Project Management For Dummies

Stanley E. Portny

• Publisher: For Dummies
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781119348894
• Edition: 5
• Topic: Commerce
• Subtopic: Gestion de projet

The bestselling 'bible' of project management

In today's time-crunched, cost-conscious global business environment, tight project deadlines and stringent expectations are the norm. So how can you juggle all the skills and responsibilities it takes to shine as a project management maven? Updated in a brand-new edition, Project Management For Dummies offers everything you need to successfully manage projects from start to finish—without ever dropping the ball.

Written by a well-known project management expert, this hands-on guide takes the perplexity out of being a successful PM, laying out all the steps to take your organizational, planning, and execution skills to new heights. Whether it's managing distressed projects, embracing the use of social media to drive efficiency and improve socialization, or resolving conflicts that occur during a project, the soup-to-nuts guidance inside will help you wear your project management hat more prominently—and proudly.

• Get the latest in industry best practices reflecting PMBOK 6
• Motivate any team to gain maximum productivity
• Execute projects on time and with maximum efficiency
• Prepare for the Project Management Professional (PMP) certification exam

It's never been easier to execute projects on time, on budget, and with maximum efficiency.

Part 1

Getting Started with Project Management

IN THIS PART …

Discover what project management is all about and whether you have what it takes to be a successful project manager.

Check out the documents you need to assess a project’s feasibility and desirability, including the business case, the project charter, the preliminary stakeholder register, and the preliminary assumptions list. Consider how the data generated from a preliminary needs assessment, a feasibility study, and a cost-benefit analysis generate information needed to support the decision of whether to consider a proposed project further.

Find out how to identify people who may need to be involved in your project, and decide whether, when, and how to involve them. After you know who should be involved, determine who has the authority, power, and interest to make critical decisions along the way.

Think about the big picture of what your project is trying to accomplish (and why). Then get the scoop on writing a scope statement to confirm the results your project will produce and the constraints and assumptions under which everyone will work.

Outline the work you have to do to meet the expectations for your project, and find out how to break that work down into manageable chunks.

Chapter 1

Project Management: The Key to Achieving Results

IN THIS CHAPTER

Defining a project and its four phases

Breaking down project management

Identifying the project manager’s role

Determining whether you have what you need to be successful

Successful organizations create projects that produce desired results in established time frames with assigned resources. As a result, businesses are increasingly driven to find individuals who can excel in this project-oriented environment.

Because you’re reading this book, chances are good that you’ve been asked to manage a project. So, hang on tight — you’re going to need a new set of skills and techniques to steer that project to successful completion. But not to worry! This chapter gets you off to a smooth start by showing you what projects and project management really are and by helping you separate projects from non-project assignments. This chapter also offers the rationale for why projects succeed or fail and gets you into the project-management mindset.

Determining What Makes a Project a Project

No matter what your job is, you handle a myriad of assignments every day. For example, you may prepare a memo, hold a meeting, design a sales campaign, or move to new offices. Or you may make the information systems more user-friendly, develop a research compound in the laboratory, or improve the organization’s public image. Not all these assignments are projects. How can you tell which ones are and which ones aren’t? This section is here to help.

Understanding the three main components that define a project

A project is a temporary undertaking performed to produce a unique product, service, or result. Large or small, a project always has the following three components:

• Specific scope: Desired results or products. (Check out Chapter 4 for more on describing desired results.)
• Schedule: Established dates when project work starts and ends. (See Chapter 6 for how to develop responsive and feasible project schedules.)
• Required resources: Necessary number of people and funds and other resources. (See Chapter 7 for how to establish whom you need for your project and Chapter 8 for how to set up your budget and determine any other resources you need.)

As illustrated in Figure 1-1, each component affects the other two. For example: Expanding the type and characteristics of desired outcomes may require more time (a later end date) or more resources. Moving up the end date may necessitate paring down the results or increasing project expenditures (for instance, by paying overtime to project staff). Within this three-part project definition, you perform work to achieve your desired results.

© John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

FIGURE 1-1: The relationship between the three main components of a project.

Although many other considerations may affect a project’s performance (see the later section “Defining Project Management” for details), these three components are the basis of a project’s definition for the following three reasons:

• The only reason a project exists is to produce the results specified in its scope.
• The project’s end date is an essential part of defining what constitutes successful performance; the desired result must be provided by a certain time to meet its intended need.
• The availability of resources shapes the nature of the products the project can produce.

A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, 6th Edition (PMBOK 6), elaborates on these components by

• Emphasizing that product includes both the basic nature of what is to be produced (for example, a new training program or a new prescription drug) and its required characteristics (for example, the topics that the training program must address), which are defined as the product’s quality
• Noting that resources refers to funds, as well as to other, nonmonetary resources, such as people, equipment, raw materials, and facilities

PMBOK 6 also emphasizes that risk (the likelihood that not everything will go exactly according to plan) plays an important role in defining a project and that guiding a project to success involves continually managing tradeoffs among the three main project components — the products to be produced and their characteristics, the schedule, and the resources required to do the project work.

Recognizing the diversity of projects

Projects come in a wide assortment of shapes and sizes. For example, projects can

• Be large or small
  • Installing a new subway system, which may cost more than $1 billion and take 10 to 15 years to complete, is a project.
  • Preparing an ad hoc report of monthly sales figures, which may take you one day to complete, is also a project.
• Involve many people or just you
  • Training all 10,000 of your organization’s staff in a new affirmative-action policy is a project.
  • Rearranging the furniture and equipment in your office is also a project.
• Be defined by a legal contract or by an informal agreement
  • A signed contract between you and a customer that requires you to build a house defines a project.
  • An informal promise you make to install a new software package on your colleague’s computer also defines a project.
• Be business-related or personal
  • Conducting your organization’s annual blood drive is a project.
  • Having a dinner party for 15 people is also a project.

No matter what the individual characteristics of your project are, you define it by the same three components I describe in the previous section: results (or scope), start and end dates, and resources. The information you need ...