Project Management Final Exam

Risk Management Plan

An overall plan used to outline risks and the strategies used to manage them.

Risk Register

A formal record listing all project risks, explaining the nature of the risk and management of the risk.

Document Analysis

Involves reviewing existing project documentation, which may include project plans and assumptions

Stakeholder Analysis 

Determining stakeholders risk tolerance.

Value Chain Analysis

A strategic process for breaking down a business into its key activities to understand how they create value for customers.

Triggers

Event that serves as an early warning of risk.

Sensitivity Analysis

A technique used to examine the potential impact of specific risks to a project.

EMV Analysis (Expected monetary value analysis)

A statistical technique that captures the average value of potential projects by analyzing the likelihood of possible project outcomes as well as each outcomes financial consequences.

Decision Tree Analysis

A diagramming technique used to evaluate courses of action in terms of potential cost and benefits revolve around other courses of action.

Simulation

A process of evaluating different scenarios and their effects on the project.

Monte Carlo Analysis

Values for uncertain input variables are randomly generated over and over to achieve a distribution of possible project outcomes.

Risk Mitigation

A risk response strategy in which steps are taken to mitigate project risk.

Risk Transference 

A risk response strategy designed to avoid project risks

Risk Acceptance

A risk response strategy in which risks are simply accepted and contingency strategies are planned.

Risk Escalation

A risk response strategy that involves assigning the response to a higher organizational

Examples of quality or performance risk

Performance goals that cannot be easily met, changing industry standards.

What is risk probability concerned with?

The likelihood that a certain risk will occur and can be measured on a scale from very low to very high.

Turnkey systems

Off-the-shelf software that cannot be modified to meet the specific, individual needs of an organization.

Enterprise resource planning system (ERP)

A system that integrates individual traditional business functions into a series of modules so that a single transaction occurs seamlessly within a single information system rather than several separate systems.

Best-of-Breed Strategy 

a strategy of using different software products from different sources (including in house development) to capitalize on the strength of different products.

Fixed-Price Contract 

A type of contract specifying a fixed price for a product/service.

Cost-Reimbursable Contract

A type of contract that involves payment for the actual cost of the product plus a fee that represents the vendors profits.

Time and materials contract

A type of contract where vendors provide an hourly rate and estimate the amount of time and materials required.

Direct Costs 

Those incurred by the vendor in providing the product or service.

Indirect Costs

Also called overhead costs, are part of the vendors cost of doing business and involve things such as salaries and managing executives. Typically billed as a percentage of direct costs.

Procurement Management Plan

The process of determining which project needs can be best met by external acquisition and planning how procurement activities are performed.

Statement of Work (SOW)

Document prepared for potential vendors that describes the service or product being sought.

Weighting System

A method used to quantitatively compare proposals that are received from potential vendors.

Screening System

A system using minimum values for one or more performance criteria to eliminate proposals that do not meet the minimum values.

Contract Negotiation

Discussions between the buyer and seller to clarify and reach agreement on the structure and the requirements of the contract.

Control Procurements 

The process through which the project organization works with the vendor for the duration of the contract.

When should companies turn to IT services firms?

When task requires custom support and the system can’t be built internally. Internal staff may be needed, depending on the application.

When should companies turn to packaged software producers?

When supported task is generic. Some IS and user staff to define requirements and evaluate packages.

When should companies turn to enterprise-wide solutions?

For complete systems that cross functional boundaries. Some internal staff may be necessary, but mostly consultants.

When should companies turn to open-source software?

When the supported task is generic but cost is an issue, as well as when companies want to have flexibility to view and modify the source code. Some IS and user staff to define software requirements and evaluate packages.

The processes in project procurement knowledge area.

Plan Procurement Management, Conduct Procurements, Control Procurements.

Key technique used in procurement planning.

Make-Or-Buy Analysis: A technique to determine whether a product or service should be produced in-house or procured from an outside vendor.

Most common procurement document.

Request for Proposal (RFP): A document provided to vendors to ask them to propose a solution to a specific problem related to your project.

Project Execution

The process of carrying out the project plan to accomplish the required work.

Project Kickoff Meeting

A ceremonial meeting marking the beginning of a project in a very public and memorable way.

Silver Bullet Syndrome

A problem that occurs when developers believe a new and usually untried technology is all that is needed to cure the ills of any development project.

Feature Creep

The tendency of systems requirements to change over the lifetime of the development project.

Characteristics of managing change

Dealing with change requests and project execution

Project Control

The process of monitoring and measuring project progress and influencing the project plan to account for any discrepancies between planned progress and actual progress.

Project Closure

Final implementation and training related to the project, acceptance, and signoff of the project, and archiving of the projects results and lessons learned.

philosophy of project control

The management style the manager employs in following a plan and dealing with problems or changes in the plan.

Standard Operating Procedures

Activities and reporting methods instituted during the course of the project to monitor its progress and to provide reports for project managers and stakeholders.

Change Control System

A formal, documented process that describes the procedures by which the project and product scope can be changed.

Cost Baseline

A time-phased budget that is used to measure and monitor cost performance.

End Report

Document that contains a record of the project management techniques employed over the course of the project, surveys, and outstanding items that still need to be resolved.

Pareto’s Law 

or the 80/20 rule, which states that 80% of problems are the result of 20% of causes.

Most important levers for controlling projects

Communication, Participation, Analysis and Action, and Commitment.

Earned Value Management

Performing this at project-level allows you to gauge the overall health of the entire project.

Post-implementation Review

A document that is usually completed 6-12 months after implementation as a check on whether the outcomes of the project were as expected, whether ongoing costs are as expected, and whether implementing the product yields net benefits.

Project Management Risks

Risks associated with poor project planning and poor use of recognized project management processes.