Project Management Planning Quiz

Project Management - Planning

• Instructor: Dr. Timur Narbaev, PhD, PMP®, A.M.ASCE
• Department: DIGEP dept, 5th floor
• Email: [email protected]
• Meeting Request: By email

Reading Material

• Kerzner book, 11th ed., chapter 11
• De Marco book, 2nd ed., chapter 7
• PMBOK® Guide, 6th ed., Process groups, Knowledge areas on stakeholder management

Course Topic Map (PMBOK Guide, 6th ed.)

• Knowledge Areas: Initiating, Planning, Executing, Monitoring and Control, Closing
• Specific topics within each Knowledge Area (Initiating, Planning, Executing, Monitoring and Control, Closing) are listed

Main Learning Outcomes

• Prepare a plan, define activities, and organize them.

Content

• Planning: Project participant's role, collecting requirements, statement of work (SoW), milestone schedule, work breakdown structure (WBS), WBS relationships with other breakdown structures, MCQs for practice.

Planning Questions

• Who plans the project?
• Who executes the project?
• Who is responsible for monitoring and controlling work?
• Who is responsible for feedback on planning and execution phases?

Project Manager's Responsibility

• Goals and objectives
• Major milestones
• Requirements
• Ground rules and assumptions
• Time, cost, and performance constraints
• Reporting requirements

Line Manager's Responsibility

• Detailed task descriptions
• Detailed schedules and manpower allocations to support budget and schedule
• Identification of areas of risk, uncertainty, and conflict

Senior Management Responsibility

• Negotiate disagreements between project and line management
• Clarify critical issues
• Communicate with customer's senior management

Collecting Requirements

• Effective total project planning depends on all necessary information being available.
• Key information requirements include the Statement of Work (SoW), milestone schedule, and work breakdown structure (WBS).

Statement of Work (SoW)

• Narrative description of the work to be accomplished
• Includes:
  • Project objectives
  • Brief description of the work
  • Funding constraints (if any)
  • Specifications
  • Schedules
  • Exclusions (what is not included)
  • Acceptance criteria

Statement of Work (SoW) - PMBOK® Guide

• Scope is the summation of all deliverables
• Project scope includes all products, services, and results
• Scope statement provides a basis for future decisions, ensures common knowledge of scope, and includes objectives, deliverables, end results, justification, and seven key questions
• Statement of work is a narrative description of deliverables on the contract.

Milestone Schedule

• Contains project start date, end date, and other major milestones, and data items (deliverables or reports).

Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

• Breaks down the entire scope of work into manageable components
• Provides a logical framework for managing and decomposing 100% of the work.
  • Can be product-oriented, deliverables-oriented, or result-oriented.
  • Includes work to be done by the project management team, members, subcontractors, and other stakeholders.
  • Can be presented in tabular or tree structure formats.
• WBS levels and decomposition examples provided

WBS Development Considerations

• Can be top-down, bottom-up, or combined approaches.
• Hardware, function, or combined classifications.
• Balance work effort against planning accuracy (accuracy versus leveling).
• Structure for objective control and evaluation
• Clear start/end dates for activities.
• Useful as a communication and team building tool.

WBS Levels

• Different levels of decomposition with descriptions (Program, Project, Task, Subtask, Work Package)

WBS Levelling Rules

• Top three levels are integrated efforts; not specific to departments.
• Each level contains 100% of work of parent.
• Each parent element must have at least two children elements.
• Every piece of work is assigned to one level of effort.
• Work packages should be identifiable and homogeneous.
• Work package level usually the level at which projects are managed.

Work Package

• Represents work performed at a specific level
• Clearly distinguishes work package from others within a group
• Typically 80 hours/2 weeks (size/nature dependent), Budget (dollars, man-hours, measurable units).

WBS Relationships with other structures

• Integrated information from WBS with other structures (e.g., Cost BS, Schedule, Risk BS, Communication BS, Product BS, Resources BS, Organization BS).
• Integration can be two- or multi-dimensional.

WBS and OBS Relationship

• OBS (Organization Breakdown Structure) represents the management responsibility within a performing organization.
• WBS should be integrated with OBS to assign unambiguous responsibilities for delivery, producing project control points,.

WBS and Contract WBS Relationship

• Contract WBS may integrate into primary WBS or be a subordinate WBS for an element.
• May aid in preparing for information requests, proposals, quotes, contract documents, etc.
• Similar applications to general WBS, including integration with RBS (Responsibility Breakdown Structure).

MCQs for Practice (Questions and Possible Answers)

• Provided questions and possible answers on different concepts and applications of WBS (lowest level in WBS, benefits of detailed WBS, responsibility for work required)
• Questions and answers on cost calculations using the example WBS.