Transcript for:
Comprehensive Project Management Course Insights

hey everyone welcome to simply learn today we will be learning the project management's fill course we will begin this video by talking about what project management is project planning how can it be done using excel cost quality communication and other forms of management the best project managing tools how you can prepare for the pmp exam the role of a project manager interview questions and much more by the time you are done you will be well versed with some of the most important concepts in project management for this training with me we have a specialist chandra mr and ishan together they will take you through these different topics so let's start by answering our first question what is project management so before we begin make sure to subscribe to our youtube channel and don't forget to hit that bell icon so that you can never miss an update from simply learn hi welcome to project management tutorial from simple learn i am chandra mr a professional consultant and coach in best practices related to project management and i.t service management today as part of this tutorial we are going to learn the basic understanding about the project management and the required knowledge for a project manager to become successful in managing projects so as part of this tutorial we are going to look at what is project management what is project components of project management project life cycle key focus areas in project management job roles in project management and project management certifications so what is project management now as defined in pmis pmbok project management is application of knowledge skills tools and techniques to project activities to meet project requirements so every project will have an objective to accomplish similarly the objective of project management is to make the final deliverables in a finite time and budget this involves having clear understanding about the deliverables of the project require resources for the project resource in terms of human resources technical resources financial resources etc project managers should have a full picture of those aspects we can call it as constraints or aspects and manage those throughout the project life cycle for which a project manager should have a full view about a project and what is that this project has to accomplish that objective should be clear so as part of project management the six constraints which project manager should look at are scope time quality cost risk and resources so each of these areas has very important role to play in project management the clarity in scope the clarity in terms of schedule within which the project has to be delivered the cost what it incurs to that particular project once it is finalized one cannot vary when cannot change without any proper approvals similar to that we have quality management which has to ensure the scope the specifications what are defined project output will be accordingly achieved risk every project is taken up for a specific reason by organization so organization should assess the risk associated with the project and similarly as project progresses various different risks has to be identified like risk related to project management risk related to technology area risk related to resources risk related to financial things so broadly risk management plays a very important role so there will be something called contingency reserve kept for a identified risk above the cost what is estimated for various deliverables from the project so every projects require resources resources may be in terms of human resources financial resources technology resources environmental resources so all these resources are used to produce the output of the project so these resources has to be managed with the sufficient optimization and standardizations required now let us understand the definition of a project so what is the project pmi defines a project as a temporary endower undertaken to create a unique product service or result the temporary nature of a project indicates that the project has a definite beginning and end so when i say product unique product it means every output it may be similar products you are producing with the same features and functionality but the output of every project is unique because it is unique in terms of all the six constraints what we just discussed now now when i say product it is very easy for us to visualize it may be a desktop it may be a laptop it may be a car it may be a machine etc but how do i visualize a service a project output is a service now it is it's about building a capability a project by through a project a capability can be built to ensure services can be provided that's what the output of project is service for example if i think about a taxi services for providing a taxi services i need a mobile app i need taxi i need a server i need a data center so all these are various different products and services here service example can be internet service so combination of all the services and products builds the capability for an organizations who can provide the taxi services so building that capability we say it is an output of a particular project which is called service similarly results can be improvement of something improvement in customer satisfaction increase in some specific objectives or specific results needs to be achieved in performance perspective so output of every project will be unique product or a service or a result this we need to clearly understand so when we say there is a definite beginning and end every project starts at a certain point in time and ends at certain point in time so it has a definite beginning and end that is the reason it is temporary in nature it is not an ongoing business activity right so every project will have a life cycle a beginning and end so when it starts till end until the result or a service or a product which comes as an output of a project project lifecycle is not ended so interestingly in a product life cycle or in a service lifecycle you come across many project life cycles so one project life cycle means one project is initiated to introduce a product or services next project or initiated would be to enhance the capability of a service or a product next project initiated after some time is to optimize something similarly at the end of the product lifecycle project is initiated to retire that product or services so in a given product life cycle there will be multiple project life cycle so what is involved in the project life cycle it involves five areas five groups we can call it as so initiation planning execution monitoring and closure so when i say initiation it's all about understanding what is project giving the basic understanding of the project collating the details and having key stakeholders identified once that is done one will move towards planning so here in the initiation it is very clearly one has to understand is project is worthwhile of doing so one has to check the feasibility one has to measure that particular investment is making sense and then confirm yes it makes sense to invest now next planning as we have a basic understanding of yes this project has to be done and a discussion with the key stakeholders have happened now that moves towards planning now in planning one will understand the project in entirety if it is a waterfall approach one has to have a clear articulation of entire project a comprehensive details holistic approach now if you go if you are going in a project in a agile way of approach now in this planning you may have a big skeleton as you go in each of the iteration you may go deep dive into detailed planning if it is agile approach so planning provides you the clear insight towards what needs to be done in this project how it has to be done and what are the results which can be achieved out of that particular project so this involves making that a clear blueprint often project objectives what we are supposed to achieve so this will become a reference point throughout the project lifecycle then execution as you have a blueprint of the project as the direction of that project is set detailing of the project has been made one will go ahead and execute the project executing the sense implementation acquiring resources and implementing it so execution phase involves the allocation of resources and making the deliverables as required you acquire resources you configure a resource you ensure right resources are required if it is human resource one has to educate that human resource with the project required knowledge or details or one has to provide that assignment in such a way that skills of that individuals what they should have is acquired by those individuals so that deliverables can happen and they need to be managed the entire team needs to be managed for that a clear structure has to be created similarly when you do technology resource perspective those components has to be tested configured then integrated again tested for uncheck the performances so collective action of this results in a deliverable during the execution so as the deliverables are happening in the execution it is quite obvious project manager has to monitor review control that particular deliverable and also the processes tools resources used during the project even those needs to be monitored so that they are complying to the defined processes so during monitoring there may be a deviation one can found during monitoring there may be the project is running the way it is required so in this monitoring phase it involves an action from project manager to monitor and control the work of the project so comparing with the blueprint of plan what is accomplished what is created during the planning phase of this project and as the execution happens monitoring and control is monitoring it and checking is that activities what is being done is according to the plan or not similarly the deliverables which comes as an output of our projects are tested thoroughly whether those have a specific features and functionality and are they functioning the way it is required now project has to be delivered to the scope what is defined it should not go beyond that or below that similarly the schedule what is made for the project within that schedule project deliverables needs to be accomplished within the cost what is budgeted for the project so during the project your project manager may find there are certain deviations which are occurred there are additional challenges which has come in so for this reason one has to ensure continued monitoring as the execution happens and identify those deviation and ensure whenever there is a deviation there is a correction whenever there is an additional things coming in that needs to be considered carefully whether that need to be involved as part of this deliverable or should be taken it separately so this requires lot of conversation with all the stakeholders of the project during the entire project life cycle especially during planning execution monitoring and control since they are not the one which is happening in sequence so planning can also come back again where there is something which you may require to modify so may require to have a change in the blueprint itself by adding that new change which is coming in so you go back to planning so planning execution monitoring and control are going hand in hand so that project deliverables are happening as needed similarly all the process work instructions all those templates what is given are used one is complying to those requirement it is very important and project is done within the scope schedule and time and the quality metrics defined then as the completion of the project happens as the monitoring and control says yes deliverable has happened according to the requirement then the project moves to the closure the closure may be closure of a specific project phase a milestone deliverable or a faisal deliverable or it can be a deliverable at the end of the project which is the ultimate deliverable so processes in closing has to be triggered whenever there is end of the phase whenever there is a deliverable to conclude and also at the end of the project to conclude the entire project so during the closure one has to ensure capturing all the details in terms of what is accomplished against what is defined what went wrong what went well what is a learning one has to take to the next level or the next phase or to the next project and at the same time a sign-off has to be obtained formally and everything should be summarized and have a good handshake with the project stakeholder mainly a business or customer and also disseminating of team means you will dismantle the entire team and send them back to their specific units or specialization and they may get assigned to new project or if it is a functional they can go back to their functions to do their functional activities so that was about entire project lifecycle what happens now while doing this i mentioned there are six constraints that is scope schedule cost quality risk and resources so keeping these in mind one has to ensure project is successful in all aspects so to become successful there are few key areas which has to be looked at so first six key areas are scope schedule cost quality resources and stakeholders now let us look at the scope what does scope means scope is about what needs to be delivered what is in scope what is out of the scope so this refers to all those deliverable scope all those activity scope basically we speak about two things one is product scope and project scope product scope is all about ensuring the features functionality of products are well defined and understood and signed off and while delivering that product that is tested against those defined features and functionalities whereas projects go focus on all the activities needs to be done all those templates which has to be used all the process which has to be complied with all the skills which is required to be applied so it is going as defined so by doing this activities which is defined as part of project scope the result the deliverable will come out which will be in line with the deliverables features and functionality which is defined as part of product scope it is very important to ensure entire projects happens within this particular scope there should not be any deviations from this schedule perspective for that specifications what were defined for a product and project so these needs to be done in a specific point in time means in a specific schedule there will be start time and time right so one has to plan how long a project would take and what are the deliverables should happen in what sequence what activities are required to accomplish this so all these needs to be understood so while performing the schedule management one has to look at a specific deliverable at a specific point in time by applying a specific set of activities required so this will tell you the duration of the project this will provide the sequence of project this will also help you to understand the dependency between one task to another task this will also help you to understand how the deliverables happening in what sequence which helps in prioritizing your deliverables third is cost so as we know to do any project it is very essential to ensure project happens within that budget so project cost is estimated initially then that estimated cost will be checked checked in terms of is the assumptions considerations are right or wrong is that really so much of a monetary resource are required for the project and then after understanding the justification and obtaining the clarity budget is i mean monetary resources are allocated and confirmed approved then it will become a budget that will be a cost baseline so these estimation allocation of budget once it happens that will become a base and any deviations from that cannot happen so easily so any deviations because of additional of scope that can be handled through change management but idealistic scenario the cost should not escalate or come down organization can also set certain tolerances at the project level considering various different scenarios like scenario of risks scenario of something which deviated from the deliverable so to what extent it can deviate that tolerance will also be set at the economic or monetary value perspective that is about cost now quality as we know quality is a very important area which ensures the project is delivered in time with all the specifications defined by using all the methods means by following all the processes work instructions templates and delivering as needed where it enables the project to monitor it easily so basically the requirement of compliance and standardization and optimization is to ensure everyone follows the same steps do the activity so what quality management focus is to ensure the intended objectives of a projects are achieved already there is a definition done in terms of various different practices or processes needs to be followed similarly specification of each of the products are defined and from that there should not be any deviation so quality management should focus on ensuring those activities are done as defined those deliverables are done according to the specifications what is different it is very important that way so for that there is a layer of quality management there should be a layer of quality management where auditing or control activities are initiated periodically so that any deviations can be seen easily and remember a project manager can become cannot become part of quality management like project manager cannot audit project manager should have a team or take the help of a team who can able to do mostly the one which is who is not part of the project is always better resources now as i mentioned earlier every project need resources it may be human resources it may be technology resources it may be any other resources which are required to do the project so organization acquires resources configured and then deployed for example in the project you acquire a server you configure a server you deploy a server technology resource human resource is on board recruited project induction is given then at the same time the skills and capabilities of individuals are according to the requirement of project that needs to be ensured and what needs to be delivered and how it has to be delivered should be clear to the particular human resource so looking at all the aspects of resources to acquire to build and manage it is very important to look at the resource management so this will help in carrying out a specific task in the project in the best possible manner so interestingly when i say human resource always there is a possibility that a conflict can occur so when i say conflict conflict of interest may be in terms of what the individuals has to do conflict in terms of the preferences in terms of solutions what they are looking at conflict in terms of using resources different opinions different preferences various reasons conflict can come across so it is very important to project manager to understand this dynamics of human resources and manage this conflicts project manager cannot shy away from handling conflicts project manager has to hone and resolve those conflicts in the favor of project not in the fear of any individuals so there are various techniques to look at resolving conflicts so that is like compromising problem solving smoothening accommodating so whichever helps for that project scenario for the project objectives that needs to be applied that technique has to be taken up so here the resolution is not at the specific individual's preference it is with the objective of other projects as any impact what kind of impact positive or negative if it is negative no that's not the direction the direction should be ensuring project gets that value through this conflict resolution so project manager should own it it's an accountability of a project manager then as the human resources are acquired there are five stages team dynamics are involved so one has to bring them then educate them about a project as education on the project happens one has to go and do the job on floor that needs to be observed means one has to manage by looking at it and any corrections needs to be done that needs to be guided so it is very dynamic thing when it comes to human resources similarly in technology resources standardization there is no ambiguity as such but right resources with the right configurations should be acquired that is very important the next stakeholders so who can be stakeholders every project will have a stakeholder who are internal and external to the project so the internal stakeholders are those who are part of the project who are part of the organization who are part of the customer organization or part of supplier organization a competition to my business means my organization's business all this we can call it as a stakeholders now every stakeholders will have a specific interest a power an ability to influence now through their position through their distance from the project they will get impacted at the same time they will also impact the project similarly they influence and they get influenced because of the project so a project manager should identify all the stakeholders and understand this what is the kind of stakeholder is this in terms of power in terms of legitimacy in terms of influence in terms of impact after understanding that there should be a strategy for handling the stakeholders how am i going to engage with these stakeholders it is very important and accordingly the engagement should happen and then stakeholder engagement should resolve in the favor of projects again so if it is a customer customer should get that inputs required through review or periodic updates and the engagement required with the customer so that customer is having up-to-date information about the project if it is a team continued monitoring and control and ensuring team delivers the results what is required so focus of a stakeholder should be in such a way that your strategy should enable project to become successful and get a proper response from the stakeholder means a supporting engagement so next few key focus areas to mention is communication risk procurement critical success factors deliverables and work breakdown so this list is not exhaustive as we deep dive into project i think you can just keep listing the key focus areas more than this but whatever we have indicated are the minimum which needs to be looked at so when i say communication communication is basically a conversation exchange of message which happens between two entities now whenever we communicate it is necessary to understand that it has to happen with two individuals or two entities there should be sender there should be a receiver in the absence of receiver if sending is happening that communication doesn't make any sense there should be a receiver and there should be an acknowledgement from the receiver now this is one of the most ignored area in many of the projects even the communication happens more often more frequently but what people face difficulty in realizing that as they communicate generally informally formally they just take those for granted now when you identify the stakeholder one has to understand what is the communication requirement for those stakeholders what is that communication why is that communication what is the content of that communication how frequently we should do that interactions or communications intent of that particular communication what is the expected action or response from that communication all this needs to be very very clear and this can be articulated it has to be articulated so when it is articulated once there is a picture in terms of what kind of communication has to happen it is quite obvious there should not be any deviation from the agreed communications requirements and whenever there is a need of change to the communication requirements from the stakeholders that needs to be updated for this one has to have a stakeholders identified so stakeholder management and communication are very closely linked and associated a engagement with the stakeholder will become successful within effective communication approaches next is risk so every project which is undertaken by organization that will have certain amount of risk which organization will evaluate similarly within the project life cycle lot of risk comes up which would have such an impact to the project now risk refers to by definition an uncertain event it has an uncertainty an event which is uncertain and when it occurs it will have an impact on the project positively or negatively now current scenario in everywhere in the projects what you observe closely people tend to look at the risk which are threats that is negative only but they fail to recognize the risks which are opportunities the positive risks so another gap which we see when do the risk management is that is done in the initial phase of the project as the project is kicked off someone will do the risk assessment have a list of risk identified but unfortunately there is no categorizations for that risk and how is that going to impact the project that is not clear thirdly risk management or list of risk are created only once it is not done repeatedly so risk identification and analysis and assessment of that risk has to be done throughout the life cycle of a project reason being the risk which looks as in high impact when project is initiated as the project progresses the impact levels will vary maybe in the middle of the project the impact may be very high or low so likewise the impacts of the risk will vary throughout the project life cycle it may be positive it may be negative so as you identify the stakeholder throughout the project life cycle as i said that is also a dynamic i cannot just have a list of stakeholders and i keep it as it is i need to update that also regularly risk identification assessment and analysis should also be done regularly periodically so that one will have a clear understanding about is that risk still valid is that risk is there still or not what is the level of variations in terms of impact of the risks so this clarity will be there so that neces organization or project manager can get ready to face those risk if it is a negative risk definitely should have a mitigation or avoidance or acceptance whatever the mitigation plan you have to eliminate the negative impact of the risk when it occurs if it is a positive risk it's quite obvious one has to take the advantage of that one has to enhance exploit share a positive risk so that organization is benefited further procurement so whenever a project is initiated whenever a project is taken up the organization who is doing the project cannot create everything cannot develop everything in that project life cycle so organization would take a decision make a decision stating that some of the deliverables we make ourselves some of the products we make ourselves some of the products we purchase some of the services we purchase so to purchase that has to happen from a specific supplier you cannot go with every supplier you should evaluate the suppliers qualify the suppliers and then select onboard the supplier and then get the services or products supplied by that particular supplier so while doing this one has to understand what type of contracting they need to enter with so three types of contracts we speak basically one is about a cost plus contract where cost is fully known to the project manager and to the organization so apart from known cost a fee will be paid to the supplier another one is fixed price where project manager or the organization who is awarding that contract to a supplier will not know what is the cost instead it is a fixed price but important here is the scope of work needs to be clearly articulated and defined another type of contracting can be time and material where the building will happen based on the amount of time one is spent on that particular i hire a resource or on-board resource on a timeline material basis and what is that effort that resource has been put based on that building will happen so three types of contracts depending on the different scenarios of the project will be signed with the contractor however before doing that it is very essential to identify those suppliers sign off with them and monitor and manage them so if deliverables are not there it is very essential to look at the termination one has to terminate otherwise one has to ensure instead of uh terminating should be able to put some effort to educate them also so that they come up to the mark so project is benefited so depending on what needs to be done that call has to be taken on a regular basis then critical success factor so for every project there should be an articulation of critical success factor so based on that one can confirm yes project has achieved his objectives our project has not achieved his objectives so key critical success factor should be supported through the metrics key performance indicators so key performance indicators provide those metrics to say critical success factor is achieved for example if i want to become successful in an exam critical success factor is scoring or passing the examination or let me say to pass the examination key performance indicator is scoring 60 percent and above so critical success factor for me to get promoted is to pass in this particular exam so to pass in this exam minimum i should score is 60 percent that is kpi passing in the exam that is critical success factor so how will i measure that success factor is kpi so every project which it produces a specific product or services by using a specific resources and each of these the resources the processes the templates the deliverables all these needs to be measured on a continual basis so there are critical success factors defined and those are measured by defining kpis to that critical success factors so basically critical success factor provides the insight towards what needs to be measured and when you measure what should be the focus and to achieve those critical success factors the indicator is key performance indicators when you measure yes the moment you achieve that your csf is achieved next deliverables so deliverables are those which comes as an output of the project right it may be a product it may be a service it may be a result so this refers to the output within the scope of a project so there can be one or more deliverables within a single project so these deliverables may be the items that are to be sent externally to a customer or a stakeholder so every deliverable will have a defined scope will have a defined specification so those deliverables has to be measured tested and one has to confirm yes this deliverable is performing as we are intended to have the performance accordingly the decision will happen should we accept this particular deliverable or not if there is deviation that has to go back for correction so that's the reason we have monitoring and control all the control processes like control quality focused on the product state whether it has achieved the results or not is that functional as needed or not one has to ensure these deliverables has all those features and functionalities only then that can be handed over to the respective stakeholder customer or operation whoever the stakeholder it is next is work breakdown structure so when we say work breakdown structure when i look at a specific piece of product or services and have a bigger picture i cannot even visualize the various different components various different actions involved in achieving that bigger deliverable so if i say a car so i can think of a body external i can think of a mirror on that body i can think of a glass in the front side as well as the back side and also i can think of interiors like seat then accelerator steering dashboard all this i can visualize but since i am not a technology expert relating to car can i visualize all those parts which are working inside for car to move like engine the battery assembly i don't know what to say further so all these can be visualized by an expert so every product or services should be broken down into multiple pieces i'm not saying go and break that product i am saying that product will have multiple components which are involved those needs to be segregated for example if i say cars exteriors cars interior so cars exteriors external items you can see whatever you visualize body body structure mirror mirror assembly headlights uh then tires so likewise whatever i can visualize i will make it as a line items under the exterior so under for example under a mirror mirror i can speak about mirror glass mirror cap mirror pedestal and mirror of assembly where it moves where you can move the mirror so these are the various components involved in a mirror so i need to ensure by breaking down the product into multiple levels but depos decomposing it to multiple levels i can able to visualize the product very clearly what is there in detail so once i have the details i will articulate those what is that particular work breakdown element is product breakdown element is then i will look at what skills and capabilities required for that product and i will assign the resources accordingly so once activities resources everything is assigned automatically this will become our breakdown structure further after creating our breakdown structure one will go and sequence the activity look at sequencing will happen based on in what priority deliverable should happen what order deliverable should happen then once the sequencing is done it will be checked to see whether anything can be optimized anything can be done in such a way that smooth flow of the project can happen there is no dependencies which will make project to delay like as the flow happens smoothly so you would find the various techniques like critical path method network diagramming critical chain method so all these are used the floats of an activities are checked then leads and lags of the activities the relationship between activities so accordingly full visualization in terms of how the project will flow and how in what order the deliverables are happening can be easily visualized so that is the reason first activity is to do the product breakdown which would result in work regular structure so those are the points still now whatever i mentioned are the basic understanding one should have about a project and project management so as you deep dive into various best practices like pmp by pmi prince2 by axelos scrum mass fragile scrub master similarly you have certified scrum master so many agile practices so when you look at any of the best practices that will tell you clearly articulate what should be the practice for you to adopt and adapt that practices so that your project can become successful so any of those approach you touch upon all those refers to these basic things in the absence of these basic things none of those best practices discusses the project management now typically in the industry there are a lot of job roles to the project management which we have seen so based on that this information is captured here on various job rules in a project management so some of them are like project manager senior project manager project lead resource manager pmo that is project management office analyst steering committee member so not necessarily all the project management roles are limited to this so these are the roles which commonly you see and we are trying to capture that to give the insight right when i say project manager the project manager is the owner one has to take an accountability for the project right so project managers takes the project according to the plan and plays a lead role in all the steps of the project management right so responsibilities should be managing reviewing and prioritizing the task wherever necessary looking after risk management stakeholder management and project communication management some of the salary what we found while we were doing the survey the success ratio of a project depends majorly on the project manager so the demand for project management is rapidly increasing in the market so accordingly uh thousand four seven four per year that is the usd in inr it is fifteen hundred thousand so this is what the salary uh on an approximation what was found next role we look at senior project manager where senior project manager is ahead of the overall project management plan the role demands in-depth knowledge of all the project aspects on a specific on the specifics of the project the responsibilities would be planning and coordinating complex projects visiting project sites to check progress and handle complex issues so salary looks like one or four thousand dollars per year here 20 92 000 inr per year so the role of senior project manager is one of the highest paying rules in the industry as we have seen having several allowances and bonuses because of the criticality involved in the project and the accountability level of that particular individuals in the organization next role project lead so project leads are the one who leads the people throughout the project and provide them with all the information required throughout so responsibilities involve motivating the team beneath taking care of their needs and paying attention to what they feel ordering or controlling the project team since the project lead has more freedom than the project manager salary project lead makes sure that project gives the best possible outcome and is hence the demand for the project lead in the company never reduces so in usd 82 000 per year whereas in inr it is one million two sixty nine thousand per year next role we look at on resource manager so resource manager is the human resource needed to make the project success right so one has to manage those resources responsibility involved assigning the right people to the right projects at the right time managing employees currently and determining hiring needs depending on the project's requirements so salary would be around 64 000 usd which comes around 966 794 in inr project management office analyst for this role the project management office analyst works with pmo means project management office and does not look at the project or manage the project directly instead does most of the data driven work which required for a project to have our project to get supported by that so that project managers will have a better insight analyzing and interpreting the data concerning the project figuring out the future risks to the project finding new ways to advance the idea of the project management so salary would be one or six thousand two fifty three per year in usd whereas four forty nine thousand three thirty seven in inr per year so steering committee member so the steering committee members are the members who do not work on the project themselves they are there to help the project manager like providing inputs during the development of a project advising on the budget and evaluating the project strategies taking regular feedback from the project managers and asking necessary questions so salary would be around 68 497 dollars per year so those were the various roles and that is not that list is not an exhaustive list various different roles we come across but these are the basic roles which is seen in the industry these roles are being recruited now there are various project management certifications which are offered as i mentioned earlier so those certifications are pmp that is project management professional from pmi agile certified practitioner that is pmi acp again from pmi then certified associate in project management so difference between capm and pmp is like capm would act as a basic level of certification for those who does not have a sufficient project experience project management experience whereas pmp is for those who has some project management experience similarly pmi sap is the one who is aspiring to look at agility in project management and they can go for it certified scrum master yes it is a scrum master certificate which will explain the role of a scrum master in detail similarly prince to a certification from axolotls which also speak about all the aspects of the project what we discussed and provides the framework for project management axilla's also provides prince2 certification in agile also agile prince2 certification so we will look at each one of this certain details which are required for us to know so project management professional as i mentioned is most acknowledged and value the certificate value what it carries which has resulted to the certified professionals in landing up in highest paid jobs in the world so certified managers gets 20 more salary than the average salary so to take up an examination one has to go through the formal training of 35 hours that is one of the prerequisites and there should be some experience of 400 hours of project managing project by leading various activities of a project and once the person becomes eligible with that prerequisites person will become register in the pmi's website becomes member and then go for examination so examination fee for pmp would be 4.5 dollars for the members who are registered with pmi and for those who are not registered as a member with pmi it is 555 dollars the duration of the examination is 4 hours and the number of questions will be 200 which are multiple choice questions so each questions carries one marks there is no negative scoring now prerequisites one has to have 4 500 hours directing and leading the projects that experience has to be filled in while filling the application if a person is a bachelor degree holder and along with that 35 contractors of pmi pm education now prerequisites for the one who is not a graduate who may be high school or diploma is 7500 hours of directing and leading projects 35 hours of pm education so those are the prerequisites before one will go and appear for examination so once an individual passes pmp examination that certificate is valid for three years so now after three years if the person aspires to keep the certificate continued they need to produce 60 pdus professional development units which has to be acquired during those three years how to acquire one has to go through additional learning one has to contribute towards project management knowledge base so those needs to be evidenced and then renewable fee has to be paid and certificate has to be renewed then agile certified practitioner as we saw for pmp here a gel certified practitioner demonstrates that one has relevant experience and education to handle and lead agile projects the organization has started shifting towards agile as we know in today's industry which makes this certification fast growing in the world so examination fee would be 435 dollars for pmi members 495 for non-pmi members duration is three hours and multiple choice questions 120 questions prerequisites is 2 000 hours project management experience with 100 hours agile experience and 21 contact hours of agile practices so maintenance 30 videos are required for every three years and after paying the renewal fee that can be renewed now certified associate in project management so here this is an entry level certificate of pmi especially for those people who has less project experience it intends to demonstrate fundamental knowledge terminologies and processes of effective project management so examination fee would be dollar 225 for pmi members whereas three hundred dollars for non-members of pmi so duration of examination is 3 hours and examination will have 150 multiple choice questions so prerequisites someone who has secondary diploma 23 contact hours of pm education is enough there is no experience of doing the project is required as we saw in pmp so maintenance is again three years someone who need to continue the certification has to retake the examination every three years next certified scrum master so certified scrum master is an entry level certification that helps the professionals to begin as the scrum practitioners is one of the most sought-after certifications as other after this one can get the designation of certified scrum master which is offered by scrum alliance so examination fee which will change time to time which is not revealed so one has to approach the training organization where they will get trained on certified scrum master so duration of examination is 60 minutes and pattern would be 16 hours 2 days of training and 50 multiple choice questions after that particular two days of training then prerequisite is done for maintaining these credentials so one has to ensure it has renewed every two years then projects in controlled environment that is prince2 so prince2 is a method which is effective mostly from the base of uk all the organizations who are from uk region prefers to have prince to certification and it is as popular as any other project management certifications like pmp so examination fee would vary from nine hundred dollars to thousand dollars depending on where exactly you're taking the examination and certification will happen at two levels one is at foundation level and other one is practitioner so in foundation it is 60 questions multiple choice and in practitioner it's 68 questions now 60 questions or 68 questions each carries one marks for correct answer any wrong answer there will not be any negative scoring one has to score 55 percent to clear the examination so prerequisites for prince2 foundation is none whereas prince2 foundation is a prerequisite for princeton practitioner examination so to maintain the certificate one has to achieve 20 cpds every year continued professional development hi guys my name is ishan and i welcome you all to this session of project planning today we will be learning about different aspects of project planning but before we begin let's have a look at an incident here's max an assistant project manager who looks tensed and is pacing around the room then jack a project manager who works with him walks into the room and asks him why does he seem so tensed to which max replies he is facing difficulty in estimating the budget jack responds it might be because he is not planning the project properly jack reassures max and begins to tell him about project planning so today we will be learning about what is project planning and check out the fundamentals of project planning then we will see why project planning is so essential for a project to be successful after that we will check the tools for project planning and finally we will have a look at the steps for project planning so without any further ado let's begin with what is project planning project planning is the second step or phase of the project life cycle project life cycle has five different phrases from initiation to closure today we will be learning about this phase that comes immediately after initiation in which the project plan is documented and further requirements are defined project planning includes the following things the first and foremost thing is describing the objectives or outputs we are expecting the project to yield second we have is the elaboration of the scope to make sure what the project is all about and what all can be expected from the project the third step we have is forming a schedule this schedule is important to run or perform different tasks of a project each task having its own start date and end date this helps the project to finish in the scheduled time and limit lastly we have making and generating progress reports in which all that went during the tenure of the project is documented this helps in evaluating the project and helps in the forthcoming projects now let's have a look at the project planning fundamentals the first fundamental that we have is the determination of scope cost and resources that determination helps us in having a rough estimate about the time that is required to finish the project it helps us in determining the number of people required and what should be their skill set we can divide the project into smaller manageable sections and this is made possible with the help of work breakdown structure the second fundamental refers to identifying the problem there are several techniques by which we can collect information and discover issues there may be several problems in a project and in that case several risks or issues are prioritized and the risk that requires immediate attention is dealt with first then comes identification of stakeholders when we can identify the stakeholders we can know who all will be affected and in what way which helps us having a better understanding of the project stakeholders may be anybody they may be the part of the project team or project managers or customers they help during the project and contribute to its success then the last fundamental we will discuss is defining project objectives a project plan is made keeping in mind the requirements of the project team and expectations of the stakeholders if the project team can meet the expectations of the stakeholders then only we can say that the project is successful now when we know about project planning and its fundamentals it's time to see why project planning is so important project planning reduces the cost and time of the project as every step is monitored and optimized in the best possible manner project planning increases employee satisfaction as every employee who is a part is engaged in the team for improved project performance project planning helps in the implementation of quality assurance as the output of every step is duly tested lastly project planning helps in reducing project risk as planning helps to analyze prioritize and deal with that risk moving on let's have a look at the tools for project planning the first tool that we have is a gantt chart today gantt charts are one of the most popular project management tools they help in tracking the status of the work at a particular time and their independencies on each other gantt charts help in showing different phases and steps involved in a project the second tool we will talk about is critical path method or cpm critical path method helps in scheduling the project activities so that the project runs properly the critical path method focuses on the longest stretch of dependent tasks and determines the time needed to complete them the next tool is project evaluation and review technique or pert chart bird provides a graphical representation of the project's timeline explaining the independencies of different tasks this tool not only helps in making a schedule but also helps in coordinating with all the team members the fourth tool we will check is work breakdown structure work breakdown structure is a very common tool that makes it possible for the team to break its work into manageable sections work breakdown structure is a step two step process that helps in completing the project efficiently the last tool we will see is project documentation project documentation is an integral part of the project life cycle project documentation helps in understanding the mistakes done during the project and more importantly provides guidelines for the upcoming project now when we know about different tools for project planning it becomes essential that we know the necessary steps of project planning there are seven steps in project planning let's have a look at each of them in detail the first step is identification of stakeholders as we have discussed stakeholders could be anybody they could be a part of the team or a project manager or a customer when we identify stakeholders we can find out the expectations and requirements that are to be looked upon in this project this gives us a clearer picture of the project and helps in establishing the project scope so the next step we have is defining the project scope this helps in determining a list of specific project goals and deliverables that are to be achieved during the course of the project after we have defined the project scope it is time to set project objectives and prioritize them the initial ideas that were there before are now elaborated and final steps to complete the project are defined in the next step the deliverables are determined after all project deliverables are the only reason why the project is being created this step involves finding out what these deliverables will be and the deadlines of the delivery then the step that comes into picture is creating a project schedule the project schedule refers to the guidelines when a particular task is to be started and when it is supposed to end this helps in monitoring the growth of the project and later helps in generating progress reports the next step is the step of risk analysis this step plays an extremely important role in the success of the overall project it helps in identifying the risk prioritizing them and taking steps to limit them the last step in project planning is to generate progress reports in this step we update the stakeholders about the project growth and it is done so that all the concerned team members can have a look at the progress of the project after all this information max thanks jack for the explanation and looks forward to plan projects within the budget and of better quality in this session we will talk about project plan in excel we will learn about a project plan and how we can make an effective plan in microsoft excel before we begin let's have a look at all the topics we will be covering today first we will see the basics of a project plan then we will check the process of project management microsoft excel and why should one refer to microsoft excel apart from this we will learn about how to make a gantt chart in excel towards the end we will check some microsoft excel templates so without any further ado let's get started let's see what is a project plan project plan is a basic thing that is needed to execute a project according to project management book of knowledge a project can be defined as an approved elaborative document that guides the team during project execution and project control when we are making a project plan a project plan must answer several questions for us these questions are like what are we expecting our project to deliver how are we expecting to get our deliverables within the desired time who all will be a part of a project and what tasks they will have in the project when will the project start and when it is expected to end that is the deadlines of the project now let us learn about project management in excel microsoft excel is one of the most common applications these days it is used in both offices and at homes microsoft excel is an easy project management tool that allows the team members to easily see the tasks in a project develop a plan and track its progress before we learn more about project management in excel let's first have a look why do we use excel microsoft excel is an easy tool to plan a project so it can be used by people who are beginners in terms of project management in excel one can find several analytical tools like concatenate len and counter so this makes data analysis easy and effective as the entry of data is easy same is tracking and controlling of project status then there are several project management templates in excel that help us to have an effective distribution of project data we will be checking several project management templates towards the end of this video now let's have a look at the process of making a gantt chart in excel before we begin this it's important we know what is a gantt chart a gantt chart is like an horizontal bar chart that is used for project management with the help of a gantt chart we can check the status of the task the date they start the date the end and the dependencies on each other gantt chart helps in coordinating and monitoring different tasks in a project now let's have a look at the steps that will help us in making a gantt chart first step we have is make a project table we have several rows and columns like here we have three columns in the first column we have the tasks in the second we have our start date and in the third column we have the duration or tenure of the task the second step is to make a bar chart in excel for this we will select the entire second column then we will go on the insert tab and click on the bar graph chart there we can select stack bar graph in 2d bar charts as a result we will have the entitled bar graph on the screen in the third step we will add the duration to the bar graph we will right click on the chart and in the menu that appears we will select select data option a window that appears on the screen in that window we will select add option as shown we can also see the start date is already in the entry section then in the dialog box that appears type tenure in the series name and click on the rain selection icon that's shown in the figure now select the relevant data from the tenure column and click on ok now we can see a bar graph that has two colors on the screen this bar graph now has the duration of the tasks the fourth step we have is adding description to the gantt chart now we will open the box again and in that box we will select the edit option as shown in the figure then we will select the tasks as we had selected the duration of the tasks before and click on ok we can now see the tasks have appeared towards the left side of the gantt chart the fifth and the remarkable step will help us convert this bar graph into a gantt chart we will now click on the bars and select the format data series option from the menu that appears then in the format data series dialog box we will select no fill option we can find our gantt chart on the screen now in accordance with the data that we had entered now we can see the tasks on the left side are in the reverse order so what we will do next is we will click on the task panel then go to the format access dialog box and select the categories in reverse order option now we can find our tasks in the right order one more thing we can notice is gantt chart is starting with some other date and not with the dates that we had entered so for this we will copy the first date in some other cell then clicking on the copied cell we will go to the home menu to select the dialog box as shown in the figure then in that drop down menu we will select the number option we can now find a value displayed in the copied cell we'll copy that value click on the dates on the chart and as the format access dialog box opens we will paste that value in the box that says minimum shown in the figure as a result we will have our final gantt chart on the screen in the last step we can give several designs to a gantt chart change colors and make it more presentable for us now when we know the basic steps of making a gantt chart i will show that practically to you in microsoft excel our first step is to open microsoft excel and in microsoft excel we will make a project table in our project table we will have three columns the first column will be task the second column will have the start date the third column will have tenure or the duration of the task so beginning with tasks we have task 1 in task 1 we have 1.1 1.2 1.3 then comes task 2. in task 2 we have 2.1 2.2 2.3 and 2.4 then we have task 3 in task 3 we will have two subsections 3.1 and 3.2 then we will start with the starting dates in starting dates we will put 1 january the task 1 1.1 will be 1st of january then this will be 4th january let's say this is 5th january then we will put this as 11th of january and this will be again 11th january only this will be 15th january let's put this as 17th january let this be 19th january task 3 begins on 23rd january and it the 3.2 section begins at 26th of january now let's put the tenure or the duration of the task we will begin with task 1 it takes 12 days then 1.1 takes 7 days we say this takes 4 days and this takes 8 days then for task 2 it again takes 12 days it takes 5 days 5 days and let's say this takes six days and this takes four days then we come to task three this takes eight days and let's say this takes six days and the three point two section takes five days so this is how our project table is ready in the second step we will select the entire second column after we have selected this column we will go to the insert tab in the insert tab we will go to the bar columns and in this we will select 2d stacked bar charts now we have the entitled bar chart in accordance to our data on the screen then comes the third step we will add the duration of the tasks to the bar graph we will click on the chart and after we click on the chart we will select select data option in the select data source dialog box we find the start date is already there now we will click on add and after we click on add in the series name section we will put tenure then in the series value we will click on this icon and select the entire tenure series and click on ok so this is the bar graph that we have now this is now in two colors the orange color and the blue color this bar graph now has the duration of all the tasks in our project table now in the fourth step now it's time for us to add description to our gantt chart instead of this 1 2 3 4 5 we will put task 1 task 2 and the sub tasks so what we will do is we will again go to that box we will left click on the gantt chart select the select data option and then we'll go to the start date here we'll select the edit option in the edit option we will select all the tasks and click on ok now we can see all the tasks are aligned towards the left of the bar chart as we can see this is a bar chart or a bar graph and not a gantt chart the next step we have is converting this bar graph into a gantt chart so we will click on the bars and select the format data series option from the menu that appears here we have this format data series option now we can see the dialog box on the screen here we'll go into the color section fill section and then we will select no fill now we can see the blue lines have disappeared so this looks like a gantt chart so now when we have a gantt chart on the screen we can notice that the tasks here are in the reverse order so what we will do is we will click on these tasks and select the format access option here we will select categories in reverse order we can see our gantt chart is now in order like we have a task 1 on the top and task 3 at the bottom the dates are starting from 11th of december but the dates we have provided are from 1st of january now we will copy this cell then go on the dates box here we'll go to format access in the format axis we can see minimum in this minimum we will paste this value and press enter as we press enter we can see our gantt chart starting from the date that we wanted to start and that too in the correct order starting from task 1 to task 3. now as a result we have our final gantt chart on the screen in the last step what we can do is make our gantt chart more representable we can change the color of these bars we can give them shapes and we can do many other things to make it more presentable we will first select the bars like what we will do is we will select task 1 and let's say we give it the color blue then task 2 we will give it color green and in task 3 we'll give give it the color black so here the sub sections will give different colors to the sub sections as well then we come to task 2.1 this is how we can change the color of these cells or apart from changing colors we can select a bar graph and do the gradient fill so this is how we can make a gantt chart more presentable after changing the colors or changing the shapes we have our final gantt chart on the screen finally let's have a look at some microsoft excel templates for project management microsoft excel templates help in collecting data putting them into order and check the dependencies with each other with the help of these templates we can monitor the status of the tasks and we can also check the progress our project has made moving forward we will check some important microsoft excel templates the first template we have is excel project review template this template helps us have an overview of the project we can have a clear understanding of all the tasks that are planned and that are completed this helps project managers to measure the progress of the project and take further steps accordingly second template we will check is excel budget template in this template we can monitor all the expenditures of our project it helps us in managing the budget of a project and also helps in comparing the budget of our project at different phases let's have a look at the budget template in excel once we can download this template from officetimeline.com the gantt chart towards the right is in accordance with the dates towards the left if we fluctuate the date we can see the template working the start date for task 1 could be changed to 10th june if we change this date to 10 june we can see the fluctuation in the gantt chart so this is how we can use this template directly let's have a look at the third template now third template we will see is excel sprint project tracker template this template is used majorly in agile projects where the project is made in several sprints or sessions this template includes the start date the end date and the duration of each task we can also see the percentage completed of each task let's have a look at this print project tracker template as well we can see the gantt chart towards the right and the data towards the left so if we change any data we can see the gantt chart changing for example we can change the data in sprint to feature 3. let's change the start date to july 2nd we can see the gantt chart changing this is how we can use this template directly to track our sessions let's have a look at the fourth excel template this template is excel project tracker in this template we have the data of all the tasks with the status and owners we can track the percentage of tasks completed and also compare the plan duration of the task to the actual duration of the task after the critical part tracker let's check the excel project schedule template this template helps in effective management of the project as it helps in monitoring the time that each task of the project takes it provides a clear view of all the work associated with the project let's have a look at this template in excel once we can see the gantt chart in accordance to the data if we change the estimated hours at two places let's say at the design review we make it 15 hours instead of 5 hours and at the create staffing plan we make it 2 hours instead of 20 hours we can see the gantt chart fluctuating this is how we can use this template to manage the schedule in a project moving forward the next template we will see is excel project status report template this template helps us having a list of project deliverables and the risks associated with that project this template helps the project managers about different crucial activities involved in a project after this we have excel milestone tracker the milestone tracker helps us in tracking or monitoring different tasks in a project project managers use this template to monitor the project performance with respect to the timelines the last template we will see is excel project planner excel project planner includes a list of tasks with the respected owners along with the start date and the end date of that task this helps in monitoring each task and comparing the estimated task date with the actual ones let's have a look at this template in excel we can see the gantt chart with respect to the data entered let's make changes at several places in the data we can make this 22 to 24 we will make this 23 go to 2 and we can make this 5th september go to 15 september and when we make the changes we can realize the gantt chart is fluctuating so this is how we can use this template to plan a project effectively and efficiently in this lesson we will focus on project time management let us begin with the objectives of this lesson after completing this lesson you will be able to define project time management explain project schedule get charts and network diagrams identify the key terms used in project time management describe the project time management processes explain various schedule network analysis techniques in the next screen let us take a quick look at the project management process map there are 47 processes in project management grouped into 10 knowledge areas and mapped to five process groups in this lesson we will look at the third knowledge area that is project time management and its processes let us begin with the first topic of this lesson project time management the purpose of project time management is to ensure that the projects get completed on time this knowledge area is primarily concerned with developing a project schedule and ensuring that project goes as per the agreed schedule if there is a need to change the project schedule the change should happen by following a proper change control procedure another term used in the pmp examination is schedule management plan schedule management plan is part of the project management plan and has information on the planned project schedule and its management and control let us discuss the key activities of project time management in the next screen the key activities that are part of the project time management include identifying activities estimating time and resources and sequencing activities it is important to identify a list of activities that would be a part of the project next an estimation of time and resources required for completing the identified activities are done finally these activities need to be sequenced as per the dependencies in the next screen let us discuss project schedule project schedule represents the time dimension of the project plan and has information like when the project would start when each of the project activities would happen in what order the project activities would happen when project would be completed etc usually software system is used to develop the project schedule the project team can enter the list of activities in the software as well as their dependencies and the software can produce the project schedule as the output microsoft project is the most popular tool used for project schedule development generally project schedule is considered similar to project management plan project management plan is different from project schedule project management plan not only has information about the project's schedule but also other important project related plans like risk management plan cost management plan etc let us focus on gantt chart in the next screen gantt chart is a type of bar chart that illustrates a project schedule it shows the dependencies between the project activities as well as their percent completion a sample gantt chart is shown on the screen two summary elements of the work breakdown structure are depicted to complete those elements there are a number of activities under them some of these activities have dependencies for example activity b and c have a dependency activity c can start only when activity b is completed the chart gives you an idea about when specific activities are planned to finish and when the overall wbs element will get delivered create tasks and work with the gantt chart this will make answering gantt chart based questions easy and fun in the next screen let us understand the relationships that exist among project activities network diagram is extensively used in the project time management knowledge area to plot the activity dependencies this is a graphical representation of the project activities in the form of a network there are two ways to draw a network diagram in precedence diagramming model pdm or activity on node aon boxes represent activities and the arrows indicate the dependency this type of network can have all four types of relationships between the activities in arrow diagramming model adm or activity on arrow aoa the arrows represent activities the relationships and sequences can be inferred from the direction of the arrows and linkages between the activities in such types of network only finish to start relationships can be shown such diagrams may need to make use of dummy activities to indicate some dependency between the activities there may be questions in the pmp exam based on the network diagram so create and work with the diagram this will make answering network diagram based questions easy and fun in the next screen let us look at a network diagram a sample network diagram is shown on the screen activities a and c can happen in parallel b and d require both a and c to complete whereas e requires both b and d to complete activity on aero network diagram makes use of hammock activities they are used to show a comprehensive summary activity combining several other activities underneath for control and reporting purposes in the next screen let us look at a few important terms in time management when a successor activity can start before the predecessor activity can complete it is considered lead for example you can start preparing the test environment two weeks before the development activity finishes when the successor activity has to wait for a few days after the predecessor activity has been completed it is considered lag for example one needs to wait for two days for the foundation to settle before work on the pillars for the next floor starts rolling wave planning is an iterative planning technique in which the work to be accomplished in the near term is planned in detail while the work in the future is planned at a higher level it is a form of progressive elaboration in the context of estimating techniques analogous estimating is based on the previous project data therefore if the last five similar projects took six months to complete the next one will also take six months this technique employs expert judgment another estimating technique is parametric estimating this technique uses a mathematical model to calculate projected time for an activity based on the historical records from previous projects and other information a few common parameters are identified based on the previous project data and that parameter is used to predict the time required to complete the next activity or project for example you can normally complete 10 kilometers of highway construction lanes a week effort is the total amount of work required to complete the activity duration is the amount of time it takes in terms of a lab store calendar days if you have an activity that requires 10 people to work for 5 days the total effort is 50 person days but the duration is only 5 days in the next screen let us look at the project time management processes there are seven project time management processes they are plan schedule management define activities sequence activities estimate activity resources estimate activity durations develop schedule and control schedule the first six processes are executed during the planning process group the ultimate goal of these planning processes is to develop the project schedule the seventh and the last process is a part of the monitoring and controlling process group in the next few screens let us discuss these processes in detail we will begin with plan schedule management as defined in pmbok guide plan schedule management is the process of establishing the policies procedures and documentation for planning developing managing executing and controlling the project schedule it belongs to the planning process group let us look at the inputs to this process the project management plan provides other subsidiary plans and will guide the schedule planning activities on the project the project charter provides an overall context and the high level product and project description which might help determine the approach for schedule management few projects might have scheduling constraint for example projects of olympics 2016 should be completed at the same time enterprise environmental factors provide the organizational context to the project including the culture of the organization the infrastructure like scheduling systems available key personnel and so on organizational process assets provide inputs such as policies and procedures templates past performance data and estimates historical information and knowledge base now let us look at the tools and techniques employed in this process expert judgment refers to input received from knowledgeable and experienced resources experts can draw from their previous experiences the proper approach to govern the schedule on a project meetings may be organized to determine the schedule management plan anybody responsible for the project schedule management such as the project manager sponsor customer and other stakeholders must attend these meetings several analytical techniques may be used to determine the schedule management plan these may include different planning approaches and philosophies such as rolling wave planning or different scheduling software that allowed to build what-if scenarios and study the effect of advanced scheduling techniques like leveling fast tracking and crashing now let us look at the outputs of this process schedule management plan is a component of the project management plan that describes the criteria and activities required to arrive at the project schedule as well as how the project may be baselined monitored and controlled in the next screen let us define activities process define activities is the process of identifying the specific actions to be performed to produce the project deliverables it belongs to the planning process group the important input for the define activities process is the scope baseline scope baseline is a term used collectively to refer to project deliverables constraints and assumptions of the project in addition to the scope baseline the other inputs in this process are enterprise environmental factors organizational process assets and schedule management plan a reason why enterprise environmental factors is an input to define activities is because the organization might be using project management software to define activities and that may influence the activity definition process the knowledge base containing historical information regarding activities lists used by previous similar projects is a good example of organization process assets applied to scheduling the tools and techniques used in defining activities are decomposition and rolling wave planning the last technique is expert judgment where the experience of project team members is used in developing detailed activity lists the output of the process is activity list activity attributes and milestone list activity list contains a list of identified activities activity attributes are the additional information about the activity itself a milestone is a significant point or event in the project a milestone list identifies all the milestones and indicates whether the milestone is mandatory or optional let us move on to the next process sequence activities sequence activities is the process of identifying and documenting relationships among the project activities and is also part of the planning process group for every activity and milestone except the first and last one is connected to or at least one predecessor and one successor the inputs to this process are activity list activity attributes and milestone list all these are the outputs of the define activity process the other inputs are schedule management plan and project scope statement schedule management plan provides guidance in terms of methodology to be employed for many of the scheduling activities on the project organization process assets are also an input to sequencing activities because the organization might have some kind of knowledge base for scheduling project activities the enterprise environmental factors relevant to this process may be scheduling tools in use project management information systems work authorization systems etc one of the important tools and techniques used in sequencing activities is the precedence diagramming method in this method the activities are drawn on a network diagram and all the different kinds of dependencies between the activities are determined while determining activity dependency it is important to identify the type of relationship or dependency between the activities the other technique is leads and lag which is widely used for sequencing activities the output of the process is the project schedule network diagram which is a graphical representation of the project activities in a form of network which also shows the activity dependencies while designing the network diagram new activities might be identified and that would result in some of the project document updates especially the ones that list all the project activities in the next screen let us look at the estimate activity resources process after sequencing the activities the next step in project time management is estimating the resources required to accomplish each of the identified activities estimate activity resources process also belongs to the planning process group here resources do not mean only the human resources but includes all other resources like equipment raw materials machinery etc schedule management plan is the first input schedule management plan provides guidance in terms of methodology to be employed for many of the scheduling activities on the project the other inputs to this process are an activity list and activity attributes that are the outputs of the time management processes risk register is another input risks to the project may influence the decisions about the resources that need to be deployed hence risk register becomes an input to this project in addition activity cost estimates are another input cost and resource estimates on a project are interrelated and influence each other for example the cost might dictate the number and type of resources that can be employed or the time might dictate the cost that may need to be incurred along with this the resource calendar is also an important input because it has the information about the availability of each of the resources some of the enterprise environmental factors that can influence estimating activity resources are availability of required resources within the organization the organizational process assets is also an important input as the organization might have standard policies for staffing or for hiring contractors on the project with all these inputs available for estimating activity resources there are various techniques used for estimating the required resources the first technique is using expert judgment in this technique an expert in resource planning and estimating can estimate each of the activities the next technique used is alternative analysis in this the activities are analyzed to identify different ways of completing them this is to ensure only the required resources are assigned to each of the activities this helps in resource optimization along with the two techniques many organizations routinely publish their estimating data and this could be used in activity resource estimation another technique that is routinely used in activity estimation is bottom-up estimating which is decomposing the activity further down to understand it in more detail and estimating at that level later all such estimates are added to arrive at the estimate of the activity in real projects one has to use all the estimate each of the activities sometimes the project management software also helps in estimating the software estimates are based on the inputs provided to it software should only be considered as a supporting tool in estimation and never fully rely on its output clearly the output of this process is the activity resource requirements along with this resource breakdown structure is also prepared the resource breakdown structure is the categorization of all the required resources in various categories that is human resources equipment raw materials etc in the process of estimation several other project documents may also be updated for example the resource estimates are directly correlated with cost estimates let us now move on to the next process estimate activity durations the next process is to estimate the duration required to complete each of the activities the duration estimation should be done by someone who is familiar with the project for example the same activity if done by a high skilled resource would take less time compared to a less skilled resource this may vary regardless of the resource used due to the project requirements in addition the activity duration estimation should be updated continuously as you move ahead with the project because as the project progresses there will be more clarity on the project the inputs of this process are similar to the ones in sequence activities process schedule management plan is the first input schedule management plan provides guidance in terms of methodology to be employed for many of the scheduling activities on the project for instance it may contain information about the estimation techniques to be employed and the people who need to be involved in the estimation process activity resource requirements is also an input to this process because resources assigned to an activity would significantly affect the activity duration that is the lower skilled resources would take more time than the high skilled resources the other inputs include activity list activity attributes and resource breakdown structure resource calendars are also an input to this process the type and skill set of resources available to the team may have an impact on the time it would take to complete the activities risks to the project may influence the decisions about the time required to complete the activity hence risk register becomes an input to this process the project scope statement defines the constraints and assumptions affecting the project duration an example of enterprise environmental factor that can affect duration is organizations productivity metrics which is collected based on the experiences from multiple projects the last input in this process is organizational process assets now let us look at the tools and techniques used for estimating activity durations first is the expert judgment which means using previous project experiences and estimating the current project duration this can be used with other estimation techniques and used to reconcile differences if different techniques result in different estimates three-point estimating is a method where three estimates are used instead of one it is part of a project management philosophy known as program evaluation and review technique pert estimating activity durations is often done as a team exercise as each activity may require multiple skill sets to be applied therefore it is important to use group decision making techniques to arrive at a consensus or at least an estimate that is acceptable to all the team members reserve analysis adds buffer into the project schedule to deal with any uncertainty the contingency reserve may be added as a percentage of the activity duration or fixed number of work periods the other tools and techniques are analogous estimating and parametric estimating the outputs of this process are the activity duration estimates and project documents updates the activity duration estimates is represented in terms of the range of possible results for example 10 days plus minus two days that is the activity would take minimum eight days and maximum twelve days in the next screen let us look into a business scenario to understand this concept better after reading the problem statement click the solution button to look at a possible answer develop schedule is the process of analyzing activity sequences durations resource requirements and schedule constraints to create the project schedule it belongs to the planning process group generally scheduling software is used for developing the project schedule entering the activities durations and resources into a scheduling tool generates a schedule with planned dates for completing project activities developing a project schedule is an iterative process revising and maintaining a realistic schedule is a task in itself and it continues throughout the project as the work progresses the most of the inputs of this process are the outputs of estimate activity durations process they are risk register project scope statement project staff assignments resources calendars organizational process assets enterprise environmental factors schedule management plan activity list activity attributes project schedule network diagrams activity resource requirements resource breakdown structure and activity duration estimates various tools and techniques are used to develop schedule process schedule network analysis is a technique that generates project schedule it employs various analytical techniques such as critical path method critical chain method modeling techniques and resource optimization techniques to create the project schedule the other tools and techniques include leads and lags schedule compression and scheduling tool let us now look at the outputs of this process the project schedule consists of a minimum plan start date and planned finish date for each activity although project schedule can be represented in tabular format it is more often represented graphically using either bar charts or network diagrams or a combination of the two the final schedule which is the output of the developed schedule process is also called schedule baseline once the schedule is baselined it can be changed only through formal approvals meeting the schedule baseline is one of the measures of project success scheduled data produced may include number of resources key milestones etc project calendars specify the available working days and the number of shifts in each day it indicates how many hours and days are available for the work of the project to be completed project management plan updates are a result of the develop schedule process many of the other subsidiary plans of the project plan may get impacted which may include cost management plan scope management plan risk management plan etc this may also result in other project documents being updated in the next few screens let us discuss schedule network analysis techniques it is essential to know if the required resources are available at that time along with the time estimate of each of the activities since schedule is calendar based it helps in estimating the same schedule network analysis technique generates project schedule there are various schedule network techniques critical path method relies on determining the critical path on a project schedule critical chain method is a variant of the critical path method wherein the critical chain is determined based on the logical resource and other kinds of dependencies between the activities what if scenario analysis is about trying to vary a certain parameter to observe the impact on the schedule for instance you may want to check result if you put in more resources on a particular activity to reduce its duration resource optimization techniques try to arrive at the optimal utilization of the resources used on a project ideally you would want the resources to be fully utilized but you would also want to build insufficient buffers in case a certain resource is not available due to various reasons in the next screen let us look at the program evaluation and review technique program evaluation and review technique is based on three-point estimates for an activity the pessimistic estimate refers to the worst case scenario whereas most likely estimate is what you expect to happen in a realistic scenario the optimistic estimate on the other hand represents the amount of time an activity would take in the best case scenario based on these three estimates the expected duration of the estimate is calculated as per the formula given on the screen the formula for calculating standard deviation of an activity and variance of an activity is also given there is no question asked on variance but the formula is important because if the standard deviation of the whole project is to be calculated the process is to calculate the variance of the whole project and then take its square root to calculate the standard deviation of the project concept-based questions on pert can be expected in the pmp exam so make a note of the formulae while you prepare for the exam in the next screen let us understand pert with an example let us now figure out how we can apply the three-point estimation that pert uses in order to draw some useful conclusions assume that the optimistic pessimistic and most likely estimates are 20 70 and 30 respectively using these values you can determine the expected duration and the standard deviation as indicated now if the causes of variation are random you can assume that the actual values would be evenly distributed about the mean and will follow the normal distribution sometimes referred to as the bell curve further you can use the properties of the normal distribution there is a 68 probability of the actual value falling within first sigma from the mean 95.4 percent probability for the second sigma and 99.7 percent probability of the actual value falling within third sigma extending this logic the notion of six sigma is reaching a level of confidence that only 3.4 times out of a million would the actual value fall outside the stated range pert allows you to plan based on the intended level of confidence in the outcome and determine buffers accordingly let us discuss the critical path method in the next screen critical path is defined as the longest duration path through a network diagram which determines the shortest time to complete the project float can be considered as a buffer time available to complete an activity float is calculated once the network diagram is ready it is also called as slack there are three kinds of float the first being the total float which is the amount of time an activity can be delayed without delaying the project end date or an intermediary milestone the second type of float is free float which is the amount of time an activity can be delayed without delaying the early start date of its successor or successors activities the last type is independent float which is the amount of time an activity can be delayed if all the predecessors finish at their latest finish dates and you want to start all the immediate successors at their earliest start dates the slack of the activities on the critical path is zero because there is no scope to delay activities on the critical path critical path actually represents the project duration delaying activities on the critical path is as good as delaying the project duration concept-based questions on critical path can be expected in the exam so it is essential to have a clear understanding of the concept in the next screen let us learn how to calculate float float of an activity can be calculated by two methods however the first step in critical path method is to identify the critical path of the network once the critical path is identified follow the forward pass to find early start and early finish for each activity the float of the activities on the critical path is zero so they represent the overall project duration use forward pass or backward pass to calculate the total activity time calculate late finish and late start using backward pass method note the total float formula before you start for the exam in the next screen let us look at forward pass and backward pass methods in detail in forward pass you can either go through the network starting with time zero and keep calculating the time required to complete each of the activities until you reach the last activity of the project the starting time for each of the activity in this approach is called early start and the end time for each activity is called the early finish alternatively in backward pass you can travel through the network from the project end date and calculate the time required to complete each activity the end date in this approach is called the late finish and the start date of the activity in this approach is called the late start the float of the activity is either the difference between the late start and early start or the difference between the late finish and early finish both the differences work out to be the same before the start of the pmp exam please make a note of the total float formula let us understand the critical path calculation with an example in the next screen let us look at an example for critical path there are five activities in this project and two paths in the network diagram start one two four five and is one path and start one three five and is the second path since the duration of the path start 1 2 4 5 end is 18 days which is more than the duration of the path start 1 3 5 and the critical path of the project is start one two four five end let us take activity three as an example first calculate the early start and early finish dates activity three can start only after activity 1. since the early finish of activity 1 is 3 it becomes the early start of activity 3. activity 3 cannot start earlier than 3 because activity 1 can be completed only by then therefore early start of activity 3 is 3 since the duration of the activity is 4 days the early finish of activity 3 is 3 plus 4 equals seven days now let us calculate the late start and late finish of activity three late start of activity five is fourteen days the activity three happens just before activity five so the late finish of activity 3 is 14 days to calculate the late start you can subtract the duration from late finish therefore the late start of activity 3 is 14 minus four equals ten in the next screen let us focus on schedule compression look at the four activities in the table the normal cost of executing each of the activities as well as how much each of the activities can be crashed is also provided which activity would you crash to reduce the project time by one day activity a will be crashed if the duration of the project is reduced by one day as the per unit cost of crashing the activity a is the least all the activities are assumed to be on the critical path here while crashing if you end up saving time on a path which is not the critical path you will not end up saving time on the project in the next screen let us look into the impact of schedule compression different schedule compression techniques have different impact on the project the impact of fast track leads to risk additions and increase in management time for the project manager crash leads to cost addition and increase in management time for the project manager reduce scope on the other hand saves cost and resources but increases customer dissatisfaction likewise cut quality saves cost and resources but increases risk resource reallocation does not add cost or increase risk in the next screen let us look into the other techniques used in scheduling there are several techniques that are used in scheduling projects what-if scenario analysis in this technique questions like what if a particular scenario changed on the project would that produce a shorter schedule are put forth to understand the impact of specific changes on the schedule the goal is to produce a realistic schedule monte carlo analysis in this method a computer simulates the outcomes of a project making use of randomly generated values that map the probability distribution of the input variables together these two techniques are called modeling techniques resource optimization techniques these are also used to produce a resource limited schedule resource optimization results in more stable number of resources used in the project critical chain method this technique develops the project schedule that takes into account both the activity and resource dependencies in the next screen let us look at the last process in project time management control schedule control schedule is concerned with determining the status of the project schedule determining that the project schedule has changed and managing the actual changes as they occur the project schedule is an important input to this process it is the actual schedule that needs to be controlled scheduled data contains information related to the schedule that may need to be monitored in order to take actions to bring the project back on schedule project calendar describes the working hours and days for the project work performance data has information like which activities have started their progress and which activities have finished the other inputs of this process are project management plan and organizational process assets the key tools and techniques of this process are the performance reviews performance review is measuring comparing and analyzing schedule performance such as actual start and finish dates percent complete and remaining duration for work in progress the other tools and techniques include resource optimization techniques modeling techniques schedule compression leads and lags scheduling tool and project management software in development schedule process these techniques are used for the first time to develop the project schedule whereas in control schedule process these techniques are used to update the project schedule the key output of the control schedule process is the work performance information this is represented in the form of schedule variants sv and schedule performance index spi as a part of the control schedule process the project team will generate forecasts likely schedule for forthcoming activities and project as a whole the other outputs include organizational process assets updates change requests project management plan updates and project document updates in the next screen let us look into a business scenario to understand this concept better after reading the problem statement click the solution button to look at a possible answer here is a quick recap of what was covered in this lesson project time management includes the processes required to manage the timely completion of the project a project schedule defines the start and end dates of the project and the project activities these activities are assigned a duration and sequenced in a logical order gantt charts and network diagrams are used to identify project activities and determine the relationships and dependencies between them gat chart displays the start and end dates of project activities the overall project schedule and the logical task relationships while network diagram is used to plot the activity dependencies plan schedule management define activities sequence activities estimate activity resources estimate activity durations develop schedule and control schedule are the seven processes under project time management schedule network analysis technique generates project schedule based on the estimates of time and resource requirements in this lesson we will focus on project cost management let us begin with the objectives of this lesson after completing this lesson you will be able to define project cost management differentiate between cost estimation and cost budgeting explain control accounts describe the project cost management processes apply earned value management technique to track project performance identify key terminologies used in project cost management in the next screen let us take a quick look at the project management process map there are 47 processes in project management grouped into 10 knowledge areas and mapped to five process groups in this lesson we will look at the fourth knowledge area that is project cost management and its processes in the next screen let us understand the concept of project cost management project cost management involves activities like estimating the cost of each of the project activities adding the cost estimates of the related activities to arrive at the cost budget and controlling the cost to ensure that project activities are completed within the defined budget in the next screen let us discuss cost management plan the cost management plan is a vital step in project cost management it contains information like planning the project cost managing and controlling the project in relation to the cost baseline and managing cost variances project cost management plan is a part of the project management plan the methods used in estimating the cost of each of the project activities are similar to the ones used in estimating project time for example time estimation methods like expert judgment analogous estimating bottom up estimating and reserve analysis are few of the techniques that are also used in estimating activity cost let us discuss control account in the next screen control account is an important concept in the project cost management project cost is generally estimated at individual activity level it becomes difficult to manage cost at the activity level in large projects therefore the cost is managed at a higher level this requires related activities to be clubbed and their cost being managed together as one unit this unit is called control account while estimating the project time wbs is created to break down the project into smaller deliverables these deliverables are broken down into work packages and these work packages are in turn broken into activities control account is defined at a level higher than the work packages for example if five work packages are part of the one control account the cost of all activities belonging to these five work packages are managed as one unit in the next screen let us discuss the project cost management process project cost management has four processes they are plan cost management estimate costs determine budget and control costs the three processes plan cost management estimate costs and determined budget are a part of planning process group and control cost process is a part of monitoring and controlling process group let us look at each of these processes in detail let us begin with the first process that is plan cost management in the next screen managing costs on a project is a critical exercise if the activities are planned well it becomes easier to achieve harmony with the overall cost and budget of the project plan cost management is the process of establishing the policies procedures and documentation for planning managing expending and controlling the project costs let us look at the inputs required for this process the project management plan provides other subsidiary plans and guides the cost planning activities on the project the project charter provides an overall context and high level product and project description which help determine the approach for cost management for example for some projects budget could be a constraint whereas for others budget would not be a constraint but subject to the other objectives enterprise environmental factors provide the organizational context to the project including the culture of the organization and the infrastructure for instance the scheduling systems available the key personnel and so on organizational process assets provide inputs such as policies and procedures templates past performance data and estimates historical information and knowledge base now let us look at the tools and techniques employed in this process expert judgment refers to input received from knowledgeable and experienced resources experts can devise an approach to govern the costs on a project by using their previous experiences meetings may be organized to determine the cost management plan everyone responsible for the project schedule management such as the project manager representatives from the appropriate accounting or financial organization sponsor customer and other stakeholders must attend these meetings several analytical techniques may be used to determine the cost management plan these techniques help to map the impact of various decisions on cost for example how do risk management processes impact cost etc cost management plan is the primary output of this process it establishes the units of measure levels of precision organizational process links control accounts to be used rules for performance measurement and reporting frequency and methodology of monitoring the costs and various other details that lay the overall framework for cost management on a project in the next screen let us discuss the second process under project cost management estimate cost estimate cost is the approximation of the monetary resources required to complete a project activity cost of a specific activity is estimated based on the information available at that point of time as the project team gets more information about the project the activity cost estimation may change let us look at the inputs of this process scope baseline is the most important input as it details out the project scope of work along with that project schedule is also important this contains information like when and which resource is required for the project it is good to remember that the same kind of resources may have different costs at different points of time human resource management plan is another important input various elements like personnel rates rewards or recognition programs etcetera are covered in the human resource management plan which is important in approximating the cost estimate human resource management plan will be discussed in detail in the human resource management knowledge area risk register is also an input because risk mitigation costs should be considered in cost planning more information on risk and its effect in the project will be looked at in detail in risk management knowledge area another input enterprise environmental factors provides organizational context to the project organization process asset is listed as an input as organizations might have standard set of cost estimation policies or templates cost management plan is another important input the cost management plan lays the framework for the cost management processes in the project it provides guidelines such as the units of measure accuracy desired methodologies and tools to be used etc let us now look at the tools and techniques used in this process expert judgment reserve analysis analogous estimating cost of quality parametric estimating project management software up estimating three point estimating vendor bid analysis and group decision making are the various tools and techniques used in this process most of the tools and techniques used here are similar to the ones used in the time management knowledge area vendor bid analysis is a technique used to estimate project cost for example a project requires material procured externally through suppliers in order to get that you invite bids from three or four suppliers and assess their quotations based on their quotations you can get an idea of the cost that will be involved in getting the material for the project group decision making technique is another important technique for project cost estimation cost estimation is an exercise which may be carried out by a group or committee in order to gather well-rounded input therefore group decision making techniques may be used to arrive at a decision that team can work with the outputs of this process are quite straightforward estimates of each of the activities are arrived at basis of the estimate includes things like how the estimate was developed what were the assumptions made in estimating etc project document updates is also one of the outputs because the cost estimates may result in updates to other aspects of the project for example quality risk time etc in the next screen let us discuss the third process under project cost management determine budget once the estimate of each of the activities is arrived at the next project cost management process is to determine budget it is the process of aggregating the estimated cost of individual activities or work packages to establish an authorized cost baseline this is where the control account concept comes into picture the estimated costs of the activities are aggregated to arrive at the cost budget at the control account level once approved this cost budget becomes the cost baseline of the project project cost performance is measured against the cost baseline that is how much more would the project cost be compared to the original cost baseline the cost baseline includes all authorized budgets but excludes management reserves the inputs used in determining the project budget are the activity cost estimates and the basis of estimates which are the output of the previous cost management process the cost management plan lays the framework for the cost management processes in the project it provides guidelines such as the budgeting cycle tools and techniques used to prepare and approve the budget etcetera in addition to these two important inputs scope baseline is also looked at project schedule provides aggregate cost in a particular calendar period to ensure how much money can be made available during that time similarly resource calendar provides information on the resource which is assigned to the project at a particular point of time this information is then used to indicate resource costs over the duration of the project risk register gives an understanding of the overall level of risk on the project and therefore the level of contingency reserves that need to be built into the budget agreements entered into with the suppliers are also required to finalize the budget again organizational process asset is an input because organization may have few policies for reporting the cost budget or there might be some cost budgeting tools being used there are various tools and techniques used in determining budgets cost aggregation technique involves adding up the cost and aggregating them at the control account level so that the cost can be managed in a better way in reserve analysis once the costs are estimated some extra amount is added to the estimate as a management reserve to take care of any unplanned activities expert judgment is a technique in which an expert's help is sought to estimate the activity cost expert is someone who might have worked on a similar project in the past and has a good idea to estimate the activity cost involved historical relationships are used to predict the total project cost using mathematical model this is similar to analogous estimate or parametric estimate method funding limit reconciliation technique is used to ensure that cost on the project is budgeted or spent as per the availability of the fund for example if the project can get the funding of only fifty thousand dollars a month the project budget should be planned accordingly the output of this process is the cost baseline this is an authorized project budget over a period this is used to measure monitor and control overall cost performance of the project in addition to this the project funding requirements are also arrived at funding requirements means how much fund the project requires monthly quarterly or yearly for the execution the last output of this process is project document updates an understanding of determining budget may be useful when answering questions in the pmp exam so make a note of the inputs tools and techniques and outputs of determining budget in the next screen let us discuss the last process of project cost management that is control cost control costs is the process of monitoring the status of the project to update the project budget and managing changes to the cost baseline updating the budget involves recording actual costs spent until date any increase to the authorized budget can only be approved through the perform integrated change control process some of the typical activities that happen as part of the control cost process are ensuring that cost expenditure does not exceed the authorized funding monitor the cost performance to understand variants and monitoring the work performance against the funds expended the inputs to the process are project management plan organizational process assets project funding requirements and work performance data performance data contains the information about the project progress the important tools and techniques used in controlling costs are earned value analysis management forecasting to complete performance index other important aspects of controlling costs are the review the performance analyze the reserves to make sure the project has enough budgetary reserves to meet the expenses and project management software which helps in tracking and managing costs now let us look at the output of this process the key outputs of this process are work performance information in terms of cost variance cv schedule variance sv and earned value ev and forecasts about the cost performance this process may also result in change requests arising out of cost control measures as well as updates to project documents the project management plan and organizational process assets business scenario based questions on project cost control can be expected in the exam so if you have questions on these concepts get them cleared as that will help you score higher in the next screen let us learn about earned value management and its related terms earned value technique is an excellent way to track the project progress against the project plan it is a method of measuring the project performance objectively and comparing it against the project baseline results from an earned value analysis indicate deviation of the project from cost and schedule baselines baseline is the initial approved value along with approved changes therefore schedule baseline is the first approved project schedule along with approved changes there are various terms used in earned value technique planned value is the authorized budget assigned to the scheduled work earned value is the work performed in terms of budget authorized for that work actual cost is the cost incurred in work performed budget at completion is the budgeted amount for the total work estimate at completion is the expected total cost for the project estimate to complete is the expected cost to finish all the remaining project work variance at completion is the projected budget surplus or deficit at the end of the project all the parameters displayed on the screen are measured in terms of cost you may come across business scenario based questions on earned value management in the pmp exam so ensure that you develop a clear understanding of this topic let us look at an example of a planned value in the next screen planned value is the estimated value of the work planned this value is measured in terms of currency say dollar if the plan value is three hundred forty dollars then the work plan is worth three hundred forty dollars how do you calculate earned value the solution is add the budget allocated to each of the activities that have been completed at the point of time the resulting value is the earned value in the next screen let us look at the formula used to calculate earned value in cost variance negative means the project is over budget positive means the project is under budget similarly in schedule variance negative means the project is behind schedule whereas positive means the project is ahead of schedule the value of the next two parameters cost performance index cpi and schedule performance index spi values vary between zero and one for example a cpi of 0.8 implies that 80 cents of work is obtained for every dollar spent in the project similarly if spi is 0.9 it implies that project is progressing at only 90 percent of the speed originally planned the next parameter is estimate at completion or eac there are different ways of calculating the eac value the method used depends on how the cost and schedule variances are expected to play for the rest of the project bac by cpi is used if you expect that the current cost performance will continue until the end of the project ac plus bac minus ev is used if you expect that the rest of the project will be managed at the budgeted rate ac plus bac minus ev by the product of cpi and sbi is used if you want to factor in the impact of the cost as well as schedule variances ac plus etc is used if you want to re-evaluate the project based on a forecast value for the estimated cost of the remainder of the project the next parameter is estimate to complete or etc which is the cost of project from this point to the end this is calculated by subtracting the actual cost from the estimate at completion in addition variance at completion can be calculated by subtracting the estimate at completion from the budget at completion variance at completion is the cost estimation whether it is over or under budget another parameter is the to complete performance index or tcpi this is the cost performance needed to achieve a desired outcome for example if the project needs to be managed to the original budget bac then tcpi that is the cpi that must be maintained for the rest of the project is calculated as bac minus ev by bac minus ac similarly if it has to be managed within a revised target say eac then tcpi is calculated as bac minus ev by eac minus ac before the start of the pmp exam please make a note of the formulas of earned value technique in the next screen let us look into a business scenario to understand this concept better after reading the problem statement click the solution button to look at a possible answer let us take the example of a software development project there are four phases and each phase takes a month to complete and is expected to cost ten thousand dollars the phases are planned to be completed one after the other the status of the project at the end of the month three is summarized in the table requirements definition is completed and actual spending on this is ten thousand dollars architecture and design is done and actual spending on this is twelve thousand dollars development and unit testing is only fifty percent done though it was supposed to be completed by third month it has cost nine thousand dollars until date system testing and go live has not yet started note s indicates start time f indicates finish time and pf indicates that it is partly finished at the end of the month based on the above information calculate the cv sv cpi and spi of the project let us look at a solution in the next screen before we end this lesson let us also look at a few definitions that might be useful for your pmp examination law of diminishing return this means the more you put into something the less you get out of it for example doubling the number of resources working on a project will not necessarily have the time working capital the amount of money the company has to invest on the project and the day-to-day company operations funding limit reconciliation the process of comparing the planned expenditure in a given period with the available funding for that period large assets purchased by the company lose value over time this is called depreciation there are two forms of depreciation straight line and accelerated same amount of depreciation is taken every year for instance a car with a price tag of ten thousand dollars and useful life of ten years is depreciated one thousand dollars per year at the end of the tenth year the value of the car is considered zero for all accounting purposes accelerated depreciation depreciates faster than the straight-line depreciation for instance a car with a price tag of ten thousand dollars depreciates three thousand dollars the first year one thousand five hundred the next year one thousand the third year and so on let us now check your understanding of the topics covered in this lesson here is a quick recap of what was covered in this lesson project cost management includes the processes involved in estimating budgeting and controlling costs so that the project can be completed within the approved budget cost management plan contains details on how to plan manage and control the project cost in relation to the cost baseline and manage the cost variances cost estimate is an educated guess of how much an activity or project will cost budget considers the cost estimate and accordingly sets aside funds for the completion of the project under control account technique related activities are clubbed and their costs are managed as one unit the four project cost management processes are plan cost management estimate costs determine budget control costs earned value management technique indicates potential deviation of the project from the cost and or schedule baselines in this lesson we will focus on project quality management let us begin with the objectives of this lesson after completing this lesson you will be able to define quality and quality management differentiate between quality planning quality assurance and quality control explain cost of quality and its categories describe the project quality management processes explain the seven basic tools of quality explain six sigma in the next screen let us take a quick look at the project management process map there are 47 processes in project management grouped into 10 knowledge areas and mapped to five process groups in this lesson we will look at the fifth knowledge area that is project quality management and its processes in the next screen let us understand what quality is the project manager is responsible for quality in a project however it is also the responsibility of each and every one in the project to ensure that whatever they do meets project quality expectations quality is defined as the degree to which a set of inherent characteristics fulfills requirements a project is said to meet quality expectations when all the project requirements agreed in the beginning of the project are met and the resulting product is usable usable means that the intended users can use the product without any problem in the next screen let us look at some quality related terms it is important to discuss a few terms to understand the concept of quality better customer satisfaction is defined as conformance to requirements and fitness for use it is important to understand the subtle distinction between quality and grade grade is a classification based on technical characteristics low quality is always a problem but low grade may not be a problem rather it would be a matter of choice similarly it is important to understand the distinction between precision and accuracy precision is the granularity of measurement that is how fine grained can you measure the outcome accuracy is how correct you are that is how close you are to the desired value in the next screen let us understand the concept of optimal level of quality quality comes at a cost more effort put in quality will give better results however you cannot keep on investing on increasing the quality as there is no limit to how much a product can be improved investment in quality is determined by knowing the optimal level of quality optimal level of quality as shown in the diagram is said to be achieved at the point where the incremental revenue from improvement equals the incremental cost to secure it suppose you are the manufacturer of toys but the toys are below quality and the sales are low to improve the quality you invest in identifying the demands of children sharing few samples and recording their feedbacks once all these are captured and implemented in the products you lure the parents to buy them as the investment is increased to manufacture good quality toys the cost will therefore increase and it might become prohibitive for parents to buy optimal level of quality is reached at a point where you get maximum number of buyers for the toys manufactured now that we are clear on the concept of quality in the next screen let us discuss quality management quality management involves performing activities like creating standard policies and procedures and ensuring that those standard procedures are being followed properly in the project it aims to ensure that project meets all the initial agreed requirements without any deviation and that the specified approach to quality is implemented on the project three broad activities are done as part of quality management they are quality planning quality assurance and quality control quality planning is the first step when quality related activities of the project are planned quality assurance is the next stage of implementing those quality plans and quality control is the last stage when periodic checks are done to see if project quality is improving in the next screen let us look into the differences between the three aspects of quality management it is important to understand the different kinds of activities that come under quality planning quality assurance and quality control once the quality planning is done the quality management plan is ready this quality management plan has standards templates policies and procedures to be followed in the project it contains information on the level of quality being aimed and the plan to achieve that level it is the aim of quality assurance activities to ensure that the activities planned under quality planning phase gets executed for the project it is the task of quality assurance to determine if the project is complying with the organizational as well as project policies and procedures this is ensured by conducting regular process audits to identify deviation from what is planned in the quality management plan these audits are generally done by quality department of the organizations quality assurance focuses on the process not on specific products the role of quality control is to measure specific project data or results against standards to inspect and verify the project's product defect repair and measure whether quality indicators are improving quality control is about the product and data for example it was planned as part of quality management that project would get completed plus or minus 10 percent within the cost budget three months back when the measurement was done project was over budget by 20 when the measurement was done a day before it was only 15 percent over budget therefore the project has showed an improvement of five percent in the last three months and it is quite likely that over the next three months project may get within the planned limit of 10 percent instead of showing improvement if the data shows cost increase then corrective and preventative actions are required to get the project within the ten percent limit this is quality control in the next screen let us discuss a few quality management concepts let us look at some terms that are commonly used in quality management parlance total quality management or tqm is a quality management philosophy that involves holistic thinking about meeting the objectives of an organization it places the responsibility of quality squarely on the management kaizen is a japanese term that stands for change for better kaizen philosophy is one that should always be looking for small and continuous improvements in the process deeming cycle or pdca cycle that is plan do check act is a process control and improvement approach propagated by the famous quality guru edward deming it means you plan for something executed check the output and based on the lessons you act to bring the deviations under control kanban is a poll-based management system that originated in japan based on just in time jit inventory management the idea behind kanban is to minimize the work in progress and achieve a smooth flow in the process from start to finish because building up inventory only to paper over the imperfections in the system tends to hide the problems in the next screen let us focus on cost of quality cost of quality is the cost that needs to be incurred to make a quality product the sum of all the costs incurred is ensuring that project conforms to requirement is cost of quality cost of quality can be broken down into two major categories first is the cost of conformance or the money spent during the project to avoid failures this can further be subdivided into prevention costs which is the cost to prevent errors like training the team creating documents on equipment and in time to do it right the other subdivision is appraisal costs or the cost for assessing quality like testing destructive testing loss and inspections the second category is the cost of non-conformance it is the money spent during and after the project because of failures this is subdivided into internal failure costs it is the cost of failures that occur before the product is released to customers for example rework and scrap the second subdivision is external failure costs it is cost incurred on failures that occur after it has been released by the team for example liabilities warranty work and lost business concept based questions on cost of quality can be expected in the exam so please make a note of the categories of cost of quality let us look at the project quality management processes in the next screen there are three project quality management processes of which the first process plan quality management is done as part of the planning process group the next process perform quality assurance is done as part of the executing process group and the last process control quality is done as part of the monitoring and controlling process group in the next three screens let us look into each of these processes in detail the aim of the plan quality management process is to identify the relevant requirements or standards to execute the project effectively to achieve the desired quality level quality planning results in the creation of the quality management plan aim of the plan quality process is to identify the standards a standard is an agreed-upon process to work or achieve a result a standard can be set from within the organization or government once all the standards for the project are identified the aim of the quality planning activities involves determining what work needs to be done to meet those standards before adhering to the standards you should question their relevance with the project implementing all possible standards applicable to the project in random will have cost and time implications let us look at the inputs to this process the project management plan provides the scope schedule and cost baseline all of which have an implication on the quality management plan quality plan has a direct correlation with these it might also have an impact on and be impacted by other subsidiary management plans such as risk management the stakeholders of the project may have specific requirements and views about the quality parameters of the project and these have to be considered the risk register gives an indication about the kind of risks that are inherent in the project and also those which must be considered while planning the activities to ensure quality the requirements for the project need to be considered for planning quality related activities because quality is all about meeting the requirements in addition to these enterprise environmental factors and organization process assets are also listed as inputs because the standards can be either from within the organization or from government or other external bodies standards from within the organizations are usually the best practices learned over a period while executing numerous projects an example of government standards can be standards to control air pollution by the motor vehicles which vehicle manufacturers must adhere to to accomplish quality planning first analyze the benefits versus the costs of meeting quality requirements next identify the cost of quality and confirm if that kind of investment in quality is justified in addition to these two benchmarking helps in analyzing the quality of activities of similar projects executed in the past this helps in identifying the particular quality of output of the previous project which in turn acts as a basis for the current project's quality planning design of experiments can also be used for quality planning this is a statistical way to determine what variables will improve quality the most for example in case of manufacturing doors it can be determined that increasing the quality of the wood can have maximum impact on improving the quality of the door in addition the 76 quality tools also known as the seven qc tools are used to determine the plan to achieve the desired level of quality statistical sampling as a tool becomes relevant whenever the quality plan cannot be applied to all the artifacts produced for example if destructive testing is a requirement then it can be carried out only on a sample not on the entire population statistical sampling helps in arriving at a representative sample that can give useful information other additional tools such as brainstorming force field analysis etc may be used to determine the quality management plan for the project conducting regular meetings is another important tool the quality management plan has to be determined in a collaborative manner by consulting the team members and other stakeholders quality management plan is a key output of this process checklist is a list of items to inspect for example many of the office buildings have housekeeping checklists to ensure that all floors cabins etc are cleaned checklists are created during quality planning and used in quality control metrics are project specific data that need to be measured to check the status of the project the simplest project metrics can be cost and schedule metrics are also decided during quality planning and used in quality control one of the roles of the project manager is to not only manage the project but also improve processes in the project to decrease the instances of defects which in turn saves time and money such activities are listed in the process improvement plan which eventually becomes part of project management plan as a result of the planning activities other project documents may also get updated for example the quality management plan may result in updates to the cost or resource requirements there may be questions in the pmp exam based on the plan quality management process so please ensure you have a fair understanding of the concept before you take the exam in the next screen let us discuss the second quality management process once the quality planning is over the next process and project quality management is quality assurance which involves determining whether the standards are being met and the processes are being followed therefore the input for this process is the work that has been completed during the quality planning stage they are project documents quality management plan process improvement plan quality metrics and quality control measurements let us look at the tools and techniques used in this process quality audit is the process to check whether the project is complying with the organization policies standards and procedures and determine whether these policies standards and procedures used are efficient and effective so a good audit not only looks at this compliance but also for the new lessons learned from the current project that can help make the future projects better process analysis involves using the lessons learned from doing the initial few work to make the remaining work more efficient for example if the project involves installing a software package then the lesson learned from the first few installations can be used to improve the process on remaining installations apart from these all the quality management and control tools such as the seven basic quality tools will be relevant to this process the key output of this process is project documents updates to ensure that if there is any deviation from agreed standards it is corrected also if there are any lessons learned that can help improve the future projects the organization process assets get updated this quality assurance may result in improvement suggestions change requests may be generated and the project management plan may need to be updated understanding characteristics of quality assurance tools and techniques may be useful while answering the exam so prepare this topic well before you take the exam in the next screen let us discuss the last process of quality management the key focus of the quality control activities is on the correctness of the work quality control helps answer questions like is everything okay with the project does the project plan require changes to successfully execute the project will the project succeed etcetera let us look at the inputs to this process the quality metrics measurements are done continuously to see whether the project quality is improving the project deliverables are inspected against the planned checklists quality control acts upon the deliverables and work performance data produced in execution it also refers to the project management plan for understanding deviations from the plan it also considers the approved change requests information from other project documents and organizational process assets there are seven popular tools and techniques used in doing the quality control activities they are collectively known as seven basic tools of quality other relevant tools are statistical sampling inspection or testing and review of the approved changes quality control activities result in quality control measurements the verified deliverables validated changes information about the work being performed recommended changes and updates to the organizational process assets project management plan and other project documents in the next screen let us look into a business scenario to understand this concept better after reading the problem statement click the solution button to look at a possible answer six sigma is a highly disciplined process that focuses on developing and delivering near perfect products and services consistently if large volume of data is plotted over a period of time you would most probably have a bell-shaped graph such graphs are also called normal distribution graph it's called as normal distribution because any large volume of data is plotted with the intent to track variations would most probably be in a bell-shaped curve the line corresponding to the top of the bell curve is the median of the data sample standard deviation concept is used to measure how far any data is from the mean standard deviation is also called sigma one standard deviation from the mean covers 68 of the data six sigma means six standard deviations from the mean this would cover 99.99966 percent of the data we will look at an example of six sigma in the following screen to understand six sigma let us look at an example a tire manufacturing company produces one hundred thousand tires a day it is not possible to verify each and every tire manually to ensure it is defect-free instead random sample of these manufactured tires are taken and checked for defects assuming that the thickness of the tires is a parameter to measure defect any tire that has a thickness more than or less than 10 millimeters is considered to be defective now if you measure the actual thickness of all 100 000 tires manufactured daily and plot them on a graph you get normal distribution graph one standard deviation from the mean covers sixty eight percent of the data meaning if the thickness of the one hundred thousand tires are plotted sixty eight thousand of them lie within one standard deviation above or below the mean now if a company operates at six sigma level they would ensure that all tires that are up to six standard deviations from the mean are defect-free therefore in such cases you can expect only three defective tires out of a million tires manufactured let us now check your understanding of the topics covered in this lesson here is a quick recap of what was covered in this lesson a project is said to meet quality expectations when all the project requirements agreed in the beginning of the project are met and the resulting product is usable quality management includes creating and following policies and procedures that meet the project's defined quality needs quality planning defines the standards templates policies and procedures quality assurance determines if the project is complying with the policies and procedures quality control measures specific project results against standards plan quality management perform quality assurance and control quality are the three project quality management processes seven basic quality tools are used to plan and achieve the desired levels of quality at six sigma level there would be only three defects out of a million units manufactured in this lesson we will focus on project management framework let us begin with the objectives of this lesson after completing this lesson you will be able to define project project management program management and portfolio management recognize the roles of project management office identify the project constraints and their impact on the project explain the role of a project manager in stakeholder management describe different organization structure differentiate between a project life cycle and a product life cycle let's begin this lesson with understanding what a project is in the next screen a project is a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product service or result for example developing a new product service or result constructing a building industrial plant or infrastructure and implementing improving or enhancing existing business processes and procedures in the next screen we will focus on the characteristics of a project a project can be distinguished based on its characteristics the definition describes two characteristics of a project first it is temporary in nature temporary here does not mean short in duration a project can extend for long duration based on the requirements for example creating a new indigenous missile defense system for a country however there is always a definite planned start and end date for a project it cannot go on indefinitely secondly the project is supposed to produce a unique output the output could be a product service or result there can be many common activities between two projects but the outcome of each project should be unique in some way or the other now let us look at what marks the end of a project a project ends when either the objectives are met or the project is terminated because the objectives will not or cannot be met the other reason to terminate the project can be that the need for the output of the project does not exist anymore usually the sponsor of the project takes a call about the closure of the project it is important to differentiate project work from regular operational work for example your office receptionist does the same work every day of picking any incoming call and directing the call to the right person in the office this is an ongoing repetitive work and can be classified as operation operations unlike projects are neither temporary nor unique creating a new software system to effectively track your customer complaint can be an example of a project when the software is successfully developed the project objective is met which marks the end of the project when you start using this software to track customer complaints you are entering into the operations phase in the next screen let us now look into project management as defined in the pmbok guide project management is the application of knowledge skills and tools and techniques applied to project activities to meet the project requirements project management is achieved by proper application and integration of the 47 processes project application and integration means these processes should be executed in the right manner as well as in the right order in the next screen let us discuss how to manage a project program management is defined as the application of knowledge skills tools and techniques to a program to meet the program requirements and to obtain benefits and control not available by managing projects individually as defined in pmbok guide a program is a group of related projects which when managed as a group in a coordinated fashion provides benefits and control that are not available while managing them individually these benefits could be from decreased risk economies of scale improved management of dependencies delivery of additional capabilities optimal utilization of shared resources and so on let us now learn the various features of program management random projects cannot be grouped together as a program the projects in a program should be related in some way or the other and there should be some value added in managing them together a project may not be a part of any program but a program will always have projects a project can also be executed as a standalone project a program is designed to deliver some strategic benefits value to the organization these benefits can be tangible or intangible examples of tangible benefit could be increased profit margins or operational cost savings examples of intangible benefits could be improved team morale or building up certain competencies while a project manager focuses relentlessly on the fulfillment of the project's requirements that is scope cost time quality a program manager needs to focus on ensuring that the organizational benefits are realized in the next screen let us understand what a portfolio is portfolio is yet another term used along with project and program a portfolio may have multiple projects and programs that are managed as a group to achieve strategic objectives note that all projects and programs in a portfolio may not be necessarily interdependent or directly related a portfolio can be created based on the business objectives for example an i t service company can have a portfolio named japanese projects which is formed with an aim to take over the japanese market by giving more attention to these projects within this portfolio similar projects can be managed as a program and all banking projects from japan can be managed as a banking program in the next screen let us discuss portfolio management portfolio management is the centralized management of one or more portfolios this includes identifying prioritizing authorizing managing and controlling projects programs and other related work to achieve strategic business objectives therefore whether the company should have japanese projects as portfolio or not is decided by portfolio management in the next screen let us understand the relationship between portfolios programs and projects the image on the screen will help you to understand the terms portfolios programs and projects a portfolio is part of an organization's overall strategy it represents a conscious decision by an organization to invest in the portfolio the overall objectives of a portfolio are then cascaded down to the lower level components the components could be sub-portfolios programs or projects these components can further be broken down into smaller components for ease of management although a project may not contain operations a program or a portfolio it can include other work this other work may comprise training and development customer support and services etcetera if the other work has synergy with the overall objectives and adds to the capability to deliver the higher level benefits then it can be included in the program or portfolio as well in the next screen we will discuss project management office project management office or pmo is a specific type of body or department within an organization pmo performs several roles in the organization and these can broadly be classified as primary roles and other roles typically the pmo may take up any one or a combination of the three primary roles it provides the policies methodologies and tools and templates for managing projects within the organization it provides support and training in organization on how to manage projects and finally it provides project managers for different ongoing projects in the organization pmo may also help in managing interdependencies between the projects selecting managing and deploying shared or dedicated project resources if need be terminating a project and organizing lessons learnt sessions and maintaining the project management knowledge base for an organization in the next screen we will discuss how to manage the triple constraints any project can be done successfully if there is no constraint on time or there is unlimited budget available unfortunately that is not true in real life a project is performed within some constraint and these constraints are usually competing therefore if you change one it would affect the other for example if the project duration increases it would lead to increase in the project cost as well triple constraint is a term that originally referred to the three competing project constraints within which the projects are performed these constraints are cost time and scope quality is a primary concern for a project manager therefore the project manager has to make trade-offs to keep the scope cost time quality plane in balance to achieve the balance the project manager also needs to manage other aspects of the project for instance the people stakeholders risks communication and procurements the project manager plays the essential role of integrating all these different aspects of project management in the pmp examination you can expect business scenario based questions focusing on the triple constraints in the next screen let us understand who a stakeholder is a stakeholder can be defined as the one whose interests may positively or negatively be affected or perceived to be affected by the decision activity or outcome of the project as per the definition the project team project manager project sponsor pmo office customer etcetera are the stakeholders of the project a project sponsor is the one who gives a go ahead for a project and provides the necessary resources to execute the project therefore the head of projects in the organization who provides a green signal to start a project and allocates required resources to the project is the project sponsor a project sponsor is usually somebody placed high up in the organizational hierarchy of the performing organization that is the organization in which the work of the project is being carried out in the next screen let us look at stakeholder management one of the key responsibilities of a project manager is to manage stakeholders a project manager has to involve the stakeholders from the beginning of the project until the end so they are aware of every step a project manager has to take up specific activities for stakeholder management identifying both internal and external stakeholders missing out any stakeholder can be disastrous for a project a stakeholder who has identified towards the end of the project may come up with his own requirement at that stage and incorporating them can be risky determining stakeholder requirements after identifying all the stakeholders the project manager also needs to ensure that their requirements are clearly identified sometimes stakeholders might themselves not know of their requirement and it is the job of the project manager to get them right by doing a proper stakeholder requirement analysis determining stakeholder expectations stakeholders might also have some unstated expectations which need to be clarified to see if it can become a project requirement it is again the role of the project manager to determine the stakeholders expectation communicating with stakeholders once all the stated and unstated stakeholder requirements are known the project manager as part of stakeholder analysis should focus on communicating them regularly to keep stakeholders involved in the project once you understand the practices of stakeholder management it will be easier for you to answer scenario based questions in the examination in the next screen let us look at the various organization structure projects are performed in an organization and the functioning of the organization might affect the project the different organization structure types explained here are based on the level of authority that a project manager gets into in those organizations in a functional type of organization the organization is grouped by the area of specialization within different functional areas for instance marketing accounting engineering etc are departments within the organization each employee typically reports to a functional manager in such types of organization normally projects are undertaken within the department itself if a project requires any assistance from another department the request moves from the head of the requesting department to the head of the concerned department the team members do their normal departmental work in addition to the project work the next type of organization is projectized organization in such organizations there are no departments the organization's resources mostly work on projects team members report to a project manager the project manager has complete control over the resources when the project is completed either they move on to another project or they look for some job outside the company they do not have a department for themselves the third type of organization is a matrix organization which is a blend of functional and projectized organizational structure a team member belongs to a department as well as they are part of a project team in such organization team members have two bosses one their department head and the second their project manager since there are two bosses here this type of organization is further classified into three different types they are weak strong and balanced matrix organization so out of the two bosses that team members have in matrix organization if the project manager has more authority over the team member such organizations are called strong matrix where the functional manager has more authority it's a weak matrix organization if they both share equal authority then it is a balanced organization there is another term that you might find in the exam called tight matrix this generally refers to a co-located team that is a team that has been placed in the same location to enhance their performance in the pmp exam if there is no mention of the organization type you can assume it to be a matrix organization let us look at each of these organization structures in detail in the next screen let us look at functional organization in a functional organization the resources of the organization are grouped by functions sometimes called departments examples of functions could be sales finance administration manufacturing etc each function plays a definite role in the organization and is headed by a functional head or supervisor all the resources in such an organization report directly into their functions therefore a salesperson would report into the sales organizational hierarchy a purchase executive would report into procurement and so on you would notice that in a functional organization the project manager's role is not explicitly called out when a functional organization embarks on a project each of the functions that are involved may volunteer some resources to work on the project one of these resources may end up playing the project manager's role the resource assignments may not even be full time and sometimes even the project manager is part-time since the project manager has no authority over any of the resources they are dependent on the functional heads this makes it more challenging for the project manager to coordinate in the team however functional organizations provide an opportunity for specialization for example if a purchase executive was reporting into the purchase department that executive would have exposure to all the purchasing that happens within the organization and has a well-defined career path in functional organizations project management happens at the functional head level next let us look at the projectized organization in the next screen the projectized organization has all the resources aligned around projects the project managers have complete control over the resources working on their projects the biggest advantage of the projectized organization is that the resources have loyalty to their projects and project execution becomes easier this kind of structure is suitable for organizations whose work is in the nature of projects there are few disadvantages in this structure as well firstly the role of the resource is over once the project is completed secondly highly specialized roles within a project may not be fully occupied all the time for example a purchase executive may have worked for selected periods on a project while purchase activities are going on however for the rest of the period their capability may not be optimally utilized there is less scope for functional specialization as the project boundaries limit the kind of work for the resources each project manager is in charge of a project and its resources next let us look at the matrix organization in a matrix organization the resources report to the functional managers and are managed by the project managers as well there might even be a function that represents all the project managers in the organization which provides project management expertise the matrix structure has three variants commonly referred to as weak balanced and strong in a weak matrix the authority of the project manager is the weakest and strongest in a strong matrix structure the titles given to project managers and functional or weak matrix organizations are project expediter or project coordinator they would be called project managers in a balanced or strong matrix structure and have slightly more authority over the time of the team members the advantage of the matrix structure is that resources can be optimally utilized while preserving the capacity of the project managers to get projects executed efficiently resources can specialize in their functions and have stability in their careers also contribute to the projects at the same time potentially the disadvantage of matrix organization is that the communication overhead increases significantly this is because every resource in the organization belongs into a project and into a function leading to a dual reporting structure in a matrix organization project management happens at project resource level in the next screen let us summarize the advantages and disadvantages of different organizational structures each organization structure has its own set of advantages and disadvantages the advantage of functional organizations is that resources may find clearly defined career paths and achieve specialization and skill development in their respective fields it will be a flexible workforce since only one manager will be responsible avoiding confusion the disadvantage of such organization type is that project work is hampered department work is always given higher priority than the project work in addition there is no career path in project management which leads to lower interest in projects in the case of the projectized organization one of the clear advantages is better communication within the projects since project work is the only work team members are doing it also leads to loyalty towards the project goals the disadvantage of such organization type is the inefficient use of resources because every project team has their own support function therefore this might lead to the duplication of effort it also leads to the resources being left with no work since their roles are over once the project is completed it also hampers skill development because the project requirements dictate what kind of work team members perform at different stages on a project now let us look at the matrix organization it also has the advantage of better coordination and maximum utilization of resources however the disadvantage is the higher potential for conflict among the managers which might lead to communication complexity and overhead management in the next screen let us focus on the comparison on project lifecycle and product lifecycle project lifecycle spans the initiation of a project until the closure of the project the product life cycle on the other hand also encompasses the operational and maintenance phases a typical product life cycle starts with conception of the product and goes until its withdrawal from the market the withdrawal might be because it becomes obsolete or there is no further need for the product in the market a product has a long life cycle a product can require or spawn many projects over its life for example a project in product conception phase could be to determine customer needs whereas a project during product maturity phase could be used to perform competitive analysis typically a product life cycle is longer than the project life cycle a project also has its own life cycle and this life cycle depends upon the industry and the organization within which the project is being executed sometimes different organizations within the same industry use different life cycles there can be questions in the exam based on the comparison of project life cycle and product life cycle so understanding the differences will be useful in answering such questions in the next screen let us discuss more on project life cycle a life cycle is composed of phases each phase represents a discrete unit of work required to be done on the project there are different ways of classifying project life cycles let us first discuss the sequential versus overlapping life cycle in sequential phases the subsequent phase starts only after the previous phase has been completed whereas in overlapping phases two or more phases may run in parallel for some time this could help fast tracking and compressing the amount of time required the other way of classifying life cycles is how they go about the process of planning in predictive life cycles there is a large upfront planning phase where all the details of scope cost time are planned before beginning the subsequent phases these phases then are executed in either sequential or overlapping modes they are suitable for large projects where all the requirements are likely to be known in advance and where upfront planning effort is required to get the necessary approvals another feature of predictive life cycles is that each phase may potentially be different in the nature of activities and may require people with different skill sets for example traditional software development life cycle has phases like requirements feasibility planning design construction testing and transition we will continue project life cycles in the next screen incremental and iterative life cycles have a short upfront high level definition and planning phase the product is then developed through a series of iterations where iteration increments or adds to the functionality by a little all the activities are intentionally repeated in iterations adaptive or agile life cycles are variants of incremental and iterative life cycles where iteration is very short typically two to four weeks agile methodologies are becoming very popular in the software development industry and in other industries where the requirements are highly changeable and frequent feedback is beneficial let us now check your understanding of the topics covered in this lesson here is a quick recap of what was covered in this lesson project management is the application of knowledge skills and tools and techniques applied to project activities to meet the project requirements pmo provides the policies methodologies and tools and templates for managing projects within the organization project manager has to integrate various project aspects like the people stakeholders risks communication and procurements with the project constraints time scope cost and quality identifying internal and external stakeholders determining their requirements and communicating with them regularly is an important role of a project manager functional projectized and matrix are the three types of organization structures based on the level of authority given to the project manager project lifecycle spans the initiation of a project until the closure while product life cycle also encompasses the operational and maintenance phases if getting your learning started is half the battle what if you could do that for free visit skill up by simply learn click on the link in the description to know more in this lesson we will focus on project communications management let us begin with the objectives of this lesson after completing this lesson you will be able to define communication and project communications management identify the different communication methods technology and channels explain the elements of a basic communication model describe the project communications management processes in the next screen let us take a quick look at the project management process map there are 47 processes and project management grouped into 10 knowledge areas and mapped into five process groups in this lesson we will look at the seventh knowledge area that is project communications management and its processes in the next screen let us understand communication communication can be best defined as a two-way process of exchanging information between two entities as you can see on the screen if project is an entity the project needs to communicate with other entities in the organization like project managers senior management of the organization and any other stakeholder of the project similarly these entities may also have to communicate with the projects the communication between project and the stakeholders is always two-sided project manager is responsible for ensuring proper communication to and from the project in fact a project manager spends almost 90 percent of his or her time on communication you can now understand how important it is for a project manager to plan this activity well in the next screen let us discuss communication methods communication can be done in two ways it can be done written or verbal both written as well as verbal communication can either be formal or informal formal means communicating by following some basic rules whereas informal means taking a casual approach these two combinations result in four different communication methods they are formal written formal verbal informal written and informal verbal formal written method is used for project management plans project charter and over long distance communication formal verbal method is used during presentations whereas informal written method is applicable while writing notes or emails informal verbal on the other hand is applied during conversations you can expect questions in the pmp exam which require choosing a communication method for a given situation so a fair understanding of the communication methods can help you score higher in the next screen let us look at the various communication technologies communication technology refers to the different media used for communicating a few such technologies are listed on screen among which email fax and telephone are a few popular communication technologies in the next screen let us understand the communication channel with the help of an example communication takes place between four people in a team the lines across the members represent there can be six unique channels of communication existing within the team now if the team comprises ten members how many unique channels of communication will be calculated you can use the formula n multiplied with n minus one and the resulting sum divided by two n is the total number of people involved in communication in this case n equals to 10. if this is put into the formula you will get 45 as the result therefore 45 unique communication channels exist in a team of ten people it is difficult to manage such a large number of communication channels therefore it is important to structure communication otherwise everyone starts communicating everything to everyone and it can become a real chaos in the project in the pmp exam you may be asked to calculate the number of communication channels in a scenario based question so please make a note of the formula to answer the question correctly in the next screen let us discuss the basic communication model project communications management includes the processes required to ensure that information about timely and appropriate generation collection distribution storage and ultimate disposition of project is prepared and circulated to all project stakeholders it is the responsibility of a project manager to ensure that the information requested by the stakeholder is communicated to them the frequency at which the information needs to be shared may also vary from stakeholder to stakeholder for example think about a simple process of sharing a project status report with the customer and senior management this knowledge area explains how it should be done as per pmi in the next screen let us discuss the project communications management processes there are three project communications management processes process is carried during different process groups plan communication management is done during planning process group managed communications is done during executing process group and control communications is done during monitoring and controlling process group in the next few screens we will cover each of these processes in detail plan communications management is the process of developing an appropriate approach and plan for project communications based on stakeholders information needs and requirements and available organizational assets this belongs to the planning process group stakeholder register is an important input to this process it is a list of all the stakeholders the project management plan has information about a large number of the project's requirements and the stakeholders who need to receive communication of various kinds are therefore a critical input to this process in addition to these two organization process assets and enterprise environmental factors are also inputs to this process many organizations have standard templates to prepare communication management plan which are part of the organizational process assets and enterprise environmental factors the first technique used in this process is the communication requirements analysis where the communication requirements of each of the stakeholders are analyzed and categorized in this you try to find how many of the stakeholders need similar kind of information which can be grouped together if you send information through an email system all those stakeholders who need similar information can be marked in cc in the email next you can decide on the communication technology these days email is the most widely used technology but in few cases you might have to send information using some other technology like fax or registered post for example all government communications are done using registered post to keep a written record finally you need to understand how communication really happens that is the communication models and the various communication methods used you may need to conduct meetings before agreeing on and finalizing the communications management plan the communications management plan is the primary output of this process which lays down the procedures around communications in the organization communication management plan has information like which stakeholder needs what kind of information at what frequency and how as a result of this process some other project documents may also get updated there may be questions in the pmp exam based on the planned communications management process so a fair understanding of the process will help you answer such questions correctly in the next screen let us look into a business scenario to understand this concept better after reading the problem statement click the solution button to look at a possible answer manage communications is the process of creating collecting distributing storing retrieving and the ultimate disposition of project information in accordance to the communications management plan it belongs to the executing process group managed communications is done throughout the project life cycle everything cannot be planned during communication planning so manage communications takes care of responding to unexpected requests for information as well communications management plan is an important input work performance reports have information regarding project performance and status information organizational process assets are the standard templates created for the status report by organizations in some organizations there are guidelines for communication distribution enterprise environmental factors are the other inputs to this process various tools and techniques are used in this process communications technology represents the means of technology that is email instant messaging telephone conferencing etcetera that are used to exchange information the use of communication models helps you determine the technique that is best suited for a particular situation communication methods are the various methods used to communicate for example whether it is interactive or offline whether information is being pushed by the provider or pulled by the recipient etc information management systems help design a framework for managing the information within a project that is how it is acquired where it is stored and how it is distributed and destroyed in performance reporting all the information is synthesized in the form of performance reports that are later distributed to the appropriate stakeholders and forms an important part of the communications strategy on a project the first and primary output of this process is the communications messages that are generated during the project the other outputs include project management plan updates project document updates and organizational process assets updates in the next screen let us discuss control communications process control communications is the process of monitoring and controlling communications throughout the entire project life cycle to ensure the information needs of the project stakeholders are met it is part of the monitoring and controlling process group the inputs to this process are the project communications project management plan and issue log which has a list of issues that are raised by different project stakeholders data related to the work being performed on the project and various other project documents which may have to be communicated other inputs include work performance data and organizational process assets let us look at the tools and techniques in detail the information management systems provide tools to collect consolidate and present the information in the form of cogent concise communications expertise must be sought from different stakeholders on how you should go about this process several meetings may be needed to ensure the efficiency and efficacy of the communications the major outputs of this process is the work performance information which indicates that the work performance data has been analyzed interpreted and presented in an easily comprehensible form this process may also give rise to change requests updates to the project management plan project documents and organizational process assets in the next screen let us look into a business scenario to understand this concept better after reading the problem statement click the solution button to look at a possible answer here is a quick recap of what was covered in this lesson communication is a two-way process of transferring information from one entity to another the four commonly used communication methods are formal written formal verbal informal written and informal verbal the total number of unique channel of communication can be calculated using the formula n multiplied with n minus 1 and the resulting sum divided by two by analyzing the communication model problems in project communication can be identified project manager is responsible for timely availability of information to all stakeholders the three project communications management processes are plan communication management management communications and control communications in this lesson we will focus on project human resource management there are 47 processes in project management grouped into 10 knowledge areas and mapped to five process groups in this lesson we will look at the sixth knowledge area that is project human resource management and its processes in the next screen let us understand project human resource management project human resource management includes the processes that organize manage and lead the project team one of the key elements of human resource management is that each of the project team members should have clear assignment of their roles and responsibilities in addition even the team working on project management tasks should be a part of the project team and they are responsible for project management functions like initiating planning executing monitoring and controlling and closing along with other leadership activities in the next screen let us understand the difference between functional and project manager an organization may have both functional managers and project managers the difference functional manager is the one who handles a business function or department for instance the hr manager is responsible for the hr department in an organization therefore an hr manager will be a functional manager generally a functional manager is also a subject matter expert the roles and responsibilities of the functional manager depend upon the core business of the organization and overall organization structure functional managers normally own the resources and provide the projects with necessary resources they also negotiate with the project manager regarding resources the project manager on the other hand is responsible and accountable for the success or failure of a project and the quality of the project they are not technical experts the project manager may not have authority over the resources depending upon the organizational structure they often have to negotiate with the functional manager for the resources and are responsible for the product quality a project manager will credit the team with the success of the project and accept the blame for the failure now let us look at an example to understand the roles played by functional and project managers the ceo of an organization initiates a new project to secure an iso 9001 2008 certification for the company now this project would require team members from each of the company departments and whoever is the project manager of this project will have to request the functional manager to assign one of their team members to the project resources assigned to the project go back to their respective departments once the project is completed let us now discuss the project human resource management processes in the next screen there are four project human resource management processes the first process plan human resource management is done as part of the planning process group the next three processes are part of the executing process group these processes are acquire project team develop project team and manage project team let us now look into each of these processes in detail in the next screen let us begin with plan human resource management plan human resource management is the process of identifying and documenting project roles responsibilities required skills reporting relationships and creating a staffing management plan this process is part of the planning process group in addition to that finalizing the project hierarchy of who reports to whom and designing the staffing management plan is also part of this process the first input to this process is the project management plan there could be a lot of information in the project management plan and subsidiary plans that may be relevant to the creation of the human resource management plan for example the project life cycle processes the timelines how the work will be accomplished etc the other key input for this process is the activity resource requirement team members can be identified based on these requirements in addition to this enterprise environmental factors like current employment outlook etc are also important for example if the economy is booming and there are ample job opportunities for the team members the reward and recognition system can keep the project team interested in the project organizational process asset is also an input to this process an example of the organization process assets can be template or a form to request for a new resource let us now look at the tools and techniques used to develop human resource plan the roles and responsibilities are captured in the form of organization charts and position descriptions there are various ways to draw this chart it can be either hierarchical chart which shows the reporting function or it can be text based the other technique used for developing the human resource plan is networking this involves formal or informal interactions within the organization and outside by the project manager to identify the best team for the project depending upon various interpersonal factors organizational theory helps to understand how individuals come together and function as an organization expert judgment and meetings are required to put the human resource plan together the output of this process is human resource management plan this plan contains documents like staffing management plan project organization chart and roles and responsibilities matrix the staffing management plan is a comprehensive document that describes when and how team members would be added to and released from the project another component of the staffing management plan is the recognition and reward system recognition and reward system helps project managers motivate their team the staffing management plan is relevant to the projects of a functional or matrix organization where project team members are always caught in a dilemma about prioritizing project work against regular departmental work in the next screen let us discuss organization charts and role descriptions a project manager needs to make sure that there is an organization chart prepared specifically for the project it should clearly identify the roles and the reporting relationships between them a sample organization chart is shown on the slide another way of clearly delineating responsibilities among team members is by using a responsibility assignment matrix one form of responsibility assignment matrix is the raci chart in the raci chart r stands for responsible a for accountable c for concerned or consulted and i for informed for each important activity or deliverable on the project it needs to be clearly identified who is responsible or contributes to it who is ultimately accountable who is merely concerned about the success and who needs to be informed or kept in the loop an example of the raci chart is shown on the screen in this case project manager john is accountable for the project plan and the other team members chris sally and ting are responsible for completing the plan similarly you can note the roles of each resource in the other activities in the next screen let us understand resource histogram resource histogram is a method of depicting how many resources are required for the life of a project if you observe the chart shown on the screen it indicates that the number of staff hours required on the project increases to a peak in 2014 and then slowly tapers off especially for long running projects the level of staffing needed may vary considerably over a period this has implications for other parts of the plan as well for example the cost will vary as the number of resources change this piece of information helps a project manager to understand at what time they need to onboard and off board resources on a project in the next screen let us look into the second human resource management process that is acquire project team acquire project team is the process of confirming human resource availability and obtaining the team necessary to complete project activities this process belongs to the executing process group acquiring resources may not be required in the planning phase therefore it is done in execution phase though you may plan to acquire few in the planning phase major acquisition is done in execution phase this may be true where large projects are run spanning over many years with several detailed activities the key input is the human resource management plan enterprise environmental factors help understand which team members will be available to work on the project how much they will cost etc organizational process assets will help understand the hiring procedure of the company the policies that govern the use of team members on the project etc the key technique for acquiring the project team is negotiation as a project manager you have to negotiate with the company's senior management resource manager or with prospective candidates to secure the most suitable resources on the project sometimes the resources may be pre-assigned to a project this typically happens when they are the key resources without which the project cannot take off sometimes the project team is acquired by getting required resources through external vendors most of the bigger organizations have approved a list of vendors who provide resources on a contractual basis nowadays the concept of virtual team is also quite popular to get a project team so even though the project is being conceived in one country a big part of the team can be in another country for example if the project is conceived in the usa majority of the team can be in germany and both the teams can coordinate over the phone email chat etc multi-criteria decision analysis is also an important tool to achieve the objectives while acquiring the human resources for the project it is important to consider a number of factors such as availability cost skill set experience attitude relocation needs etc these criteria have to be considered in totality and balanced out against the project's requirements the output of this process is project staff assignments resource calendars and updates on project management plan let us now discuss the next process develop project team once the project team is acquired the next step is developing the project team develop project team is the process of improving competencies team member interaction and overall team environment to enhance project performance this process belongs to the executing process group the inputs to this process include project staff assignments resource calendars and human resource management plan one of the techniques used in developing project team is interpersonal skills it is more of an art than a science and this is where individual characteristics of project managers matter a lot if the project manager genuinely commands trust and respects the team members developing the team becomes easy team members look up to the project manager not only for getting project specific instructions but also for their career advancement as well social activities like celebrating a team member's birthday going for parties outside the office etc helps in team building training is also an important tool for developing the project team as it helps in increasing the knowledge of competencies of the team members sometimes co-locating the team members at a single place also helps in developing team bonding this is especially important if team members work from different geographical locations knowing a person face to face does help in reducing conflict project managers can also encourage the team members by providing recognition and rewards personnel assessment tools give the project manager insights into the strengths and opportunities for improvement in the team members these tools also help in understanding members aspirations so that the project manager can better align the project goals with the individual aspirations finally the project manager should also set some ground rules in the project to ensure that team performs their work without any problems some such rules can be everyone should reach office for daily meeting by 9 30 a.m sharp if there is more than a 10 percent delay in completing any activity assigned it should immediately be escalated to project manager if there are any unforeseen circumstances it should be immediately brought to the notice of the project manager etc the output of this process is team performance assessments this is done by the project manager to evaluate and enhance the effectiveness of the team as a whole this is a document which explains team effectiveness as information about the team evolves the enterprise environmental factors may also be updated questions that test a project manager's role in developing a project team can be expected in the pmp exam so ensure that you have a fair understanding of the role before you take the exam in the next screen let us discuss the manage project team process managing the project team is different from developing the project team though it is also done during the execution process group it relates to measuring team members performance providing feedback resolving issues and managing changes to optimize project performance to measure team members performance the manager should know the work assigned to them as well as their performance on the assigned work hence project staff assignments and team performance assessments are listed as input to this process the human resource management plan serves as a guideline for managing project teams some organizations have templates and procedures to do such assessment and that being the reason why organization process asset is also one of the inputs to this process the work performance reports as well as issue logs will be inputs because the team management activities have to be performed in this context observation and conversation is a technique where the project manager monitors and discusses the tasks done by the team this does not imply formal project status reports but having an informal interaction with the team before documenting the project status report knowing about the issue early helps in resolving them early formal performance appraisals are helpful in evaluating the team members performance on the project the project manager creates these with the help of the team supervisors it is an established practice in most organizations to evaluate team members for their work this may have a bearing on their future assignments salary promotions etc since the power of appraising lies within the project manager the project manager can use this as an effective tool for managing the team since multiple resources work on a single project it is quite natural to expect conflicts it is the responsibility of project manager to resolve conflicts conflict management has been discussed in detail later in the lesson you can expect questions on conflict management in the exam the other tool is interpersonal skills the output of managing a project team includes corrective action recommendations like which team members to be changed implementing some reward system to motivate the team etc updating the project management plans documents organization process asset and enterprise environmental factors are the other outputs of this process there can be questions in the pmp exam that test a project manager's skill in managing a project team so ensure that you are aware of the inputs tools and techniques and outputs of managing a project team let us discuss team dynamics in the next screen any team naturally goes through several stages as it gets together these stages are forming storming norming performing and adjourning in forming stage a team formally comes together for the first time in storming stage disagreements start to surface this is followed by norming when the teams start working together and trusting each other in performing stage they are able to deliver results as a team finally the team is adjourned when the work of the project is completed or the project is terminated in the next screen let us discuss conflict management many organizations look for people with diverse background to get different perspectives about work if people with diverse backgrounds and culture work on a project it is quite natural to expect conflict conflict often results in opportunities for improvement the root causes of conflict can be scarce resources scheduling priorities and personal work styles while the popular belief is that personality or ego can be the key reason for conflict it is the least possible reason for conflict as a project manager if you find yourself in between a conflict with a team member sit across the table and resolve it if not they should get their immediate managers involved and try to resolve it to avoid conflicts a project manager should let everyone involved have complete clarity about the project assign the roles and responsibilities to each of the team members clearly ensure that there are no overlapping responsibilities which could be a possible cause for conflict sometimes boredom at work can also lead to conflict so one of the responsibilities of project manager is to keep motivating the team members and let them work on interesting and challenging assignments business scenarios based questions on conflict management can be expected in the pmp exam so it is essential to have a fair understanding of the topic in the next screen let us look at conflict resolution techniques there are five techniques of resolving conflict they are withdraw or avoid smooth or accommodate compromise or reconcile force or direct collaborate or problem solve in withdrawal or avoid one retreats from a potential conflict situation or defers the resolution to a later date this does not resolve the conflict but allows for more time in smooth or accommodate areas of agreement are emphasized to reduce the intensity of the conflict again this does not on its own result in a resolution but it may succeed in changing the perceptions about the situation in compromise or reconcile there is some give and take in order to bring some satisfaction to all parties depending on how the process went this may be perceived as a win-win or a lose-lose situation because none of the parties really get what they want in force or direct a person in a position of authority directs how the matter should be resolved it may be necessary to do this when the matter has to be resolved immediately however this may result in upsetting one or more of the conflicting parties in collaborate or problem solving the parties in the conflict are asked to come together to collaborate and look for a resolution to the problem this offers the greatest likelihood of a satisfactory and permanent resolution and should be resorted to whenever possible business scenario based problems where a resolution technique has to be selected can be expected in the pmp exam so understanding the conflict resolution techniques is essential in the next screen let us look into a business scenario to understand this concept better after reading the problem statement click the solution button to look at a possible answer one of the key responsibilities of a project manager is to get work done by the team there are certain powers that a project manager can use to get the work done a project manager has to use a combination of techniques to get this accomplished various powers of a project manager are legitimate or formal reward penalty expert and referent in legitimate or formal project manager can formally assign a work to a team member that he or she has to do project manager can reward and recognize the team members the reward could be as simple as assigning challenging or sought after work to a team member this can motivate good performers on the project sometimes project manager can penalize the team members for poor performance some project managers are able to command authority because of their expertise in a certain field project manager can be considered as a reference of higher authority to get the work done sometimes referent authority also arises from the personal charm or charisma of the project manager legitimate reward and penalty are the powers derived from the project manager's position in the company expert power exists when the project manager is an expert on the subject matter reward and expert are usually the best forms of authority to use penalty is the worst way of influencing and managing the team a project manager should resort to this only as a last option regardless of the project manager having formal reporting authority over the team they are naturally looked upon as the leaders for their projects project managers need to be familiar with the leadership styles and be able to tailor their style according to the needs of the project and that of the team there are three leadership styles the first one is authoritarian or autocratic in this style the leader sets clear expectations of the team and expects complete compliance in a participative or democratic style the leader offers guidance but also involves the team in decision making in a delegative or laissez-faire style the leader leaves the work to the team without offering much guidance in most circumstances you would want your leader to employ a participative style but there may be occasions when other styles might be appropriate in the next screen let us discuss mckenzie's 7s framework a popular framework in management science is the mackenzie's 7s framework there are seven elements that are divided into two categories an organization working on a project will have these elements already in place and hence these become the hard elements the first three elements of the 7s framework are the strategy structure and systems the leader or project manager is expected to step in and exhibit soft elements to earn the mantle of leadership the next four elements are shared values skills style and staff there are 47 processes in project management grouped into 10 knowledge areas and mapped to five process groups in this lesson we will look at the eighth knowledge area that is project risk management and its processes risk is an uncertain event or condition that can affect a project positively or negatively although most of the time you view this uncertainty as bad sometimes it also has a likely positive outcome let us look at an example of risk having a positive outcome you are using a software for managing timesheet of your team members due to budget constraints you are forced to use a new software though you were initially reluctant to use it you found the new software to do better than the current one it is more efficient and has better reporting facility an example of bad uncertainty can be swine flu government declares mandatory holiday to check flu spread which may affect your project work risks can be managed only if they are measured quantitatively suppose there are many risks identified in a project and you have limited resources to manage them you should know which risk is most important that has to be managed first therefore measuring risk becomes very critical risk is measured by assigning a monetary value to it and that value is arrived at by multiplying the probability and impact of the risk can be categorized in various ways one such categorization is external internal technical or project management related risk external risk arises out of external policies or regulations for example government policy that the river water can be used for drinking purposes may hinder your production which is dependent on the river water internal risk arises from within the project for example the complexity of the work may result in time and cost escalation technical risks arise from the technology being used projects in space exploration have a lot of technical complexity risks could be related to project management for example if there are many interdependencies between the sub projects it is a risk from the project management standpoint the categorization of risk can be based on the origin risks can be classified as scope risk resource risk schedule risk cost risk and quality risk scope risk can include redoing the same task if the scope is not well understood when the only resource is assigned to some other project it is called resource risk a decision tree helps in analyzing risk and its impact on making decisions in a scenario where there is uncertainty on the outcome suppose you want to buy a car you can buy either a new car or an old car which one should you buy which has more risk over a period of five years consider the concept of decision tree to solve this problem the initial cost of buying a new car is twenty thousand dollars and the cost of buying an old car is fifteen thousand dollars for a new car the probability of it having any problem fail scenario is only ten percent that is there is a ninety percent likelihood that it will just work without any problems past scenario and if it does have any at all the impact of the problem is fifteen thousand dollars the reason is that it was bought at a higher cost an old car has seventy percent probability of having a problem the reason being the probability is high because the car was already used by someone else in the past however the impact here is low say ten thousand dollars if you add probability multiplied by impact of both the options at the decision nodes you will find buying an old car over a period more risky than buying a new car the project cost will be arrived at after considering the risk reserves of both the known risks and unknown risks there is a specific order in which these reserves are calculated in the project cost first the cost of all activities is identified activities are the smallest unique project tasks all the activity costs add up to the cost of the work packages work packages are the last level of classification in a work breakdown structure work packages cost adds up to the control account cost one or more work packages are clubbed together to create a control account and manage the cost of the work packages next the project costs are identified there can be multiple control accounts in a project now once the project cost is calculated some reserve is added to take care of any uncertainties you may have made some assumptions to calculate the cost of the activities and by adding some reserve you would want to take care of those uncertainties in this case make a note that you are accounting for the assumptions made and it can be said that this reserve takes care of known uncertainties this reserve is also called contingency reserve at this point you have arrived at the cost baseline that is the cost for the project that will be used for budgeting and tracking purposes once the planned cost is arrived there is another reserve that gets added called management reserve note that management reserves are not part of the cost baseline and are used during emergencies only by adding contingency reserve you have taken care of known uncertainties and by adding management reserve you take care of unknown uncertainties that is those risks that perhaps have not yet been identified unknown uncertainties are added based on experience or expert judgment project risk management includes the processes of conducting risk management planning identification analysis response planning and controlling risk on a project the key objective of risk management is to increase the probability and or impact of positive events and decrease the probability and or impact of negative events there are six risk management processes plan risk management identify risks perform qualitative risk analysis perform quantitative risk analysis and plan risk responses belong to the project planning group and control risks belong to the monitoring and controlling process group in this lesson we will focus on project stakeholder management there are 47 processes in project management grouped into ten knowledge areas and mapped to five process groups in this lesson we will look at the tenth knowledge area that is project stakeholder management and its processes in the next screen let us understand who stakeholders are a stakeholder is anybody who has a stake in the project a stakeholder may be an individual a group or an organization who may affect or be affected by or perceived to be affected by a decision activity or outcome of a project further the nature of the impact can be positive or negative thus giving rise to the notion of positive or negative stakeholders irrespective of whether a stakeholder is positive or negative it is important to engage with the stakeholders and get them involved in the project this can make a critical difference to the success or failure of the project a single disgruntled stakeholder can bring the entire project to its knees whereas an actively engaged and influential stakeholder can have the opposite effect let us understand who the common stakeholders of a project are there are several categorizations of stakeholders the project managers themselves are important stakeholders the project team members represent stakeholders in the project the senior management of the organization which is working on the project has a stake in the project the sponsor that is the person or entity that provides the money and resources for the project and essentially champions the project is an important stakeholder the customer which may be different from the sponsor is a stakeholder as well for instance and many of the projects in the social sector the sponsor may be the government or a development agency whereas the customers would be the people who actually benefit from it the end users which may be different from the customers or the sponsors are stakeholders too the vendors or suppliers who provide goods or services to the project are important stakeholders people whose lives may be impacted by the output of the project are also stakeholders for example if a highway project requires possession of privately owned land people whose land is being taken away are the stakeholders if the construction of a dam or water reservoir benefits the downstream farming communities they are the stakeholders here competitors who provide alternative goods or services are stakeholders too sometimes environmentalists or other social groups may become stakeholders the government or political leadership may become stakeholders for projects in the public domain it is sufficient to state that there could potentially be hundreds of stakeholders for a large project it is in the interest of the project manager and the project team to clearly identify all such stakeholders up front and then actively manage them throughout the project in the next screen let us discuss the classification models for stakeholder analysis not all the stakeholders have the same amount of influence or power over the project therefore the way to manage each stakeholder needs to be calibrated based on a proper classification of the stakeholders this is the role of the classification model you can come up with a grid that maps the power of the stakeholders the interest they have the influence they may have or the impact that they can have on the project through the power interest power influence or influence impact grids it can be represented by mapping stakeholders to a power or interest grid the diagram on the screen has x-axis which represents interest level and y-axis which represents the power level based on the various combinations of power levels and interest levels the grid can be divided into four quadrants the stakeholders on the top right quadrant with high power and high interest need to be managed closely that is you have to monitor their involvement and engagement very closely the stakeholders on the bottom right quadrant with high interest but low power need to be kept in the loop that is you should share information with them and keep them regularly informed the stakeholders on the top left quadrant with high power but low interest can be managed by keeping them happy for example by making sure that their interests and opinions are taken into consideration the stakeholders on the left bottom quadrant with low power and low interest may be managed less actively by simply monitoring how things are going with them the salience model describes classes of stakeholders based on their power ability to impose their will urgency need for immediate attention and legitimacy appropriateness of their involvement level this is a useful framework to guide the stakeholder management strategy on a project practice creating power grids for business scenarios this will help in understanding the level of engagement a project manager needs to maintain with various stakeholders in the next screen let us discuss the stakeholder engagement assessment matrix the stakeholder engagement assessment matrix allows visualizing the current and desired states of a stakeholder's involvement in the project the five levels of involvement are as unaware resistant neutral supportive and leading unaware is where the stakeholder is not aware of the project or its impact resistant is where the stakeholder is aware of the impacts and is resistant to change neutral is where the stakeholder is aware of the project and is neither supportive nor in opposition to the project supportive is where the stakeholder is aware of the project and its impact and is supportive of the change leading is where the stakeholder is aware of the project and impacts and is actively engaged to ensure that the project is successful let us now look at the matrix the table has one row per stakeholder identified you place c in the column which best indicates the current level of engagement for that stakeholder then you place d in the column which best indicates the desired state of engagement this table can be a quick visualization tool that helps understand where work has to be done in the stakeholder management activities in the next screen let us discuss the skills required for stakeholder management stakeholder management is both an art and a science since it involves dealing with people and people are inherently non-linear and unpredictable there is no one size that fits all strategies or tools that will work while managing them however a project manager may use a few traits and techniques while managing stakeholders which are classified as interpersonal skills and managerial skills a project manager must possess good interpersonal skills that is must invest the time and energy to build trust this involves multiple things such as establishing a personal rapport following through on commitments being punctual etc once the trust is established it helps in smoothing many difficult bends conflict management is an important skill for a project manager while communicating with stakeholders the project manager must practice active listening they must not assume that they have all the answers instead they should spend some time to understand the issues and the stakeholders points of view this alone can go a long way in smoothing ruffled feathers and building constructive relationships resistance to change is natural a project manager must know how to convert that into a positive energy in its favor managerial skills that may help in accomplishing the project objectives a project manager must be able to build consensus among the group while absolute uniformity may not always be possible or desirable the project manager must use techniques to ensure widespread discussions and arrive at a path that the group can buy into the project manager must be able to influence people often without necessarily being in the position of authority the project manager must be skillful to negotiate agreements the project manager must be able to understand and modify organizational behavior in order to move the project in a certain direction network diagram is extensively used in the project time management knowledge area to plot the activity dependencies this is a graphical representation of the project activities in the form of a network there are two ways to draw a network diagram in precedence diagramming model pdm or activity on node aon boxes represent activities and the arrows indicate the dependency this type of network can have all four types of relationships between the activities in arrow diagramming model adm or activity on arrow aoa the arrows represent activities the relationships and sequences can be inferred from the direction of the arrows and linkages between the activities in such types of network only finish to start relationships can be shown such diagrams may need to make use of dummy activities to indicate some dependency between the activities there may be questions in the pmp exam based on the network diagram so create and work with the diagram this will make answering network diagram based questions easy and fun in the next screen let us look at a network diagram a sample network diagram is shown on the screen activities a and c can happen in parallel b and d require both a and c to complete whereas e requires both b and d to complete activity on aero network diagram makes use of hammock activities they are used to show a comprehensive summary activity combining several other activities underneath for control and reporting purposes in this lesson we will focus on project scope management there are 47 processes in project management grouped into 10 knowledge areas and mapped to five process groups in this lesson we will look at the second knowledge area that is project scope management and its processes let us begin with the first topic of this lesson that is project scope management project scope management includes the processes required to ensure that a project comprises all and only the work required to complete the project successfully the project scope management is concerned about the scope what is not there in the scope is also clearly identified in the next screen let us look at the key activities performed under project scope management let us look at a few of the typical activities that happen as part of the project scope management constant monitoring is essential to make sure that all the project work is being completed the gradual uncontrolled increase in scope of the project is referred as scope creep it is necessary to define the project scope boundaries and not let people randomly add to the project scope gold plating is doing more than what is required as part of the project scope this has to be avoided in projects as per the published statistics about projects done globally less than forty percent of projects can be considered successful therefore the focus should be on what is required rather than squandering around with what is not required forty percent might be considered less but a project is classified as successful only if it meets all its objectives and is done within time and cost budgets in the next screen let us understand the differences between product scope and project scope project scope management deals with managing both the product scope as well as the project scope product scope refers to the features and functions that characterize a product service or result the word product may also include creation of a service for example in the banking industry each of their services is called a product likewise a savings account is one of their products mutual fund is another on the other hand project scope is the work that needs to be accomplished to deliver the output of the project which could be a product service or result with the specific features and functions for instance to deliver a product you may also need to produce a requirements document or a design document these are not part of the product scope but it may very well be part of the project scope in the next screen let us discuss a few key terms used in the project scope management wbs stands for work breakdown structure it means breaking the project deliverables into smaller and more manageable components called work packages the last level of work in such subdivision is called work packages and the whole structure is called wbs for example a typical software development project would have various activities like finalizing requirements designing the new system coding testing and going live with the new system each of these translates into high level deliverables which can be further subdivided into smaller activities which are more predictable wbs dictionary like any dictionary contains the explanation of the terms used in wbs a typical wbs dictionary has details like the control account name of the work package description of the work package resource assigned if there are any assumptions or dependencies to complete the work package the due date to finish the work package technical dependencies and so on wbs dictionary is useful for the person or group working on the work packages as it further elaborates the decomposed work package control account is a level within wbs at which management wishes to exercise control for example perform earned value analysis track performance etc in this lesson we will focus on project integration management there are 47 processes in project management grouped into 10 knowledge areas and mapped to five process groups in this lesson we will look at the first knowledge area that is project integration management and its processes in the next screen let us understand the concept of project integration management project integration management involves unification consolidation articulation and integrative actions that are crucial for successfully completing the project the project integration management is high level work that project manager does and it involves managing interdependencies among the other knowledge areas the other nine knowledge areas involve detailed work in a specific direction for example project cost management deals only with how to manage cost in a project the project management processes do not happen independently for example a new resource added to the project may require changes in cost or schedule or both in dealing with such situations the project manager integrates the processes of project management the need for integration drives much of the communication and the work of the project manager let us discuss the key role of project manager sponsor and team in the next screen project manager team members and project sponsors have different roles to play in a project the project manager is supposed to play multiple roles in the project the key role is to perform integration the project manager puts all the pieces of the project together into a cohesive whole in doing so the project manager tries to ensure that the project is done faster cheaper and utilizes resources optimally while meeting the project objectives as the project progresses the team members work on completing the project activities the role of the project sponsor is to protect project from any unnecessary changes and to ensure that it has the required resources for completion the project sponsor is the champion for the project within the performing organization that is the organization in which the work is being performed in the next screen we will cover the project selection methods an organization can undertake a project under contract with an external organization or take up a project driven by internal business needs there should be a formal process of selecting project in all organizations to ensure that it is making the best possible use of limited corporate resources for example if the organization has an option to take up any one out of the two projects both of which use the same corporate resources the organization would naturally select the one which is more profitable there are two broad ways to select a project one way is the benefit measurement method where one project is compared with other competing projects another approach is based on mathematical models wherein you examine the most optimal selection of projects by trying to optimize a goal for example maximize operating profits such methods may be called constrained optimization methods there are different methods under both these categories and you should be familiar with the names of these methods broadly the benefit measurement methods focus on ascertaining the costs and benefits of undertaking the project the methods under benefit measurement method include murderboard where a panel of experts shoots down a new project idea peer review scoring models economic models and benefit compared to cost the constrained optimization methods rely on mathematical modeling techniques to determine the best selection of projects to achieve certain business objectives the methods of constrained optimization method include linear programming in reality you might not have seen these methods to be followed in project selection often personal relationship with the sponsor may be more important than anything else this is quite normal and any organization worldwide works this way however as a certified project manager it is important for you to be familiar with more scientific methods of project selection a typical question on the pmp exam could be what type of project selection technique is peer review and the right answer is benefit measurement method you need to understand the characteristics of various project selection methods to answer scenario based questions in the next screen we will focus on the project selection methods there are five project management processes which are part of project integration management knowledge area they are the develop project charter done in the initiation process group develop project management plan undertaken in the planning process group direct and manage work carried out in the executing process group monitor and control project and perform integrated change control undertaken in the monitoring and controlling process group and close project or phase done in the closing process group develop project charter is an initiating process a project charter is essentially a document that authorizes a project once a project has received a charter it means that the project manager can start employing the organization's resources for the project activities let us look at the key inputs to be considered in preparing the project charter the first input is the project statement of work this is created by project sponsor or the customer describing their needs project scope and how the project fits into their strategic goal if the project is taken up under a contract the request for proposal that is rfp can be considered as project statement of work the next input is the business case this document establishes whether the investment in a project is worth from a business point of view the business need for the project and the cost benefit analysis it provides important information to the project manager about the goals of the project and the boundaries in terms of the desired results cost etc if the project is being undertaken as part of a contract or agreement the agreement provides an important input for the project manager that establishes what must be done in the project the next input to be considered for project charter is enterprise environmental factors any project to be executed within the organization has to deal with the organization culture and existing systems you can consider this as an organization baggage that comes with the project this is the reason a project being executed in two different organizations may be done differently another factor to be considered is organizational process assets this is a broad term and includes all the organizational processes procedures and policies corporate knowledge base and historical project information every organization develops a set of processes procedures and policies that are based on the best practices learned by the organization over time the historical information includes past project management plans risks lessons learned etc of similar projects executed now let us look at the tools and techniques used in this process the first technique is expert judgment expert judgment is an invaluable input to the process of formally authorizing a project because an expert can provide insights into why a project makes business sense or why it does not from experience they may be able to shed light about the validity of the business drivers feasibility assumptions and constraints that need to be considered for the project facilitation techniques is another technique used the chartering process is often a collaborative activity involving many influential stakeholders in an organization facilitation techniques help bring all these stakeholders together and engage in fruitful discussions in order to arrive at an informed decision whether to go ahead with a project or not the only output of this project is the project charter let us try to understand what the project charter might contain the project charter usually contains the high level project requirement and it should be created by the project sponsor and handed over to the project manager the project manager can do the groundwork to prepare the project charter but it must be signed by the project sponsor or somebody in the performing organization who is higher in authority than the project manager it is important to point out that a project charter is not a project management plan the detailed risk schedule cost analysis etc is part of the project management plan and should be done during the project planning phase when there is more detail on the availability of the project to do so the charter should be sufficiently high level to accommodate the minor changes that might arise in the project in this lesson we will focus on project management processes project life cycle addresses the question what to do to get the work done it varies industry wise for example let us look at a typical project life cycle in a software industry first you understand what is required and analyze it as part of the requirement analysis phase then as part of the design phase you figure out the implementation of it and arrive with the approach next you implement the functionality by writing the code as part of the coding phase the code is then verified to ensure it works right as part of the testing phase the tested and verified software is then installed at the customer locations as part of the installation phase after the installation the system then moves into operations and support phase the project management process addresses the question what to do to manage the project the processes for managing the projects are likely to be the same across industries for instance in the develop schedule process one needs to develop the project schedule irrespective of the industry or domain you are working in the next screen let us understand the project management process groups the project management processes are divided into five process groups they are initiating process group planning process group executing process group monitoring and controlling process group and closing process group the initiating process happens at the beginning of the project or phase the planning executing ads monitoring and controlling processes go together therefore you plan execute and re-plan based on the execution result the project closing processes are performed when the project work or a phase within the project is completed the typical project management process in the closing phase releases resources back to the resource pool so the team members can be assigned to another project note the iteration of processes within the phases is dependent on the scale of the projects small projects may have only one iteration whereas bigger projects may have multiple iterations before they enter a new phase project management processes are overlapping activities let us look at the interaction between these activities in the next screen process groups have overlapping activities that occur throughout the project life cycle the output of one process group is generally the input to another or a deliverable of the project for example project management plan is an output of planning process group and an input to execution process group note that production of the plan is not a one-time activity as the project progresses the project management plan may get updated as a result of the monitoring and controlling processes the updated project management plan once again forms an input to the execution process group in the next screen we will discuss the project management process group knowledge area and project management process mapping given on the screen is the list of the 47 project management processes 10 knowledge areas and 5 process groups the table shows how each of them is interrelated you can see that the project integration management processes can be mapped back to all five process groups while project scope management processes are mapped back to only planning and monitoring process group study the table to identify processes under project management and the knowledge area they belong to all the 47 processes are described in detail in this tutorial each knowledge area is covered in detail as a lesson it also covers how the processes map to process groups to help you understand the big picture further the inputs and outputs of each of these processes tools and techniques that are used in these processes and what exactly happens during these processes are also discussed earned value technique is an excellent way to track the project progress against the project plan it is a method of measuring the project performance objectively and comparing it against the project baseline results from an earned value analysis indicate deviation of the project from cost and schedule baselines baseline is the initial approved value along with approved changes therefore schedule baseline is the first approved project schedule along with approved changes there are various terms used in earned value technique planned value is the authorized budget assigned to the scheduled work earned value is the work performed in terms of budget authorized for that work actual cost is the cost incurred in work performed budget at completion is the budgeted amount for the total work estimate at completion is the expected total cost for the project estimate to complete is the expected cost to finish all the remaining project work variance at completion is the projected budget surplus or deficit at the end of the project all the parameters displayed on the screen are measured in terms of cost you may come across business scenario based questions on earned value management in the pmp exam so ensure that you develop a clear understanding of this topic let us look at an example of a planned value in the next screen planned value is the estimated value of the work planned this value is measured in terms of currency say dollar if the plan value is three hundred forty dollars then the work plan is worth three hundred forty dollars how do you calculate earned value the solution is add the budget allocated to each of the activities that have been completed at the point of time the resulting value is the earned value in the next screen let us look at the formula used to calculate earned value in cost variance negative means the project is over budget positive means the project is under budget similarly in schedule variance negative means the project is behind schedule whereas positive means the project is ahead of schedule the value of the next two parameters cost performance index cpi and schedule performance index spi values vary between 0 and 1. for example a cpi of 0.8 implies that 80 cents of work is obtained for every dollar spent in the project similarly if spi is 0.9 it implies that project is progressing at only 90 percent of the speed originally planned the next parameter is estimate at completion or eac there are different ways of calculating the eac value the method used depends on how the cost and schedule variances are expected to play for the rest of the project bac by cpi is used if you expect that the current cost performance will continue until the end of the project ac plus bac minus ev is used if you expect that the rest of the project will be managed at the budgeted rate ac plus bac minus ev by the product of cpi and sbi is used if you want to factor in the impact of the cost as well as schedule variances ac plus etc is used if you want to re-evaluate the project based on a forecast value for the estimated cost of the remainder of the project the next parameter is estimate to complete or etc which is the cost of project from this point to the end this is calculated by subtracting the actual cost from the estimate at completion in addition variance at completion can be calculated by subtracting the estimate at completion from the budget at completion variance at completion is the cost estimation whether it is over or under budget another parameter is the to complete performance index or tcpi this is the cost performance needed to achieve a desired outcome for example if the project needs to be managed to the original budget bac then tcpi that is the cpi that must be maintained for the rest of the project is calculated as bac minus ev by bac minus ac similarly if it has to be managed within a revised target say eac then tcpi is calculated as bac minus ev by eac minus ac before the start of the pmp exam please make a note of the formulas of earned value technique in the next screen let us look into a business scenario to understand this concept better after reading the problem statement click the solution button to look at a possible answer let us take the example of a software development project there are four phases and each phase takes a month to complete and is expected to cost ten thousand dollars the phases are planned to be completed one after the other the status of the project at the end of the month three is summarized in the table requirements definition is completed and actual spending on this is ten thousand dollars architecture and design is done and actual spending on this is twelve thousand dollars development and unit testing is only fifty percent done though it was supposed to be completed by third month it has cost nine thousand dollars until date system testing and go live has not yet started note s indicates start time f indicates finish time and pf indicates that it is partly finished at the end of the month based on the above information calculate the cv sv cpi and spi of the project let us look at a solution in the next screen before we end this lesson let us also look at a few definitions that might be useful for your pmp examination law of diminishing return this means the more you put into something the less you get out of it for example doubling the number of resources working on a project will not necessarily have the time working capital the amount of money the company has to invest on the project and the day-to-day company operations funding limit reconciliation the process of comparing the planned expenditure in a given period with the available funding for that period large assets purchased by the company lose value over time this is called depreciation there are two forms of depreciation straight line and accelerated same amount of depreciation is taken every year for instance a car with a price tag of ten thousand dollars and useful life of ten years is depreciated one thousand dollars per year at the end of the tenth year the value of the car is considered zero for all accounting purposes accelerated depreciation depreciates faster than the straight-line depreciation for instance a car with a price tag of ten thousand dollars depreciates three thousand dollars the first year one thousand five hundred the next year one thousand the third year and so on critical path is defined as the longest duration path through a network diagram which determines the shortest time to complete the project float can be considered as a buffer time available to complete an activity float is calculated once the network diagram is ready it is also called as slack there are three kinds of float the first being the total float which is the amount of time an activity can be delayed without delaying the project end date or an intermediary milestone the second type of flute is free float which is the amount of time an activity can be delayed without delaying the early start date of its successor or successors activities the last type is independent float which is the amount of time an activity can be delayed if all the predecessors finish at their latest finish dates and you want to start all the immediate successors at their earliest start dates the slack of the activities on the critical path is zero because there is no scope to delay activities on the critical path critical path actually represents the project duration delaying activities on the critical path is as good as delaying the project duration concept-based questions on critical path can be expected in the exam so it is essential to have a clear understanding of the concept in the next screen let us learn how to calculate float let us look at an example for critical path there are five activities in this project and two paths in the network diagram start 1 2 4 5 and is one path and start one three five end is the second path since the duration of the path start one two four five end is 18 days which is more than the duration of the path start one three five end the critical path of the project is start one two four five end let us take activity 3 as an example first calculate the early start and early finish dates activity 3 can start only after activity 1. since the early finish of activity 1 is 3 it becomes the early start of activity three activity three cannot start earlier than three because activity one can be completed only by then therefore early start of activity three is 3 since the duration of the activity is 4 days the early finish of activity 3 is 3 plus 4 equals 7 days now let us calculate the late start and late finish of activity three late start of activity five is fourteen days the activity three happens just before activity five so the late finish of activity three is fourteen days to calculate the late start you can subtract the duration from late finish therefore the late start of activity 3 is 14 minus 4 equals 10. in the next screen let us focus on schedule compression hi welcome to project management tools tutorial from simply learn i am cmr chandra mr a certified project management professional as part of this tutorial we are going to look at about project management tools essential features of project management tools top 10 project management tools currently used in the industry so what is project management tools why should we use project management tools while doing project management so project management tools help to keep a streamlining flow in project management processes the tools help the team or an individual to carry out the steps of project management in an effective and efficient manner so project management tools features and functionalities so basically a project management tool should have minimum fulfilling these features and functionality they should be simple to use customizable they should have api for integration it should help in collaboration it should help in risk analysis and real time reporting when we say simple to use the project management tools need to be suitable for every project we do one needs to find a tool that will have a pleasant interface and increase work productivity the project management tool must be easy to configure according to the organization needs every project management approach every project management templates every artifacts needs tailoring and adaption before adopting as part of the practice there are business patterns that change every day so having customizable tool is an added advantage api or application programming interface enables the sharing of data and application between devices the tools with api integration allows seamless connectivity amongst the team the project management tools must allow for collaboration so that whole team can work together collaboration not only makes that task easier but also increases the productivity of the project risk analysis helps to identify analyze and respond to the risk quickly and efficiently it needs to capture all the details of the risks their impacts the probability of occurrence of the risk and risk responses and tracking them throughout the project lifecycle the real-time reporting enables the access of data at different locations of the project management one can assess or access data at any time about the project's current status this will help in having a real-time update about the project status to the stakeholders of the project the top 10 project management tools what we have today in the market are monday.com rick jira software trello asana teamwork meister task basecamp oracle's primavera and microsoft project management tool so let us look at these one by one so monday.com was released during the year 2012 and it is known for providing features to enable flexible planning and monitoring capabilities the website where you can find monday.com access the tool is www.monday.com so this tool is used by more than 90 000 team across the globe monday.com features and functionality includes it is easy for collaboration highly customizable excellent for analytics integration with dropbox google drive and pipedrive is possible surprising the basic version is dollar 25 on monthly basis so which will provide you 5gb storage one boat per dashboard and it is built annually the standard package includes 5gb storage 3 boards per dashboard and it is 39 per month which is built annually professional includes unlimited storage 10 boats per dashboard and it costs dollar 59 per month and it is built annually monday.com is used by the following customers organizations of monday.com that is scarcebug discovery channel adidas storm phillips etc rick is another project management tool which was released in 2006 so this application provides its user with robust features and allows them to collaborate with each other the website to access the tool is www www.rec.com and this is used by over 18 000 organizations across the globe the features of rick includes it has collaborative editing flexible workflow real-time reporting and efficient work management the pricing includes 0 to 5 users it has basic integrations and which is free whereas professional includes dollar 9.8 per user per month which is which has a slabs of 5 10 and 15 users and rick proof free trial business version has five to 200 users and rig proof free trial whereas 24.80 dollars per user per month the companies which uses the rig tools are airbnb laurel teamviewer tiffany and co etc now let us look at jira software jira software was released during year 2002 it is a software development tool used by agile teams famous for its bug tracking system the website to access this tool is www.atlacian.com software jira used by over 65 000 customers the features of jira software includes agile reporting rich toolkit for developers bug tracking mobile applications so the pricing of jira software is as follows so for forever 2gb storage and community support which cost dollar zero but a standard is around dollar seven per user per month which includes 250 gb storage and nine to five standard support premium is dollar 14 per user per month unlimited storage and has 24 7 premium support jira software is used by the organizations that is hitachi visa dropbox nestle dominos coca-cola samsung etc now let us look at the tool trello so this application was released in 2011 it is known for providing flexibility in organizing and prioritizing the tasks with the help of its boards lists and cards website to access the tool is www.trello.com used by over 50 million people the features of trello includes smooth editing easy file uploads from dropbox or google drive high security standards and easy data searching techniques so the pricing includes it is free for 10 mv per attachment and 10 team votes business class includes 250 mb attachment unlimited team boards and it cost dollar 9.99 per user per month annually enterprise version provides 250 mb for attachment unlimited team boats and costs around 20.83 dollars per hundred users per month the companies who use trello are google adobe paypal unicef the new york times etc now let us look at asana the asana tool was released during 2008 it is an high quality task management software that makes the tracking of tasks easy across the project management the website to access this tool is www.asana.com used by over 140 000 companies the features includes incredible task management gantt charts privacy controls easy progress tracking the pricing includes the basic model asana is provides 0 to 15 people beginners in the project management so premium includes custom fields priority support where the pricing is dollar 10.99 per user per month annually the business version includes advanced integration priority support and it costs 24.99 per hundred users per month the companies which uses asana are deloitte vodafone red bull uber salesforce nasa etc let us look at teamwork tool teamwork was released during year 2007. it is a cloud-based project management solution that helps in managing group activities and establishing flexible communication the website to access this tool is www.teamwork.com used by our 370 000 organizations the features of teamwork includes high quality crm helpdesk software risk register and easy time tracking the pricing includes 0 to 5 users and 100 mb file space is provided free of cost whereas pro version includes 5 to 50 users 100 gb file spaces which cost 9 dollars per user per month premium origin costs around dollar 15 per user per month which includes 5-100 users and 250 gb file space the organizations who use teamworks are forbes ebay microsoft studios hp paypal disney's honda now let us look at the tool meister task so this tool was released during year 2015 and it is known for providing automated and streamlined workflows to make the overall processes more productive the website to access this is www.mastertask.com used by our 2 million users the features of this tool includes it is simple to use seamless workflow gantt charts flexible project boards the pricing it is zero dollars per month up to three projects and unlimited project members the pro version includes unlimited projects unlimited integrations which costs around 8.25 dollars per user per month whereas business costs 20.75 dollars per user per month which has security restrictions priority email and phone support the organization who use the tool are virgin optics consulting and data supports expert dot d etc base camp the base camp tool was released during the year 1999 it is a real-time communication tool that allow users to keep track of priorities and actionable tasks the website to access this tool is www.basecamp.com used by over 3 million users the features of basecamp includes easy to use various third-party integrations daily backups and comprehensive project calendar the personal version is free and 0-20 users and 1 gb store space is provided in business version it is 99 per month for unlimited users having 500 gb storage space the companies who use basecamp is thoughtport harvest wlb groupon etc oracle primavera so this tool was released during the year 1983 which is acquired by oracle corporation in the year 2008. primavora helps project manager to handle a vast number of tasks with the help of its unlimited resources and target plans website to access this tool is www.primavera.com which is used by over 7143 companies so features of primavera includes creation of wbs the work breakdown structure issues and risk recording supports large number of activities and easy collaboration with project users the enterprise project portfolio management version costs around two seven five zero dollars per user which improves planning and execution professional project management version is usd 2500 per user handles large-scale highly sophisticated projects so oracle primavera contract management version module costs around usd 2000 per user keeps construction projects on schedule under budget so the companies which use primavera are burns mcdonald's pond caddies etc microsoft project so microsoft project management tool was used during the year 1984. so this tool allows users to develop a schedule assign resources track progress and manage budgets all through the project the website to access this tool is www.office.microsoft.com project the features of microsoft project includes simple to use effective monitoring easy communication enhanced decision making so this is a cloud-based solution and the pricing is project plan one costs around dollar ten per user per month on an annual commitment managing projects web web browser is the feature project plan 3 which costs around dollar 30 per user per month with annual commitment which is fully updated project desktop application project plan 5 which costs around 55 dollars per user per month with annual commitment evaluating project ideas from anywhere in the organization is possible through this project standard 2019 version costs around 620 dollars per pc per user for those who don't need collaboration tools and advanced features project professional version 2019 costs around thousand thirty dollars per pc per user syncing with project online and project server the organization which uses microsoft projects are comptel airbus intel volvo xerox etc hey guys welcome to this trello tutorial by simply learn so without further ado let's get started with what exactly is trello so trello is a simple and easy to use collaboration tool that can enable you to organize projects and everything related to it into boards with trello you can find all kinds of information like what's being worked on who's working on what and what progress the project is making now we'll learn about that in a little bit while we're talking about the trello demo now let's talk about the advantages of trello now first off trello can be used immediately after signing up so trello offers you a free sign up after which you get access to almost all of trello's features now it does have a premium service but most of trello's important features are available in the free account secondly it follows the kanban system so the kanban system is a popular methodology that can be used to achieve lean so with trello you can also achieve lean now trello also has a very popular mobile application which also has the same features as the interface that you see on the desktop it's very user friendly now the fourth advantage is that all project related items can be seen on one page which means everything you need about the project is available in one place next adding new members creating issues and assigning them are very easy with the help of trello now that we had a look at all the advantages that are provided by trello let's have a look at a live demo so first off let's go to trello.com so here you can see two options to log in or sign up so first of all if you've never used the website before go to sign up so here you can enter your email or you can go through google or hotmail or outlook so it's very simple i already have an account so i'll just log in right so i'm just going to login so if you're using shallow for the first time this is what it would look like so here you have personal boards templates home and so on so let's go one by one firstly the most important thing that you need to know about is boards which is right here so let's assume you're using this for a deal which means that you need people to share the board along with so first of all let's create a team so here i'm just going to name a company called company go say we do engineering id let's write a brief team description and continue so here say i have four members so have bob i'm adding them here so depending on what your team is like you can add those team members so this is important so that you can connect with them while you're on the board so this is company.com so we'll just add them so the team members that you're going to invite will get an invite email very soon as soon as you're done by clicking the invite to team button we'll also add bill who also works at my company and there's technician one and there's technician one who works at company.com we'll add anybody who's required later so invite to team and there you go there's some details here about the team and all that let's go back to home and now let's create a new board under company co so the difference here is that for personal boards is that like the name says it's personal you can also add the team if you want later on but here you have the option for creating a team port so i'll show you how you can create a team board from personal board so you got create board here you can show as this is by default selected with no team because it's under personal change it to company and you can write business but anything else like that and then you create a board and there you go the board has been set up so now first things first it's that you can make this team visible which is either only board members can see it or since it's a small team the entire team can seek it so it's up to you how you want it there's the public option which everyone can see which i don't think is necessary but if you feel like it you can do that too first of all you can even write description of the board which is what you want to achieve with this board for example this is business or sales or something like that you can change the background into something more colorful or less colorful like this and then there's search cards which we haven't added anything so far so there's nothing to search just stickers which again is i feel unnecessary at the moment you can also see something called butler so based on your usage or how you're using trello butler can provide you suggestions like what you can add here like you can see here the tips haven't been added so far because we haven't used cello so far so based on your usage it will give you suggestions now let's go back so here you see power-ups so power-ups are basically additional features that you can add to your board so there are features that are connected to a number of different fields this analytics automation utilities tools and so on so as a free user you get access to one power up but still we don't have to use it so far because we don't have anything on our board but based on your requirement you can go through these power-ups and decide on one of them so now let's get back to business or our board so first you can see add a list so this basically refers to the different processes that you want to follow in this board so first of all we'll add a list title i'm going to add to do that's the first list then this in progress on hold completed so here we have four lists which represent the processes in this business so if you want you can even add another list depending on your requirement so in these lists there are things called cards so which are like sub topics so first of all let's add a very simple title for example product company a second very simple deliver product to company b like this so on and so forth if you want it so here this is a card so this card can be moved from each stage to another as it progresses so this isn't the to-do stage since we've not started with anything so once you click on a card so this pop-up shows up so here you can add a description like conversed with company a ready to go just some details that you want to add you save now one thing you can see add to cart so there are a number of different things you can add to this card so members now i have four team members i can add bob here i want bob in on this i want bob to see the activities as it happens i want bill to also see as things proceed right so the bob and bill are in on this right now next you have labels so depending on what you want to use this for for example i want to use this to represent that it's important or immediate put it as red save so i can select this label to indicate that this is now very important so depending on your company's you know style or depending on your requirements you can add the labels then you have a checklist so different steps can be focused on with this checklist for example i'm just going to write steps so we're delivering a product for example so let's just use steps gathering i'm just going to write the software lifecycle steps analysis design implementation testing deployment and maintenance so yeah we have all the steps so one thing is that once each of these steps are done you tick it so a percentage increases so until you're done with hundred percent you can just keep ticking finally it'll show 100 and you're done so another thing is a due date so this is basically by when you want it completed so this is basically a reminder that we need to complete it or before a particular date is done so i'm not adding a due date out of now but that's up to you next you have something called attachment so say for example all your requirements have been gathered into one pdf so where all the requirements that are required by the company are shown in that pdf you can attach it here so that everyone has access to it then a cover can also be added to your card which is just basically beautifying it so we can find one so for example this and there you go there's a pretty good looking code here now we have all the information so let's get started so to officially mark the beginning of the project we'll just go and put this to in progress so at the same time you can do the same thing with this card as well about company b so let's just focus on company a now so say the steps have already started requirement gathering is done designing is done implementation is also done so depending on the person you know the technician so the technician could respond that you know we've already started so before that we need to add the technician he's already on this but if you had to add him you search for members and you have board members who's already in the board you can add the technician now you can also you know add activity details like technician one now how's it going how's the process going now he could respond here with its right so each time one of us you know adds the other or says something to the other they get notifications so that you know they get to respond as well they get to know what's happening now now say for example the technician is not able to complete the project or complete his work so it's put on hold so here i could say so testing isn't done so you can say tech by the delay or what's going on and he would given a property response and once he's ready he can finish the texting and put it back to in progress then eventually all of it is done deployment and maintenance so you here you have an option to hide complete items that's up to you you can also delete them if you feel like it you can close this and then after everything is done and you feel that everything of the process is done you can put it on completed so if this is a recurring process you can you know make a copy of this which you can find by doing this copy or you could just put this on archive indicating that it's done you can even get it back by just going to more archived items and then there you have it you can send it back to board that's up to you and there you go that's most of everything you need to know about trello one another thing is that right now you can only add 10 boards on this feed as of now because you're using a free membership also depending on the intensity or the difficulty of the board you can also have different boards for different projects i've just used one for multiple projects but it's entirely possible for you to have one board per project you can also you know favorite this indicating that this is a very important one that you need to focus on every day so this is where you get all the notifications that x has changed there you go all kinds of responses everything that you need is available on this home screen which is basically like a home feed you can also find templates depending on your requirement so you can choose a template from a wide variety of options so i'm just going to show you the kanban template so here you have details about the template you have an example of what the template looks like and so on and there you go that's everything you need to know about trello in this session we will be talking about agile project management and several other things related to it before we begin let's have a look at all the topics we will be covering today first we will see the basics of agile project management then we will check the relevance and principles of agile project management we will then see necessary steps to implement agile methodology along with that we shall also see different frameworks involved in the process and finally we shall see some companies that use agile project management so without any further ado let's get started with what is agile project management agile project management as the name suggests is a flexible approach to building a project in agile project management the project is broken down into several stages of sprints agile does not work on the principle of delivering the final product at the end of the project it works on delivering sections of a project on many projects the process of project management in the case of agile is agile based so there won't be any central control of project manager as it was there in the traditional way of working before we move forward let's have a look at the agile development cycle agile methodologies consist of several small cycles or sprints at the end of each stage we get a mini project there's a product backlog that explains new features changes in the existing features and several other improvements in the project then we have a sprint backlog which has a list of tasks that are to be completed during each sprint the sprint consists of planning designing execution testing and deployment stages and at the end of each sprint a mini project is delivered with every sprint new features are added to the product which plays a significant role in the overall project growth after all the sprints and early validation in the development the final deliverable has a fewer chances of failure let's now have a look at some reasons why industries have started moving towards agile project management the first reason is high product quality when we talk about higher product quality we refer to the build of the product as per stakeholders demands testing is performed at short intervals of time wherever needed to ensure high quality of the product then another reason is customer satisfaction whatever is done in the project is known by the customer the deliveries don't take longer durations as they used to take in the case of traditional ways the changes may be provided by the customer in the execution phase of the project third reason is reduced risk since the project is divided into sprints so if the risk affects one sprint it doesn't mean whole of the project will be at risk the process of risk analysis continues to take place with all the other processes another significant reason for agile project management is better and faster return on investment the project is now developed in several sprints and each sprint has its own version therefore the project becomes market ready after a few sprints only since the projects can now be released with ease and in shorter duration this helps the organization to stay ahead in competition with respect to other organizations which are still not moved to agile methodology now we shall check the principles of agile project management there are 10 principles for successful agile project management the first principle is the satisfaction of the customer by delivering the project fast and with least number of errors the next principle refers to decreasing the amount of time between the phase of planning and delivery the third principle states that the team of managers and developers work together and increase the productivity of their work the next principle states that the changes requested by the stakeholders can be taken into consideration and worked upon during the development phase as well the fifth principle pays attention to the factor of coordination among the team members then the sixth principle refers to the process of monitoring and tracking the progress of the project at the end of each sprint and making amendments wherever needed moving on the next principle states that there must be a feeling of trust and support towards the team to complete the project's objectives the next principle emphasizes on face-to-face conversations with the development team the face-to-face conversation helps in both solving problems and easy knowledge sharing then the 9 principle emphasizes on finding solutions and maximizing the amount of work done with simplicity this ensures timely completion of tasks by all the team members the last principle states that scrum tools like monday.com or zoho sprints must be used to simplify the complicated codes which further helps in saving time we shall now see the steps in agile project management the goal of agile methodology is to produce shorter development life cycles and more frequent product releases than traditional waterfall project management so we will now check 6 steps in agile project methodology the first step in the process is project planning project planning includes feasibility study development of scope breaking the project into executable tasks or sprints and then estimating the amount of time needed to complete those sprints the second step is the step of roadmap creation a roadmap is a plan of action that shows how a project shall evolve over time a list of all the features that the final product should have is created and the steps to achieve those features are taken the next important step is release planning since we are doing the project keeping in mind the agile project methodology the project will complete in sprints that means there will be the release of features at the end of each cycle and unlike the traditional waterfall model the development cycles will be smaller the fourth step in agile project management is sprint planning the sprints are made keeping in mind what all is to be accomplished in that particular step at the beginning of each sprint the goal of that sprint is decided and steps to achieve that goal are taken the next step in the process emphasizes on daily meetings there are short meetings every day to discuss if the team was able to finish the task for each sprint and check if there are any amendments that are required each team member talks about what they achieved in the last print and what are they going to work on in the next print the last step is the step of sprint review and retrospective there are two meetings after each sprint first meeting is for the sprint review this meeting is with the stakeholders to show them the finished product this helps both sides to build a relationship and discuss if there are any issues in the end product the second meeting is for having a sprint retrospective this meeting involves the stakeholders to discuss what went well and what went wrong during the sprint sprint retrospective takes place after the sprint review and before the next print planning now when we know the steps needed for agile project methodology we must understand some agile project management frameworks there are several frameworks available today here we will be discussing some of the most popular frameworks the first framework we will discuss is the kanban framework kanban framework is a well-known framework for implementing agile software development in the case of kanban framework work items are represented on the kanban board which helps all the team members to see the state of every piece of work at any time kanban board not only helps in visualizing the work but also optimizing the workflow among the team the next framework we will discuss today is the scrum framework scrum framework is a popular framework for managing complex knowledge work like in the field of research and advanced technologies scrum is a simple framework that helps team work together and learn through their experiences gained while working on a problem the third framework we will see today is the hybrid framework the hybrid framework is a combination of agile methodology and non-agile methodology in the case of a hybrid framework planning is done using the traditional way of project management while the execution and delivery is done using the agile methodology since the hybrid is a combination of the two it handles the requirement changes and delivers the product in different stages the fourth and the last framework we will see is the lean framework the lean framework works on the principle of providing maximum customer value and creating zero waste it focuses on optimizing the flow of products all through the value stream this helps in eliminating waste all through the process and create processes that requires less human efforts this also simplifies the process of information management and makes it more accurate finally let's have a look at some companies that have opted for agile project management today around 22 percent of the organizations worldwide have all their teams working on the principle of agile project methodology let's have a look at some of the most prominent companies in the world that use agile project management in the list we have ibm cisco atnt microsoft philips and samsung welcome to simple learns pmp sixth edition training tutorial i am cmr chandra mr a certified project management professional prince to practitioner itl expert itl for managing professional kobit 5 and devops today we are going to look at understanding what is the pmp certification what is pmbok eligibility criteria to appear in pmp examination the project management framework the project management process groups knowledge areas and processes so now imagining the world where you have a project being done so you are the project manager and how best a project can be conducted so to make a project successful it is required to follow a best practice so if you have a certification just imagine having a certification that lets the world know that you know what you are doing in project management so pmp certification gives you all so what is pmp certification so the pmp the project management professional certification is a certification of pmi the project management institute which is at usa so is an internationally recognized credential for project managers see the certification indicates that the certified professional has a sufficient experience education skills and competency reason being before going for pmp certification it asks for specific prerequisites which involves experience in project management as well as formal education of project management and demonstrated skills so that being a prerequisites for project management professional certifications it is very essential that one need to understand what it takes to become eligible for pmp examination so that we will go through the subsequent slides so the moment one has the pmp certification that itself indicates the prerequisites to take up a pmp certification is accomplished already before going for certification and then the individual will go for a certification and become certified professional so that way it concludes it also indicates that person who holds the pmp certification has sufficient experience education skills and competency moreover there are more than 10 hundred thousand pmp certification holders across the globe so pmp certified individuals earn 25 percent more than non-certified individuals so now pmp certification also has the advantages which are given here like helps the project manager to practice the project management better create the results better demonstrate the project management capability better so this also helps project manager to show the commitment towards the project management profession and having pmp certification provides the recognition across the globe which helps in getting better salary compared with people the professionals who are not certified and also helps in increasing the network project management network who actually practices project management the fellow practice project managers who are practicing the project management so there are certain vocabularies jargons which are used specifically while doing the project management pmp helps to understand those so now let us look at what does the official guide which is used in pmp that can help to become a project management professionals so that is pmbok which is referred as project management body of knowledge or pmbok which is the collection of processes best practices terminologies and guidelines accepted as standards within the industry so the latest edition of this is sixth edition which was released in 2017. the first edition of pmbok guide was published in 1996 and the sixth edition as i mentioned was released in 2017 and exam format was revised from 26th march 2018. so pmbok guide will become the basic reference to appear in the pmp examination so one needs to go through the training based on pmbok guidelines so that will help them to pass the examination easily so eligibility criteria for appearing for pmp certification examinations so you can have two types of eligibilities which pmi defines so option one includes someone who has secondary degree should have 7500 hearts of leading and directing project that is an experience what it is asking as a prerequisite before the professional go for examination plus 35 hours of project management education formally from a registered education provider like simply learn option two someone who has four year degree project management experience leading and directing project this experience will be 400 arts whereas as we saw in option 1 in option 2 35 hours of project management education is required and that is from registered education provider like simply learn as i mentioned earlier so this training which is conducted by registered education provider will have their trainings aligned with pmbok the latest edition so simply learn enables people to learn what are the topics in pmp framework plus make the professionals ready to appear the examination and become successful the project management framework which is defined in pmbok includes 5 process groups 10 knowledge areas and 49 processes so when we say 5 process groups this indicates the way the project flows how each of these process groups are connected while project happens in the project life cycle whereas 10 knowledge areas are the one which needs to be looked up to demonstrated up to considered while doing the project management and the 49 processes distributed across 5 process groups and 10 knowledge areas has the activities the objectives the inputs outputs tools and techniques clearly defined so that those can be applied while doing the project management so those are aligned the way it is shown in the table so five process group that is initiating planning executing monitoring and control and closing these are the process groups whereas 10 knowledge areas includes project integration management project scope management project schedule management project cost management project quality management project resource management project communication management project risk management project procurement management and project stakeholder management so each of these knowledge areas and process groups are aligned in such a way where the processes align with a specific process group and knowledge area can be demonstrated accordingly if you look at a process which goes from initiating to planning planning to executing and then monitoring and control while you do monitoring and control if there is anything found as a deviation it may come back to planning or executing for necessary corrections once the necessary corrections happens again it moves to monitoring and control to check whether it is completely done as expected or not if it is confirmed everything is done as per the requirements defined then it moves to closing this is how the project flows in the project life cycle whereas all the 10 knowledge areas happens in parallel so now if you look at initiating process group you can see two processes that is develop project charter and identify stakeholders so develop project charter and identify stakeholders basically defines project charter required for the project as well as initial identified stakeholders who are required to move forward in the project similarly if you look at planning process group you have 24 processes which are distributed across all the 10 knowledge areas so these processes creates a plan for the project which involves scope baseline schedule baseline cost baseline quality management approach then resource management approach means the plan i mean to say when i say approach i'm speaking about the plan similarly communication management plan risk management plan procurement management plan stakeholder management plan and all of these will get consolidated into project management plan in the integration management knowledge area once this plan is done and approved then it moves for execution all that project manager do during execution is directing and managing project work and managing the project knowledge at the same time project manager would take responsibility of managing quality acquiring resources developing team managing team then communications which are planned as per the communication management plan communication should happen during execution so similarly implementation of risk responses defined while doing the planning and conducting the procurements as planned and then managing stakeholder engagement so actual execution of those work packages execution of those deliverables happens from the team now as those deliverables happens the delivered products are checked monitored and controlled you can see validate scope control scope likewise for each knowledge areas there is a control process which checks is that happened in execution as it was planned in plan planning process group so then that is consolidated here for monitoring and controlling the project work in entirety integrated similarly performing integrated change control any deviations found in any of these checks which is being done in the control now that deviations needs to be corrected so change will be raised so request for change will be raised and that will be approved and controlled and necessary directions are given approvals are given and that moves towards execution for implementation once it is implemented again validation happens once control checks if everything is okay then it moves to the closure now activities enclosure a project or a face involves just an activities of closure the products or services or results which are created from the project does not go to closure until those are validated checked confirmed and signed off only then it goes to closing project or phase and necessary formalities which are required to be completed before conclusion will happen in closing project office this is how the project flows second point which should keep in mind is a project manager is also called as an integrator so main focus the umbrella view the word server project manager should have from project integration management so this layer project integration management where project manager should have an umbrella view total view about entire project what is happening so bigger picture only when project manager has a bigger picture project manager can come to the lower levels and see is are they progressing the way it is supposed to so then go back look at the bird's eye view again and see is it going in the right direction which is very essential so further i guess we will look at each of these process groups and what happens in each of the process groups similarly in knowledge areas so let us move forward now project management process groups so these process groups details the necessary requirement that need to be satisfied to ensure that project resources are used efficiently and these represents the chronological phases that all projects go through during the project lifecycle so starting from initiating stage it moves to planning once the plan is ready then it moves to execution as the execution happens validation checks happens in monitoring and control and as you find some deviation in monitoring and control for correction of the deviation it comes back to execution or if any necessary changes needs to be done in planning also while doing these corrections then it may move to plan then execution and then monitoring and control so this loop continues until the confirmation yes it is delivered as per the plan and then it moves to closure so that's how the project flows and the project life cycle would be like that so initiating process group so initiating process group involves the processes activities and skills needed to define the beginning of the project as i mentioned earlier in initiating process group the creation of project charter happens and identification of the basic stakeholders main stakeholders who are required to understand the further requirements in detail who needs to be engaged so those are identified so setting up permits authorization and initial work orders which should be in place and are important for effective and logical progress of the project and success across all project phases so this clearly sets up the phases for the work to be completed initializing teams and having a well thought out budget which is very important so this gives that view in totality but it will not give you the full granular details but it sets the directions provides that insight and also one important thing we should keep in mind is in initiation stage appointment of project manager happens the formal declaration of appointment of project manager happens and project charter will be formally handed over to project manager and that formal declaration of assignment of project manager happens from then project manager takes over and first activity project manager does is identification of stakeholders so next process group is planning process group where we have around 24 processes to define the project scope cost schedule quality resource risk then procurement stakeholder engagement so comprehensive plan if it is waterfall approach or basic skeleton plan which is required if it is agile approach so it also clarifies the goals and expectations while putting in place infrastructure to achieve the goals keeping in timeline and budgetary constraints the end-to-end view of the project is provided in planning so this acts as a basic reference while the execution and monitoring and control happens so based on the planning the way it is done execution will happen now next process group is executing process group where the role of project manager is to direct and manage project work and manage the project knowledge main activities being an integrator of a project secondly acquiring resources it may be human resource or technology resource or any other resource required for the project then if it is human resource there needs to be necessary training development of the team and then managing them so lot of team dynamics are involved that needs to be handled so this involves managing teams while handling time expectations and achieving benchmark goals team members delivers those results team members does all the activities and then creates that results so team concerns needs to be addressed because as you see the people together the team members together it is quite obvious conflict maker so conflict resolution should happen the engagement with the team member should happen so demonstration of work which is done by the project team that needs to be monitored and controlled parallely which happens during the execution monitoring and control is also happening so project manager should look at both so concerns needs to be addressed execution is that happening as per the plan has to be checked as part of monitoring and control while execution is happening so bird's a view in entirety which says how the execution should happen that needs to be directed and monitored whereas coming on ground seeing is that happening the way it is required that is also very essential so next is monitoring and control process group now as part of these process group as i mentioned while execution happens it is very essential to check validate and control so this process group involves processing change orders any deviations being found change requests are raised and if that change request needs some modification or changes in planning then it goes to planning if no such planning requirements simple change that straight go to execution chain get executed and then again validation happens so integrated change management which is there in this particular process group so this also focuses on addressing ongoing budget considerations handling unexpected circumstances that could hamper the team's ability to meet the initial project expectations so it goes on throughout the project life cycle so two process groups if you closely observe planning process groups and monitoring and control process groups are the process groups where you see processes in all the knowledge areas otherwise if you see an initiating process group it is only two process one is an integration management other one is stakeholder management if you look at uh execution you don't see in scope time cost and risk management similarly if you see closing process group only one process which is in initiating process group so these are the only two process groups planning process groups and monitoring and control process group where you see the most of the processes so next process group is closing process group so closing process group closing project or phase is a process what we have in this process group which basically focuses on addressing the culmination of project management skills shown through the other interconnected processes that guided the projects so all the aspects of process are closed and all the necessary paperwork is submitted so it can lead to great reviews and word of mouth referrals in the future so all the activities which need to be done for formal closure and conclusion which is done in the closing process group so this is about all the five process group defined in the pmp framework so now let us move towards understanding each of the knowledge areas and the different processes within it so how many processes in each of the knowledge areas aligning with with the process group we just saw in the table but when we look at it understand what are those exactly so now knowledge areas are necessary for effective project management which can take place during any of the explained process groups so there are 10 so those are project integration management project scope management project schedule management project cost management project quality management project resource management project communication management then project risk management project procurement management project stakeholder management so many people ask me when i train the people they ask me how do we remember all of this so remembering process group will be easy because it's the flow which if you can remember then remembering the process group will be easier but to remember the knowledge areas so one thing you should keep in mind is initially when pm okay were defined mostly in until third edition or fourth edition we used to focus on triple constraints so when we say triple constraints we used to tell scope cost and time now later when as the best practices evolved as the pmbok evolved so it did not limit on triple constraints it actually said six constraints what are the six constraints scope cost time quality resources and risk so if you can able to remember the six constraints so each of associated with each of these constraints there is a knowledge area like you have project scope management which is one of the area of constraints similarly schedule management link to time cost management quality management resource management and risk management so out of 10 easily you can able to remember six further there are four now integration management by default integrates all the nine knowledge areas so remembering that may not be difficult so to consolidate this to conduct the project properly you need stakeholders you need to procure something and you need to communicate so other three knowledge areas remembering should happen by linking to this so firstly remember six constraints that is scope time cost quality resource and risk then you have communication which needs to happen to communicate there should be stakeholder and also there should be supply which needs to happen to the project so if you can link like this nine knowledge areas you can remember so on all these nine knowledge areas you will integrate and manage in integration management so in fact all the plans which are defined in rest of the nine knowledge areas except integration management so all those plans are called as subsidiary plans so all these nine subsidiary plans that is scope management plan schedule management plan cost management plan quality management plan resource management plan communication management plan risk management plan procurement management plan and stakeholder management plan so all these nine subsidiary plans are integrated together and consolidated in project management plan so that happens in project integration management so this we should keep in mind so project integration management what does it do so project integration management basically includes plans to develop project charter a document that sets up the project and assigns the project manager created during the initiation phase so a project management plan is also created which is a roadmap for the entire project to become a success so the project plan once approved by stakeholders and sponsor is monitored and tracked through the change log it also directs and manages the project work this process is monitored analyzed and reported to identify and control any changes or problems that could be encountered so one thing we should keep in mind when we say project integration management this is the only knowledge area where we see processes in all the process group so we have process in initiating process group we have processes in planning we have process in execution process group we have processes in monitoring and control process group and also in closing process group so project integration management is only knowledge area where it has a processes in all the process groups which we don't see in any other knowledge area now next we look at the list of processes like develop project charter is in initiation process group develop project management plan which consolidates all the nine knowledge areas is in planning process group direct and manage project work manage project knowledge these two processes are in executing process group monitor and control project work perform integrated change control these two processes are in monitoring and control process group so close project or face is in the closing process group so now we will move to project scope management so when we use the term scope the term scope refers to the boundary within which we need to do something so first thing we should keep in mind when we say project scope two things one is the scope of that product service or results which we are creating which comes out as a product or a service or result out of a project which comes out what is getting created so scoping that part of it so other scope part of it the processes the tools the resources what is being used during the project so that deliverables happen so two part of the scope we should look at so project scope management involves those areas deals with the work of the project and involves plan scope management an important part of project management plan the collection of requirements of the product or service also takes place in this process group and also project scope management knowledge area deals with work of the project which involves plan scope management an important part of the project management plan so the collection of requirements of the product or service also takes place in the stage the scope of project is also defined in the scope statement this is expected to undergo change over the course of project the scope is validated during the project ensuring that the deliverables are approved by sponsors or stakeholders so as i mentioned earlier it involves the scope of the results what is being created and also scope of those processes resources tools which are used during the project so processes in project scope management knowledge area so plan scope management which is in planning process group collect requirements define scope create wbs even these three processes are in planning process group in total four processes in planning process group whereas validate scope and control scope these two processes are in monitoring and control process group so when you say plan scope management it's about defining how to collect the requirements how to manage those entire scope management planning and requirements management plan also has to be defined then requirements are collected from the stakeholders who are being identified and then scope will be defined now very important thing here is about work breakdown structure so we have a product or a service or a result which we are working on to create as a result of the project so how will you understand all the parts of it that needs breaking down that particular product or services or results which we are going to create into multiple pieces in a structure which would look like a tree so that you will get a necessary insight towards what is being delivered so firstly product breakdown structure is made and for each of the layers of this product breakdown structure you will be assigning an activities assigning resources effort estimation cost estimation sequencing those all this will will be done later basic thing needed is work breakdown structure for that so to create wbs the technical decomposition is used and this approach is top down approach next validate scope and control scope as wbs provides that structure of various things which needs to be delivered referring to that as the execution happens validation should happen whether it is delivered accordingly or not and is that scope management is being done according to the plan control scope will be checking that so next is the project schedule management when we say schedule it's quite obvious for us to understand when what needs to be done so what needs to be done is already told in scope and when are we going to do that for that you need to have a specific schedule the timeline so the project will have various different activities tasks which is assigned to the particular wbs element so these activities will have a specific start date end date and this will have a specific output which is coming out as part of those actions which happens so the project is divided into tasks each with their own start dates and deadlines and budgets so these are revised as the project moves forward depending on how the project is progressing a schedule for the project and determining who is responsible for that so helps us to understand which resource is required at what point in time similarly the cash flow requirement can also be understood by having a defined schedule so the tasks are placed in a sensible order and the dependencies between each of them are noted once sequenced the resources required for the tasks are estimated and assigned the time required for each of these tasks are also determined now when we say this we will require to understand and visualize while doing a project the wba structure is defined and in what sequence each of these elements are delivered and what timeline start time end time and how each of these are connected to other wbs element in what sequence what activity is required what resource required what effort required what competency skill required so all these are put in so since we schedule and sequence it we know when is that required so this requires working with other knowledge area very closely when i say wbs element it's quite obvious it comes from scope management when i say allocation of resources obviously it has to work with resource management to create resource calendars if it's a cost management to understand the flow money flow cash flow so budget should be there for the project so cash flow when what amount is required to understand that it cost is linked to schedule so all these knowledge areas should work very closely with coordinating with each other interfacing with each other so project schedule management also uses a very important technique called network analysis technique where we speak about critical path then forward pass backward pass then identification of floats so when is a critical path critical path refers to the longest path in the established network diagram of a project and that will be the minimum time required for project to complete so this critical path needs to be closely monitored as the execution of the project happens because any delay in this critical path will delay the project itself so that's about some summary about schedule management now let us look at the processes which are involved in schedule management so plan schedule management define activities sequence activities estimate activity durations develop schedule so all these five processes are in planning process group so schedule management how it has to be done needs to be clearly planned as part of plan schedule management then when to define activities it is quite obvious we need to know what needs to be delivered so wbs element helps us when the scope baseline is provided as an input here so taking that activities are defined then the sequencing happens then when we say estimate activity durations so we speak about two terms like effort and duration if i want to deliver something let me assume uh to deliver x for a person it requires one day or for a person it requires 10 days if we say so to create that working piece of a product it takes 10 man days we will say that is an effort now if i have 100 pieces of such news to be created how many mandates i need so 10 into 100 piece 10 days into 100 piece so 1000 mandates now how many resources i have i may have around 25 resources now thousand divided by 25 it will be around i guess 400 400 band is no i think 2 thousand divided by uh it's about 4 40 so 40 mandates of effort means that is duration whereas effort is 1000 mandates 40 days will become duration so likewise looking at how many resources we have how many uh what is that effort is actually required is involved and then what is the duration within which we need to complete it either you look at how many resource i have based on that i will look at the duration or i will look at the target date mainly target date is given by customers as you discuss when the project needs to be completed accordingly you are required to acquire the resources so this itself is showing us these knowledge areas now work very closely now without scope you cannot define activities now without understanding the activities you don't know what is the effort so now once you understood the effort you know what resource what competency when so you need to work with resource management so to have those resources on boarded or acquired you need to have money cost so what cost it takes so likewise it goes one by one hello operating that's where you see 24 processes in the planning process group distributed across all the ten knowledge areas so this is about schedule management now i look at the cost management project cost management so when we say cost it is quite obvious it's all about money what money the expenditure the outgoing money so project incurs cost if any individuals i keep getting these questions in lot of trainings so is checking the revenues the invoice rising and collection of payment is that a job of a project manager now when we say the project management and look at date as a project management activities now it's all about delivering the results of the project so when we say i need to collect invoices and to submit invoices collect payments when you say that so that doesn't mean it is part of a project management role no now if in your organization if you have a designation of project manager or some manager or something and invoice submission and collection of payment is also part of your job description you have to do you don't have any choice so designation is totally different when compared with the meaning of the role called project manager so any other things which are associated with your designation in the organization it may be project manager also designation possible depending on what job description what job activities are associated with it accordingly to do but when you do a project management activity in specific when you involve in the project so all these aspects what we're defining that needs to be taken 300 percent along with it raising an invoice collection of payment or coordinating with some other department to find out new opportunities in the existing customer those are all additional things which are given to you as an individual with that designation to justify many things so as a professionals i have a position in organization with some designations and there is a ctc salary which is given and that needs to be justified to justify that various different roles are attached to you for your designation so that you need to look up to accordingly and to deal with now let us come back to project cost management so it's about expanding money what we're speaking about which basically focuses on estimating and allocation of budget to the project that is first thing one needs to estimate approximate what cost it takes for a project now what are those cost components so where is that cost incurred so cost is incurred to the resources acquired cost is incurred to the tools cost is incurred in all that activity what we do right so everywhere the one we create result for raw material what you acquire the people the technology resource what you occur the facility what you have so all this involves money the cost expenditure so approximation of the cost needs to be done what it takes to complete this project and confirm budget it so this involves project budgeting so good estimation tools need to make sure that the funds are within the need of the project and stakeholder sponsors are kept informed so estimation and budgeting cannot happen in isolation project manager cannot do a loan that requires to involve the experts the divine experts who can determine how the budget can be established how it can change how it can be controlled what are the regulators needs to be kept in mind so it considers all those processes required to do that all the tasks which are involved like cost and combining them would determine project budget so firstly approximation would happen based on that approximation then the approximation of that will be submitted then the budget is confirmed after allocation so this needs to be monitored and controlled throughout the project life cycle so initially i also mentioned earlier about triple constraints scope time and cost so it is very important to monitor these three critically so for that there is a technique which is used which is very popular earned value management which speaks about or provides you the insight towards how the project is progressing in terms of scope time and cost which are basically very important ones then comes rest of the things quality resource risk which complements to this right so project cost management involves four processes that is plan cost management estimate cost determine budget which are part of planning process group and control cost is part of monitoring and control process group now next uh knowledge area is project quality management so when we say quality it's all about ensuring that grades are set requirements are clearly defined and how are you going to ensure that hindering characteristics what are defined are accomplished so you need to have a quality management approach quality management plan in place now what quality management i should follow there are a lot of standards lot of best practices so that is based on the project environment in which organization are you doing in any given organization there will be quality management practices which are followed an approach that may require to get reflected in the projects which is being done in that environment or if project has a specific requirement that specific quality management standard or practice needs to be followed then that needs to be defined accordingly the quality management should happen so quality management is a part of entire project management plan which speaks about quality specifications products or service the artifacts which are used as part of the project so when we say quality management approach we speak about many terms like acceptance criteria quality criteria customer quality expectations then quality assurance quality control so all these needs to be kept in mind and brought in place and this in execution if you look at there is a process called manage quality when we looked at scope schedule and cost there was no processes defined in execution but since the accountability of ensuring quality is with project manager there is a process now remember all these 49 processes defined in pmp or project management processes these are not the processes which are for execution so these are all project management processes if any team member is configuring something creating something delivering something none of those activities are defined as part of these processes as plan when you make a clear plan like when i said create wbs where you have the elements which needs to be delivered or defined when you putting an activities into it adding activities into it that anyway you have a domain expert to do it accordingly execution happens by team members but as a project manager you are not involved in that in entirety in execution i'm saying so project quality management will have the processes like plan quality management manage quality and control quality so plan quality management is part of planning process group manage quality is part of executing process group whereas control quality is part of monitoring and controlling process group so the next knowledge area to look at is project resource management so when we say resource by default we think about human resources so that's how the knowledge area was in the fifth edition so it was called as project human resource management but as the discussions happened has the realization happened it is not about just human resource many resources involves technology resources facility resources so the renaming of that knowledge area happened in sixth edition as project resource management so project resource management focuses on ensuring identification of those roles identification of those resources having a plan in place so that resources can be managed better so predominantly when we say resource it's quite obvious we think about human resources so which is very very unpredictable kind of resource whereas when it comes to technology resource it is predictable the nature the behavior the configuration everything is predictable but only those human resources are the one which requires a special treatment a special approach to engage with them so this knowledge area helps to identify roles within the project team as per the project management team structure defined so there should be project management team structure defined and what needs to be delivered from which are the roles which also include how they fit into overall structure of the project so these team members or resources need to be acquired if it is human resources those needs to be educated an induction needs to be done about the project and they need to become fit into the project so when i say people it's quite obvious conflict occurs various different preferences they come across with they have their own experience backgrounds and dynamics associated with them so close monitoring is required mentoring is required demonstration of leadership skills are required so generally we speak about three main ways of demonstrating leadership which involves authoritarian leadership then lazy fair leadership and participative leadership so authoritarian is also called as autocratic which means the project manager will become hold that authority power with that power the project manager demonstrated this is how it should be makes the decision so such power demonstration may be required when something needs to be influenced strongly and direction is to be set and decision needs to be made but when it comes to participative leadership when some problems needs to be resolved when people's involvement is required that needs to be encouraged that is very essential reviewing or creating solutions that approach leadership style is required but when it comes to lazy fair delegative approach so where there are specific domain experts who will do it so assigned to them and then monitor review with them that is delegative approach so these three leadership styles has to be demonstrated effectively while doing doing project resource management so team will have their own dynamics so that needs to be understood and accordingly dealt with so this knowledge area has around six processes that is plan resource management estimate activity resources acquire resources develop team manage team and control resources so plan resource management and estimate activity resources are part of planning process group acquire resources develop team and manage team are part of executing process group whereas control resource is part of monitoring and control process group so next knowledge area we are going to look at is project communication management so when we say project communication firstly we need to understand what is this communication is all about so communication is used to convey something to someone so there should be two parties the communicator and the one who receives it means sender and receiver so very important here is when sender sends certain message at the receiver's end how it is received is the meaning what is actually perceived by a receiver is same as what is meant by the communicator means sender so this will become a big gap if what i told versus what someone understood if there is a gap then the communication is not effective so it is very essential to understand this dynamics communication should be very effective and based on that communication there is always a resultant action so always communication will have two parties minimum one is sender and receiver and in the receiver's perspective one is to understand who would be the receiver generally when i say project manager project manager communicates with sponsor project manager communicates with team members project manager communicates with customers project manager communicates with other functions within organization suppliers or external to the organization now each of these communications will have a specific objective and intention so project manager should understand that and what sorts of vocabularies jargons which needs to be used while communicating the words the communication methods which needs to be used the communication channel the language the syntax understanding all of these will become very important while doing the communication in the project so project communication management is the area that informs the team and stakeholders about the project so the communication management system is determined along with how it is done and how often it is done how frequently the communication has to be made so managing communication should also involve reviewing how effective the communication is and how the regularly the modifications are being done to ensure the communication is actually fulfilling the requirements of communication needs that needs to be discussed regularly and looked at is that helping so it is very essential as the stakeholders are identified their communication requirement should also identified and what communication why is that communication how often how frequently the communication has to be made what channel what template which has to be used and what language so all these needs to be understood signed off so when you go and inform or sends a message to the sponsor it will have specific objective of that communication similarly when you send it to team member specific objective here in this two aspect the frequency will change the language will change the stakeholders to whom the communication is made by changes and impact it has to create in that communication will also change so that needs to be understood the project manager should be very sensitive about it so communication management plays very important role whereas 90 percent of the time project manager will be spending his effort and time in communicating if that is not effective it is difficult to become successful in project management now let us look at the processes in project communication management so there are three processes that is plan communication management manage communications and monitor communications so plan communication management is part of planning process group managed communication is part of executing process group monitor communication is part of monitoring and control process groups the next knowledge area is project risk management so when we use the term risk it's all about an uncertainty what we're speaking about so every assignment we take up every initiative we do everything involves risk similarly project also involves risk so risk which is termed as an uncertainty of certain occurrence are both positive as well as negative the positive risk we call it as opportunities whereas negative risk we call it as threats so each of this risk has to be treated certain way so before you treat or decide on certain treatment of the risks identified risks needs to be analyzed so qualitative analysis quantitative analysis has to be done and risk responses has to be planned so the project risk management is the knowledge area which will identify how the risks are itemized categorized and prioritized in the risk register similarly risks are prioritized and qualitatively and quantitatively analyzed so based on their impact on the project the necessary response plan will be defined so risk has to be controlled by reviewing the risk register regularly and removing the risk that no longer impact the project now the risk once identified mainly risks are identified some set of risks are already identified captured in project charter whereas in detail risks are identified during the planning associated with many different aspects of the project the risk related to scope schedule time cost quality resources maybe procurement stakeholders so risks are categorized accordingly and identified now this is not the list which is made it is not an exhaustive list which is made in one go so this acts acts as a basic list as the project progresses all these identified risks needs to be evaluated on continual basis and also new risks needs to be identified regularly so that what are the kinds of risks which comes up are understood and then response plans are accordingly taken so this helps in managing the risks effectively and efficiently the processes involved in risk management knowledge area are plan risk management identify risk perform qualitative risk analysis perform quantitative risk analysis and plan risk response which are part of planning process group whereas implement risk response will be part of executing process group and monitor risks this will be part of monitoring and controlled process group so when we say identify risk this is when you identify the risk here and captured in the risk register and as i mentioned earlier this is not a list which is exhaustive so at the moment whatever the risks are being identified so these risks are analyzed now as part of this planning qualitatively as well as quantitatively but the analysis of the risk assessing those risks should continue throughout the project life cycle because the impact level of the risk would vary as it progresses throughout the project life cycle now as we have a risk response plans defined and for some it is already implemented some you cannot implement you need to make yourself ready to tackle the scenario of issues when it occurs when risk occurs you need to handle those so have that capability built or having some contingency plans any of such actions are taken and project should be ready means when risk occurs the impact occurred and i'm just okay with it that will not work so project will get impacted it may escalate the cost it may delay the project closure many things it will happen so proper analysis and then actions in time right risk response plans can be implemented so for positive risk for opportunities generally acceptance or exploit or taking advantage of that would be the kind of response we will see for the negative risk the threats the kind of responses what we would see is like avoid or have a contingency plan or mitigate the risk in terms of having some measures implemented transfer risk is another thought which is certain so if someone says avoid risk that behavior is called as risk average behavior someone who don't even take risk so if i take up this i have the risk of so much so i will not even take up that such behaviors so those are the kinds of risk responses may come across which needs to be implemented as part of executing process group then whatever the plan whatever the implementation which has happened that needs to be monitored as part of monitoring and control so next knowledge area for us is project procurement management so when we say procurement so every project involves procuring something so a main decision which happens here is make or buy decision so should i make it myself should i create myself within within the organization or should i do something or purchase something so make or buy decision so when i decide i am going to buy certain things from outside because we cannot make everything as part of our organization because the direction of the business is totally different if i am a bank and i am doing an i.t project i need not go and sit and start configuring a server so i need not hire people who configure and then they come and sit here and i start managing them so my entire focus of banking services which i need to focus on will go for toss i should not do that so ensure instead i'll give to an experts so procurement of an i.t services from iit service provider i will do so to giving it to the experts rather than doing myself which helps me to have that expertise coming to me so procurement management involves in identifying those resources the products or services which needs to be procured to use in my project so that i need not spend time on that so this involves identification of the suppliers having those subcontractors right so they will have an engagement through a contract and monitoring and managing them and establishing a relationship with them and engaging with them in appropriate way that is required it is very essential to be done in every project so that way project procurement management would guide in terms of handling all the procurements what we do from outside external to the organization so this knowledge area handles outside procurements like hiring subcontractors outside needs of projects are identified and how much they are determined this involves a statement of work terms of reference request for proposal and choosing a vendor so to do this bidder conference happens floating request for proposals can happen request for quotation can happen so many such actions are taken and the processes involved here are three mainly so plan procurement management which is part of planning process group conduct procurement which is part of executing process group and control procurement which is part of monitoring and control process group so the next knowledge area is project stakeholder management so when we say stakeholder who is the stakeholder stakeholders are internal stakeholders are external stakeholders are the one who influence stakeholders impact they will get impacted they are influenced so likewise for every project every initiative organization takes there are stakeholders for me for my project i need to identify all the stakeholders so now identification of stakeholder engaging with stakeholder managing the stakeholders will become very essential so as part of this knowledge area after identification of stakeholders the need of stakeholders needs to be understood so not every stakeholders are identified will have very close to the project they are not in very close proximity to the project the distance of the stakeholder from the project may be far still they may have an impacted because of this we need to understand that if i am building a flyover construction of flyover is happening obviously people living in the region will get impacted but they have no direct involvement in the project however their cooperation is required so likewise as as we identify the stakeholders we need to understand what kind of impact or influence that stakeholder will have on them or on the project from them this needs to be analyzed so stakeholders needs to be identified their concerns need to be identified and must be managed some stakeholders would come up with certain powers authorities so we need to understand that as well so each of the stakeholders needs to be listed out their concerns prioritize based on their impact on the project then the stakeholders need to be engaged and determine if their needs are being addressed if not what can be done to rectify those if at all any issues exist so various stakeholder state also can exist there is a stakeholder who should be very supportive in the project actively involved in the project but the stakeholder may be in an aware state so we may require to engage with a stakeholder bring that clarity explain and then ensure that stakeholder is supportive to the project some stakeholders may be resistive some stakeholder may be neutral some stakeholder would be very supportive unaware so various different state of stakeholders would exist but one needs to analyze what kind of state that stakeholder should be in this project that needs to be discussed understood and then decide so accordingly engagement should happen so stakeholder engagement plan needs to be defined very clearly so now here we have four processes so one process in initiating process group that is identify stakeholder then plan stakeholder engagement which happens in planning manage stakeholder engagement which is executing process group and monitor stakeholder engagement is monitoring and control process group as i mentioned in risk management in stakeholder management also identification of stakeholder analyzing the way stakeholder engagement should happen and deciding that engagement this is very dynamic which has to happen throughout the project life cycle and this is not one time register what we create like stakeholder register if you create it is not one time register it is dynamic which gets updated throughout the lifecycle of the project and today we will learn about pmp certification before we begin let's have a look at an incident where two project managers jon and ted are talking to each other jon is a senior project manager while ted is a part of his team jon finds ted to be upset so he asks him is there anything he can help him with to which ted replies that his project failed jon further asks him what could be the possible reason for the project failure ted tells him that it's because he was not able to manage the time and budget now jon asks him if he is pmp certified to which ted says he isn't then jon suggested that he must take the pmp certification which will not only give his project better performance but also help him upskill in his career so today we will discuss about pmp certification in detail let's first have a look at all the topics we will cover we will begin with what is pmp then we will check top 10 reasons to get pmp certified followed by the basics of pmp then after we know the pmp basic concepts we will check who can get the certification and pattern for the pmp exam then we will learn about the pmbok guide which is an integral part to prepare for the pmp exam finally we will see the cost and the validity of the certification so without any further ado let's begin with what is pmp pmp or project management professional is the world's most renowned project management certification for project managers this certification is provided by the project management institute now when we know what is project management professional or pmp certification let's have a look at some reasons why you should get pmp certified today i will give you top 10 reasons to take pmp certification pmp certification helps you become a better project manager the process that helps us acquire the certification goes to several phases like gaining project management experience and passing the pmp exam which helps you in bringing sanity to the project manager the process helps project managers to learn different industry trends have practical knowledge and several other project management constraints the second reason that we have is project management certification makes our resume more valuable as we have discussed earlier that pmp certification is the most renowned project management certification so having it on the resume will definitely help the interviewer recognize our skills there are companies that only accept project managers who are pmp certified pmp certification not only helps in switching the job or finding a new one it helps in progressing in the current company as well the third reason that we have is it provides more job opportunities when one acquires the pmp certification it proves that one has expertise in completing the project effectively and efficiently so the certification increases the trust factor of the interviewer in you and increases your probability of getting that job the fourth reason that we have is salary hikes pmp certified project manager is one of the highest paid jobs around the globe and this trend will continue to grow the global survey by the project management institute shows that pmp certified project managers tend to get 20 percent more salary than the non-certified project managers the next reason that we have is pmp certification validates your dedication to the job the certification requires several months of training it requires several hours of project management experience and exposure this experience and exposure explains the seriousness of a project manager towards its career path then sixth we have is pmp certification is globally acknowledged pmp certification is the most renowned certification all over the world it helps project managers to be a part of different types of industries all over the globe pmp certification is the most renowned certification all over the world project managers who are pmp certified may get jobs in different types of industries all over the world pmp certification not only provides theoretical knowledge but also helps in gaining practical knowledge which further helps in increasing the confidence of a project manager the next reason that we have is better project performance pmp certified project managers tend to deliver better projects than the non-pmp certified project managers this is because pmp certified project managers are well aware of 5 process groups 10 knowledge areas and 49 processors which helps them have a clear picture of different aspects involved in a project the eighth reason that we have is it increases your networking opportunities there are several communities that one becomes a part of when they sign up as a pmi member these communities have meetings regarding new job opportunities and this helps in having a professional network the ninth reason that we have is job security job security is a major reason that a professional thinks off before opting for a particular profession today in the world of recession where companies are drowning the demand for pmp certified project managers goes on increasing the last and the 10th reason we have is expertise in practical application when one appears for a pmp exam they need extensive preparation they need to have thorough knowledge of process groups and knowledge areas which help them develop several essential skills and move ahead in their career now as we move further we will look into the pmp basic concepts the pmp basic concepts are the five project management steps these project management steps start from the day we begin our project to the day we end our project they begin from initiation to closure the first step that we have is initiation planning execution monitoring and controlling and closure now let's have a look at each of them in detail the first step we have is initiation initiation involves defining the project scope this is the step where we explain what our project will have for whom we are making that project it helps us to identify our stakeholders who all will be the part of that project and determine the project feasibility after this step of initiation when we have decided the scope of our project the second step that comes is planning in the planning phase we define a flow to all the activities of a project we define this flow keeping in mind all the constraints of a project like time resources and risk after we have defined the flow of these processes it is time for us to look at the execution in the execution phase we evaluate the plan and the sequence of the tasks we have made we finally put the plan in action and the project tends to start after the project building has started and the process of execution has started it is time for the monitoring and the controlling phase in monitoring and controlling phase the progress of the project is tracked and important steps for quality assurance are taken in monitoring and controlling phase the work being done is compared with the work as defined in the project plan in this phase the progress of the project is tracked and important steps for quality assurance are taken finally we have the closure step in this step the deliverables are delivered to the client the documentation of all that took place during the project lifecycle is done and project is fully evaluated now when we have seen reasons for getting pmp certified and we know the basic concepts of pmp it is time for us to know who can get pmp certified for getting pmp certified there can be two cases the first case says you must have a secondary degree a secondary degree means high school diploma or an associate degree or a degree that is globally equivalent to all of these then you need to have 7 500 hours of leading and directing projects and 3 500 hours of project management education there can be two cases first case can be you must have a secondary degree that means a high school diploma associates degree or the global equivalent degree then you must have 7 500 hours of project management experience and 35 hours of education in project management the second case can be you must have a four-year degree along with 4 500 hours of project management experience and 35 hours of education in project management now when we know who can get pmp certified we will see the pmp exam pattern the exam comprises of 200 questions out of which 175 questions are used for evaluation one can answer these questions if they have thorough knowledge of five process groups and ten knowledge areas the time provided to complete the exam is four hours the questions that are asked are of different types the most common type being formula based situation based and knowledge based now when we have discussed about the exam pattern discussing about the pmbok guide becomes very important so the next topic that we have is pmbok guide pmbok guide or project management body of knowledge is a book that comprises of several processes and different terminologies needed to crack the pmp exam the whole syllabus of pmp exam is covered in the pmbok guide by the project management and 10 knowledge areas apart from this there are 49 processes that are divided amongst 5 process groups 10 knowledge areas finally let's have a look at the cost and validity of the pmp certification when we talk about the cost of the certification there can be two cases the first case can be if we are not a member of project management institute the exam fees is 555 us dollars the second case can be if we are a member of project management institute the exam fees is 405 us dollars if we talk about the validity of the certification a certificate is valid for a period of three years after every three years the certificate needs to be renewed to renew the certificate one needs to furnish a proof of 60 pdus or professional development units after so much information that thanks john for his time and promises to take the pmp certification at the shortest notice now let's have a look at the salary trends of a pmp certified project manager and a sample resume if we consider the salary of a non-pmp certified project manager it is approximately ninety one thousand dollars while if we consider the salary of a pmp certified project manager it is approximately one hundred eleven thousand dollars which is approximately twenty percent higher than the non-certified project managers salary now let's have a look at the resume of a pmp certified project manager if you are somebody with pmp certification and looking for a project manager or a senior project manager role your resume should look something like this the summary in the beginning would include how much experience you have and anything that supports your claim of being a project manager like here james brown has written he has more than 10 years of experience with generating and building projects then when you talk about your experience you should put something that emphasizes on the responsibilities that you had your area of expertise put something that shows your skill set for the desired post and also something that you learn from your former job role this shows that you have command over your work and also the determination to skill and upskill yourself like here james brown has three years of experience as an assistant manager training new associates and then more than three years of experience as a project manager where he not only led projects but also learned new project management tools like trello and primavera after this add relevant information regarding your education your resume must include skills that you have or you have gained in your years of experience like here james brown has divided his skills into two parts where he has written his technical skills and non-technical skills he has included a skill of agile and quality assurance software as well as he has his knowledge of different project management tools then putting your certifications play a major role this proves that you are up to date and updated with current market trends james brown has his certifications in c and java and more importantly he has his project management certification project management professional in this session we will discuss about project manager roles and responsibilities let's first have a look at all the topics we will be covering today first we will see who is a project manager then we will check the roles and responsibilities of a project manager moving forward we will analyze the salary of a project manager and the steps that will help us become a project manager finally we will see a project manager's resume so without any further ado let's get started with who is a project manager project manager in simple words is a professional who manages the project project manager plays an integral role from the first phase of the project life cycle to the last phase of project life cycle this individual is a part of all the activities that produce the final deliverables and strive towards the success of the project now let's consider some must have skills of a project manager first we have is strong communication skills the communication skills help the project manager to communicate the organization's mission and vision to the team members in a clear concise manner these communication skills help project manager to explain their thoughts and requirements to customers and stakeholders the next we have is effective leadership skills that helps in forming a team of skilled professionals and lead them in the best possible manner the next skill that a project manager must have is a team management skill as a project manager it is very important to know how to manage your team to achieve a common goal with complete harmony a project manager must have strong negotiation skills as project managers have to negotiate at each and every step this negotiation might be with the customers stakeholders or team members these negotiation skills become of utmost importance when project members get into a fight or an argument then we have critical thinking this is what makes a project manager more effective and efficient in project management this thinking capability is needed to take difficult steps talk to stakeholders and resolve several issues throughout the course of the project the last skill that a project manager must have is risk management skill handling a project is an important step but what is equally important is risk management this is the process required to identify analyze and respond to the risk factors throughout the project life cycle now when we know who a project manager is we must have a look at the roles and responsibilities of a project manager the first and foremost role of a project manager is to set up a project scope check its feasibility and determine the resources that are needed to satisfy the project scope second role that a project manager has is the development of a project plan according to the project scope the plan is needed to encourage the team to hard work with all their dedication next a project manager is supposed to set deadlines for the project deliverables he or she is supposed to manage time as a priority and communicate with the team at regular intervals next important role is to analyze track and control the budget of the project project manager has to make sure that the project does not run out of budget and is optimized as possible moving forth effective communication is one of the most important skill of a project manager he she is supposed to maintain communication with all the stakeholders throughout the project then we have is the identification and evaluation of risk in a project project manager must take steps to minimize the effect of risk in a project the next role of a project manager is to track and control the performance of the team this helps in yielding the best outputs with the least number of resources last role a project manager must have is to provide reports and documentation of all the steps involved in project management this helps in future projects and makes sure that the mistakes that happened in the project will not happen again in ongoing projects now it's time for us to check the salary of a project manager the data shows that an average salary of a project manager in india is approximately 14 lakh rupees per annum while the average salary of a project manager in united states is 83 215 dollars per year the next important thing we must learn is how can we get a project manager's job there are four important steps that one must fulfill to become a project manager the first step is to have a bachelor's degree it is important for a person to be a graduate one can hold a bachelor's degree in any area of interest like marketing computer science or even engineering this entirely depends on the type of project manager one wants to be the second important step is gaining project management experience this means that a person must have experience in leading and directing projects project management experience helps in taking different project management certifications which further help in having a good paying job the third essential step is to learn project management tools there are different project management tools for different area of interest these tools help in quick and efficient management of work project management tools are used widely by organizations now learning these tools will increase the chances of getting selected in one of those organizations the fourth and the last step is getting project management certified project management certifications help an individual to increase the value of their certification and validates their dedication to the job nowadays several organizations have made it compulsory for a project manager to be project management certified there may be several project management certifications out of which project management professional certification or pmp certification is one of the most common and widely accepted certifications the project management institute or the pmi predicts that there will be 22 million new project management jobs by the year 2027 now it's time for us to know how a resume of an aspiring project manager looks like if you are somebody looking for a project manager role or a senior project manager role then your resume should look something like this the summary in the beginning would include how much experience you have and anything that supports your claim of being a project manager like here james brown has written he has more than 10 years of experience with generating and building projects then when you talk about your experience you should put something that emphasizes on the responsibilities that you had in your area of expertise put something that shows your skill set for the desired post and also something that you learn from your former job role this shows that you have command over your work and also the determination to upskill yourself like here james brown has three years of experience as an assistant manager where he trained new associates and then three years of experience as a project manager where he not only led projects but also learned new project management tools like trello and primavera after this add relevant information regarding your education your resume must include skills that you have or you have gained in your years of experience like here james brown has divided his skills in two parts where he has written his technical skills and non-technical skills he has included his skill of agile and quality assurance software as well as he has his knowledge of different project management tools like trello and primavera then putting your certifications play a major role this proves that you are up to date and updated with current market trends james brown has a certifications in c and java and more importantly he has his project management certification in project management professional or pmb here as part of this video we are going to look at few possible questions which one would face while going through an interview this will help them to prepare for interview and also help to understand what kind of questions would come across when they face the interview in addition to that these questions also has an insight towards the role of project management itself so let us look at one by one question number one how do you define a project so as per the pmis pmbok sixth edition a project is a temporary endower undertaken to create a unique product service or results the temporary nature of projects indicates that a project has a definite beginning and end so when we say this temporary end over undertaken to create a unique product service or results each project will have a definite start date and end date once the project team is formed once the project objectives are achieved so the team which is formed the human resources which are onboarded to a project so those are disseminated sent back to their respective functions or departments and project will be concluded as complete so project can be simple or complex and may be managed by a single person or a group of them so every project will have a life cycle so from beginning to end it starts and end where it acquires lot of resources where it will divide the project life cycle into multiple stages or phases where project is being done and deliverables will happen through the milestones during that life cycle so projects are often broken into small tasks to utilize teams trends and increase productivity question number two what is a project charter so project charter is a short document that explains the entire project so this will become a basic document which will be given to a project manager so that a project manager can understand what is a project management is all about so this document would include the objectives of the project how will they be carried out who are the stakeholders identification of risks advantages of the project and the budget so project charter plays an integral while planning the project as a plan is something that is used in all the phases of project life cycle it is very essential because it provides all the necessary insights a project manager is needed while taking up the project after getting the project charter the first job a project manager supposed to do is to identify the stakeholders even though project charter will have a basic list of stakeholders so project manager has to contact those stakeholders establish the list of stakeholders for the project understand the requirements in detail and further move towards planning what is meant by scope of the project so project scope is most essential part of project planning that helps in determining the list of specific project goals or deliverables so when we say this project will have a definite unique deliverable which has to be created so this will have a specific description of the specification as well as the features functionalities of the deliverable so to accomplish that features functionality of that output what we are going to create as a result of a project within a project lot of activities are done the processes the tools the resources which are utilized for the project all falls under this scope so when we say the term scope it is very important for us to understand the scope of a project versus scope of the product the scope of the project involves all those processes resources and activities what we do to accomplish the result whereas product scope is the one which we speak about the result itself the features functionalities of that result itself so one needs to understand the difference between this project scope and product scope and define accordingly so this will help in identification of the project's output and why that output is created and how these particular product or services or results will help organization or business to accomplish their objectives this should be the basic understanding a project manager should have so it includes everything that is to be achieved by the project which means all those results what needs to be achieved all those value which has to be created by the results so we need to keep in mind the result itself is not the ultimate objective of an organization it is not instead the result will help organization to accomplish their objectives for example if you take in hr department if they introduce an intranet portal for claim processing so the application what is created as part of the exercise of initiative where my employees should submit their claims through a specific portal now that is to reduce the time the processing duration as well as the efficiency and effectiveness of the processed claim what is submitted so this is an outcome so keeping that outcome the objective this portal is created that portal itself has the features and functionalities which project will focus and create that results so through that result organization would accomplish their objectives that should be kept in mind so understanding the scope is essential so while understanding the scope also need to understand how this particular output the product results is going to add value to the business what is the outcome of that that is also very important to understand one is understanding the scope ensuring the project is delivered within that scope and all that required to be done to accomplish that scope has to be done and only that not anything more than that not anything lesser than that what is project life cycle as i was mentioning during the question three there is a project scope so project itself has a life cycle so this project scope falls under this project life cycle so project life cycle refers to the beginning and end of the project so there is a life so you initiate a project trigger a project project is actually started and as it starts it progresses creating the results and then it ends project can end in various different scenarios one is by accomplishing the objective of the project the ultimate results the deliverable it creates and then ends our project may also get closed prematurely so we are not going to look at the why the project is going to close prematurely at the moment our idea is to understand what is project life cycle and to visualize that so this entire span of time the project spends from the beginning to end it involves various different stages or phases whatever the term you want to call it and in each of these stages or phases there is a milestone deliverables which are measured and that will be part of the ultimate deliverable what is going to be delivered as a result of a project so it involves all the activities all the processes all the resources which needs to be acquired managed and then the results needs to be accomplished ultimately so here in the project life cycle it involves five process groups which mainly focuses on different different activities and dynamics of the project which we call it as an initiation process group planning process group execution process group monitoring and controlling process group and closure process group so during initiation process group the creation of a project charter appointment of the project manager and identification of this key stakeholder will be done this can be initiation of the project as a whole or as a part of a specific stage or a phase now all this process group what i mentioned initiation planning execution monitoring closure all of these process groups can be looked at their involvement in the entire project life cycle at the same time it can also be seen as part of a single phase so each of the process groups are applicable like initiation of a project if i say similarly initiation of a stage or a phase so the planning process group involves the process of creating the plan for achieving the project's objectives so this would create the detailed plan for entire project or a skeleton plan for a project if it is a agile or rolling wave project if that approach is taken like rolling wave or progressive elaboration or agile approaches then the skeleton of the project plan is created if waterfall approach is taken it's quite obvious the comprehensive the detail project plan will be created project management plan is also involved in this now in addition to this as you progress in the project for each stage or a phase there needs to be a plan which is detailed further compared to the project plan itself which will become ultimately part of big plan of a project the execution process groups involves the project management processes for identification allocation and management of resources required for executing the project deliverables so here the actual execution happens being a project manager the focus should be on managing the project so many a time i have seen project manager is going and doing tasks looking at the task level transaction level which was not project management thought so one needs to ensure the project management is not about deliverables in terms of doing the tasks it's about getting the deliverables from the team so active involvement in terms of acquiring the resources checking whether the accomplishment of results has happened needs to be done throughout the project life cycle so it's all about directing and managed project works and at the same time managing the knowledge which is acquired during the project life cycle the monitoring and controlling process groups involves the process for project manager to monitoring and controlling the project now this involves reviewing this involves creation of reports this involves concluding yes project has delivered or not delivered identification of the deviations and initiating with the change request for necessary corrections so monitoring and control will be done throughout the project life cycle and only with an effective monitoring and control we can see the success in a project so the closure process group involves the process which is required for formally closing the project where everything including what went wrong and what went right all through the project is summed up so here especially in the closing process group we will not focus on acceptance of the deliverable instead we'll focus on sign off capturing lessons learned all the formalities which needs to be completed as part of a closure then where are we going to accept the deliverables this happens in monitoring and controlling so while doing the monitoring and controlling we will validate validate against what is planned comparing with what is being delivered so when you compare both one would understand what is delivered versus what actually was planned so their acceptance happens once the acceptance happens there only then the project moves towards closure project or phase either of that so when we say closure process group it involves the process for a closure of that face whether accomplishment of all the objectives all the deliverables of the phase is done or not is checked if it is a phase if it is a project in the project perspective if everything is complete is checked and then it moves to closing process group where the lessons learnt the formal sign off everything will run as part of this closing process group what is the importance of process groups so process groups are set of processes that are applicable to various stages of the project as i mentioned earlier each of the processes has a defined set of inputs and produced defined outputs by applying a set of tools and techniques on the input the initiation process groups involves the processes needed to initiate the project that is develop project charter and identify stakeholders the two processes the project charter will be handed over to the project manager and formal declaration of appointment of the project manager will be done further project manager has to identify the key stakeholders and take forward the project as per the direction set in the project charter so in this group in this process group initiation process group it is a formal declaration of appointment of project manager to the project but one needs to remember should not get confused in real time we see an individual who is about to become a project manager for a project sits and create a project charter we have seen that in reality so does it mean that what is told here is wrong compared to what is practiced that is not the idea many organization thinks if we involve the project manager to be project manager of a project while creating the project charter itself the level of information the detail that person will have about a project will be more compared to a person we will become a project manager after ending over the project charter so there is a difference the person takes the project charter and become aware of the project that is one scenario the person actively involved in creating a project charter and then become a project manager that is better scenario where the person will be more informed but ultimately the accountability of a project charter lies with the sponsor formal declaration of appointment of project manager confirmation of that happens only when project charter is approved and handed over to the person who is to be project manager so that's where actual initiation of project happens then project manager can move out and start identifying the stakeholders and start collecting the details of the stakeholders the requirements and stakeholders cannot give all the requirements comes coming to their mind they need to restrict to those project detailing what needs to be provided the planning process group defines the detail plan of the project which involves the planning for scope time cost quality resource risk procurement stakeholders communication and integration of all these subsidiary plans each of this plan like scope management plan schedule management plan cost management plan quality management plan resource management plan risk management plan procurement management plan stakeholder engagement plan communication management plan so all these plans are called as subsidiary plans so all these plans are integrated and detailed project management plan will be created so this involves various tools and techniques like expert judgment meetings analogous estimation parametric estimation decomposition part critical path method depending on the specific area which has been focused on while planning for example expert judgment is a common technique used across all the areas like scope time cost quality all of these nine areas knowledge areas which i was mentioning expert judgment meetings are mostly seen as a technique used during each of these planning whereas when it comes to critical path method so critical path method is about scheduling so we will see the technique only in mostly schedule management similarly if i speak about decomposition we see that in scope management so likewise there are specific techniques which are specific to a specific knowledge areas which we need to identify as we go through the entire framework itself similarly there are common techniques used across the knowledge areas which if you can identify that common techniques which are used across knowledge areas it is easy for us to remember and recall those similarly specific techniques for a specific knowledge area the execution process group involves the processes to direct and manage the project works the active involvement of the members of the team is seen performing their tasks to execute the project works although the project plan is finalized there may be changes in requirements that come from the stakeholders which are considered for further modifications so actual involvement of team delivering something acquiring the team onboarding the team onboarding the supplier identification of them doing the bidder conference engaging with stakeholders all this action should happen so because the main focus of execution process group in project management perspective is directing and managing project work and managing the project knowledge which is very very important the monitoring and controlling process group refers to tracking and reviewing the progress and performance of the project the process of monitoring and controlling is continually performed throughout the project lifecycle so here i think as i mentioned earlier as well so it is very essential for us to understand whether project has delivered all those required deliverables or not are the deliverables are fulfilling all the features and functionality which are defined during the planning that validation should happen any deviations are found change requests arised and these change requests are approved once it is approved then it comes to integrated change control process through which changes are executed then the closing process group involves assembling a report of all procedures throughout the project life cycle the closing process group marks the formal closure of the project and completion of its deliverables now let us move to the next question so question number six name 10 knowledge areas as mentioned in the pmbok so the 10 knowledge areas are project integration management project scope management project schedule management project cost management project quality management project resource management project communications management project risk management project procurement management and project stakeholder management the project integration management basically focuses on unification and integration of all the project to manage it in an integrated way a project manager is also called as an integrator which means a project manager should have a end-to-end visibility of the project so all the rest of the nine knowledge areas the plan which is created as part of all the next nine knowledge areas those are consolidated and a comprehensive project management plan will be created in project integration management so this is the only knowledge area where we see the processes in all the process groups whereas in the rest of the knowledge areas if you see we don't see any processes in initiating process group except stakeholder management so integration management has one process similarly stakeholder management has one process in initiation process group similarly in closing process group only integration management has a process no other knowledge areas has any processes so this is the only knowledge area where we find processes in all the process groups which means it is very important to look at a project in an end-to-end view perspective a full view of a project should be known to the project management only the project manager can become successful in doing the project management the next knowledge area project scope management which focuses on ensuring collecting requirements defining scope creating work breakdown structures and scope baseline so scope management focuses on ensuring the necessary scope is defined and provided so that during execution projects are delivered accordingly and monitoring controlling of the scope the validation of the scope will be based on what is defined in the planning what is planned as part of scope management similar to scope management in schedule management once that work breakdown structure is created it is very essential to understand what it takes in terms of efforts what it takes in terms of duration and in what sequence project deliverables are completed in what sequence activities are done so schedule management focuses on that the critical the important technique what we use when it comes to schedule management is critical path method so in a given project when we establish a network diagram so we may see multiple paths from beginning to end of the project so some paths will be the longest path which is called as critical path and that will be the minimum time which is required to complete the project so schedule management plan provides us a detailed schedule of a project along with sequencing and duration and at the same time that is considered as a scheduled baseline then the cost management so when we say cost it is very essential for us to understand it is an outgoing money outgoing monetary value so projects incurs cost when i say project incurs cost there needs an investment from the organization who is actually doing this project so the cost needs to be assessed means an approximation of the cost needs to be done a budget has to be allocated to the project and within that budget the project needs to be completed it cannot go beyond that so budget is established allocation of budget and confirmation of budget happens and cost perspective monitoring of the project happens based on what is that specific budget it has within that project has to done that will become a baseline cost based line so to measure the cost and schedule a technique called earned value management is used well the terminology like cost performance index scheduled performance index actual cost earned value planned value budgeted completion estimate to complete so these are the terminologies which are used as part of earned value management now let us move to quality management project quality management so it is very essential for us to ensure all the processes all the activities all the templates defined for the project are complied with that is first thing while doing the project during the project life cycle similarly the deliverables which comes out of a project at the end of the project or at the end of the specific phase or specific stage or specific milestone so those deliverables should be according to the specifications defined and agreed upon so quality management focuses on establishing that quality management approach so that project compliance is maintained at the same time the results what is delivered is as per the specification what is agreed the resource management focuses on ensuring all the resources which are required for the project are acquired configured installed if it is a technology resources if it is a human resources the necessary induction of the project the brainstorming required for team to understand what is the project is all about is given and the necessary skills and capabilities are there with those human resources and these team members execute the task of the project so project resource management plays very important role and now here when we say scope when we say schedule when we say cost when we quality in each of this in other knowledge areas as well the involvement of each of these resources are essential so what resources gets into scope management what resources gets into schedule management what into cost likewise for each of the knowledge areas we see various different resources used when i say in schedule management effort has to be established while we establish an effort it is also required to understand what is the skills and capabilities required so schedule management definitely work very close with resource management similarly this each of this resource comes with cost so obviously cost management is involved then quality yes so who is going to do the quality management so roles and responsibilities needs to be clearly articulated defined if it is a human resource in resource management coming to communication management so communication i think plays very important role as we know 90 percent of the time project manager spends on communications many times we see project managers like look only communicating many team members have told me mentioning that project manager only does communication project manager only ask questions now this impression to the team gets created because they only see what project manager is doing is communication because team comes in when everything is done everything is set right so that they see project manager during the monitoring and control mainly not during initiation not during planning not during closure so many team member comes and goes during the project they only see project managers reviewing and asking the questions so because of this they assume project manager only communicates project manager only ask questions but it is very important to ask questions but there is a perspective and objective behind it which already project manager is involved and created like a plan like signing off coordinating with stakeholders understanding requirements many things has done in all these areas communication is involved so it plays very vital role so then project risk management every initiatives organizations takes every investment organization does there is a risk so already the identified risks are evaluated and project is taken up by the organization which means the business has already understood what is the risk associated with this particular project considering that they have taken up a project but while doing this project while doing the project management lot of risk comes across project manager should keep identifying the risk assessing the risk analyzing the risks qualitatively and quantitatively depending on the level of impact of the risk so risk means we already know it is uncertainty of certain occurrence an outcome it may be positive or negative positive you can take advantage of that you exploit it you enhance it whereas negative risk you mitigate you respond you will have response plans like accepting those or transferring it sharing it transferring means you outsource or you take an insurance so that is negative risk responses next the project procurement management the projects would involve certain procurement so we need to ensure for this project what is that i am creating myself and using it what is that i am going to procure from external suppliers so whichever we decided in make or buy decisions whichever we have decided that we need to procure from elsewhere so procurement management plays a very important role here so identification of what needs to be procured what quantity we need to procure who would be the best supplier what are the criterias while selecting the suppliers you may float an rfp a proposal request will be respond which will come in you may float a bit when you evaluate the best vendor or supplier you on board them then you start issuing a po formally for them to supply and then procurement happens so end to end management of the supplier right from overloading the suppliers doing the bidder conference establishing an agreement and then engaging with them for reviewing their performance all these are involved as part of procurement management the 10th knowledge area the project stakeholder management so stakeholder means any entity or individual who involves in the project directly or indirectly they are impacted they influence the project and they get influenced so very importantly if you think about the stakeholders we can think about customers we can think about sponsor we can think about team members suppliers who plays very vital role in the success of the project so engaging with the stakeholders managing the stakeholders plays very important roles and if every nine knowledge areas there is something which are done right but something wrong done with the stakeholder management entire project may go for toss so one needs to be very careful understanding the dynamics associated with each of these 10 knowledge areas and then dealt with them accordingly and integration management would integrate all of this as i mentioned earlier so that end-to-end visibility of the project can be seen so that is about 10 knowledge areas mentioned in pmbok the next question question number seven why is the project planning considered as the most significant step in project lifecycle the project planning is more significant this will provide all the baseline plans like as we saw in the previous question scope baseline cost baseline schedule baseline so all the baselines required which will be referred right each of the baselines are considered based on these baselines project needs to be executed now many deviations to this baseline plans need to have a formal approval for necessary corrections so already we know there are nine types of subsidiary plans for all the nine knowledge areas scope schedule cost quality resource risk procurement communication and stakeholder these are the nine knowledge areas which will have a subsidiary plans which will get integrated in integration management so without having a clear plan clear directions so execution will not have any specific direction to take so you cannot measure the deliverables so what to do when to do who will do all these are defined as part of the planning and that plays a very important thing so if you look at the entire framework of pmp most of the processes out of 49 processes we can see in planning process group almost like 24 processes out of 49 50 percent of the processes almost can be seen in planning process group which itself indicates how important the planning process group and planning activity for a project so why the project plan is considered most significant let us look at few more points so one is it provides visibility in terms of what project is all about what is that we are going to deliver and what kind of results are we going to create what is that we are aiming for we get a better visibility so next increases employee satisfaction because there is no confusion each team member understand what needs to be delivered and what is that performance of the team members how it is measured is also visible and that is happening in reality because you cannot deviate on what is being planned so that should happen in actual execution as well so obviously employees are not confused now the team members are not confused they are delivering it according to what is planned and it is easy for them also because it is a better visibility and they have a clarity about it next is quality assurance and control so as we know quality management is one of the knowledge areas so doing timely audits testing all the deliverables compliance checks so all these ensures the approach what we are selected covering all of this ensures the project is delivered as we planned then reduces project risk because all the risks are identified we have understood what are the risks are and we keep identifying the risk and analyzing those and when we see risk there is one unique nature of risk where exactly the risk occurs accordingly the impact to the projects will be there for example when i start a project if there is a risk associated with human resources which i am not even on board non-availability of a specific resource very less impact but when i am on board a resource and then project execution is happening and execution is at peak now what happens it is quite obvious risk impact will be higher compared to the risk which would have occurred in the beginning of the project so meaning as we progress in the life cycle of a project the identified risk will have an impact differently at the different parts of the life cycle depending on the nature of the risk and state of the project so since it is visible to us we have a risk management knowledge area which emphasizes on doing all of this so since we are doing it it will become visible for us to have effective risk management so next question when is stakeholder analysis performed already we know stakeholder means an entity or individuals who involve directly or indirectly who get influenced will get impacted are all called as stakeholders understanding who are those stakeholders who are basically straight in terms of having impact or impacted so we need to identify them and manage them we may have a stakeholder like competition to our organization but do we really manage them not required we might require to be sensitive what competition is doing is this project is unique so that the details of this project the information on about this project is not leak to the competition is not shared with competition in that sensitivity you need to ensure monitoring it you need not manage the competition here but you need to monitor what is happening relating to competition similarly stakeholder like team member so you are required to manage them you cannot just keep monitoring you need to manage them so that they can be the results which is required to be created has created now next is customer if you say you need to engage with them you need to discuss with them you need to review with them that customer is getting what customers ask for right so stakeholder may be anyone who is affected because of project stakeholder analysis plays an important role to identify and analyze their needs right so the analysis is generally performed whenever there is a need of any clarifications over quantitative and qualitative data the clarification helps in understanding the interest of the stakeholders which plays a vital role in the success of the project as i mentioned earlier so next question for us what is the role of stakeholder in project management so stakeholder as we know refers to any organization or entity that can have any positive or negative effect due to project because their interests are most important their positive impact need to be kept in mind while any negative impact need to minimize while planning for executing any activity during the project so it is very important to understand the stakeholder perspective view next question what are some essential features to be kept in mind while choosing a project management tool so project management tools basically assist the project manager and the project team in doing the project effectively and i think efficient way of doing project is also ensured because many processes are automated and the transaction will become easier the collaboration become easier creation of dashboards and reports which will provide the visibility of the performance of the project so let us look at some of the essential features required by project management tools so risk management just now we discussed about risk management and its importance if a project management tool assist while identifying and managing risk because when we identify risk we update those in a risk register so if tool has established risk register where we can keep inputting this particular risks and keep alerting the specific details about we have a frequency of analyzing the risk repeatedly the identified risk so informing us reminding us telling that this calendar is like this you may require to analyze those that will help in making it better right risk assessment as well as updates in terms of managing the risk also lessons learned earlier some risks which of similar kind which are identified are managed like this so let's start recalling those coming to resource management so tool can able to help us in terms of calculating the expenditures and distribute them among the tasks so that it is helpful in terms of better management of resources as well as the cost associated with that then dependencies milestones and critical path so most of the project management tools what we have come across minimum they will have this capability establishing a gantt chart helping in terms of establishing a network diagram which will provide us a visibility in terms of what is that the project flow would be how the project flow would go on and how the project is going to complete what are the activities dependent on each other so what are the relationship between each of the tasks what are the milestone deliverables duration of the project what are those activities happening in parallel so visually graphical representation it would give so it should also minimize simplify the tool should have that capability it should also have a minimal interfaces or ease of doing things like drag and drop interfaces so ease functionalities maintaining smooth maintenance and support which it can help us in terms of doing a project management better so basically tools helps us in terms of assisting to have efficient and effective project management so all the information should be handy so that it is there with us always so third party integration like a tool must be able to help us in terms of collaborating with other tools which would help us in sharing information it would help us in terms of for providing better visibility any other tools which are there in the organization if i'm speaking about documentation records sharing or any of the reports or creation of the dashboards these are the capabilities which what tool can have and at the same time this can have an interface with other tools like dropbox google drive which will help in have a better visibility and better collaboration so agile workflow system when we say the functions features functionality of this particular tool should help us becoming agile so moving faster means quick inputs and feedbacks given because when we say agile we are moving faster when we are moving faster there should be quick feedbacks which should be coming back so that necessary corrections can be made quickly so to do this if tool can assist us in providing those details of increased flexibility and transparency so that would help in becoming more productive then dashboards to manage projects dashboards which will provide what is complete what is not complete what is the status of the project how is the performance so this would help in having a quick visibility into the performance of the project and also the progress of the project to track them so that what is complete what is not complete and how it is progressing is it ahead of schedule behind schedule is it within budget or over budget the visibility to that will always help in terms of getting better project management done then customizable workflows so the tool should be able to adapt to the unique process to track work progression so then if it provides a mobile application integration so better to have team to know what is the status of it anytime anywhere so that ease of moving forward faster in the project management and making decisions will become easier because always having right information in right time with the right people is very essential so that decision making can be more informed and quicker then collaborate easily the tool should enable user to share documents files status timelines and tasks with ease and quickly with many people then delegating tasks easily you should be able to delegate tasks assign roles and then ensure they have access to the right information so that's all about tools now we'll move to the next question so what do you think is the difference between projects programs and portfolio so this looks like a very generic question which is asked by any individuals during their interview but even though this question doesn't focus on project in specific it is very essential for project manager to understand the difference between these three so that hope to ask for what will be known to the project manager so the definition of project is like a temporary end over it's an activity that is used to create a unique product service or results we saw that we understood already whereas program is a collection of related projects which are managed as group to achieve better effectiveness and efficiency so when which you don't get when you manage a project individually if you group it and manage you can share resources you can optimize the resources and cost you can standardize that you can achieve through program management so portfolio management is again a group of projects and programs which may be related unrelated but strategic objective accomplishing strategic objectives of the organization is very essential so all these projects and programs and other related works are grouped together with the common strategic objective organization so the project manager versus program manager versus portfolio managers what do they do so project manager expects change and implements processes to manage and control the project in terms of accomplishing the project objective whereas program manager expects changes from inside and outside the program to provide strategic benefits as i mentioned earlier like standardization optimization so portfolio manager monitors changes in the overall context of the strategic plan of the organization is this projects or programs or whatever we do in this organization are they aligned to strategic objectives are they helping to accomplish the strategic objectives so project managers manages and coordinate the team to ensure success whereas program manager manages the program staff and the project manager providing leadership and vision the portfolio manager may coordinate or manage the portfolio management staff then monitoring part of it project manager monitors and controls tasks to produce the products results or services of the project whereas program manager monitors the progress of components to lead the program to success portfolio manager manages the aggregated portfolio performance and value indicators so planning part of it project manager develops monitors and controls project plans throughout the project life cycle whereas program manager develops the program plan and performs high level planning to guide component level planning whereas portfolio managers perform plannings at a portfolio level the scope the project manager will develop monitor and control throughout the lifecycle of the project whereas program manager has a program which has a wider scope aimed at meeting the benefits and goals of the organization whereas portfolio has a scope that changes with change in the strategic plan and goals of the organization so why the strategic goals or plans would change the directions would change that has various different reasons maybe business scenario market conditions etc the success of the project is based on time taken to finish the project the budget within which it is completed the scope the customer satisfaction the quality defines the success whereas the program success is measured in terms of benefits it delivered as it expected from the program then the portfolio success is the aggregated performance of all its components programs and projects question number 12 what are the skills a project manager must possess typically a project manager would require to have effective communication skills so communication skills help in terms of establishing better relationship because it plays a vital role there what do we communicate when do we communicate how do we communicate matters because it's not about just verbal communication or return communication there is non-herbal communication through body languages through expressions which individuals do the communication so it is very essential to have a right method and right approach towards communication so the project manager should possess that skill good leadership skills so many times the term leadership is confused with the position of a leader no so leadership is basically a capability of an individual so if a specific individual having that capability can influence people can inspire can motivate project manager having a leadership skills it's very essential it is a must required skill only then project manager can make the people listen to him people will respect him because the behavior will be guided through that capability strong team management skill which requires a an engagement which requires communication and leadership skills work very closely with this team management skills so understanding the team dynamics ensuring the right education right skilled individuals are in place and they're monitored and managed which is very important so there should be a little bit of mentoring which needs to be done to the people regularly so that team gets what is expected out of them and they do accordingly then effective negotiation skills lot of scenarios which comes in terms of negotiating in various different scenarios negotiate to ensure things have been in place or in the interest of both the parties involved in the negotiation it is very important to involve and make a right discussion right side of discussion so that stakeholders are benefited now who are these roles we are speaking about who would involve in negotiation we can think of customers while establishing an agreement we can think of teams while having some conflict resolutions which you take team will have a conflict you may require to resolve so suppliers related issues which needs to be resolved so negotiation is very important but always negotiations would be in the interest of both the involved parties then critical thinking so critical thinking in the sense not just seeing what is there it's about how to set it right how to take it forward in the right direction so what could cause visualizing things is very important risk management skills it's quite obvious the most ignored area what which i have seen throughout is risk management so i don't know what is the reason risk is ignored many of the projects what i have seen almost like 80 to 85 percent people don't even look at the risks so it is very essential to look at the risk and manage the risk only then project can become successful so question 13 what will be involved in project scope management so we already know project scope means it involves both project scope as well as product scope now scope management basically ensures project includes all those necessary things to be done in terms of activities in terms of processes in terms of resources the project objectives can be accomplished so this particular process project scope management describes the project scope and documents how it will be designed validated and controlled throughout the project life cycle so it collects requirement so collect requirement process engages with stakeholders discusses with them to understand what is the requirement collect the requirements document the requirements and establish requirement management plan then based on this requirement established has to be defined means the detailed description of the project and product has to be developed and a list has to be created that includes all the requirements then creating the wbs work breakdown structure once the scope is defined so now the decomposition of that scope definition what is given has to be taken to the lowest possible level it has to be like logically further it cannot be subdivided right so decomposition basically helps in terms of breaking down those ultimate deliverable to multiple lower level parts for example if i consider a car i can think about two broad categories like exteriors and interiors now in exteriors i can think of a body of the car the rear view mirror the wheel the bonnet the glass so i can just decompose like this now until i decompose to the mirror further i cannot decompose in the mirror what are all the things we can think of mirror cap mirror glass mirror mount so further can i subdivide this no so each of the components involved in all the perspective in the car perspective broadly initially decomposed it to the level interior exteriors and further down the line we took to the next level of components further down in the line we again decompose it now at the lowest level we actually look at the effort estimation activity resource required all these we look at and we'll do bottom up to consolidate to see what is the scope so which will help us in becoming scope baseline so while lead scope is a process in monitoring and controlling which involves reviewing the deliverables with the customer or sponsor to ensure successful completion and formal acceptance of the deliverables so formal acceptance is the key requirements when we validate the scope if it is not according to the plan that is rejected and it is sent back for change and necessary corrections then control scope so in this process the status of the project and product scope is monitored changes to the scope baseline which is actually defined as part of the planning if anything is seen in terms of deviation that needs to be corrected the change request would be raised then next question tell us about some project management tools so some of the most common and popular management tools which have come across are listed here like pluto basecamp teamwork projects zoho projects asana jira software trello i think details of this you might require to go to individual tool sections and then review those better if you can able to create a comparison sheet always helps in terms of understanding what is that features functionality of this tool has so one more tool which is not mentioned is microsoft project so which is also another popular tool which is used and similarly i can mention like primavera so each of this has its own advantages disadvantages so you may require to list out what do you exactly want in terms of when you take up a tool for project management and what each of this tool has if you can able to create a comparison sheet that would help you in terms of selecting the right tool for your organization and projects question number 15 what is the significance of monitoring and controlling in the project life cycle so as we know monitoring and controlling is a process group so this involves tracking the project's performance alongside the planned project management activities this also focuses on comparing actual and planned performance so we have defined that in the planning so what needs to be accomplished how it has to be accomplished what templates are to be used what needs to be delivered we have defined it in planning so that needs to be compared with actual thing what is created and what is that how are we doing this currently how it is done is it complied with assessing performance to determine any corrective actions are identified their status reported and appropriate responses to risks are taken so ensuring an accurate information base providing information to support status reporting measuring progress and forecasting adding forecasts to update cost and current schedule information making sure approved changes are being implemented upon successfully performing monitoring and control the processes within monitoring and controlling process group so the possible outcomes would be like the change request work performance reports update to project management plan and project documents maybe if everything is okay well for example validate scope which comes under this process group so if when we validate if everything is okay as per the plan then it is accepted deliverable which will move towards the closure if it is not obviously it leads towards change requests so question number 16 is what's the key difference in the roles of the project and program manager so project manager is basically focuses on projects and its success of the project as we know already whereas program manager looks at all those projects which fall under the program are managed together and taken forward in the required direction so program manager plans program level activities and the schedule of projects so program managers defines terms of reference for projects the starts stops and monitor progress of constituent projects manages program level risks and issues they set up policies and procedures for projects they resolve conflicts they determine the program standards similarly project manager focuses on planning a project based on dependencies and interfaces given by the project manager so works within the defined tar terms of references given for the projects runs a project reports to program manager manage project risks and issues and escalates them to program manager if required if at all a project is part of a program if it is not then that escalation goes to sponsor so project manager runs projects according to the policies and procedures uses resources assigned to project manager and delivers the products that satisfy the requirements question number 17 what are the types of risks involved in the project so we know that one of the knowledge areas in the project management is risk management it is very essential for us to identify risk assess and analyze risk and have the risk response plans so while doing it it is also very important for us to understand categorizing the risks depending on where exactly what category this risk falls into depending on the impacts for example some of the list which is given common types of risk there is categories you can think of it may be related to cost schedule performance technology or technical strategic legal market risk risk related to external hazards and it goes on so these are the minimum set of list which we can think of in any project the the kind of risk are associated with which area so when i say cost associated risk it's all about monetary related where we invest where we actually monitor that budget involve that budget incur that cost related to that schedule in terms of doing it faster doing it slower doing it as per the plan so various different details which are associated with the schedule likewise each of these types what we have mentioned will have a risk accordingly associated with them so question number 18 what is the difference between the risk and issue in context of project management so when we say risk is always we look at in the future so it's an uncertainty of outcome when we say we are looking in the future it may be next moment in the future but it is risk which is focused on the future so risks may be positive or negative any risk we identify may have positive or negative impact whereas risk response will be in accordance with the risk response planning and this are documented in risk register so issue is always the one which we have in front of us to manage so it is focused on present always negative it will have negative impacts so response will be in accordance to the issue workaround provided and these are documented in the issue register so next question question number 19 how does project scheduling help in project execution project scheduling make sure there is a sequence of how all the tasks will be performed after the resources are estimated and plan is made the schedule plays a very important role because when to do when it is planned it is very essential to do accordingly so providing the sequence what activity has to be done in what sequence it's also very important so this must be carried out first and what should follow needs to be clearly understood the optimized scheduling of tasks provides the best possible output with the allocated resources and that has to be done within the scheduled time within the deadline question number 20 what do you understand by quality control now quality control refers to activities needed to evaluate if the project meets all the requirements with respect to the scope of the project planning now when we say a control we should think about the output of a project the deliverable it has the specifications so relating to that specifications the features functionalities what needs to be delivered is it delivered accordingly so project managers defines the standard that the project must fulfill to be successful quality control includes validating the deliverables satisfying the requirements of the stakeholders identifying the cause of poor project quality and taking necessary actions to eliminate problems right question number 21 explain the forming in team dynamics basically when we say team dynamics it involves various different stages like forming storming norming performing and adjourning so farming happens first now this happens when the team first meets each other so when they meet each other they get introduced to each other and get to know their backgrounds experience and areas of expertise the team members discuss about the project discuss the project objectives and beginning to think their role in the project they're beginning to understand they know what is this project is all about so in detail what is this project is all about will be understood by them in storming which is the next stage in the team dynamics question number 22 so what is work breakdown structure and how does it affect the work estimates of tasks or activities work breakdown structure is a hierarchical replica of all the work in the project for example if i take up a specific object specific products or services which we are bringing out as a result for example if i take a car so how will i visualize various different parts of the car it's very difficult in one go in in execution perspective and creation perspective we may require to know every parts of it in detail so work breakdown structure is established using decomposition as a technique which means for example if i take car as an example car has a hole when you visualize broadly i would classify that into decompose it to the first level like exteriors and interiors after exteriors i can further decompose the exterior part of it similarly after interiors i will decompose it further in exteriors what are the things i can think of like exteriors in terms of glass in terms of body in terms of tires in terms of wheel bonnet mirror rear mirror which is outside so likewise there were various different decompositions level that is a second level of decomposition next third level of decomposition i can go in each of these parts what i said i can further elaborate those if i take the rear view mirror as an example so i can think about mirror cap i can think about mirror glass i can think about mirror mount so these are the various different decomposed levels below mirror similarly if i come to interiors we can think about entertainment system you can think about seeds we can think about ac right so we can think about anything else like dashboards now each of these components further i can decompose so the idea of decomposing is i am going to understand what are the various product parts are involved to make a bigger product as a whole so once i accomplish that i will have a details at each of these levels and consoled it upwards as shown in the picture here the first level task 1 task 2 task 3. before i assign these tasks i will have the product breakdown structure first and from bottom level i start adding up the activities effort estimation and then i keep consolidating upwards similarly i will put the cost components to it i'll estimate the cost involved with the one which is required and then i go upwards and consult it so wbs helps in organizing the work in a manageable sections so this would help in establishing additional details which would help in defining tasks helping in estimation helps in when i say estimation it is not just specific estimation it's about cost estimation schedule estimation effort estimation and then this will also help us in terms of sequencing further so work breakdown structure will also have something called wbs dictionary which gives the description of all the wbs elements next question question number 23 what is meant by the term spi now spi refers to schedule performance index so schedule performance index is a measure of schedule efficiency expressed as a ratio of earned value to the planned value so when i say earned value earned value is the actual work which is completed the value the budgeted value for the actual work which is completed and planned value is the budgeted value of the work which is supposed to be accomplished as per the plan now this will help us in understanding how the project is progressing in schedule perspective if spi is lesser than 1 means it is behind schedule spi is more than one it is head of schedule if a sp is one it is as per the plan schedule is as per the plan question number 24 what is the significance of agile project management so when we say agile the terminology itself refers to quick response flexible moving faster so while we do agile project management it is very essential to look at the various dynamics around so it may be a quick response what you need to give right so predominantly agile methodologies are today adopted in various types of industries so currently we see more and more in it and software industry than product development marketing campaigns even in constructing companies some of the reasons that encourage industries to take up agile methodologies are high product quality high customer satisfaction reduced risk better and faster roi now let us look at the question number 25 what is the significance of agile project management so the agile project management frameworks involves continuous planning and testing so there are various different frameworks each of them having their own unique qualities so it is very essential for us to understand what are those various different agile frameworks and how they are going to contribute to become agile so the most popular agile frameworks some thoughts which actually depicts and supports organization to become agile or one of that is kanban framework so kanban framework is used to implement agile software development and requires real time communication so work items are represented on a kanban board allowing team members to see the state of each work at any time so this means on the board so work in progress work which has to be done and who has to do it all these details are captured in the kanban board now very important point here is when these are captured it's very essential to understand it is a visual board so when it is a visual board it's quite obvious anyone who has actually have a task against them they don't hesitate they they need to complete it it forces them since it is a visualized system it works on their consciousness so it is also called as pull system so because people pull the work from that list whatever is given and then accomplish it so this will also help in tracking the progression of a project how it is progressing how the project is progressing how the tasks are being completed how quickly they are completed so it is easily visible and that makes things too much smoother and faster so scrum framework so scrum framework helps in dealing with complex problems and making it possible to deliver high quality products at the same time it helps in managing complex advanced work with little emphasize on software development so it uses the terminologies like sprint product backlog sprint backlog daily scrum retrospective meeting so three roles predominantly we come across that is product owner stub master and then self organizing team so next framework is hybrid framework that you can think of so it is the combination of agile methods with non-agile methods hybrid can handle requirement changes and it can deliver products in stages so in hybrid model planning is done using a waterfall approach while the agile approach handles execution and delivery so lean framework so the lean framework works on the concept of maximizing customer value with fewer resources and zero waste hence lean focuses on the flow of products and services instead of focusing on separate technologies companies can act upon with changing customer needs and requirements so very important points to observe here zero waste means in the flow the way the processes are connected to each other in that flow we should identify what are those which acts as a bottlenecks resulting in waste so we should eliminate such bottlenecks so these elimination of bottlenecks helps in reduction of waste at the same time increasing the value to the customers so in the downstream from the point where bottleneck you have the entire capacity will get limited to the downstream capacity i'm speaking about will get limited to the bottleneck where that particular issue exists right that needs to be resolved elimination of waste should happen so waste is a result of anything which is a non-value-adding activity right so we need to identify as per the lean perspective so the defects are not allowed to move forward to the downstream that is the whole idea behind it so next question 26 why does a project manager need to be proactive okay so we always have this question coming around proactiveness versus reactiveness when should we be proactive when should we be reactive that we need to understand now more proactive in nature the project manager or any manager who is more proactive will basically visualize the future so they act today so that tomorrow something negative in fact will not happen so a proactive project manager is actively able to determine the several communication needs of the stakeholders so a proactive project manager is able to identify the risks in the early stage of the project it is very essential so what is that going to happen in future that needs to be visualized act today so that that occurrences can be handled better or eliminated question number 27 what does a critical path method imply so firstly let us understand what is critical path means so critical path is basically a longest path in a given project network diagram so that would be the minimum time required for a project to complete so any delay in any of the activities or tasks in critical path delays the project duration so in critical path method so it is a crucial tool for determining the progress of the project to ensure that project is on schedule so as i mentioned any delay in any of the activities or tasks in the critical path delays the project itself so monitoring on these activities in a critical path will become more important so that project can happen as per the plan as per the date what is given so critical path method helps in determining the essential or critical path by finding out the longest stretch of dependent tasks so that each dependencies each flow from left to right from beginning to end has to be visualized and monitored very closely so that project finish date is not uh delayed it happens according to the plan so next question defined planned value actual cost and earned value so when we say planned value planned value is the approved value of the work that needs to be completed within a given period it serves as a baseline and needs to be calculated before work can be started it is also known as budgeted cost of work scheduled so formula to calculate planned values planned percentage of work completed into project budget assume your project budget is 10 000 whatsoever the currencies let us assume 10 000 is my project budget so my project duration is five months each month i have a plan to complete the work worth of two thousand so which means that two thousand is my planned value the work which is supposed to be accomplished within the end of that first month is work worth of 2000 so if i do the work which is lesser than work worth of maybe lesser than 2000 i am behind schedule if i complete the work worth more than 2000 then i am ahead of schedule so planned value will become that reference the 2000 what i mentioned as a planned value the work worth of 2000 i am supposed to complete before the end of the month one if i say any work which is completed according to the budgeted value i will make this plan value as a reference to decide whether i am behind schedule or ahead of schedule actual cost actual cost refer to the value of total expenses that you have incurred for the work done till date for example in the previous discussion relating to the planned value at the end of month 1 the planned value was 2000 so that is the work worth which were supposed to complete now let us assume we have completed a work where the work work relating to that actual work completed is around 1800 means i'm behind schedule for sure but at the same time to complete the work worth of 1800 how much i incurred actually so if i have incurred actual cost also 1800 then cost wise i'm according to the plan but behind schedule because i have only completed the work worth of 1800 against the work worth of 2000 which is the planned value and behind schedule but to complete it the actual cost i incurred is 1800 so cost wise i'm according to the plan if my actual cost is lesser than 1800 then i'm doing very good in cost perspective if my actual cost is more than 1800 then i'm using more money means over budget so actual cost helps us in relating to planned well to define whether cost wise how am i doing so it is also known as actual cost of work performed so this will be used to calculate cost variance and cost performance index earned value earned value represents the value produced by a project it is also known as budgeted cost of work performed in our example the earned value is 1800 meaning i have completed the work worth of 1800 that is the earned value which says behind schedule when i compare earned value with the planned value it it will tell me whether i'm behind schedule ahead of schedule or according to the plan now for this earned value of 1800 if i incur the actual cost of 1800 then cost wise i'm doing good if my actual cost is lesser than earned value then cost wise i'm very good right if i incur more than earned value for example to complete the work worth of 1800 i incur the cost of 2000 then i'm not doing good i'm over budget so the combination of earned value and planned value helps us to know the scheduled perspective the project is behind or ahead or according to the plan schedule perspective whereas the combination of earned value and actual cost helps us to understand whether project is within the budget or budget or according to the plan question number 29 what is the purpose of procurement management plan the procurement management plan defines the procurement requirements and how it can be managed from developing a procurement documentation through to contract closure the plan identifies and defines the items that need to be procured the contracts that need to be used for supporting the project how the contract is approved and criteria for decisions to be made has to be looked at the plan also includes other items including considerations for procurement risks and procurement risk management deciding how cost needs to be determined standard procurement documentation usage and constraints to procurement question number 30 when is postmartem analysis performed in the project management a postmartem in a project or project retrospective refers to process that's performed at the conclusion of the phase for a multi-stage project this aim to help identify process improvements that can prevent future risks and to ensure best practices are repeated postmartems involve a combination of quantitative and qualitative data it also includes qualitative data like end user stakeholder and team satisfaction potential for reuse and the quality of end deliverable that is pursued question number 31 what is the purpose of risk register risk register is basically a tool that is used to document risks and the actions to handle each of those risks the management of risk is an ongoing process that has a project team raising risks with the risk manager or a project manager who then locks the risks and determines an appropriate course of action to handle the risk risk register also needs to be reviewed regularly to ensure the appropriate actions are performed it could be reviewed in every project team meeting or at the end of each phase of the project life cycle question number 32 when do we use a grant chart so as we are discussing about critical paths network diagram critical path method so by using a project tools we first establish a gantt chart so gantt chart is basically a visual view of tasks scheduled over a period a gantt chart is useful for outlining all the tasks involved in the project along with their order shown against the time scales so since it gives the pictorial representation it helps us in understanding what tasks will be completed after which tasks and how the dependencies of each task will be can be easily understood it provides an overview of a project its associated tasks and then when they need to be finished are clearly understood a gantt chart is helpful because it provides a detailed view of all tasks and ensures one can create a workable schedule and the right people are assigned to right task it can be used to determine the practical aspect of the project it enables to keep the team and sponsors informed about the progress of the project question number 33 what is the significance of the critical path method so critical path method or cpm is a tool that is used to schedule project activities so cpm is used to create a model that includes tasks required to complete the project dependencies between the tasks the durations required to complete an activity the critical path is the longest path in all the available paths in the project and the duration of the critical path will be the minimum time required by the project to complete question number 34 what are some tools required for arriving at improvement in processes so process improvement comprises a set of actions implemented by a company to enhance performance cost reduction increasing profits etc so some of the tools some organization can use to implement a successful process improvement strategy can be comparing and baselining a project so with this we can get an overview of how the process is performing in comparison with other similar processes flow charting which helps them segregating the processes activities events etc value stream mapping it helps clearly understand the workflow and helps organizations identify waste cause and effect analysis these help organizations determine the root cause of any problem hypothesis testing which helps in testing to determine whether a hypothesis would be favorable to the organization or not question 35 how do you work with three point estimation method so the three point estimation method is also called a spurt estimation which is a tool that can be used to help increase the accuracy of cost and time estimates there are three parts with the different estimates that is optimistic pessimistic and most likely the optimistic estimate is the amount of time required to complete the project assuming everything in the project goes according to the plan pessimistic estimation is the estimation considering the worst case scenario and is an estimation given in everything goes wrong that is the assumption so most likely estimation so this is most likely to happen and falls under the pessimistic and optimistic estimates it falls in between that pessimistic and optimistic so the formula to calculate three point estimate would be pessimistic plus optimistic plus four most likely divided by six will provide the three point estimation what do you understand by the term raid raid log is a project management tool that tracks risks actions issues and decisions it provides a simple way to organize the information so the main advantages of raid log is to enable you to think in organized and strategic way the raid log has all the questions that could be asked by stakeholders the data is easily accessible and acts as a measure for how well the plans are being carried out the raid locks makes the process of decision making more consistent it provides a place where all decisions made can be compared question number 37 what are some techniques used for defining scope so here are some tools and techniques to define scope that is expert judgment it which requires to bring in experts on domain product analysis which needs to break down the final deliverable into smaller components to ensure all the steps are being taken alternative generation so in alternative generation it's need to brainstorm for the best and most effective way to create it for the product facilitated workshops which allow different people with different ideas to find common ground for a project question number 38 what is waterfall model waterfall model is a project management approach in which a project is completed in several phases a big plan is executed linearly expecting there will not be any changes in the plan waterfall model is in contrast a gel model does not respond well to frequent changes any changes which comes in between while following the waterfall methodologies making that changes will be difficult and bit complex question 39 and what basis would you decide if a particular risk should be avoided or mitigated the risks which are having high impact negative to the business are awarded by the organizations usually so avoiding is the first decision what organization makes for sure but however there may be some discussions which are made before the decision of being made relating to avoiding that risk instead having some workaround for that risk or making certain arrangements so that impact of the risks can be reduced or bringing down the probability of occurrence of the risks considering something which will have higher negative impact they may not be worthwhile to take up so in that case i think avoiding is the best decision once the organization is considered to take up after identifying and analyzing the risks then organization would work on risk response plan for all the risks which are identified so what is evm the earned value management so earned value management is a project management technique that is used to measure the project progress if you recall the terminologies like earned value planned value actual cost scheduled performance index cost performance index these are the terminologies which comes as part of earned value management it calculates the project performance and progress by combining constraints like time scope and cost so question 41 what is the difference in product life cycle and project life cycle so project life cycle refers to the sequence of stages or phases the project undergoes from the time it is initiated till it is closed so this project life cycle involves five process groups which is initiating process group planning process group executing process group monitoring and controlling process group closure process group which should be there throughout the project life cycle along with the 10 knowledge areas and 49 processes product life cycle includes all that phases that define the growth of your product so creation of the product till expiry of the product so within the product life cycle we may have multiple project life cycles so one project life cycle for introduction of product one project lifecycle for modifying or updating the existing product one project lifecycle may be for improvement one project life cycle may be for removing the product from the production so in product life cycle there are four phases that is market introduction market growth market maturity and decline and saturation stage question 42 define capability maturity model so capability maturity model is an approach to improve or refine development process in an organization so it is an elaborated structure of elements that helps in defining the features of an effective process next question 43 what do you know about triple constraint the triangle in project management so basically the triple constraint refers to scope schedule and cost right so it helps in actually analyzing the project status the way project is progressing and these are the three critical considerations mainly which needs to be made so further to these triple constraints scope time and cost quality resource and risks are also considered as a constraints so any change in any of the constraints would have an impact on other constraints question 44 what is a decision support system decision support system is an information system used in decision making activities in an organization or a business it analyzes data sets and extracts information that may be used to solve complex problems and take decisions how many types of dss are there so there are several types of dss that is data driven model driven knowledge driven and documentary one question 46 what are some general metrics that are used to calculate if a project is progressing on track so if a project is progressing on track it is very essential to consider the productivity which means units of input units of output actual cost that is total cost per time period to time period cost variance which refers to budgeted cost of work versus actual cost of work schedule variance which is the difference between budgeted cost of work perform and budget cost of work scheduled cost performance index which is earned value to actual cost question 47 what is meant by a milestone in a project a project milestone provides a way to observe measure and monitor the performance progress of the project these represents intermediate stages that needs to be fulfilled before getting to the final objective or goal milestones can provide a basis on which progress can be monitored they can also proof for explanation while reporting on project status it can be used to provide course corrections and learning experiences it can also be used to maintain accountability and motivate staff question 48 how can you estimate the activity time of a project the activity time or duration refers to the process of evaluating the number of work periods required to finish individual activities with the resources available these help achieve the project objectives on set dates and delivery schedules decided by project management team and key stakeholders here are some tools and techniques to calculate activity durations so those are expert judgment analogous estimation pert method three point estimates parametric estimating alternative analysis published estimating data vendor bid analysis etc question 49 what do you think about csf critical success factor in a project management so csf or critical success factor are found in the project management plan and can define what can be defined as success for the project some characteristics of critical success factor involve for example time was the project completed within the given time period cost did it stay within the budgeted cost quality did it meet the specification level stakeholder was the result accepted by the end user project changes where scope changes are minimal and are agreed upon performing organization did it affect the corporate culture commitment is required from team members clients top management all stakeholders which is very essential and it is one of the main critical success factors goals must be specific measurable attainable relevant and time bound there must be process for quick identification resolution of conflict good project leadership is to be established risk management policies have to be established there must be proper project planning that needs to be done then best practices need to be applied at all stages proper communications might takes place to ensure information is passed across question number 50 what do you understand by the term sow so sow or statement of work is a document that includes and define each aspects of the project it is a foundation for the project plan so before planning and executing the sow lays down the entire landscape of the project so it consists of introduction the purpose of the project the scope of the project when it is done where it is done the tasks milestones deliverables schedule standards success how are you going to determine the success means how do you know the project is success what is that you are going to measure or consider for measurement requirements then any other things which needs to be considered as part of sow as part of that specific project and then closing so sow can be of three categories which will have design details level of effort time and materials which defines an hourly service and the materials required to perform the tasks which may be performance based focuses on purpose of the project resources and quality expected from the output question 51 what is a fishbone diagram and when is it used so fishbone diagram which is also called as ishikawa diagram is a visualization tool that used to categorize potential causes that is problems for an issue to identify the root causes so fishbone diagram is used in product development and troubleshooting processes it helps in team brainstorming for potential causes and then represents them in a diagram based on their degree of importance so when this diagram is used it helps us in identifying the possible causes of an issue to develop a product that can address issue with current market offerings to several areas of weakness or bottlenecks in the business process to handle recurring issues or employees burnout to ensure any correction will resolve the issue so question 52 what is the parito principle or 80 20 principle so as the name itself indicates the pareto principle states that 80 percent of consequences come from 20 percent of causes indicating an unequal relationship between inputs and outputs it can be applied to range of areas like manufacturing management and human resources it is usually focused on businesses that are claimed based some of the advantages of pareto principles are increased productivity increased profitability identifying and fixing problems and improved customer service question 53 can you tell us about your past project so now while answering these type of questions firstly we need to understand this question is open and generic in nature so while answering such questions following points has to be considered so identify what is that project you have done so state the objective of the project project deliverables your roles and responsibility in the project and what have you achieved in that project what was accomplished what went well what did not go well then project duration project budget and actual cost incurred in the project question 54 if customer is not happy with the project what will you do as a project manager so in any given project customer satisfaction is very important to ensure success of a project in the scenario where customer expresses their dissatisfaction one has to ensure understanding the reason for dissatisfaction so are all the requirement fulfilled or not project manager has to confirm that first was customer involved in all decision making activities etc to confirm that his customer is informed about everything so before customer is dissatisfied it is always good and important that customer is satisfied that needs to be ensured so it is very important to be customer to understand and customers pulse is understood and handling the customers accordingly so allowing customer to become a dissatisfied customer is not a choice to have so one is to ensure customer is not at all dissatisfied in the first place beyond your control if customer is still dissatisfied better you work on it to understand why the customer is dissatisfied what is the cause of it and address it question 55 what are the different kinds of project you have worked upon so these type of questions are again generic in nature while answering those questions please ensure you speak about various different domains of the project which you have and that should have variation in different say different domains of the project what were the deliverables of those projects projects nature and complexity unique challenges in each different type of projects then project duration budget and actual cost question 56 did you ever face the situations where the project team was demotivated and what did you do to bring them back on track so as we know project team plays very important role in success of any project it is very critical to keep them motivated the demotivation may happen for various reasons so one is to keep the following points in mind while dealing with the team that is team engagement so engagement may be both formal and informal so rewards and recognitions for the team for the good job they have done conflict management wherever the conflict occurs it is quite obvious whenever the team is involved conflict occurs performance evaluation and monitoring mentoring is very key so wherever it is required to mentor wherever it is required to give them a good perspective of the project and their learning and capability so mentoring and coaching is very essential and also providing opportunities for education and training so that they will have a better learning and accomplish or acquire the required skills question 57 if you get your dream job and i assume this is your dream job what value you think you will you be adding to the organization so this question is very tricky one and also a generic question so one needs to ensure while answering this question to discuss the following points why the job is your dream job whatever the job you're speaking about why do you say that that is your dream job what is the reason why what would be your motivation point in this dream job what exactly is motivating you there in this particular job how this dream job can link to objectives of organization and the profession and roadmap of the job role so what is that you are going to become while you become this in future what could be the roadmap of this role question 58 what challenges have you encountered while dealing with other team members as already mentioned project team plays very important role in success of a project each team member comes with the different skills maturity mindsets and background which put across many challenges some of the important changing scenarios means challenging scenarios is team not collaborating individuals performance and motivation levels in each of the projects role preferences and the allocated roles performance appraisals communication gaps various things which actually brings the challenges and also motivates people to behave way they are behaving question 59 share from your experience the challenges you faced while using project management tools so we all know that tools plays very important role in our management activity similarly the effective management of project requires an efficient tool every tools has its own uniqueness and has its own advantages and disadvantages so some of the challenges one would face while using the tools would be selection of right tools for the given project tools features and functionalities customization of tools the dashboards and reports teams ability to work with tool their skills and capabilities matters question 60 can you tell me about the most difficult complex project you have worked on this question is open and generic in nature again while answering such questions please ensure you discuss the following points what was the complexity in the project whichever the project reference you are taking why do you consider that project as complex or difficult what was the size of the project in terms of deliverables budget geography team tools and techniques etc was the project successful or not and why question 61 when do you know the project is off track so it is very essential for every project manager to ensure project is going as per the plan so there should not be any deviations from the actual plan so every project will have a set plans based on which project have to be completed successfully due to various different scenarios projects go off track recognizing and correcting those is very critical and crucial so one needs to follow a specific approach to ensure project will not go off track so but we need to understand whether project is going off track or not so one of the key thing which we need to know is spi and cpi so spi is the scheduled performance index the cpi the cost performance index so when spi is lesser than 1 which means project is behind schedule when a space 1 then it's as per the schedule if a space greater than 1 which means project is add of schedule similarly for cpi if cpi is lesser than one project is over widget cpi is more than one project is under budget recipe is one project budget is as per the plan so similarly the results of audits and testing done as part of quality management also reveals the details related to compliance and of specifications which needs to be corrected if they are not expected next question have you manage remote teams and outsource resources so these questions come from the scenario where you have to manage the team not reporting to you directly and they are managed by different individuals while having such resources the dynamics will be different so while managing such resources one has to ensure the engaging with them is different than the way the individuals are engaged the internal teams so it is required to engage with that team more often the performance of the team members has to be well known to the reporting manager and that needs to be communicated regularly the next question if you could go to the past and do one thing differently as a project manager what would you do and why so every project manager who has managed several project earlier will think of doing better which they have done already so this is because of the experience they had while doing the project and the insights there today compared to the day they did that project so while answering this question following points has to be kept in mind what went well and what did not go well why do you think they happened and what would have been the better solution why do you think it could have been done better why did you not do it earlier the way you're thinking the right way of doing it today so what was the cause were you not informed about it or there was some force which was working on you to take it in that way what made you to do that way so why are you thinking that this is the better way to do it what are the reasons that you need to mention so next question as a project manager what is the most common challenge that you face so obviously when you say take up a project as a project manager every project manager will come across various different challenges every project will have various challenges to deal with project managers has to prepare themselves to handle those they should not shy away from those so typical challenges which project manager would come across would be the scope perspective not clearly defined so not having proper sign off between customer and project organization then the deadline dates or schedules which are given are not realistic low budget allocated low cost allocated capabilities and skills of the team then project environment etc and with that we have come to an end of this pmp fill course i hope it was informative and interesting if you have any questions about the topics covered in this video please ask away in the comment section below our team will be happy to solve all your queries thank you for watching stay safe and keep learning hi there if you like this video subscribe to the simply learn youtube channel and click here to watch similar videos turn it up and get certified click here