Sunday, April 30, 2017

Education Edge PMP Exam Decoded - Integration Course Outline

Guidelines for Integration Knowledge Area
 
Education Edge Presents "PMP DECODED" 
Program Vision and Mission: PMP Certified
Values that we will demonstrate: Hardwork, Diligence and Productive behavior. Most importantly accountability towards self.
Goal: Getting ready for Education Edge 200 Question Exam on May 20 2017
Duration: 21 days

Folks - Here are some guidelines that you may use to maximize value from Integration knowledge Area

For each process you read follow the following steps:

Step 1: Go over the process in the PMBOK Guide
Step 2: Visit the blog to review the summary of that specific process. For example - Read Develop Project Charter from PMBOK and then review Develop Project Charter summary points listed here on the blog
Step 3: Test yourself by summarizing everything that you read by writing them down on a notepad

# Day Date Knowledge Area Target My Expectation from you
Day 1 Monday May 1, 2017 Integration Develop Project Charter -PMBOK
Develop Project Charter – BLOG Summary Review
Develop Project Management Plan
Develop Project Management Plan – BLOG Summary Review
Direct and Manage Project Work
Direct and Manage Project Work- Blog Summary Review
An email from you to confirm task done
Day 2 Tuesday 2017-05-02 Integration Monitor and Control Project Work
Monitor and Control Project Work – Blog Summary Review
Perform Integrated Change Control
Perform Integrated Change Control – Blog Sumamry Review
An email from you to confirm task done
Day 3 Wednesday 2017-05-03 Integration Close Project or Phase
Close Project or Phase Blog Summary Review
EE Integration Exam
Your Exam Score % 


Learning Objectives Integration Knowledge Area

§  Integration management is needed when processes interact

§  to identify, combine, unify and coordinate various processes/activities and manage the interdependencies

§  communication is most important

§  a PM Plan not meeting requirements will lead to project failure or not meeting all the objectives of the project

 

Processes of Integration Knowledge Ares







1.           Develop Project Charter

§  formally authorize the project and allow the PM to apply organizational resources

§  well-defined project start and project boundaries

§  project charter is a several page document including high level information of the project: project background, business case, goals (S.M.A.R.T. specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, time-bound), who is and the authority of the project manager, budget, risk, stakeholders, deliverables, approval criteria, etc.

§  can link the project to other works in the organization through portfolio/program management

§  signed off by the sponsor (the one who supply the money/resources)

§  agreements: either a contract (for external parties), letter of intent, service level agreement, etc. (can be legally binding or NOT)

§  a charter is NOT a contract because there is no consideration

§  PMO may provide the expert judgement

§  Facilitation techniques includes brainstorming, conflict resolution, problem solving, meeting, etc.

2.           Develop Project Management Plan

§  the project management plan is a formal written document on how the project is executed, monitored and closed, including all subsidiary management plans (scope, requirementschangeconfiguration, schedule, cost, quality, process improvement, human resource, communication, risk, procurement) and documents (cost baseline, schedule baseline, scope baseline, performance measurement baseline, cost estimate, schedule, responsibility for each deliverable, staff requirements) and some additional documents/plans (selected PM processes and level of implementation)

§  the contents to be tailored by the PM (tailoring) to suit each project

§  created by PM, signed off by destined KEY stakeholders (e.g. project sponsor, project team, project manager)

§  may be progressively elaborated in iterative phases (outputs from other processes), this must be the final process/iteration to consolidate the PM Plan

§  when the project management plan is baselined (i.e. validated and then signed off by key stakeholders), it is subject to formal change control and is used as a basis for comparison to the actual plan

§  after baselining, the senior management must be consulted if these high level constraints are to be altered (whether to use the management reserves)

§  can be re-baselined if significant changes are seen (scope change, internal changes/variances (for the project execution), external factors) <- needed to be approved by sponsors/stakeholders/senior management, must understand the underlying reasons first (built-in costs is not usually a legitimate reason)

§  cost baseline (specific time-phased budget), schedule baseline (-> knows when to spend money), scope baseline (includes scope statement, WBS, WBS dictionary): whether preventive/corrective/defect repair actions are needed

§  the performance measurement baseline (PMB) is an approved scope-schedule-cost plan for the project work (to use in earned value management), it includes contingency reserve but excludes management reserves

§  configuration management (works with change control management plan), document all change versions of project deliverables and completed project components, PMIS includes: Configuration Management System (contains the updated deliverable/project specifications and processes) and Change Control System (contains formal documents for tracking changes)

§  configuration management system contains the most updated version of project documents

§  other project documents NOT included in the project management plan:

§  Kick-off Meeting: at beginning of the project/phase, participants including project team+stakeholders, element including project review, responsibility assignment matrix, participation of stakeholders, escalation path, frequency of meetings

 

3.           Direct and Manage Project Work

§  create project deliverables, acquire/assign/train staff, manage vendors, collect data for reports, document lessons learned

§  implement approved process improvement plans and changes, change requests include corrective actions, preventive actions, defect repair and updates (all considered to be change requests)

§  if the PM discovers a defect, he/she should instruct the team to make defect repair during this process (need change request but may be approved by the PM only (if stipulated in PM Plan for minor change))

§  approved change requests – approved in the perform integrated change control, may include preventive, corrective and defect repair actions

§  change requests may arise as a result of implementing approved change requests

§  PM should be of service to the team, not a boss

§  a work authorization system (part of EEF) defines approval levels needed to issue work authorization (to allocate the work) and is used to prevent scope creep as formal approval must be sought before work begins

§  Stakeholder risk tolerance is part of EEF

§  Face-to-face meeting is considered to be most effective

§  The PM Plan can be considered as a deliverable

§  most of the time of project spends here

 

4.           Monitor and Control Project Work


§  validated changes – actions taken as a result of the approved change requests are validated against the original change requests, to ensure correct implementation

§  corrective and preventive actions usually don’t affect the baseline, only affect the performance against the baseline

§  defect repair: considered as rework, deliverable not accepted, either rework or scrap, strongly advise defect prevention to defect repair

§  the work performance info is fed from all other control processes (e.g. control schedule, control stakeholder engagement, control communications, control costs, control quality, etc.)

§  variance analysis is NOT a forecast method

 

5.           Perform Integrated Change Control

§  the PM should influence the factors that cause project change

§  changes arises as a result of: missed requirements, views of stakeholders, poorly designed WBS, misunderstanding, inadequate risk assessment

§  all the process is documented in the change log

§  tracked using a change management system, also affect configuration management system

§  configuration control: changes to deliverables and processes

§  change control: identify/document/approve changes

§  configuration management activities: configuration identification, configuration status accounting, configuration verification / audit to ensure the latest configuration is adopted and delivered

§  for a change request: 1) identify need, 2) assess the impact, response and alternatives, 3) create CR, 4) Meet with stakeholders, 5) obtain approval from CCB (change control board) or PM as defined in roles and responsibility document/PM Plan, 6) request more funding if needed

§  customers/sponsors may need to approve certain decisions by CCB (if they are not part of CCB)

§  communicate the resolutions (approve or reject) to change requests to stakeholders

§  Burnup chart vs Burndown chart

 

6.           Close Project or Phase

§  ensure all procurements are closed (in the Close Procurements Process) before formal closure of the project/phase

§  create the project closure documents

§  formal sign off by designated stakeholders/customer

§  obtain formal approval to close out the project/phase (administrative closure)

§  obtain approval and deliver the deliverables (maybe with training)

§  finish and archive documentations, lessons learnt and update to organizational process asset

§  if the contract comes with a warranty, make sure that changes during the project are evaluated against the origin clauses, ensure alignment of the warranty and changes

§  to close a project as neatly and permanently possible

§  for multi-phase projects, this process will be performed once for every phase end and once for the whole project (5 times for project with 4 phases)

§  litigation can be further pursued after the closure

 

 


 

Sunday, April 09, 2017

Education Edge Office Read - Quality Knowledge Area - PMBOK Guide - PMP Prep Course

Project Quality Management
 
Project Quality Management determines quality policies, objectives, and responsibilities so that the project will satisfy the needs for which it was undertaken.

 

Project Quality Management supports continuous process improvement activities as undertaken on behalf of the performing organization.

 

Quality is the degree to which a set of inherent characteristics fulfill requirements.

 

Grade is a category assigned to products or services having the same functional use but different technical characteristics.

 

Precision means the value of repeated measurements are clustered and have little scatter.

 

Accuracy means that the measured value is very close to the true value.

 

Cost of quality refers to the total cost of all efforts related to quality throughout the product life cycle.

 

Quality Philosophies associated to:

 

W. Edwards Deming – PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act), Quality is a Management problem, Started the TQM movement

Dr. Joseph Juran – 80/20 Principle, Fitness for Use, Quality & Grade

Phillip Crosby – Zero Defects, Quality is ‘Free’, Right’ the First Time, Prevention is the ‘Key’

 

Kaizen is a Japanese word that means gradual continuous improvement.

 

The knowledge area of Project Quality Management consists of the following three processes:

 

Process Name
Project Management Process Group
Key Deliverables
Plan Quality Management
Planning
Quality Management Plan, Process Improvement Plan
Perform Quality Assurance
Executing
Change Requests
Perform Quality Control
Monitoring and Controlling
Validated Deliverables, Validated Changes

 

Plan Quality Management is the process of identifying quality requirements and/or standards for the project and its deliverables.

 

Quality planning must consider cost-benefit tradeoffs by performing Cost-Benefit Analysis.

 

Cost of quality includes all costs incurred over the life of the product by investment in preventing non-conformance to requirements, appraising the product or service for conformance to requirements, and failing to meet requirements (rework).

 

Cost of Conformance – Money spent before or during project to avoid failures

Prevention Costs

Appraisal Costs

Cost of non-conformance – Money spent during and after the project because of failures

              Internal Failure Costs

External Failure Costs

 

Seven Basic Quality Tools

 

Cause-and-effect diagrams, which are also known as fishbone diagrams or as Ishikawa diagrams

 

Flowcharts, which are also referred to as process maps because they display the sequence of steps and the branching possibilities that exist

 

Check sheets, which are also known as tally sheets and may be used as a checklist when gathering data

 

Pareto diagrams exist as a special form of vertical bar chart and are used to identify the vital few sources that are responsible for causing most of a problem’s effects

 

Histograms are a special form of bar chart and are used to describe the central tendency, dispersion, and shape of a statistical distribution

 

Control charts, are used to determine whether or not a process is stable or has predictable performance

 

Scatter diagrams, plot ordered pairs (X, Y) and are sometimes called correlation charts because they seek to explain a change in the dependent variable

 

Benchmarking involves comparing actual or planned project practices to those of comparable projects to identify best practices.

 

Design of experiments (DOE) is a statistical method for identifying which factors may influence specific variables of a product or process under development or in production.

 

Statistical sampling involves choosing part of a population of interest for inspection.

 

The Inputs, Tools and Techniques and Output of Plan Quality Management process are given below:

 

Project Management Plan
Cost-Benefit Analysis
Quality Management Plan
Stakeholder Register
Cost of Quality
Process Improvement Plan
Risk Register
Seven Basic Quality Tools
Quality Metrics
Requirements Documentation
Benchmarking
Quality Checklists
Enterprise Environmental Factors
Design of Experiments
Project Documents updates
Organizational Process Assets
Statistical Sampling
 
 
Additional quality planning tools
 
 
Meetings
 

 

Perform Quality Assurance is the process of auditing the quality requirements and the results from quality control measurements to ensure that appropriate quality standards and operational definitions are used.

 

The key benefit of this process is that it facilitates the improvement of quality processes.

 


The quality metrics provide the attributes that should be measured and the allowable variations.

Seven Quality Management and Control Tools

 

Affinity diagrams is similar to mind-mapping techniques in that they are used to generate ideas that can be linked to form organized patterns of thought about a problem.

 

Process decision program charts (PDPC) used to understand a goal in relation to the steps for getting to the goal.

 

Interrelationship digraphs provide a process for creative problem solving in moderately complex scenarios that possess intertwined logical relationships for up to 50 relevant items.

 

Tree diagrams also known as systematic diagrams and may be used to represent decomposition hierarchies such as the WBS, RBS (risk breakdown structure), and OBS (organizational breakdown structure).

 

Prioritization matrices – Identify the key issues and the suitable alternatives to be prioritized as a set of decisions for implementation.

 

Activity network diagrams previously known as arrow diagrams. They include both the AOA (Activity on Arrow) and, most commonly used, AON (Activity on Node) formats of a network diagram.

 

Matrix diagrams used to perform data analysis within the organizational structure created in the matrix.

 

A quality audit is a structured, independent process to determine if project activities comply with organizational and project policies, processes, and procedures.

 

Process analysis follows the steps outlined in the process improvement plan to identify needed improvements.

 

The Inputs, Tools and Techniques and Output of Perform Quality Assurance process are given below:

 

Quality Management Plan
Quality Management and Control Tools
Change Requests
Process Improvement Plan
Quality audits
Project Management Plan Updates
Quality Metrics
Process analysis
Project Documents updates
Quality Control Measurements
 
Organizational Process Assets updates
Project Documents
 
 

 

Control Quality is the process of monitoring and recording results of executing the quality activities to assess performance and recommend necessary changes.

 

Control Quality should be performed throughout the project.

 

Prevention (keeping errors out of the process); Inspection (keeping errors out of the hands of the customer)

 

Attribute sampling (result conforms, or it doesn't)

 

Variables sampling (the result is rated on a continuous scale that measures the degree of conformity)

 

Statistical sampling (measures only a percentage of items e.g. 5 out of every 100)

 

Special causes (unusual events)

 

Common or random causes (normal process variation)

Tolerances (the result is acceptable if it falls within range specified by tolerance)

 

Control limits (the process is in control if the result falls within the control limits)

 

A deliverable is any unique and verifiable product, result, or capability that results in a validated deliverable required by the project.

 

An inspection is the examination of a work product to determine if it conforms to documented standards.

 

Rule of Seven which is when 7 values in a row are all below or all above the mean or increase/decrease in one direction.

 

Quality control measurements are the documented results of control quality activities.

 

The results of performing the Control Quality process are verified deliverables.

 

Work Performance Information is the performance data collected from various controlling processes, analyzed in context and integrated based on relationships across areas.

 

The Inputs, Tools and Techniques and Output of Control Quality process are given below:

 

Project Management Plan
Seven Basic Quality Tools
Quality Control Measurements
Quality Metrics
Statistical Sampling
Validated Changes
Quality Checklists
Inspection
Validated Deliverables
Work Performance Data
Approved Change Requests Review
Work Performance Information
Approved Change Requests
 
Change Requests
Deliverables
 
Project Management Plan Updates
Project Documents
 
Project Documents updates
Organizational Process Assets
 
Organizational Process Assets updates