S5 PMP

Session Overview

  • Welcome to session five of month three, step eight of the military PMP road map.
  • Review of previous week's content and introduction to the current session.
  • Accountability check: Status of PMP applications.
  • Poll on completion of week five.
  • Introduction of Susan for the session content.

Budget Planning Techniques

  • Question 1: Early-stage budget estimation.
    • Focus on determining the cost for the current stage.
    • Correct Answer: Rolling wave planning.
    • Explanation:
      • Rolling wave planning is suitable for near-term horizons.
      • Life cycle costing is for the entire project life cycle.
      • Cost of delay focuses on the cost of waiting.
      • Value engineering balances cost, function, and quality.
    • Rolling wave planning can be used in both agile and predictive project management.
  • Question 2: Budgetary allocation for risk.
    • Understanding the use of reserves without affecting the project's baseline.
    • Correct Answer: Contingency reserves.
    • Explanation:
      • Contingency reserves are for addressing risks if they occur.
      • Cost baseline is for the entire project and doesn't include risk coverage.
      • Project Manager has authority and control over contingency reserves.
      • Management reserves are controlled by management.
      • Bonus dollars often come from management reserves.
  • Question 3: Ensuring expenditures align with financial resources.
    • Focus on aligning the project plan with available funds.
    • Correct Answer: Funding limit reconciliation.
    • Explanation:
      • Cost aggregation sums up estimated costs to determine the cost baseline.
      • Incremental delivery breaks up the scope for better management but doesn't ensure alignment.
  • Question 4: Precise budget estimation.
    • Determining the total budget with a narrow range of variance.
    • Correct Answer: Definitive estimate.
    • Explanation:
      • Rough order of magnitude estimates have a wide range of variance (e.g., -25% to +75%).
      • Activity-based costing estimates a work package.
      • Bottoms-up estimating is generally considered the most accurate.
      • Definitive estimate has a narrow range of variance (e.g., -5% to +10%).
      • S curve is a tool for tracking cost over time cumulatively.

Risk Management Planning Techniques

  • Question 1: Document for identifying, assessing, and responding to risk.
    • Looking for a structured approach to managing risk.
    • Correct Answer: Risk management plan.
    • Explanation:
      • The risk register captures identified risks.
      • The contingency plan outlines risk responses.
      • The risk breakdown structure categorizes risks.
  • Question 2: Prioritizing risks based on likelihood and potential effects.
    • Focus on likelihood of occurrence and potential impact.
    • Correct Answer: Probability impact matrix.
    • Explanation:
      • Probability impact matrix helps prioritize risks and identify the highest risks.
      • Qualitative risk analysis is narrative based and subjective.
      • Quantitative risk analysis involves numerical analysis.
  • Question 3: Developing specific alternative plans.
    • Prepare an alternative plan for when risks materialize.
    • Correct Answer: Contingency planning.
    • Explanation:
      • Contingency planning involves specific alternative plans if identified risks occur.
      • Risk response planning is a broader process of identifying and scoring risk.
      • Fallback plan is used only if the original contingency plan doesn't work.
  • Question 4: Identifying newly introduced risks due to chosen solutions.
    • New risks that brought by the solution for the project.
    • Correct Answer: Secondary risk.
    • Explanation:
      • Secondary risks are introduced by the chosen solution.
      • Residual risks remain after contingency plans.
      • Inherent risks exist before any controls or mitigation efforts.

Quality Planning Techniques

  • Question 1: Aligning with the organization's commitment to quality.
    • Referencing a document that is based on the organization's commitment to quality.
    • Correct Answer: Quality policy.
    • Explanation:
      • Quality policy aligns with the organization's commitment to quality.
      • The quality management plan details specific quality procedures.
  • Question 2: Ensuring understanding of strict industry requirements.
    • Compliance with mandatory and legal penalties
    • Correct Answer: Regulations.
    • Explanation:
      • Regulations provide strict industry requirements with legal penalties.
      • Quality metrics measure compliance.
      • Standards are best practices, not legal requirements.
      • Benchmarking compares performance to others.
  • Question 3: Agreement on standards between parties.
    • Establish quality standards between producers and payers.
    • Correct Answer: Quality standards.
    • Explanation:
      • Quality standards are agreed upon by producers and payers.
      • Quality metrics measure how well the standards are met.
      • Quality policy is unique to the organization.
      • The process improvement plan is for improving processes, not contracts.
  • Question 4: Ensuring that the mandatory and legal regulations are met.
    • Meeting the projects requirements for regulations.
    • Correct Answer: Plan.
    • Explanation:
      • The proper planning ensure that all regulations are met.

Integration Planning and Managing Complexity

  • Question 1: Quickly identifying and addressing failures.
    • Implementing a strategy that addresses issues quickly.
    • Correct Answer: Fail fast.
    • Explanation:
      • Fail fast strategy implements plans and tests them fast. Then evaluate after metrics are reported from the initiative.
      • Fail safe is a fallback position that no harm will be done.
      • Resilience is building a project to take impacts from the risks being identified.
      • Tailoring picking the right tool for the context of the projext.
  • Question 2: Minimizing the negative impacts of uncertainty.
    • Building the project to minimize uncertainty and potential damage.
    • Correct Answer: Resilience.
    • Explanation:
      • Resilience to build a project to have the ability to take an impact and still be stable.
      • Adaptability is to pivot and not take on change fatigue and stay rolling with the punches
  • Question 3: Reducing interdependencies in a complex project.
    • Reducing the dependencies that are within the project.
    • Correct Answer: Decoupling.
    • Explanation:
      • Decoupling separate things to plan out the components.
      • Redundancy builds a second system that is dependent on the first system.
      • Failsafe makes sure that you have a second system that will back up if there's a fail.
      • Simulations shows the interdependencies.

Key Concepts and Tools

  • Quality Tools: Plan Do Check Act, Kaizen, Six Sigma.
  • Managing Complexity: Simulations, Redundant Systems.
  • Understanding the difference between adaptability and resilience.
  • Change Management Plan.

Next Week's Study Plan

  • Week six study guide is available.

Feedback and Wrap-up

  • Poll for session feedback.
  • Discussion on session objectives.
  • Appreciation and acknowledgments.
  • Announcement of next session.