Project Management Tool Kit: 100 Tips and Techniques for Getting the Job Done Right - Softcover

Kendrick, Tom

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0814433456 ISBN 13: 9780814433454

Publisher: AMACOM, 2013

Synopsis

This results-oriented resource is a must-have strategic partner for project managers of every industry.

Shifting priorities, budget cuts, unexpected interruptions….the obstacles that project managers face daily are sometimes relentless and always burdensome. Now, the average project is only growing more complicated.

The Project Management Tool Kit is filled with step-by-step guidance that will enable managers to complete even the most complex projects both on time and on budget. The book also offers 100 powerful, practical tips and techniques in a variety of areas, including:

• Scope planning
• Schedule development and adjustment
• Cost estimating and control
• Defining and using project metrics
• Decision-making and problem solving
• Motivation and leadership
• Stakeholder engagement and expectation management
• Risk identification and monitoring

Extensively updated and revised to reflect the latest changes to A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide), the checklists, charts, examples, and tools for easy implementation in this invaluable resource will help project managers of all types tackle any challenge that comes their way.

About this title

About the Author

Tom Kendrick the former Program Director for the project management curriculum at UC Berkeley Extension, and lives in the Bay area near San Francisco, California. He is a past award recipient of the Project Management Institute (PMI) David I. Cleland Project Management Literature Award for "Identifying and Managing Project Risk: Essential Tools for Failure-Proofing Your Project" (now in it's fourth edition).  Tom is also a certified PMP and serves as a volunteer for both the PMI Silicon Valley Chapter and PMI.org.

From the Back Cover

A practical on-the-job resource for project managers in any industry, The Project Management Tool Kit has helped get countless projects completed on time and on budget. Now in an extensively revised third edition, this indispensable resource enables you to succeed amid shifting priorities, budget cuts, interruptions, and other obstacles.

The book addresses 100 specific project challenges, including all of the processes identified in the fifth edition of A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK(R) Guide). But unlike the PMBOK Guide(R), which focuses on what to do, this up-to-the-minute edition of The Project Management Tool Kit provides you with specific, step-by-step "how-to" guidance on essential topics such as:

Scope planning l Schedule development and adjustment l Cost estimating and control l Communications l Decision making and problem solving l Working with new teams and new technology l Motivation and leadership l Stakeholder engagement and expectation management l Risk identification and monitoring l Software and technical tools l Activity definition and delegation l Selecting and using project metrics l Resource planning and budgeting l Documentation and project monitoring l Handling inherited projects l Special situations, contingencies, and project cancellations l Project cause-and-effect analysis l Forecasting project completion l And much more

Complete with checklists, charts, examples, and tools for easy implementation, the third edition contains all new information on topics including cost planning, schedule planning, scope planning, stakeholder engagement control, stakeholder management planning, and much, much more.

No matter where you are in your project management career, you need to stay on top of all the latest developments in the field...and you can always use all the help you can get. Fully revised, The Project Management Tool Kit is the one reference you need.

TOM KENDRICK, PMP, is a program director for UC Berkeley Extension. His experience includes almost four decades of directing projects for Hewlett-Packard, General Electric, DuPont, and Visa, Inc., and as an independent consultant. A regular speaker at conferences, associations, and universities, he is the author of Results Without Authority and Identifying and Managing Project Risk.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Time Process

1

Activity Definition
(PMBOK® Guide 6.2)

What:   Documenting the activities resulting from the lowest level of the project work breakdown structure (WBS) and assigning an owner to each.

When:  Project planning.

Results:       Clear descriptions of all identified project work and delegation of responsibilities.

An activity is generally the smallest portion of a project used in planning, tracking, and control. In some projects, activities may be referred to as tasks, stories, work packages, or use cases, or using other descriptors.

Verify Activities

Activity definition is a key step in project plan development. After developing the work breakdown structure (WBS), verify that all work listed is necessary. Begin assembling your project activity information based on your schedule planning. If the work at the lowest level might require more than a month to complete or seems likely to consume more than 80 hours of effort, strive to decompose it further.

People often overlook work related to organizational, business, or legal requirements. Examples include preparation for project life cycle checkpoints, methodology or regulatory requirements, project and other reviews, scheduled presentations, and specific documents the project must create. Add any missing work you discover to your WBS and scope baseline.

Describe Activities

Convert the lowest-level WBS entries into project activities that can be estimated, scheduled, and tracked. Check that each represents a discrete, separate piece of work that has a starting and a stopping point. For each piece of work, capture and document any assumptions.

Describe each lowest-level work package concisely in terms of the work to be done and the task deliverable (examples: install power, edit user documentation). These verb-noun descriptions ensure clarity and make planning and tracking easier.

Identify one or more specific deliverables for each lowest-level activity. For each deliverable, specify the acceptance or test criteria. Be able to describe any requirements relating to standards, performance, or specific quality level. If no one can clearly define the deliverable for an activity, the work may be unnecessary; consider dropping it.

Assign Owners

Seek capable, motivated owners for each lowest-level activity. Look for willing volunteers for all defined work and remember that you will be responsible for all tasks for which you fail to find an owner.

For each activity, assign one and only one owner, delegating responsibility for the work. Owners will be responsible for planning, estimating, monitoring, and reporting on the activity but will not necessarily do all the work alone. In some cases, owners will lead a team doing the work, or even serve as a liaison for outsourced tasks. For each activity, identify all needed skills, staff, and any other resources and use this information to complete your responsibility analysis and required skills analysis.

Identify Milestones

In addition to project activities, which consume time and effort, project schedules also have milestones—events of negligible duration used to synchronize project work and mark significant project transitions. Uses for milestones include:

•   Project start

•   Project end

•   Completion of related parallel activities

•   Phase gates or life cycle stage transitions

•   Significant decisions, approvals, or events

•   Interfaces between multiple dependent projects

•   Other external activity dependencies and deliverables

List all project milestones.

Document Activities

Document all activities and milestones in your software scheduling tool or using some other appropriate method. Include activity names, owners, assumptions, deliverable descriptions, any identification codes (based on your WBS hierarchy, phase or iteration prioritization, or other organizing technique), and other important information. The activity list (often part of a WBS Dictionary, “burn down” list, or plan of record) serves as the foundation for project planning, risk analysis, monitoring, and control. Provide all activity owners a thorough description of their work.

Use activity definitions as a foundation for other planning processes, including activity duration estimating, activity resource estimating, activity sequencing, schedule development, cost estimating, and risk identification.

As the project planning and execution proceed, keep activity information current. Periodically review and update the activity list to reflect additional work identified during the project, particularly work added because of scope change control or uncovered in a project review.

 

Edition details

• Publisher: AMACOM
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0814433456
• ISBN 13: 9780814433454
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 3
• Number of pages: 288