PMP Executing Process Groups. Part - 2

Perform Quality Assurance:

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.

Input: 1. Quality management plan 2. Process improvement plan 3. Quality metrics 4. Quality control measurements 5. Project documents
TT: 1. Quality management and control tools 2. Quality audits 3. Process analysis
Output: 1. Change requests 2. Project management plan updates 3. Project documents updates 4. Organizational process assets updates

Perform Quality Assurance is an execution process that uses data created during Plan Quality Management and Control Quality processes.

The Perform Quality Assurance process uses the tools and techniques of the Plan Quality Management and Control Quality processes. Other tools that are available include:

Affinity diagrams:
Similar to mind-mapping techniques; generate ideas that can be linked to form organized patterns of thought about a problem.

Process decision program charts (PDPC):
To understand a goal in relation to the steps for getting to the goal. The PDPC is useful as a method for contingency planning because it aids teams in anticipating intermediate steps that could derail achievement of the goal.

Interrelationship digraphs:
An adaptation of relationship diagrams. The interrelationship digraphs provide a process for creative problem solving in moderately complex scenarios that possess intertwined logical relationships for up to 50 relevant items. The interrelationship digraph may be developed from data generated in other tools such as the affinity diagram, the tree diagram, or the fishbone diagram.

Tree Diagrams:
Also known as systematic diagrams. WBS, RBS (risk breakdown structure), and OBS (organizational breakdown structure). In project management, tree diagrams are useful in visualizing the parent-to-child relationships in any decomposition hierarchy that uses a systematic set of rules that define a nesting relationship. Tree diagrams can be depicted horizontally (such as a risk breakdown structure) or vertically (such as a team hierarchy or OBS). Because tree diagrams permit the creation of nested branches that terminate into a single decision point, they are useful as decision trees for establishing an expected value for a limited number of dependent relationships that have been diagramed systematically.

Prioritization matrices:
Criteria are prioritized and weighted before being applied to all available alternatives to obtain a mathematical score that ranks the options.

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. Activity network diagrams are used with project scheduling methodologies such as program evaluation and review technique (PERT), critical path method (CPM), and precedence diagramming method (PDM).

Matrix diagrams:
Perform data analysis within the organizational structure created in the matrix. The matrix diagram seeks to show the strength of relationships between factors, causes, and objectives that exist between the rows and columns that form 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.Process analysis includes root cause analysis—a specific technique used to
identify a problem, discover the underlying causes that lead to it, and develop preventive actions.


Manage Communication:

Input: 1. Communications management plan 2. Work performance reports 3. Enterprise environmental factors 4. Organizational process assets
TT: 1. Communication technology 2. Communication models 3. Communication methods 4. Information management systems 5. Performance reporting
Output: 1. Project communications 2. Project management plan updates 3. Project documents updates 4. Organizational process assets updates

PMB - The performance measurement baseline Typically integrates scope, schedule, and cost parameters of a project, but may also include technical and quality parameters.

The transmission of message may be compromised by various factors (e.g., distance, unfamiliar technology, inadequate infrastructure, cultural difference, and lack of background information). These factors are collectively termed as noise.

Basic communication model: Encode --> Transmit Message --> Decode --> Acknowledge --> Feedback/Response

Communication Methods:
Interactive - meetings, phone calls, instant messaging, video conferencing, etc.
Push - This ensures that the information is distributed but does not ensure that it actually reached or was understood by the intended audience. Push communications include letters, memos, reports, emails, faxes, voice mails, blogs, press releases, etc.
Pull - Used for very large volumes of information, or for very large audiences, and requires the recipients to access the communication content at their own discretion. These methods
include intranet sites, e-learning, lessons learned databases, knowledge repositories, etc.


Manage Stakeholder Engagement:

Input: 1. Stakeholder management plan 2. Communications management plan 3. Change log 4. Organizational process assets
TT: 1. Communication methods 2. Interpersonal Skills 3. Management Skills
Output: 1. Issue log 2. Change Requests 3. Project management plan updates 4. Project documents updates 5. Organizational process assets update

- The ability of stakeholders to influence the project is typically highest during the initial stages and gets progressively lower as the project progresses.

The project manager applies interpersonal skills to manage stakeholders’ expectations. For example:
- Building trust,
- Resolving conflict,
- Active listening, and
- Overcoming resistance to change.

The project manager applies management skills to coordinate and harmonize the group toward accomplishing the project objectives. For example:
- Facilitate consensus toward project objectives,
- Influence people to support the project,
- Negotiate agreements to satisfy the project needs, and
- Modify organizational behavior to accept the project outcomes.


Conduct Procurement:

Input: 1. Procurement management plan 2. Procurement documents 3. Source selection criteria 4. Seller proposals 5. Project documents 6. Make-or-buy decisions 7. Procurement statement
of work 8. Organizational process assets
TT: 1. Bidder conference 2. Proposal evaluation techniques 3. Independent estimates 4. Expert judgment 5. Advertising 6. Analytical techniques 7. Procurement negotiations
Output: 1. Selected sellers 2. Agreements 3. Resource calendars 4. Change requests 5. Project management plan updates 6. Project documents updates

Source selection criteria can include information on the supplier’s required capabilities, capacity, delivery dates, product cost, life-cycle cost, technical expertise, and the approach to the contract.

The statement of work is a critical component of the procurement process and can be modified as needed through this process until a final agreement is in place.

Responses to bidder conference questions can be incorporated into the procurement documents as amendments.

Depending upon the application area, an agreement can also be called an understanding, a contract, a subcontract, or a purchase order

A contract is a legal relationship subject to remedy in the courts.

Component of  Agreement: Termination clause and alternative dispute resolution (ADR) mechanisms. The ADR method can be decided in advance as a part of the procurement award.

PMP Executing Process Groups - Part 1

Direct and Manage Project Work:

Inputs:  1. Project management plan  2. Approved change requests  3. Enterprise environmental factors  4. Organizational process assets
TT: 1. Expert Judgement 2. Meetings 3. PMIS
Outputs: 1. Change Request 2. Deliverables 3. Work Performance Data 4. PM Plan Update 5. Project documents update

Corrective action — An intentional activity that realigns the performance of the project work with the project management plan;
Preventive action — An intentional activity that ensures the future performance of the project work is aligned with the project management plan;
Defect repair — An intentional activity to modify a nonconforming product or product component.

Expert Judgement is provided by the project manager and the project management team using specialized knowledge or training.
Additional expertise is available from many sources, including: Other units within the organization; Consultants and other subject matter experts (internal and external); Stakeholders, including customers, suppliers, or sponsors; and Professional and technical associations.

Meetings tend to be one of three types:
- Information exchange;
- Brainstorming, option evaluation, or design;
- Decision making.

The project management information system (PMIS) - Part of the environmental factors


Acquire Project Team:

Input: 1. Human resource management plan 2. Enterprise environmental factors 3. Organizational process assets
TT: 1. Pre-assignment 2. Negotiation 3. Acquisition 4. Virtual teams 5. Multi-criteria decision analysis
Output: 1. Project staff assignments 2. Resource calendars 3. Project management plan updates

By use of a multi-criteria decision analysis tool, criteria are developed and used to rate or score potential team members.  Some examples of selection criteria that can be used to score team members are shown as follows: Availability, Cost, Experience, Ability,  Knowledge, Skills, Attitude, International factors.

Develop Project Team:

- Process of improving competencies, team member interaction, and overall team environment to enhance project performance.

Input: 1. Human resource management plan 2. Project staff assignments 3. Resource calendars
TT: 1. Interpersonal skills 2. Training 3. Team-building activities 4. Ground rules 5. Colocation 6. Recognition and rewards 7. Personnel assessment tools
Output: 1. Team performance assessment 2. EEF updates

- Interpersonal skills, sometimes known as “soft skills,” are behavioral competencies
- Training includes all activities designed to enhance the competencies of the project team members
- Team-building strategies are particularly valuable when team members operate from remote locations without the benefit of face-to-face contact
- While team building is essential during the initial stages of a project, it is a never-ending process

Develop team models: Tuckman ladder - includes five stages of development that teams may go through. (Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing, Adjourning)

Colocation: Referred to as “tight matrix,” involves placing many or all of the most active project team members in the same physical location to enhance their ability to perform as a team. While colocation is considered a good strategy, the use of virtual teams can bring benefits such as the use of more skilled resources, reduced costs, less travel, and relocation expenses and the proximity of team members to suppliers, customers, or other key stakeholders.

Most project team members are motivated by an opportunity to grow, accomplish, and apply their professional skills to meet new challenges

Personnel Assessment Tools: Various tools are available such as attitudinal surveys, specific assessments, structured interviews, ability tests, and focus groups.

As project team development efforts such as training, team building, and colocation are implemented, the project management team makes formal or informal assessments of the project team’s effectiveness

Manage Project Team:

- The process of tracking team member performance, providing feedback, resolving issues, and managing team changes to optimize project performance.

Input: 1. Human resource management plan 2. Project staff assignments 3. Team performance assessments 4. Issue log 5. Work performance reports 6. Organizational process   assets
TT: 1. Observation & conversation 2. Project performance appraisals 3. Conflict management 4. Interpersonal skills
Output: 1. Change Requests 2. Project management plan updates 3. Project documents updates 4. Enterprise environmental factors updates 5. Organizational process assets updates [Hint: Like common control output]

Issue Log: Issues arise in the course of managing the project team. An issue log can be used to document and monitor who is responsible for resolving specific issues by a target date.

Observation and conversation are used to stay in touch with the work and attitudes of project team members.

Project Performance Appraisals: Objectives for conducting performance appraisals during the course of a project can include clarification of roles and responsibilities, constructive feedback to team members, discovery of unknown or unresolved issues, development of individual training plans, and the establishment of specific goals for future time period.

Conflict should be addressed early and usually in private, using a direct, collaborative approach

There are five general techniques for resolving conflict:
Withdraw/Avoid, Smooth/Accommodate, Compromise/Reconcile, Force/Direct, Collaborate/Problem Solve

Examples of interpersonal skills that a project manager uses most often include:
Leadership, Influencing, Effective decision making

Key influencing skills include:
 ○ Ability to be persuasive and clearly articulate points and positions;
 ○ High levels of active and effective listening skills;
 ○ Awareness of, and consideration for, the various perspectives in any situation; and
 ○ Gathering relevant and critical information to address important issues and reach agreements while maintaining mutual trust

Some guidelines for decision making include:
 ○ Focus on goals to be served,
 ○ Follow a decision-making process,
 ○ Study the environmental factors,
 ○ Analyze available information,
 ○ Develop personal qualities of the team members,
 ○ Stimulate team creativity, and
 ○ Manage risk.

Staffing changes may include moving people to different assignments, outsourcing some of the work, and replacing team members who leave

PMP Exam Note 4

Total Float:
Late Start date – Early Start date; Late Finish date – Early Finish date
Free Float:
ES of next Activity – EF of current Activity - 1

There is disagreement whether the first day of the project should be “1” or “0”.
In fact, both these conventions are correct. You are free to choose what you prefer. I choose to start my project from day “1”.

For details: https://pmstudycircle.com/2013/03/total-float-versus-free-float/

Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA) is a non-proprietary approach to Quality Management. This is an analytical procedure:
Each potential failure mode in every component of a product is analyzed to determine its effect on the reliability of that component and, by itself or in combination with other possible failure modes, on the reliability of the product.

Appraisal/Inspection Costs

Appraisal costs, which are also called inspection costs, are those costs which are incurred to identify defective products before they are shipped to customers. However, performing appraisal activities does not prevent defects from occurring. Most managers now realize that maintaining a team of inspectors is not an effective approach to quality control. A better approach is asking employees to be responsible for their own quality control, along with creating designs for how to manufacture a defect-free product. This approach allows quality to be built into the product, rather than relying on inspections to identify any defects.

If the project work is performed at the budgeted rate, the Estimation at Completion can be determined using the formula (EAC) = AC + (BAC – EV)

Important Site for Final week review:
http://howtoprepareforpmpexam.blogspot.in/

PMP Exam Note 3

PMBOK identifies a subset of project management body of knowledge that is generally recognized as good practice
PMO - An organizational structure that standardizes the project related governance processed and facilitates the sharing of resources, methodologies, tools, and techniques.
Project management process groups are not project phases
Quality function deployment (QFD) - A facilitated workshop technique that helps to determine critical characteristics for new product development.
Regression Analysis - An analytic technique, a series of input variables are examined in relation to their corresponding output results in order to develop a mathematical or statistical relationship
Regulation - Requirements imposed by governmental body.
RFI, RFQ, RFP - A type of procurement document

Residual Risk - A risk that remains after risk responses have been implemented
Resource Leveling - A technique in which start and finish dates are adjusted based on resource constraints with the goal of balancing demand of resources with the available supply
Resource Smoothing - Adjusts the activities of a schedule model such that the requirement of resources on the project do not exceed certain predefined resource limits
RAM (Responsibility Assignment Matrix) - A grid that shows the project resources assigned to each work package
Risk - Has a +ve or -ve effect on one or more project objectives
Risk Acceptance - Acknowledge the risk and not taking any action unless the risk occurs
Risk can either be an opportunity or a threat
You must find the risk attitude of your stakeholders. Risk attitude can be broadly divided into three categories:
- Risk appetite - The degree of uncertainty an entity is willing to take on in anticipation of a reward. Some organizations might be willing to take a high risk if the reward is high; others may want to play safe or go conservatively.
- Risk tolerance - It shows the risk attitude of stakeholders or an organization in measurable units.High tolerance means people are willing to take a high risk, and low tolerance means people are not willing to take many risks.
- Risk threshold - The risk threshold is a further step in the risk tolerance; you can say that it quantifies the risk tolerance with a more precise figure. An amount of risk that an organization or individual is willing to accept.Below the risk threshold, the organization will accept the risk, and above the risk threshold, the organization will not tolerate the risk.
Scatter Diagram -
Secondary Risk - A risk that arises as a direct result of implementing a risk response.
Work Package - Lowest level of WBS for which cost and duration can be estimated and managed.
Weighted milestone method - EVM, work package --> measurable segments each ending with a observable milestone --> assigns a weighted value to the achievement of each milestone
Voice of the customer - A planning technique
Verification - Often an internal process
Velocity - A measure of team's productivity rate, A capacity planning approach frequently used to forecast future project work.
VAC (Variance at Completion) = Difference between BAC and EAC
Value Engineering -
Validation - Meets the need of customer
Validate scope - The process of formalizing acceptance of the completed project deliverables
Sensitivity analysis - comparing the relative importance of variables. For example, if you need to visually compare 100 budgetary items, and identify the largest ten items, it would be nearly impossible to do using a standard bar graph. However, in a tornado chart of the budget items, the top ten bars would represent the top ten largest items.
Tornado diagram - a special type of Bar chart, where the data categories are listed vertically instead of the standard horizontal presentation, and the categories are ordered so that the largest bar appears at the top of the chart, the second largest appears second from the top, and so on.
TCPI (To complete performance index) - Ratio of the cost to finish the outstanding work to the remaining budget

PMP Exam Note 2

Failure mode and effect analysis (FMEA) - a non-proprietary approach to Quality Management. This is an analytical procedure:  Each potential failure mode in every component of a product is analyzed to determine its effect on the reliability of that component and, by itself or in combination with other possible failure modes, on the reliability of the product.
Fast tracking - activities of phases perform in parallel
Fixed formula method - An EVM, % budget value - at the start of milestone work, remaining % budget - when the work is complete
Funding limit reconciliation - identify any variances between the funding limits and planned expenditures
Hammock Activity -
Hard logic - 
Histogram - A special form of bar chart used to describe the central tendency, dispersion, and shape of a statistical distribution
Imposed date - A fixed date. For example: "start no earlier than" and "Finish no later than"
Incremental life cycle - Scope determined early, time and cost estimates are routinely modified as the project's team understanding of the product increases, increments successively add to the functionality of the product
Influence diagram - Shows causal influences, time ordering of events, and other relationships among variables and outcomes
Interrelationship Diagraphs - A quality management planning tool, provide a process for creative problem-solving in moderately complex scenarios that possess intertwined logical relationships
Lead, Lag -
Level of efforts - An activity that doesn't produce definitive end product and measured by the passage of time. One of the three EVM types of activities used to measure work performance.
Logical Relationship - A dependency between two activities, or between an activity and a milestone.
Mandatory Dependency - A relationship that is contractually required or inherent in the nature of work.
Master Schedule - A summary level project schedule
Near-Critical Activity - A schedule activity that has low total float
Network Logic - The collection of schedule activity dependencies that makes up a project schedule network diagram
Pareto diagram - A histogram, ordered by frequency of occurrence, that shows how many results were generated by each identified cause
Phase Gate - A review at the end of a phase
Planning Package - A work breakdown structure component below the control account with known work content but without detailed schedule activities
Predictive Life Cycle - Project scope, and the time and cost required to deliver that scope, are determined as early in the life cycle as possible.
Prioritization Matrices - A quality mgt. planning tool.
Probability and Impact Matrix - A grid for mapping the probability of each risk occurrence and its impact on project objectives if that risk occurs.
Process Decision Program Chart (PDPC) - To understand a goal in relation to the steps for getting to the goal.

PMP Exam Note 1

• Acquisition implies a cost of resources, and is not necessarily financial.
• Activity attributes include activity codes, predecessor activities, successor activities, logical relationships, leads and lags, resource requirements, imposed dates, constraints, and assumptions.
• Adaptive life cycle - Agile, iterations are rapid in nature (2-4 weeks) and are fixed in time and resources
• Additional quality planning tool - Force field analysis, brainstorming, nominal group discussion
• Attribute sampling - method of measuring quality
• Backward pass - For calculating late start and late finish date from the project end date
• Bar Chart - A graphic display of Schedule related information. Also known as Gantt  chart
• Bidder conference - prior to the preparation of bid, proposal. Also known as contractor conference, vendor conference, pre-bid conference
• Code of accounts - A numbering system to uniquely identify each component of WBS
• Colocation - An organizational placement strategy where the project team members are physically located close to one another
• Configuration Management System - Subsystem of overall project management system.
• Conformance work - Work is done to compensate for imperfections
• Context diagram - A visual depiction of the product scope showing a business system and how people and other systems/actors interact with it
• Control Account - A mgt. control point where scope, budget, actual cost, and schedule are integrated and compared to earned value for performance measurement
• Control limits / specification limit - ?
• Data date - A point in time when the status of the project is recorded.
• Decision tree analysis - ?

PMP 5th Edition [Tools and Technique] - Part 1