the five processes. Instead, you'd find chapters on knowledge areas. The five processes of the project management life cycle (IPECC) are spread across these knowledge areas. This book will cross-reference the five processes with the nine knowledge areas.

The material in the following sections will acquaint you with the knowledge areas.

Exam Watch

If you want to pass the PMP exam, learn and love the project management knowledge areas. These knowledge areas are the different facets of project management a project manager will work through in each of the processes. Chapters 4 through 12 will detail all of the facts for each of the knowledge areas. A grid outlining the interaction of the process areas and the knowledge areas is on page 38 of the PMBOK Guide. You should be intimately familiar with this grid, and consider memorizing it to give yourself an edge up on the exam.

Project Integration Management

This knowledge area deals first with creating the official project plan. The project plan details can vary based on the size, impact, and priority of the project. Once the project plan is created, Integration Management ensures the plan is followed. Finally, Integrated Change Control is responsible for managing and controlling changes to the project. Project Integration Management includes

• The creation and approval of the project plan

• Executing the project plan

• Managing, controlling, and documenting changes to the project plan

Case Study: Implementing Project Integration Management

Zings Sweater Company, an international company that sells fancy cotton, silk, and wool sweaters, has hired you as their project manager. Zings Sweater Company uses old-fashioned machinery to create some of the finest and most comfortable sweaters in the world. Their busy manufacturing season is in late summer and again in early winter. They are thrilled to have you on board.

The Vice President of Sales for the Zings Sweater Company has a hot new idea to create a Frequent Customer Program for their clients. His idea is that customers can enroll in the program when purchasing sweaters in their stores, through www.zingsweaters.com, and even through a direct mail campaign. Once customers enroll, they'll receive coupons, discounts, and e-mail announcements about new sweaters.

Lucky you! You've been deemed the project manager of this massive, high-profile project. Through an initial feasibility study, the proposed project answers several business needs and has the potential to boost market share by seven percent.

To create your project, you'll have to complete plenty of research, break down the work into manageable chunks of activities, and rely on Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) from outside vendors and individuals on your recently recruited project team. As you work with your team, you'll have to rely on their findings, expert judgment, and evidence for decisions.

As the plan comes together, you'll document the current state of the company and make predictions about its future. Before any implementation begins, you and management will have to be in agreement regarding project requirements, expectations, and level of quality. Of course, this information will be documented in your project plan. Other inputs to your project plan will include related historical information, information gathered from stakeholders, and knowledge learned from your planning process.

Once your plan has been approved and you've been given the green light, the project team will get to work implementing the plan and working toward completion. You'll monitor and control project tasks through work authorization systems, guidelines set by the official project plan, and inputs from the experts on your project team. As you document the work, you'll report on the project's progress, the level of value, and the project's ability to end on schedule and on budget.

As this project moves forward, your project team may discover faster, better, or safer methods to complete the work than what was originally planned. Any deviation from the project plan will be documented, approved, and then updated (with your final approval) to the project plan-something Zings Sweater Company has not been used to doing.

Project Scope Management

The project scope encompasses all the required work, and only the required work, necessary to complete the project. Work that does not support the needs of the project is considered out of scope. Project Scope Management also includes verifying the work that the project team is completing is in alignment with project requirements. Project Scope Management includes

• Initiating the project

• Planning the project scope

• Defining the exact project scope

• Verifying the project scope

• Controlling project scope

Case Study: Enacting Project Scope Management

Your project with the Zings Sweater Company has a project scope. In this instance, the scope of the work at the highest level is to create a Frequent Customer Program. Through your research, you and your project team will break down this work into a logical plan. Requested work that does not fit within the project scope is out of bounds and should not be completed as part of this project.

For example, Nancy Martin, the Director of Retail Locations, requests that since you'll be creating a few databases of customers you should also create a directory of all of the store employees with their photos, information regarding their favorite sweaters, and other neat facts. While this request may have some merit, it is not in the original scope of the Frequent Customer Program you've been assigned to create. Sorry, Nancy, your request is out of bounds, out of scope, and won't be added onto this project.

During the management of the Frequent Customer Program Project you discover that one of your team members is promising store managers that customers will be able to request custom-tailored sweaters as part of this project. Nope. That feature, while handy, is out of the project scope.

At the end of the project, and often at the end of each project phase, you will walk the project sponsor and key stakeholders through the deliverables you've created. This is scope verification-the activity of proving that what you have promised through the scope is a reality for the customer of the project.

The Vice President of Sales, the sponsor of the Frequent Customer Program Project, needs the database in place as soon as possible. Through the planning process you know several databases will need to be created to store the customer information. Marketing material will have to be developed. There'll be training for the store employees. And there's all the marketing material to write and produce. Also, don't forget the Internet site will have to be updated to support the discounts. You know, as an employee, that there are 220 Zings Sweater stores throughout the world and each will need their point-of-sale software updated either in person or through a remote access solution.

Hmm… Should it be done ASAP? This high-profile project will cost a considerable amount of money, time, and effort in order to obtain the targeted seven-percent increase in market share. Not exactly a project you want to rush through and wreck.

Next, you and your team estimate the amount of time each activity will actually take to complete. As you begin to assign your team tasks and arrange the order of activities, you build a time estimate.

During this process, you discover dependencies that have to be in place for the project to move forward. You map out the work in a logical order and discover there are several possible paths to completion. You must decide which solution has an acceptable amount of risk, as well as how it should be coordinated with business cycles, other projects, and separate business demands, and whether or not it is realistic enough for you and your project team to move forward with it.

Another part of time management is mathematical analysis of possible best- and worse-case scenarios for activity duration. Through this analysis, your project management software, and expert judgment, you will create a project calendar that everyone can live with and work through. As the project progresses, you'll have to monitor the performance and confirm its alignment with what you've predicted. When schedule variances occur, you'll have to follow your Communications Plan to report these variances to management.

Project Cost Management

There are several methods you can use to predict project expenses, depending on the project type. For example, if you've done a similar project, you could rely on your historical information to predict the costs of the current project. Another method you can use is a mathematical formula called parametric modeling. This formula works well with price per unit, like cost per square foot, cost per metric, and so on. In many instances, the proposed project may have widely different costs, and aspects that have never been completed before. In these instances, the project manager will rely on traditional bottom-up estimations. Bottom-up estimations start at zero, with each expense accounted for until a grand total is reached.

In your cost estimate, you will also need to calculate the cost of travel, hardware, and software needed to complete the project. Don't forget to factor in marketing material, training, petty cash, and monies for team rewards like tickets to ball games, movies, and other intermittent incentives.

Once the project moves into implementation, you'll be accountable for the approved budget and will have to keep track of procurements, fees, invoices, and the employees' time. You'll need some accounting software or a few sharp pencils. Just kidding-rely on the accounting software.

Throughout the project, management is going to want to see how things are progressing in dollars and sense. For starters, you'll rely on actual costs against your predicted project baseline. This will only tell you so much. For complex projects, you'll really need some advanced method to see the actual progress in monetary value. For this, you'll use nine different formulas to calculate the value of the project, any cost or schedule variances, and evidence that the project will likely finish on time and on budget. The nine formulas comprise Earned Value Management.

Managing project cost includes

• Planning for resource allocation

• Providing accurate cost estimates

• Creating the project budget

• Using project management cost control techniques

• Proving project financial accountability

Case Study: Enacting Project Cost Management

Your project for Zings Sweater Company is creating lots of excitement. Sales reps, managers, and customer service reps are eager to see the end results. The goal of a seven-percent boost in market share really has upper management excited about your project. But, of course, upper management is also concerned about the cost of the project. While they realize it takes money to make money, their concern is that the project expenses won't outweigh the benefits of the project.

Because Zings Sweater Company has never created a project of this magnitude before, much of your estimates are just that-estimates. Your initial estimate, called 'the order of magnitude' estimate, has a range of variance from -25 percent to 75 percent. This initial estimate allows management to see the extremes of the project's likely costs.

As the project progresses, your initial estimate evolves into the budget estimate. This estimate accounts for the project work, vendors, and materials needed to deliver the project. You'll base this estimate on your conversations with the project team, the decomposition of the work into a work breakdown structure, and through proposals and quotes from vendors. This estimate gives management an estimate that is expected to vary no more than -10 percent and up to 25 percent. You've created a very accurate bottom-up estimate that everyone can live with.

To ensure the project stays within the accepted range of variance, you'll need a system to keep track of fees, invoices, travel, and other expenses. Management will need advance warning for capital expenses so they can plan cash flow accordingly.

The cost you assign to the project allows management to calculate the management horizon. Management horizon is the point in the future when the project will earn back the original investment and start creating new profits for the organization-a happy day.

Project Quality Management

In any project, there is a demand for quality. Project quality management planning is the process to ensure that the deliverables of the project satisfy its needs. Project quality management includes

• Planning for project quality

• Adhering to quality assurance

• Enforcing set quality control systems

Case Study: Ensuring Quality

You and your project team are very excited about the Frequent Customer Program Project. This project is high profile, will add a new service to your organization, and will help the company grow and become more profitable. The Vice President of Sales, the project sponsor, stops by during the initiating processes of the project to remind you how important this project is. He tells you that the entire company is counting on you and your team to deliver a superior, top-notch solution that is of utmost quality.

Nothing like some more pressure, eh?

You, being the expert project manager you are, have already been giving thoughts to the level of quality this project requires. The customers will use this service on a regular basis, the customer service reps in each of the retail locations will use this service, and all of the sales team will rely on the data from your creation to drive new sales and help the company grow.

As always, you begin with planning. Quality planning requires a look to your company's quality assurance policy or quality program such as ISO 9000 or Six Sigma. These quality methodologies, coupled with the requirements from the project stakeholders, will guide your team through the quality planning process.

With your quality plan in tow, you and your project team follow your company's quality assurance policy and begin implementing the quality plan. Throughout the implementation, you take measurements, respond to the measurements, and make adjustments as needed. For example, a manufacturer may take a sampling of one thousand units and expect no more than three defective units per one thousand. In your project, you have set a benchmark for acceptable levels of quality for the project deliverables.

You implement tools such as control charts and Pareto diagrams to measure quality and isolate reasons for defective results. With your team, you work on improving the results to meet the targeted quality benchmark. As you have planned, and as the project sponsor expects, if work falls below quality, it has to be redone before the project can move forward. No one, especially the project manager, likes to have to redo work since it means lost time and sunk costs. Sunk costs are funds already invested in a project regardless of the project's success.

Your project for Zings Sweater Company is progressing. Your team is working under extreme pressure to finish all of the different areas of the project-on time and on budget. You are monitoring the work schedule, costs, disruptions, delays, and are keeping a constant eye on the quality of the work created. Quality management is a knowledge area that spans not only the implementation of the project plan, but all of the project processes.

Project Human Resource Management

Project Human Resource Management is the process of successfully applying the right resource to the project work in the most effective way to accomplish the project goals while maintaining cost and schedule. Project Human Resource Management includes

• Developing a project organizational structure consistent with the organization's own structure

• Fulfilling staff acquisitions

• Developing the project team

Case Study: Applying Project Human Resources

Thankfully, you've been a project manager for years-just not with Zings Sweater Company. However, the level of confidence your company has in you is tremendous. They allow you to make decisions, control the budget, with some approval, and generally give you a fair amount of autonomy on the project. Of course, if the project fails, it's your entire fault. As this experienced project manager, you also have to take on the human resources issues such as bargaining with managers for specific employees, accounting for team members' time, and occasionally disciplining team members.

Your human resource knowledge area will be based on the structure of your company. In some organizations, the project manager has very little power, and all decisions flow through a functional manager. Other companies, like Zings, use a matrix structure which allows project managers some authority. Nevertheless, project managers and project team members still answer to a functional manager. Other entities use a projectized approach where the project manager is the manager and the project team answers directly to the project manager for the duration of the project.

During the planning process, you learn what roles and responsibilities will be required to complete the project. Based on your current team, you learn that several required roles are missing. Now you'll have to work with the project sponsor and functional managers to recruit new team members with the needed talent on the project team. In addition, there are some procurement issues since you've elected to bring in a few consultants and SMEs to join the project team.

With this large project, and equally large project team, there's an immediate need for the team members to get acquainted and learn about each other. You decide to take your team on a team-building outing: a wilderness survival camp. At the outing, the team will learn about each other, learn to work together, and to work towards a common goal.

Another facet of your human resource management plan is training. Many of the team members need their skills upgraded to complete the necessary work. In addition, there will be internal training on the usage of the Frequent Customer Program to ensure the team knows how the software and web site should work.

As the project moves through the implementation stage, you'll meet with the project team to discuss variances, problems, and other issues that may creep into the work. But not everything is bad. You also have created a method for recognizing the completion of work, completion of major milestones, and have set incentives for completing scheduled work on time and on budget.

Project Communications Management

Project managers spend the bulk of their time communicating. Half of communicating is listening. When it comes to project communications management know this: it's all about who needs what and when. We'll discuss communications in detail in Chapter 10. Project communication management includes

• Planning effective communications

• Designing information retrieval systems

• Reporting on the project team and on the project performance

• Following the Communications Management Plan to close out the project

Case Study: Applying Project Communications Management

Your project, the Frequent Customer Program, for Zings Sweater Company is huge and will require much of your time and attention to complete it as planned. A project of this magnitude will require special care for communicating the project progress. Your team, which is non-collocated, will require frequent updates, your sponsor will need weekly status reports, upper management has requested milestone reports, and even retail store managers would like information on the project status.

Your project team, however, is located around the world. Many of the team members speak different languages and, obviously, live in different time zones. You've created a method to allow for communications, timed meetings, and the creation of subteams with designated team leaders. The management of a collocated team requires additional thought and planning. Everything contained in this paragraph is part of communication planning.

You already know, based on past experience, that team meetings, vendor meetings, and status report meetings can eat up entire days of time-a necessary evil. You also know there'll be plenty of informal communications, such as hallway meetings, lunch meetings, and quick phone calls and e-mails. With all of these communication demands on top of the project, how will you be able to hold all of it together?

Ah, yes, the planning process. During the planning process, you'll research and discover the exact communication requirements-based on stakeholder analysis-and then set a schedule to satisfy those communication requirements. Your communications management plan will detail the reports, meetings, and summaries required by this project. And, of course, you'll be allowed to revisit the planning process as needed to update and amend the Communications Management Plan.

Communications, from meetings to memos, will need to be documented through minutes, organization, and consistency. Based on past projects, you've created an information retrieval system that allows qualified team members and stakeholders to search and retrieve information that has been recorded in a database of knowledge. This information retrieval system accomplishes a record of communications, helps you make decisions, and helps conclude the project based on the wealth of knowledge you've collected.

The Vice President of Sales, the project sponsor, drops by your office early in the project to chat. During this conversation, he reminds you that you'll be doing monthly reports on the project and team performance. Several of the project team members will be on this project full time and their managers want some accountability for their employees' time. Now you must update the communications management plan: more communications, more reports, more requirements.

As the project progresses, you'll follow your communications management plan for meetings, written communications, and record keeping. You'll also use several modalities for information distribution: e-mail, an intranet web site, memos, and printed reports are just a few options you've chosen. During the project, you'll also close out each project phase with a Lessons Learned document that you'll use again in the final project closure.

Project Risk Management

Risks are events that can affect a project for good or for bad. Project risk management is the process of identifying, classifying, and weighing the risks to determine their impact on the project should they come into play. Project risk management includes

• Planning for Risk Management

• Identifying risks

• Using qualitative risk analysis

• Using quantitative risk analysis

• Creating project risk response plans

• Actively monitoring and reacting to project risks

Case Study: Enforcing Project Risk Management

Zings Sweater Company requires an extensive analysis of risks within projects that could hinder the success of the project, interrupt business processes, or drive customers away. Your project, the Frequent Customer Program, will require extensive risk analysis as it will affect the way the company does business, the marketing campaigns aimed at frequent customers, and, if all goes well, an increase in market share.

Your reliance on planning requires you and the project team to break down the work into manageable chunks, map out the work from start to finish, and then begin identifying risks that could stop the project from completing. You'll have to discuss your work implementation strategy with key stakeholders to consider other business processes that may coincide with your plan, discuss areas of your plan that could result in loss of sales, and examine the plan for risks that are acceptable, unacceptable, or risks that can be easily neutralized.

Through qualitative risk analysis you will lead your team through risk planning sessions. In these sessions, you'll rank the risks according to probability and impact. Then, once the ranking is complete, you'll calculate an overall project risk score. Finally, you'll create plans for the major risks uncovered. You'll also use historical information for similar projects to look for trends in the risk analysis.

In conjunction with qualitative risk analysis, you'll use a more in-depth approach to study the risks you've discovered: quantitative analysis. In this process, you'll interview stakeholders, experience the work to see the risk impact, and apply tools such as decision trees, simulations, and formulas for the cost of mitigating the identified risks. Sounds like fun, right?

Once you've created the risk response plan you'll apply the plan as needed as the work progresses. With your project team and stakeholders you'll keep a lookout for signs that any identified risks are coming to fruition. In addition, you'll be allowed to revisit the planning process to update your risk management plan as new risks may come to light or old risks are taken out of play.

Through hard work and diligence you'll work with the project team and the project sponsor to ensure that risks are neutralized, documented, and that the risk management plan is updated and executed as needed.

Project Procurement Management

Project procurement management is the process of purchasing goods or services from vendors. Managing project procurement includes

• Planning for project procurement

• Planning for solicitation

• Management Project solicitation

• Selecting vendors

• Managing and creating procurement documents

• Administering and closing project contracts

Case Study: Utilizing Project Procurement Management

Your project, the Frequent Customer Program, has many demands: technology, travel, marketing, training, and more. Based on your initial project plan, there are not enough internal resources to complete the labor. Therefore, you'll be forced to contract vendors to help with the project work. This begins your procurement management.

During your planning process, you'll use make-or-buy analyses to determine what areas of the project must, or should be, outsourced, and then establish requirements for vendors. Zings Sweater Company has a qualified seller list that you'll use to request proposals and proposals for the project work. This vendor solicitation process will require expert judgment, historical information, and most likely input from management, the project team, and even other SMEs to help determine the best price and legal contracts.

Through bidder conferences, vendors will interview you on the project work, the level of quality, and the expected requirements for the work they may be completing. The vendors can then use this information to create estimates, proposals, and bids to complete the project contract.

Once the contracts have been awarded and the vendors go about completing the project work, you'll have to monitor the vendor's performance for quality, results, and schedule control. The vendors will provide their reports regarding the schedule and any variances to keep you abreast of their progress. You and the vendors will work together for the good of the project to ensure the integration of their work and your project team's work.

Finally, the vendors will want to be paid. You'll have contracts, statements of work, and invoices to confirm. You will review and approve invoices based on actual work completed, expedite the payment according to the contract terms, or meet with the vendor to discuss any issues with the invoices. At the end of the project, you will close out any project accounts, confirm that purchase orders have been fulfilled, and that invoices have been, or are being, processed.

Inside the Exam

The PMP exam is not for rookies. The application process alone can filter out the unqualified and the merely curious. You've purchased this book to find out more information on how to pass the exam, what the exam entails, and to prep for your exam-a wise decision. Now make another wise decision: begin completing your PMP exam application. The application process can be lengthy since you'll have to track down past information relating to projects you've completed.

By starting sooner, rather than later, in completing your exam application, you'll be focusing more on completing your exam studies than completing the exam application. In addition, response time from the Project Management Institute (PMI) to accept and approve your application can vary from a few days to weeks. Start now and you'll be on your way.

You won't see any questions about Zings Sweater Company on the exam. You will, however, be presented with similar scenarios that will test your project management abilities. Specifically, you'll need to know how the project manager works through the project processes. You should be familiar with the project management process groups, what a project deliverable is, and the requirements of a project scope.

Know that the project moves through phases to reach completion. The project manager oversees the project work as it moves through phases, but the project customer must approve the work. Specifically, the results of phases must pass through scope verification. Scope verification is the formal acceptance of the project work.

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