Project Management 2.0

Happy September & thank you again for being Members of the ProjectManagement.com community!

Download these quick before they're back in the PREMIUM library! These are all examples of premium content available 24/7 to our Premium Members. However, they are free to every registered member through Friday, September 20th. We hope these make your life a bit easier – helping us fulfill our mission of making YOU more successful. If you are not already a Premium Plus member but would like to be,Premium Plus membership is available at a $50 discount using the code "KEEP50".

The following premium templates are available to all ProjectManagement.com members until 9/20. We hope you find them useful. 

Stakeholder Relationship Organizer (NEW THIS MONTH!)
PREMIUM DELIVERABLE
By completing and referencing this template, you will gain an improved understanding of the project from the perspective of each stakeholder. You will find this template indispensable throughout the project for managing and getting the most out of your stakeholder relationships.

Change HEADWAY Change Readiness Document
PREMIUM DELIVERABLE
This document provides a high-level Change Readiness Summary to be inserted to the Business Case. For smaller projects the Change Readiness Assessment may be more useful to relate this change to the other changes planned or underway in the area of the organization affected, contributing to the cumulative change picture. For large projects this represents a key element where absolute clarity is required at the senior decision-making level prior to embarking upon detailed planning of the change.

Requirements Candidate Summary (NEW THIS MONTH!)
PREMIUM DELIVERABLE
This planning guide will help you with the review and selection of project requirements to be included in the current scope. All requirements candidates are captured here, along with some basic information about them. Each candidate is then scored based on a number of different factors. The completed template provides a validation that the requirements ultimately approved are the ones that are the most appropriate for inclusion.

Team Operating Agreement
PREMIUM DELIVERABLE
This Team Operating Agreement will document the team’s agreement around: values, decision-making, communication, problem-solving and commitments.

Project Closeout Survey Template (NEW THIS MONTH!)
PREMIUM DELIVERABLE
What is the most neglected phase of a project? Get help with your closeout survey using this template in combination with one of the many online survey tools available. The survey is easy to implement, repeatable, customizable, anonymous and valuable for getting better at what we do.

Sample RFP for Replacing an Information System
PREMIUM DELIVERABLE
Is your company about to select and implement a new information system? This sample RFP, taken from real life, was originally designed to address the current and future financial, trading and distribution operations needs of a large international company dealing with foreign countries, languages and currencies. But even if you don't have a large, international business, you'll find lots of good ideas on how to write your own killer RFP.

List of Common Schedule Risks
PREMIUM DELIVERABLE
This list and overview of common schedule risks will help you maintain vigilance against pitfalls that can interrupt, stop or ruin your software development project.

Application Maintenance Manual
PREMIUM DELIVERABLE
The Application Maintenance Manual presents information on your system and describes the programs in technical detail to assist the maintenance programmer. It is written for personnel who are responsible for the maintenance of the system and who need to understand the operating environment, security and control requirements.

Calculating Earned Value
PREMIUM DELIVERABLE
Earned value is a project technique you can use to monitor, track and report on the performance of any project. This document is a cheat-sheet of formulas you can use to confidently calculate earned value.

Calculating the Long-Term COSTS of a Layoff
PREMIUM DELIVERABLE
While no one likes to do it, laying off people sometimes is a cost-effective way of saving a business in a struggling economy. If you are thinking about laying people off (and we sincerely hope you don't have to), calculate the long-term costs involved in such a drastic move.

Calculating the Long-Term SAVINGS of a Layoff
PREMIUM DELIVERABLE
While no one likes to do it, laying off people sometimes is a cost-effective way of saving a business in a struggling economy. If you are thinking about laying people off (and we sincerely hope you don't have to), calculate the long-term savings your company could reap from such a drastic move.

Calculator for Multi-Criteria Decision-Making
PREMIUM DELIVERABLE
Here in Excel form is a handy calculator for multi-criteria decision-making (e.g. build or buy decisions).

Situation: Your Company Needs to Invest More in Project Management Training

My last posting "Does Formal Training Matter", generated a lot of discussion and a really great solution from one of our members, Michael Stanleigh.  It was good enough that I felt I had to share it with you. Another member had just asked how he measured training effectiveness...

Would this approach work for you?  Why or why not?

REMINDER POSTING: Just in case you didn't receive the message below, here are this month's free templates. Grab them while they're available & please let us know what you think of them!

Thank you again for being Members of the ProjectManagement.com community!

Download these quick before they're back in the PREMIUM library! These are all examples of premium content available 24X7 to our Premium Members. However, they are free to every registered member through Thursday, August 22nd. We hope these make your life a bit easier – helping us fulfill our mission of making YOU more successful. If you are not already a Premium Plus member but would like to be, Premium Plus membership is available at a $50 discount using the code "KEEP50". 

The following premium templates are available to all ProjectManagement.com members until 8/22. We hope you find them useful.

Strategic Requirements Template (NEW THIS MONTH!)
PREMIUM DELIVERABLE
This deliverable aligns with the concepts expressed in the article Strategic Requirements Management. This template should be used in conjunction with a more traditional requirements document to assist in the prioritizing of features and the finalizing of scope elements. It can also support discussions around changes in scope during the project. The cells provide a basic summary of each column.

Evaluating Your Project's Potential for Outsourcing
PREMIUM DELIVERABLE
This document outlines how to evaluate your project’s potential for outsourcing, and describes the factors that help determine outsourcing’s pros and cons as a project development option, analyses on its cost-benefit and risks, and other requirements under it. These items are in addition to other factors that you may wish to include. 

Requirements Traceability Matrix (NEW THIS MONTH!)
PREMIUM DELIVERABLE
At the most basic level traceability is concerned with two things: Ensuring that every requirement is built into the completed product/solution, and ensuring that every feature ties back to a requirement. This template is a very simple guide for organizations just starting to trace requirements. As organizations become more comfortable with traceability, they will likely want to add additional columns, but this will serve to help ensure that all requirements are built and that all features match requirements.

Requirements Manager
PREMIUM DELIVERABLE
Three core requirements management tools can effectively improve project management success: building a requirements tree, creating a requirements traceability matrix and establishing a requirements baseline. 

Budget Template Workbook (NEW THIS MONTH!)
PREMIUM DELIVERABLE
The Budget Template Workbook includes: a cost estimate sheet to document your initial cost assumptions, a planning templateto help you take a detailed look at planning costs, and a tracking template to track actual costs against budget and document reasons for variances. It's a great planning and communication tool to help you stay on top of project finances. 

Project HEADWAY Risk Impact Tool
PREMIUM DELIVERABLE
This spreadsheet will help you align your project efforts with the specific risks you face on your project to make estimating and resource management more accurate and effective. 

Project HEADWAY Project Status Report
PREMIUM DELIVERABLE
The purpose of a status report is to provide the project sponsor, the steering committee and other stakeholders with an understanding of how the project is progressing. The status report template allows the project manger to provide the audience members with a high-level view of the project. The template provides them with enough information in order to for them to understand project progress--but not so much information as to overwhelm them. 

Sharpen the Saw!

ProjectManagement.com's PMprep Questions are a great way to "sharpen the saw". They are terrific if you are preparing for a certification test, and they also help you earn badges and build out the skills in your profile. Each correct answer ups your PM Street Cred. 

Challenge Your PM Peers To A Friendly Battle!

PMwars! are raging on. Think of it as Words With Friends for Project Managers. You challenge a colleague or any PM on the site to answer a randomly selected set of questions from our bank of over 1,700. Each player has 90 seconds to answer as many as possible correctly--then we have a winner! It's a quick, easy way to brush up on some of the finer academic aspects of PM and have a little fun at the same time. You probably saw an earlier email from me about this month's contest. We're giving away two premium memberships and two copies of Project Pain Reliever to the four players who play the most games by the end of the month. Give it a try and let us know what you think! 

Thank you again for being a ProjectManagement.com member! We sincerely appreciate your support and are completely committed to your success. If we can help with anything project related, please let us know at contactus@projectmanagement.com.

Best,
Dave
Dave Garrett
President & CEO, projectmanagement.com

Situation: You are considering investments in PM training. 

With the way the economy has been over the past few years, companies have generally scaled back their investments in PM training. They often emphasize on the job training with eers or just rely on lower cost options - at times even just hiring more experienced help at the same or lower pay.

According to a new study released by ESI International, entitled “The Global State of the PMO: An Analysis for 2013”, project managers are being trained in fewer skills compared to 2012—by as much as 20%. It was found, however, that organizations committed to applying training on the job and measuring its impact on job performance deliver projects on-time and to-budget more often than organizations without training adoption in place.

Here are a few metrics and commentary from the study

Methodology and Tools Training:

• In 2013, 62% of workers who report up to a PMO said they receive training in using methodology and tools. That is a decrease from 75% in 2012.

• Less than half (47%) of non-PMO managed workers received methodology and tool training in 2013, down from 68% in 2012.

Soft Skills Project Training:

• A very low 30% of PMO-managed workers said they receive soft skills training (e.g., leadership, critical thinking, team building) down from 41% in 2012.

• Only 22% of non-PMO managed workers received soft skills training in 2013, compared with 35% in 2012.

“While these training numbers reveal a decline in project-focused training, the survey  underscores the importance of training and its direct correlation to project success,” said Ward. The study found that 56% of respondents who are part of PMOs that are active in measuring training impact and learning sustainment said more than 75% of projects were delivered on time, to budget, within scope and to customer expectations. That number plummets to 39% for those whose PMOs are not active in either."

What's the situation at your company? Have they cut back on training?  If so, has it made a huge difference in people's performance?

Situation: You need a quick description of how you can leverage CPA on your project.

Our Techniques Wiki offers a library of commonly used approaches to tactical challenges on your project. Critical Path Analysis is a pretty well used technique, so I thought it would be useful to highlight it here and get your take on our "official version". The beauty of posting it as a wiki is that it's community driven and refined. If you think it should change - you can change it. 

Critical Path Analysis

'An analysis technique used to identify the critical (essential) and non-critical (non-essential) activities associated with a business process or work plan and the amount of float (slack) associated with each noncritical activity'. The result of the analysis defines the critical path, a sequential set of related and essential steps that comprise a value stream or work plan. It is the longest path, in terms of duration, that passes through all the critical steps of a value stream or work plan, and determines the fastest time to completion. The results of critical path analysis are depicted graphically in a Critical Path Diagram.

Applications

• To identify the critical and non-critical activities associated with a business process or work plan.
• To identify non-critical steps which can be eliminated, at minimum cost, to improve the value stream or work plan.
• To identify the amount of time an activity may be delayed without affecting subsequent, dependent activities or the ending time or date.

Procedures

• Identify all steps in the business process or work plan.
• Document the steps in the sequence in which they occur.
• Identify the relationships between steps, and document the dependencies between them.
• Determine the latest allowable start and end time or date at which each step can occur without delaying the next step and, subsequently, the whole value stream or work plan.
• Assign a float value to each task. Critical tasks should have zero float. Non-critical tasks will have a numeric value associated with them, representing slack time.
• Calculate the float for each step by subtracting the Early Start time or date from the Late Start time or date and assign a float value to each task and sub-task.
• Using the information collected above, identify the critical and non-critical tasks and sub-tasks by determining the duration of the value stream or work plan.
• Chart/document the critical path.

Instructions

The essence of critical path analysis is to examine all options for reducing the duration of time required to complete the critical steps in a business process or work plan. Tasks, their duration, and their dependency relationships determine the critical path. When applied in business reengineering, critical path analysis addresses issues of quality, efficiency, and cost reduction by standardizing work efforts and eliminating unnecessary steps to reduce the time required to satisfy the customer of the value stream. In project planning, it is applied to determine all options (duration, cost, resource requirements) for reducing the work plan or project duration and for determining the amount of time an activity may be delayed without affecting subsequent, dependent activities or the project end date. When used in conjunction with Cycle Time Analysis andDependency Analysis, Critical Path Analysis is an effective tool to measure the quality of the business process or work plan by analyzing the steps in the path, measuring inefficiencies, and determining what steps can be eliminated to improve a business process redesign or reduce the amount of time required in the work plan.

Critical path analysis begins with the identification of all activities (tasks and sub-tasks) which are part of the business process or work plan. Document the tasks and sub-tasks in sequential order; documentation can be prepared using various diagramming techniques such as block diagrams, work flow diagrams, etc. (see Work Flow Diagramming), in a simple list, or using a automated project management tool for creating work plans.

Once all tasks and sub-tasks have been identified, identify the relationships between the tasks and sub-tasks, usingDependency Analysis. Determine which tasks and sub-tasks are dependent upon one another and establish a predecessor or successor relationship. Document these relationships on the diagram, list or work plan.

Determine the critical and non-critical activities by assigning a float value to each task and determining the float associated with each task and sub-task. Float represents slack time, the amount of time an activity may be delayed without affecting succeeding activities (free float) or the ending duration or date (total float). Critical tasks should have zero float as there should be no slack time associated with them. Critical tasks must be accomplished sequentially and promptly; thus, when a critical task is delayed, the completion and duration of the business process or the end date of the project is affected. Non-critical tasks and sub-tasks have a numeric float value associated with them, as there can be slack time without affecting the end result. This value (e.g., float value of 1=slack time of 1 unit of time that is being measured) represents the amount of delay that can occur without affecting the duration of the business process or the work plan. To determine the float associated with each task or sub-task, define the early start and early end duration or date for each task or sub-task (e.g., the earliest possible time each task and/or sub-task can begin and end). (See also Cycle Time Analysis.) Calculate the float for each step by subtracting the early start time or date from the late start time or date.

Chart the critical path by identifying all critical steps (those with zero float). The path through all steps or events that have zero float represents the critical path. The non-critical steps (those with associated float) are candidates for elimination from the value stream or work plan.

Although resource constraints do not affect true critical path calculation, critical path analysis may be followed by resource planning, using resource manipulation techniques such as Resource Allocation, Loading and Leveling to improve project schedules and end dates.