Lakhasly

provide a complete picture of the project ' s scope.Erica had also included $10,000 for pro- curement in the financial analysis she prepared for the business case, and she showed Jessie how to enter that amount as a fixed cost split equally between the " Ask the Expert " and User Requests features, where she thought they would have to purchase some external software and services. Erica then helped Jessie assign resources to tasks, entering the pro- jected number of hours everyone planned to work each week on each task. They then ran several cost reports and made a few minor adjustments to resource assignments to make their planned total cost meet their budget constraints. Their cost baseline was very close to their planned budget of $140,000. The last deliverable her team needed to create within the planning process group was a list of prioritized risks. This information will be updated and expanded as the project progresses in a risk register, which also includes information on root causes of the risks, warning signs that potential risks might occur, and response strategies for the risks. (See Chapter 11, Project Risk Management, for more information on risk registers.) Erica reviewed the risks she had mentioned in the business case as well as the comments team members made on the project charter and in their team meetings. She held a special meeting for everyone to brainstorm and discuss potential risks. They posted all of the risks they identified on a probability/impact matrix, and then they grouped some of the ideas. Only one risk was in the high probability and high impact category, and several had medium impact in one or both categories. They chose not to list the low-probability and low-impact risks. After some discussion, the team developed the list of prioritized risks shown in Table 3-10. Project Execution Executing the project involves taking the actions necessary to ensure that activities in the project plan are completed. It also includes work required to introduce any new hardware, software, and procedures into normal operations. The products of the project are created during project execution, and it usually takes the most resources to accomplish this pro- cess. Table 3-11 lists the knowledge areas, executing processes, and outputs of project execution listed in the PMBOK (R) Guide, Fifth Edition . Many project sponsors and custo- mers focus on deliverables related to providing the products, services, or results desired from the project. It is also important to document change requests and prepare updates to planning documents as part of execution. Templates related to this process group are also listed later in this chapter. 109 The Project Management Process Groups: A Case Study Copyright 2012 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. For this relatively small project, Erica would work closely with all the team mem- bers to make sure they were producing the desired work results. She also used her networking skills to get input from other people in the firm and from external sources at no additional cost to the project. She made sure that everyone who would use the resulting intranet application also understood what they were producing as part of the project and how it would help them in the future. She knew that providing strong lead- ership and using good communication skills were crucial to good project execution. The firm did have a formal change request form, but primarily used it for external projects. The firm also had contract specialists and templates for several procurement docu- ments that the project team would use for the portions of the project it planned to outsource. As mentioned earlier, Erica knew that Joe, the CEO and project sponsor, liked to see progress on projects through milestone reports. He also wanted Erica to alert him to any potential issues or probl ems. Table 3-12 shows a sample of a milestone report for the project management intranet site project that Erica reviewed with Joe in mid-June. Erica met with most of her project team members often, and she talked to Joe about once a week to review progress on completing milestones and to discuss any other project issues. Although Erica could have used project management software to create milestone reports, she used word-processing software instead because this project was small and she could more easily manipulate the report format. Human resource issues often occur during project execution, especially conflicts. At several of the team meetings, Erica could see that Michael seemed to be bored and often left the room to make phone calls to clients. She talked to Michael about the situation, and she discovered that Michael was supportive of the project, but he knew he could only spend a minimal amount of time on it. He was much more productive outside of meetings, TABLE 3-10 List of prioritized risks Ranking Potential Risk 1 Lack of inputs from internal consultants 2 Lack of inputs from client representatives 3Securityofnewsystem 4 Outsourcing/purchasing for the article retrieval and " Ask the Expert " features 5Outsourcing/purchasingforprocessingonlinepaymenttransactions 6Organizingthetemplatesandexamplesinausefulfashion 7Providinganefficientsearchfeature 8GettinggoodfeedbackfromMichaelChenandotherseniorconsultants 9Effectivelypromotingthenewsystem 10 Realizing the benefits of the new system within one year (C) Cengage Learning 2014 110 Chapter 3 Copyright 2012 Cengage Learning.TABLE 3-11 Executing processes and outputs Knowledge Area Executing Process Outputs Project Integration Management Direct and manage project work Deliverables Work performance data Change requests Project management plan updates Project documents updates Project Quality Management Perform quality assurance Change requests Project management plan updates Project documents updates Organizational process assets updates Project Human Resource Management Acquire project team Project staff assignments Resource calendars Project management plan updates Develop project team Team performance assessments Enterprise environmental factor updates Manage project team Change requests Project management plan updates Project documents updates Enterprise environmental factors updates Organizational process assets updates Project Communica- tions Management Manage communications Project communications Project documents updates Project management plan updates Organizational process assets updates Project Procurement Management Conduct procurements Selected sellers Agreements Resource calendars Change requests Project management plan updates Project documents updates Project Stakeholder Management Manage stakeholder engagement Issue log Change requests Project management plan updates Project documents updates Organizational process assets updates Source: PMBOK (R) Guide, Fifth Edition , 2012.TABLE 3-12 Milestone report as of June 17 ( continued ) Milestone Date Status Responsible Issues/ Comments Intranet site roll-out completed October 25 Kevin Monitoring and Controlling Progress reports Every Friday All Closing Final project presentation completed October 27 Erica Sponsor sign-off on project completed October 27 Joe Final project report completed October 28 Erica Lessons-learned reports submitted November 1 All (C) Cengage Learning 2014 113 The Project Management Process Groups: A Case Study Copyright 2012 Cengage Learning.Only the executing tasks are expanded (C) Cengage Learning 2014 FIGURE 3-4 JWD Consulting intranet site project baseline Gantt chart 108 Chapter 3 Copyright 2012 Cengage Learning.They entered all of the tasks, duration estimates, and dependencies to develop the Gantt chart.Erica and Jessie reviewed the critical path for the project, and Erica had to shorten the duration estimates for a few critical tasks to meet their schedule goal of completing the project within six months.The group members also wanted to list several milestones on their schedule, such as the completion of key deliverables, so they prepared a separate list of milestones that they would include on the Gantt chart.They also kept their workloads and cost constraints in mind when developing the duration estimates.As team members provided duration estimates, they also estimated how many work hours they would spend on each task.After preparing the WBS, the project team held another face-to-face meeting to develop the project schedule, following the steps outlined in section 2.5 of the WBS.For example, the intranet site testing was dependent on the construction and completion of the content tasks.Their initial inputs resulted in a completion date that was a few weeks later than planned.Figure 3-4 shows the resulting Gantt chart created in Microsoft Project.You will learn more about creating a WBS in Chapter 5, Project Scope Management.Sev- eral of the project schedule tasks are dependent on one another.Erica was using the intranet site project to train Jessie in applying several project management tools and templates.May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part.Everyone participated in the development of the schedule, especially the tasks on which each member would be working.For example, Erica was scheduled to work 20 hours per week on this project, and the other project team members combined should not spend more than 60 hours per week on aver- age for the project.Erica decided to enter the resource and cost information after reviewing the schedule.to show the subtasks under that category.Some of the tasks were broken down further so the team members had a better understanding of what they had to do and when.After the meeting, Erica worked with Jessie to enter all of the information into Micro- soft Project.She talked to the team members working on those tasks, and they agreed that they could plan to work more hours each week on those tasks, if required, to complete them on time.All Rights Reserved.

provide a complete picture of the project ’ s scope. The group members also wanted to list several milestones on their schedule, such as the completion of key deliverables, so they prepared a separate list of milestones that they would include on the Gantt chart. You will learn more about creating a WBS in Chapter 5, Project Scope Management.
After preparing the WBS, the project team held another face-to-face meeting to develop the project schedule, following the steps outlined in section 2.5 of the WBS. Sev- eral of the project schedule tasks are dependent on one another. For example, the intranet site testing was dependent on the construction and completion of the content tasks.
Everyone participated in the development of the schedule, especially the tasks on which each member would be working. Some of the tasks were broken down further so the team members had a better understanding of what they had to do and when. They also kept their workloads and cost constraints in mind when developing the duration estimates. For example, Erica was scheduled to work 20 hours per week on this project, and the other project team members combined should not spend more than 60 hours per week on aver- age for the project. As team members provided duration estimates, they also estimated how many work hours they would spend on each task.
After the meeting, Erica worked with Jessie to enter all of the information into Micro- soft Project. Erica was using the intranet site project to train Jessie in applying several project management tools and templates. They entered all of the tasks, duration estimates, and dependencies to develop the Gantt chart. Erica decided to enter the resource and cost information after reviewing the schedule. Their initial inputs resulted in a completion date that was a few weeks later than planned. Erica and Jessie reviewed the critical path for the project, and Erica had to shorten the duration estimates for a few critical tasks to meet their schedule goal of completing the project within six months. She talked to the team members working on those tasks, and they agreed that they could plan to work more hours each week on those tasks, if required, to complete them on time. Figure 3-4 shows the resulting Gantt chart created in Microsoft Project. Only the executing tasks are expanded © Cengage Learning 2014
FIGURE 3-4 JWD Consulting intranet site project baseline Gantt chart 108
Chapter 3
Copyright 2012 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part.

to show the subtasks under that category. (You will learn how to use Project 2010 in
Appendix A. Chapter 6, Project Time Management, explains Gantt charts and other time management tools.) The baseline schedule projects a completion date of November 1. Also notice that there is only one delivery of the software, shown as a milestone near the end of the project, on October 17. The project charter had a planned completion date of Novem- ber 4. Erica wanted to complete the project on time, and although three extra days was not much of a buffer, she felt the baseline schedule was very realistic. She would do her best to help everyone meet their deadlines.
The majority of the costs for this project were internal labor, and the team kept its labor hour constraints in mind when developing task duration estimates. Erica and Jessie entered each project team member ’ s name and labor rate in the resource sheet for their
Microsoft Project file. The client representatives were not being paid for their time, so she left their labor rates at the default value of zero. Erica had also included $10,000 for pro- curement in the financial analysis she prepared for the business case, and she showed
Jessie how to enter that amount as a fixed cost split equally between the “ Ask the Expert ” and User Requests features, where she thought they would have to purchase some external software and services. Erica then helped Jessie assign resources to tasks, entering the pro- jected number of hours everyone planned to work each week on each task. They then ran several cost reports and made a few minor adjustments to resource assignments to make their planned total cost meet their budget constraints. Their cost baseline was very close to their planned budget of $140,000.
The last deliverable her team needed to create within the planning process group was a list of prioritized risks. This information will be updated and expanded as the project progresses in a risk register, which also includes information on root causes of the risks, warning signs that potential risks might occur, and response strategies for the risks. (See
Chapter 11, Project Risk Management, for more information on risk registers.) Erica reviewed the risks she had mentioned in the business case as well as the comments team members made on the project charter and in their team meetings. She held a special meeting for everyone to brainstorm and discuss potential risks. They posted all of the risks they identified on a probability/impact matrix, and then they grouped some of the ideas.
Only one risk was in the high probability and high impact category, and several had medium impact in one or both categories. They chose not to list the low-probability and low-impact risks. After some discussion, the team developed the list of prioritized risks shown in Table 3-10.
Project Execution
Executing the project involves taking the actions necessary to ensure that activities in the project plan are completed. It also includes work required to introduce any new hardware, software, and procedures into normal operations. The products of the project are created during project execution, and it usually takes the most resources to accomplish this pro- cess. Table 3-11 lists the knowledge areas, executing processes, and outputs of project execution listed in the PMBOK ®
Guide, Fifth Edition . Many project sponsors and custo- mers focus on deliverables related to providing the products, services, or results desired from the project. It is also important to document change requests and prepare updates to planning documents as part of execution. Templates related to this process group are also listed later in this chapter. 109
The Project Management Process Groups: A Case Study
Copyright 2012 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part.
For this relatively small project, Erica would work closely with all the team mem- bers to make sure they were producing the desired work results. She also used her networking skills to get input from other people in the firm and from external sources at no additional cost to the project. She made sure that everyone who would use the resulting intranet application also understood what they were producing as part of the project and how it would help them in the future. She knew that providing strong lead- ership and using good communication skills were crucial to good project execution. The firm did have a formal change request form, but primarily used it for external projects.
The firm also had contract specialists and templates for several procurement docu- ments that the project team would use for the portions of the project it planned to outsource.
As mentioned earlier, Erica knew that Joe, the CEO and project sponsor, liked to see progress on projects through milestone reports. He also wanted Erica to alert him to any potential issues or probl ems. Table 3-12 shows a sample of a milestone report for the project management intranet site project that Erica reviewed with
Joe in mid-June. Erica met with most of her project team members often, and she talked to Joe about once a week to review progress on completing milestones and to discuss any other project issues. Although Erica could have used project management software to create milestone reports, she used word-processing software instead because this project was small and she could more easily manipulate the report format.
Human resource issues often occur during project execution, especially conflicts. At several of the team meetings, Erica could see that Michael seemed to be bored and often left the room to make phone calls to clients. She talked to Michael about the situation, and she discovered that Michael was supportive of the project, but he knew he could only spend a minimal amount of time on it. He was much more productive outside of meetings,
TABLE 3-10 List of prioritized risks
Ranking Potential Risk 1 Lack of inputs from internal consultants 2 Lack of inputs from client representatives 3Securityofnewsystem 4 Outsourcing/purchasing for the article retrieval and “ Ask the Expert ” features 5Outsourcing/purchasingforprocessingonlinepaymenttransactions 6Organizingthetemplatesandexamplesinausefulfashion 7Providinganefficientsearchfeature 8GettinggoodfeedbackfromMichaelChenandotherseniorconsultants 9Effectivelypromotingthenewsystem 10 Realizing the benefits of the new system within one year © Cengage Learning 2014 110
Chapter 3
Copyright 2012 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part.
TABLE 3-11 Executing processes and outputs
Knowledge Area Executing Process Outputs
Project Integration
Management
Direct and manage project work
Deliverables
Work performance data
Change requests
Project management plan updates
Project documents updates
Project Quality
Management
Perform quality assurance Change requests
Project management plan updates
Project documents updates
Organizational process assets updates
Project Human
Resource Management
Acquire project team Project staff assignments
Resource calendars
Project management plan updates
Develop project team
Team performance assessments
Enterprise environmental factor updates
Manage project team
Change requests
Project management plan updates
Project documents updates
Enterprise environmental factors updates
Organizational process assets updates
Project Communica- tions Management
Manage communications Project communications
Project documents updates
Project management plan updates
Organizational process assets updates
Project Procurement
Management
Conduct procurements Selected sellers
Agreements
Resource calendars
Change requests
Project management plan updates
Project documents updates
Project Stakeholder
Management
Manage stakeholder engagement
Issue log
Change requests
Project management plan updates
Project documents updates
Organizational process assets updates
Source: PMBOK ®
Guide, Fifth Edition , 2012. 111
The Project Management Process Groups: A Case Study
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TABLE 3-12 Milestone report as of June 17
Milestone Date Status Responsible
Issues/
Comments
Initiating
Stakeholders identified May 2 Completed Erica and Joe
Project charter signed May 10 Completed Erica
Project kick-off meeting held May 13 Completed Erica Went very well
Planning
Team contract signed May 13 Completed Erica
Scope statement completed May 27 Completed Erica
WBS completed May 31 Completed Erica
List of prioritized risks completed
June 3 Completed Erica Reviewed with sponsor and team
Schedule and cost baseline completed
June 13 Completed Erica
Executing
Survey completed
June 28 Erica
Poor response so far!
Intranet site design completed
July 26 Kevin
Project benefits measurement completed
August 9 Erica
User inputs collected August 9 Jessie
Articles completed August 23 Jessie
Templates and tools completed
September 6 Erica
Ask the Expert completed September 6 Michael
User Requests feature completed
September 6 Cindy
Links completed September 13 Kevin
Intranet site construction completed
October 4 Kevin
Intranet site testing completed
October 18 Cindy
Intranet site promotion completed
October 25 Erica 112
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so Erica agreed to have Michael attend a minimal number of project team meetings.
She could see that Michael was contributing to the team by the feedback he provided and his leadership on the “ Ask the Expert ” feature for the intranet site. Erica adjusted her communication style to meet his specific needs.
Another problem occurred when Cindy was contacting potential suppliers for software to help with the “ Ask the Expert ” and User Requests features. Kevin wanted to write all of the software for the project himself, but Cindy knew it made better business sense to pur- chase these new software capabilities from a reliable source. Cindy had to convince Kevin that it was worth buying some software from other sources.
Cindy also discovered that their estimate of $10,000 was only about half the amount they needed for software services. She discussed the problem with Erica, explaining the need for some custom development no matter which supplier they chose. Erica agreed that they should go with an outside source, and she asked their sponsor to approve the addi- tional funds. Joe agreed, but he stressed the importance of still having the system pay for itself within a year.
Erica also had to ask Joe for help when the project team received a low response rate to their survey and requests for user inputs. Joe sent an e-mail to all of JWD Consulting ’ s consultants describing the importance of the project. He also offered five extra vacation days to the person who provided the best examples of how they used tools and templates to manage their projects. Erica then received informative input from the consultants.
Having effective communication skills and strong top management support are essential to good project execution.
TABLE 3-12 Milestone report as of June 17 ( continued )
Milestone Date Status Responsible
Issues/
Comments
Intranet site roll-out completed
October 25 Kevin
Monitoring and Controlling
Progress reports Every Friday All
Closing
Final project presentation completed
October 27 Erica
Sponsor sign-off on project completed
October 27 Joe
Final project report completed
October 28 Erica
Lessons-learned reports submitted
November 1 All © Cengage Learning 2014 113
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Copyright 2012 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part.