ICPM

Every year thousands of projects are completed over budget, out of scope and past deadline.  Still, with each passing year, project managers continue to rush into projects without due diligence in defining the project and creating a plan for project execution.  By lightly addressing these critical components they are, in essence, failing their projects before any work has even commenced.  So how can project managers efficiently execute a project plan while at the same time meeting the deadlines and expectations of senior management?

 

Consider Costs and Benefits of the Entire System and Deliverable Lifetime

The textbook wording of this point varies, but is usually something like “Stop making decisions purely on the basis of cost.” When I read the various descriptions however, I believe the textbook title is not an adequate summary.

When Deming talks about not making decisions purely on the basis of cost, he is referring to a plant perspective and talks about the importance of having regular suppliers.

Finding the right balance of documentation and methodology can be challenging on small projects.  Here are some tips. 

I have been managing small projects for some time now.  Some of my project are really tiny, I'm talking about 8 hours of work max.  Others can be 2 week or month-long projects.  Some span several months, and then you get up into the 6 month and year plus undertakings.

The critical path is the longest path to completion in the network diagram. Activities on the critical path have no Slack or Float. The Project Time Management questions on the exam focus heavily on critical path method (CPM), and diagramming methods; the differences between these techniquees; and the appropriate circumstances for their use.

Duration includes the actual amount of time worked on an activity plus the elapsed time.

Effort is the number of workdays or work hours required to complete a task. Effort does not normally equal duration. People doing the work should help create estimates, and the PM should review them. Duration estimating is assessing the number of work periods (hours, days, weeks,) likely to be needed to complete each activity. Duration estimates always include some indication of the range of possible results, for example, 2 weeks + or – 2 days or 85% probability that the activity will take less than 3 weeks. Activity Duration Estimating: