Project Management: Defining Projects & Deliverables

• Project management fundamentals are vital for success
• Focusing on defining projects helps to achieve strategic goals

Defining Projects

• Projects are temporary endeavors creating a unique product, service, or result
• Projects have definite beginning and end dates
• Projects aim to fulfill objectives by producing deliverables

Defining Deliverables

• Deliverables are unique, verifiable products, results, or capabilities to perform a service
• Necessary for completing a process, phase, or project

Four Qualities of Projects

• Creating a unique product, service, or result
• Temporary endeavor
• Driving change
• Enabling business value creation

Factors That Cause a Project to Start

• Meeting regulatory, legal, or social requirements
• Satisfying stakeholder requests or needs
• Implementing or changing business or technological strategies
• Creating, improving, or fixing products, processes, or services

Portfolio Management

• Oversees all programs and projects to ensure alignment with organizational strategy

Program Management

• Groups related projects under a program to manage them efficiently

Project Management

• Focuses on executing individual projects within a program, delivering specific deliverables

Operations Management

• Handles ongoing business activities to keep the company running
• Supports and maintains results from projects and programs

How Portfolio, Program, and Project Management Work

• Portfolio Management ensures programs align with organizational strategy
• Program Management organizes multiple projects with shared objectives
• Project Management focuses on successful delivery of each project
• Operations Management maintains business activities after project completion

Project Management Defined

• Involves applying knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to meet project requirements
• Achieved through project management processes, helping organizations meet objectives

Program Management Defined

• Program comprises of related projects, subsidiary programs, and activities for a set of goals
• Focuses on interdependencies between projects.
• Managing together allows benefits

Operations Management Explained

• Operations transform inputs into desired goods, services, or results, delivering customer value

• Differ from projects as operations are ongoing and managed by organizational managers.

• Operations management focuses on ongoing production and efficiency

• Project management is not as formal and is not covered

• Project management can be be used for operational management

Portfolio Management Explained

• Portfolio: a group of projects, programs, subsidiary portfolios managed to achieve strategic objectives
• Portfolio Management: ensures effective governance and achieves organizational strategies and focuses on the right programs and projects to business strategy

Project Life Cycle

• Project Life Cycle: A series of phases from start to completion to provide a framework for managing the project

Project Lifecycle Details

• Predictive or adaptive with phases that are sequential, iterative or overlapping
• Mapped in 4 phases:
• Starting the project
• Organizing and preparing the work
• Carrying out the work
• Ending the project

Project vs Product lifecycle

• Project Lifecycle: Independent of product lifecycles, which can be reproduced for a project
• Product Lifecycle: Represents the evolution of a product, which can include project lifecycles

Project Phase

• Collection of related project activities that produce measurable deliverables
• Project gates exist to decide what to do with each phase

Project Gate Details

• Review to modify a phase in a project
• Based on business and project documents
• Common phases exists through 4 categories:
• Phase Reviews
• Stage Gates
• Kill Points
• Phase Exits

Project Phase Details

• A process where activities use tools or techniques to create outputs

Project Management Processes

• Those processes required to achieve project objectives
• Logical grouping of project management processes to achieve specific project objectives
• With 5 categories:
• initiating, planning, executing, monitoring, then finally closing

The 5 project management processes summarised

• Initiating: Defining a new project
• Planning: Establishing the scope
• Executing: Completing the work
• Monitoring & Controlling: Tracking project progress
• Closing: Formally completing the project

Core areas

• Knowledge area: project management
• Includes Integration, Schedule, Quality, Communications, all the way through to procurement

Knowledge areas summarized

• Project Integration: combines processes
• Project Schedule: manages timely completion
• Project Quality: incorporates quality policy
• Project Communication: timely & appropriate planning of information
• Project Procurement: acquires products and services
• Project Scope: includes all the work required
• Project Cost: manages costs to complete projects
• Project Resources: identifies and acquires resources
• Project Risk: conducting resource planning and analysis
• Project Stakeholder: identifying people that impact the project

Business Project Artifacts

• Acts as input across all processes

Business Documents

• Business Case: documented study for validity of projects
• Project Benefits management plan: Describes how and when benefits are delivered

Project Agreements

• Binding documents that obligate a seller

Project Charter

• Authorizes the existence of a project and provides the project manager with organizational resources

Project Management Plan

• Comprehensive document that describes how the project will be used through completion

Project Documents

• Those documents will create an output from inputs for other processes

What to consider for project success

• What success looks like
• How it is measured

What else to consider for project success

• Completing the project benefits management plan
• Meeting ROI or other financial objectives
• Meeting non financial objectives
• Fulfilling all contracts to stakeholder satisfaction
• Customer Satisfaction