Day 2 PMP

Review of Yesterday's Material

• Yesterday's session covered a lot, establishing the project management foundations.
• Macro environmental assessment was discussed, focusing on the project context.
• Started looking at stakeholders, defining them and emphasizing the importance of a robust upfront identification process to avoid later surprises.
• Discussed tools and techniques for stakeholder analysis.

Today's Agenda

• Picking up from yesterday, focusing on documenting stakeholder analysis.
• Framing the analysis to help write a communication plan.
• Briefly reviewing key slides from yesterday for those who had login issues.
• A reminder of scheduled breaks (top of each hour, with flexibility).

Instructor's Project Management Experience

• The instructor has experience in a wide array of business domains.
• Experience as a professor leading graduate programs in project management.
• Fifteen years in the for-profit field, including building new business models, integrating subsidiaries, and corporate strategic planning.
• Executive director of a social services agency with multiple locations and business lines, involved in grant writing and government projects, using various funding sources.
• Involved in the development and design of the current version of the PMP exam through PMI Global.

Reminders and Announcements

• Breaks will occur at the top of each hour (between 10 minutes before and 5 minutes after).
• Breaks are important to step away from the screen and refresh.
• Breaks might start up to 10 minutes early for a natural stopping point; can extend 5 minutes past the hour to finish a topic.
• Breaks during the 12:00 p.m. hour may be adjusted for length as needed.

Communication Methods

• Two communication methods: chat (informal) and Q&A (for mentoring team).
• Chat: Informal communication; participation is optional; links and info may be posted occasionally.
• Q&A: Mentoring team (Colin and Dave Robichow) answers technical, resource, curriculum-related questions.
• Curriculum related questions go in the q and a; instructor will monitor Q&A but might not answer all questions live; answers will be provided in due time.

Attendance and Replays

• Can miss up to one day (more than 15 minutes) out of the five-day boot camp.
• Keep track of login/logoff times to ensure missed time is within the limit.
• If missing more than one day, can access other boot camp schedules (5-day or 8-week) via a provided URL.
• Replays are available at a specified URL, requiring a password.
• Replays might take 24-48 hours to process and post due to large file sizes.
• Replays can be watched as often as needed for up to one year. Note you should not take a year to prepare for the PMP.

Recap Questions and Answers

• Question: How much study time, on average, should a PMP candidate plan on?
  • Answer: Depending on experience, plan for about eight hours a week for two months. The number of hours to study should be approximately 80 hours total, with the duration of study varying based on individual circumstances.
• Question: What are the four characteristics that define a project?
  • Answer: (1) It is time-bound, (2) it drives change, (3) it creates something unique, and (4) it enables value creation.
• Question: What are the three types of project management offices (PMOs) on a maturity model?
  • Answer: Supportive, controlling, and directing.
• Question: What is the agile equivalent of a PMO?
  • Answer: Agile Center of Excellence, which resembles a supportive PMO.
• Question: What is the order of magnitude between portfolios, projects, and programs?
  • Answer: Projects (smallest), programs (group of projects), and portfolios (group of programs).
• Question: What type of organizational structure has a dedicated project team?
  • Answer: Project-oriented structure.

Steering Committees vs. PMOs

• A steering committee is a governance structure.
• A PMO concerns templates, best practices, coaching, oversight, and coordination.
• Multiple steering committees can exist, but typically only one PMO.
• PMOs can be supportive, controlling, or directive based on experience levels.

The Power of Tailoring

• Applying the right method, approach, tool, technique, or theory to the situation.
• Customizing the approach to the context of the project.
• This is a crucial skill for all project managers.

Enterprise Environmental Factors (EEFs) vs. Organizational Process Assets (OPAs)

• EEFs: Factors in the environment that affect the project (e.g., culture, technology, location).
  • They just are, may be assets or liabilities.
• OPAs: Internal processes and documentation that can be leveraged (e.g., templates, procedures, guidelines).
  • Think if it as documentation that is from my company.

Initiating Phase: Engage Stakeholders and Learning Objectives

• Two lessons are in the initiating phase: engage our stakeholders.
• We are in lesson 2.
• Learning Objectives include to evaluate the influences of project stakeholders plus tailor approaches of methodologies and lifecycles.

Stakeholder Analysis: Authority, Interest, Influence

• Stakeholder analysis involves understanding authority, interest, and influence levels.
• Authority: How much power does the stakeholder have (frontline worker, supervisor, manager, director, vice president?).
• Interest/Concern: How much concern do they have for the project?
• Influence/Attitude/Impact: How likely are they to drive change or influence the project's success.
• The goal is to effectively communicate with stakeholders based on their needs.

Stakeholder Mapping/Grids (2x2 or 3x3)

• Stakeholder Mapping is used to organize stakeholders based on various criteria to customize communication plans.
• Don't use names: use categories or types of stakeholders, which then have their own distribution list and communication plan using various matrices.
• professional associations, media, environmental groups and social justice warriors: Monitor.
  • Low interest and Authority.
  • If they engage, we will respond.
• Subject Matter Experts/Team: Keep Informed.
  • Excellent communication is needed which means easy access using constructed access folders out there on share drives, ect.
  • High interest, low authority; requires excellent communication access.
  • All team members are stakeholders, but not all stakeholders are team members.

Communications and Upline Reporting Governance

• Managerial Directors/VP: Keep Satisfied/Informed.
  • High authority.
  • Marginal to low interest requiring distribution lists and reports
• The Governance Group/Steering Committee: Manage Closely.
  • High influence.
  • High interest.
  • Use a unique communications delivery matrix depending on which ones each stakeholder is aligned with.

Stakeholder Influence and Communication Plans

• Stakeholder might be talking to others and not to you directly.
• Consider personality type when analyzing Stakeholders.
  • Create categories with communication methods for different personality groupings with communication plans of who gets what report when and how.
  • Ie. keen observers with opinions communication plan would need to create an access folder.
• Stakeholders shouldn't be more than one grouping to maintain your matrix.
• Project managers influence without authority, facilitating neutral decisions and creating ownership.

Office Politics: How People Relate To Each Other

• Understanding how people relate to each other.
• Know who influences who.
• Learn who gets along with who.
• Understanding who's talking to who.
• Who's got communication channels going?
• Understand Stakeholders and how they communicate through good listening and watching.

The Salience Model for Stakeholder Competency

• The salience model is for finding the right product owner.
• Urgency: Make sure someone can treat your project with urgency and priority.
• Legitimacy: Someone close enough to your work to be able to make good decisions.
• Power: When they call meetings, people come.

Key Stakeholders and Over Enthusiasm

• Be wary of Super Champions or someone all hyped up.
• Reiterate the plan requirements to your project stakeholders.
• Show your business case documents and point out the requirements and objective bullet points to each one.
• Be careful of zealous people, hijacking to take over with your resources, dollars and even the team to get their ways done. Its' known to happen out there.

Measures and Questions for Tailoring When Lacking Technical Knowledge

• Coach and mentor up, to make a deep dive conversation with a more skilled individual. Don't be surprised to coach and mentor up with a higher person to a lower degree to create a more transparent project owner.
• Proactively make a set aside to go over the project.
• Always give them a proactive plan to see things all the way thru.

Communications and Interpersonal Skills

• Have open and reliable communication methods/interpersonal skills.
• You have more power than you know.
• Leverage Interpersonal skills, communication and a wide array of tools to influence without authority.
• You are neutral, therefore serving others in being available for communication.

Communication Preferences for Access and Surveys

• Start by figuring out the current state vs desired future state.
• Access what communication methods you should use.
• Survey information and questionnaires on what each person is responsible for with all of the different documents. Almost like a sushi menu.
• What ones they want copied or notified.
• Your job is to create the best survey you can and distribute it so people have the right stuff.
• Create a document that can be leveraged to help produce and manage communications.
• Distribute and manage with the right people by pushing communications to their folders.
• Try very hard when possible to be able to avoid meetings.

Means of Active Interaction and Communication

• Push Communication: Whenever there is a group of people to push something through and have someone ignore the whole thing with other things like a fire system.
  
  • Ie. I'm pushing this to you and knowing who it is.
• Pull Communications: Open a file so people could pull it if they wanted from a drive and just put links.
  
• Ie. Put it out on a shared drive.
  
  • I'm sending it to you with a real time link and it can be brief and they're able to access.
    
  • This is not obligated for you to scroll down if you don't want.
    
• Real time interactive: Whenever it's an exchange.
  
  • Ie: zoom/teleconference/webinar.
    
• Push, Pull, Interaction has been in the test question for years, making it an important thing to remember.

How Urgent You Should Address To a Stakeholder

• The so what to knowing which method to communicate to someone.
• Important to know depending what is urgent from communication which way to approach with stakeholders.
• Create a survey so that to then build your communication plan.
• Communication to a certain quadrant for stakeholder may be as simple as distribution lists.

Difficult Communications and Models

• Communication is very essential with stakeholder engagement and therefore must have all channels and directions accounted for.
• Need to have an understanding of things while choosing one, with factors taken into consideration in the background.
• Need to take the situation of other issues into consideration during a communications model.

Global Environment Cross Cultural Communications Model

• You have to be analyzing biases in other cultures.
• Encode a thought in a good way to think of multiple people with words/ numbers through ways such as gigs or songs.
• Transmit is when you find the right medium.
• I know it comes thru potentially encounter that noise to break between things such as the current time and other factors such as if you were sent angry.
  
  • In order to take care instead of sending an email, turn to curiosity then make it a series of questions and don't be accusatory from judgment.
    
• Decode and receive it thru your own biases.
• Acknowledge simple way that says 'uh huh' vs. Feedback or encoding way and the next thought then is shown through.
  
• This graphic has been on the PMPK for decades as it's used in testing; if on test, the chart elements will be replaced.

Problematic Actions and Interactions

• When you can't get managers that want to do real time discussions and wasted time, that most are not involved and can't do with other types of meetings to advance.
  
• A suggestion would be to provide it in advance to proactively help but if it does need another conversation then it can be more pro active.
  
• Do not allow someone else to stop you from succeeding at the professional level; make judgment calls on the best for your time.
  
• If their work has stopped due to not proper meetings from another is also a problem.
• If another needs the decision made it'll have to be you, with prioritization negotiation etc to move the team along.

Coaching and Mentoring Key Decisions

• In a multicultural environment to take a good approach it's more simple with less slang. Show charts/illustrations with openings for the ability to reach out from someone on team.
  
• Simplified the language approach.

Stakeholder Engagement Assessment Matrix to Assess How Engagement is Being Influenced

• Tool made to Communicate Subjective Situations.

• Use this in project-sponsor private meetings with concerns to what's the current vs desired state.

• Talk one to one in these sessions on each person, never sharing this exact document, then go back the next time with another paper. Don't take to the table if not private.

• By making a list of 1,2,3 the number's never are correlated the same depending on how each point goes, they correlate in where they're in or needed in the matrix. This isn't what the matrix does.

Forming Your Team to Complete Tasks

• Because you can't do everything on a large project yourself you need a team to make projects happen; take this into consideration.
  
• This goes in resources management Plan.
  
• Is to design, develop, and run a team.
• To lead the team using an agile or PMP. With making plans with the right requirements.
  
• Then the team is in shape and working together after with support assistance and servant leadership to then become sufficient.
  
• Always understand where to allocate the project in a certain setting.
  
• The Agile framework creates for a team self organizing, self managing.

Tuckman's Theory of Group Dynamics & Forming Team Norms