essay questions-ITPM

Essay Questions

1. What are the 3C’s of Project Management? Why do you need a plan to be effective at

the 3-C’s?

The 3-C’s mean communication, coordination and control.

One of the goals of communication are to ensure that all information on the project could be known correctly by project team members and managers. A good plan of project is able to address the correct information, and through the plan every member and manager can learn the information they need timely and correctly.

As we know, there are lots of works and tasks in a project which are needed to be prioritized logically. Therefore, a plan can help the project manager to know the dependences of the works and who to take the responsibility. In this way the project manager can coordinate who do the work first.

One of the attributions of project is to meet the sponsor’s need under the constraints, such as scope, time, cost and quality. So a project manager has to balance these factors to satisfy the objectives. A plan defines the work that needs to be done for the project, schedules activities related to that work, estimates costs for performing the work and decide what resources to procure to accomplishe the work. Then through a good plan a project manager could be able to insure the scope, time, cost and quality under control to reach the goals of the project.

2. What are the triple constraints? Why does one have to balance the triple constraints

(use and example)?

Triple constraints is to balance scope, time and cost goals of a poject. Successful project management means meeting all three goals (scope, time, and cost)—and satisfying the porject’s sponsor. For example, the project of building a house has an initial scope of 200 square meter. The project manager might further define project scope to 2 stories each was 100 square meter. The initial time estimate for the house might be six months, and the cost estimate might be $50,000--$60,000. These expectations provide the goals in this example include the scope, time, and cost.

Because projects involve uncertainty and limited resources, projects rarely finish according to discrete scope, time, and cost goals originally planned. Instead of idscrete target goals, it is oftern more realistic to set a range of goals such as spending between $50,000 and $60,000 and having two stories of the house.

Managing the triple constraint involves making trade-offs between scope, time, and cost goals for a project. For example, you might need to increase the budget for a project to meet the scope and time goals. Experienced project managers know that you must decide which aspect of the triple constraint is most important. If time is most important, you must often change the initial scope and/ or cost goals to meet the schedule.

3. What benefits can orgazizations gain by implementing good project management

practices?

Better control of financial, physical, and human resources Improved customer relations

Shorter development times

Lower costs and improved productivity Higher quality and increased reliability Higher profit margins

Better internal coordination Positive impact on meeting Higher worker morale

4. Provide an example of when it would be better to use the Payback method rather than

NPV to select projects?

Payback Period appropriate where technology is rapidly changing

Does not consider differential inflation and interest rates (more critical for long term projects)

5. List three quantitative models to select projects and briefly describe each.

Net present value analysis (NPV)—a method of calculating the expected net monetary gain or loss from a project by discounting all expected future cash inflows and outflows to the present point in time.

Internal rate of return (IRR)—the discount rate that results in an NPV of zero for a project. Payback period—the amount of time it will take to recoup, in the form of net cash inflows,

the total dollars invested in a project. Payback period: Advantages:

simple and easy to use;

uses readily available accounting data

reduces risk and untertainty by focusing on shortest payback period uncertainty of future cash flows is reduced

Appropriate where technology is rapidly changing Disadvantages

Does not consider time value of money

Does not consider differential inflation and interest rates Ignores income beyond pay back period

Biased against long-term projects with high returns in later years (strategic initiatives) NPV

Advantages:

Takes into consideration the time value of money Expresses all cash flows in today’s dollars Allows for inflation

Reflects the full life of the project

What-if analysis provides upside/downside Disadvantages:

Requires an accurate prediction of the cost of captital (i.e. interest rates)

Utilizes a fix cost (interest rate) for all future flows (a more complicated formula can address this)

6. List at least three problems that occur when the scope of a project is not managed or

controlled.

Scope refers to all the work involved in creating the products of the project and the processes used to create them.

If the scope of a project is not managed or controlled, usually it will cause scope creep. Scope creep means the tendency for the project scope to keep getting bigger.

And at the time of the scope losing controlling, it may cause we can not complete the project on time, we may overrun the budget, or we may fail to meet the quality of the project.

7. What should be considered when assessing a potential projects feasibility?

The problem or opportunity

Organization long-term goals---Alignment with strategic plan is critical fo more complex and lengthy project

Analysis of current and near-term resources---adequate resources is critical including non-information technology resources and readiness to change Benefit or value Alternative

Time ( window of opportunity)

8. What would you expect to find in a project chart? P148

The project’s title and date of authorization

The project manager’s name and contact information

A summary schedule, including the planned start and finish dates: if a summary milesstone schedule is avialable, it should also be included or referenced

A summary of the project’s budget of reference to budgetary documents.

A brief description of the project objectives, including the business need or other justification for authorizing the project

Project success criteria, including project approval requirements and who signs off on the project

Asummary of the planned approach for managing the project, which should describe stakeholder needs and expectations, important assumptions, and constraints, and refer to related documents, such as a communications management plan, as available A roles and responsibilities matrix

A sign-off section for signatures of key project stakeholders

A comments section in which stakeholders can provide important comments related to the poject

9. What is scope creep?

Scope creep --- the tendency for project scope to keep getting bigger and bigger. It is very important to verify the project scope with users throughout the life of the project and develop a process for controlling scope changes.

10. Should all requests for change in a project be denied? Why not?

The answer is absolutelly “no”, the reasons are the followings:

Firstly, change are inevitable on most projects, so it’s important to develop and follow a process to monitor and control changes instead of just refusing them.

Secondly, Cause of change include changes in scope, identification of new solutions, ommissions in the initial WBS. Therefore, once the changes occur in scope, we will have to change our schedule, cost plan also. If changes happen in solution which will improve our quality without any increasing in cost and time, why we do not accept the changes.

Inclusion, we should not just reject the changes without any identifying and evaluating.

11. What are the three sub-plans that make up a project plan? Are they related?

Performance Plan—work breakdown structure Schedule Plan --- bar chart, network diagram Cost Plan --- budget

12. When should a change request be approved?

 When the impact of the request is analyzed and understood.

 When users\\sponsor(s) agree that the new requirements are justified  When the changes are formally approved and project plans are updated

13. What do you need before you develop the project schedule?

Defining activities, sequencing activities, estimationg activity resources, estimating activity durations,

WBS, Activity list, activity attributes, miestone list, project schedule network diagrams, project document updates, activity resource requirements, resource breakdown sturcture, project document dupdates, activity duration estimates, project document updates,

14. What problems can a WBS help you identify?

Work breakdown structure (WBS) is a deliverable-oriented grouping of the work involved in a project that defines the total scope of the project. The WBS is a foundation document in project management because it provides the basis for planning and managing project schedules, costs, resources, and changes.

15. What problems can a Network Diagram, including Critical Path Method, help you

identify?

Network diagrams are the preferred technique for showing activity sequencing,

Critical path method (CPM)---is a network diagramming technique used to predict total project duration. It is an important tool that will help we combat project schedule overruns. The critical path is the longest path through a network diagram. If any activity on the critical path slips, the whole project will slip unless the project manager takes corrective action

16. What activities or tasks are best for “crashing”?

Crashing is a technique for making cost and schedule trade-offs to obtain the greatest amount of schedule compression for the least incremental cost. By foucusing on tasks on the critical path that could be done more quickly for no extra cost or a small cost, the project schedule can be shortened.