planning phase

The project timeline, which includes the start date, the end date, and dates for events in

Schedule

The budget accounts for the total cost to complete the project

Budget

Searching for possible problems related to the project and planning ahead to mitigate these risks

Risk management

The first meeting in which a project team comes together to ground everyone in a shared vision, gain a shared understanding of the project's goals and scope, and to understand each person's individual roles within the team

Project kick-off meeting

Why do a kick-off meeting?

• Establish a shared vision

• Align on scope

• Build team rapport

• Ask questions and offer insights

• Set expectations

How to do meeting introductions in kick-off meeting agenda

• Most meetings start with brief introductions. You can allocate about 10 minutes for everyone in the group to introduce themselves and their roles, and if time allows, share a fun fact to help build team rapport.

• Introductions

• Team member names

• project roles

• Fun facts

How to do meeting kick-off meeting - background

• How the project came to be

• Why the project matters

• Set a shared vision

about five minutes giving an overview of the background of the project.

How to do meeting kick-off meeting - goals and scope

• spend about five minutes sharing the goals and the scope, which refers to the boundaries around a project.

• In-scope

• Out-of-scope

• Target launch date

• Milestones

How to do meeting kick-off meeting - roles

What work everyone is responsible for throughout the duration of the project. It's a good idea to spend about five minutes

How to do meeting kick-off meeting- collaboration

Shared project tools and documents

Communication expectations

You should spend about 10 minutes on this topic.

How to do meeting kick-off meeting- what comes next

set expectations and action items. you should spend about 10 minutes setting expectations with your teammates for what's coming up.

How to do meeting kick-off meeting- Questions

Gain clarity on meeting topics

Ensure the project benefits from diversity of thoughts experiences, and ideas.

15 minutes for questions from the group.

Give the order of a kick-off meeting agenda

1. Introduction

2. Background

3. Goals and scope

4. Roles

5. Collaboration

6. What Comes Next

7. Questions

Best practices to remember for kick-off meeting

• Ask a teammate to take notes on key points and action items

• After the meeting, send a follow up email that summarizes the key points and outcomes from the meeting, and any action items to the attendees

• Invite attendees to reach out if they have any additional questions

is the first meeting among the project team, stakeholders, and the project sponsor at the start of a new project or new project phase.

kick-off meeting

The purpose of a kick-off meeting is to

ground everyone in a shared vision, ensure they understand the project’s goals and scope, and make sure that they are all on the same page about their roles and responsibilities on the project. The kick-off meeting is critical to a project’s overall success. It gets the team together to align on goals and visions for the project and sets the project up for success.

What are three major project components that are worked out during the planning phase?

Schedule, budget, and risk management plan

During the kickoff meeting, which agenda item involves discussing how the project came to be and why the project matters?

Background

An important point within the project schedule that indicates progress and usually signifies the completion of a deliverable or phase of the project

milestone

An activity that needs to be accomplished within a set period of time

project task

the first step in setting a milestone is to

evaluate your project as a whole that show progress

Setting tasks can help you clearly define milestones. You can do this in two ways:

1. Top down scheduling

2. Bottom-up scheduling

In this approach, the project manager lays out the higher-level milestones, then works to break down the effort into project tasks

Top-down scheduling

In this approach, the project manager looks at all of the individual tasks that need to be completed and then rolls those tasks into manageable chunks that lead to a milestone.

Bottom-up scheduling

is an activity that needs to be accomplished within a set period of time and is assigned to one or more individuals for completion.

project task

is an important point within the project schedule that usually signifies the completion of a major deliverable.

project milestones

A tool that sorts the milestones and tasks of a project in a hierarchy, in the order they need to be completed

Work breakdown structure (WBS)

Give the 5 components of a project plan

1. Tasks

2. Milestones

3. People

4. Documentation

5. Time

A prediction of the total amount of time required to complete a task

Time Estimation

A prediction of the amount and difficulty of active work required to complete a task

Effort Estimation

What’s the difference between effort estimation and time estimation

Effort estimation differs from time estimation in that effort quantifies the amount of time it will take a person to complete work on a task

Smaller tasks that are required to complete a larger task

Sub-tasks

Extra time added to the end of a task or project to account for unexpected slowdowns or delays in work progress

Buffer

What are the 2 types of buffer?

• Task Buffer

• Project Buffer

Extra time tacked on to a specific task

Task Buffers

Extra time tacked onto the end of a project

Project buffers

For tasks that are difficult to complete or have an element of unpredictability, a project manager should add a(n) _____

task buffer/s

i used to predict the amount of time that will be required to complete a task

time estimation

The planning fallacy describes our tendency to underestimate the amount of time it will take to complete a task, as well as the costs and risks associated with that task, due to

optimism bias.

The —— describes our tendency to underestimate the amount of time it will take to complete a task, as well as the costs and risks associated with that task, due to optimism bias.

planning fallacy

is when a person believes that they are less likely to experience a negative event.

Optimism bias

The amount of work that the people or resources assigned to the project can reasonably complete in a set period of time

Capacity

Refers to the act of allocating people and resources to project tasks, and determining whether or not you have the necessary resources required to complete the work on time

Capacity planning

The list of project milestones you must reach in order to meet the project goal on schedule, as well as the mandatory tasks that contribute to the completion of each milestone

Critical path

Float refers to the amount of time you can wait to begin a task before it impacts the project schedule and threatens the project outcome.

Float

Task on the critical path should have how many float

zero

How to determine dependencies?

figure out which tasks must be completed before other tasks can start.

Calculate critical path using 2 common approaches

Forward pass

Backward pass

refers to when you start at the beginning of your project task list and add up the duration of the tasks on the critical path to the end of your project

Forward pass

is the opposite—start with the final task or milestone and move backwards through your schedule to determine the shortest path to completion

Backward pass

predicts the amount and difficulty of active work you need to complete a task.

Effort Estimation

often looks like a chart with boxes and arrows and is a graphical representation of project tasks, responsibilities, and workflow.

network diagram

Personal characteristics that help people work effectively with others

Soft skills

Soft skills for accurate estimation

• Asking the right questions

• Negotiating effectively

• Practicing empathy