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Developing Effective Work Breakdown Structures The Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) is an often misunderstood and underappreciated tool of project management.  I would argue that it is a critical piece of the foundation of any project management methodology.  Many misconceptions exist about what a WBS is, how it is used and why it is such an important part of the project management process. A WBS is a deliverable-oriented , hierarchical grouping of the work to be executed by the project team to accomplish the project objectives and create the required deliverables.  It organizes and defines the total scope of the project . Each descending level represents an increasingly detailed definition of the project work (ie decomposition). No reference to WHO is doing the work No reference to WHEN the work is being done No reference to HOW the work is being done Rules for WBS attributes: Use NOUNS and ADJECTIVES to describe the work No dependencies, durations, resource assignment...

Tip…Are you a PMO Project Management Process Are you a PMO Project Manager ? If you are, then you can use MPMM to create and run a successful project management office (PMO). Every PMO requires a solid project management process, as a framework for executing, monitoring and controlling projects. By adopting MPMM for your PMO environment, you will gain all of the processes, project management templates and practical examples needed to deliver projects, train staff and report on progress. Within the “Tutorial for PMO Managers” included in the MPMM Professional Edition, you will learn how to customize the MPMM project management process for your particular project environment, train staff in your project management process and implement this methodology across all of your projects. The MPMM Support Team

Project Management Process Help Q: How does the “Recent Pages” feature work in this project management process ? A: Well, as you navigate the project management process included in this project management software, this project process keeps a record of each page you view. It stores it in the database so that you can return to any of the more recent pages viewed. This feature is most useful if you are navigating the project management process quickly and you’re not keeping track of where you are in your project plan. You can then use the “recent pages” option under the file menu, to return to any of the most recent pages you have visited.   The MPMM Support Team

Issues are more than just common problems. They are problems that meet specific criteria. An issue is a formally-defined problem that willimpede the progress of the project and cannot be totally resolved by the project manager and project team without outside help. The processes used to manage issues can be simpler or more rigorous depending on the size of the project. Use the following process to manage issues on large projects. Identify the problem and document on the Issues Form Solicit potential issues from any project stakeholders, including the project team, clients, sponsors, etc. The issue can be surfaced through verbal or written means, but it must be formally documented using an Issues Form. Determine if the problem is really an issue The project manager determines whether the problem can be resolved or whether it should be classified as an issue. Enter the issue into the Issues Log If it is an issue, the project manager enters the issue into the Issues Log. Determine...

One of the characteristics of a project is that it is a temporary endeavor. In other words there is a start and end-date. This seems simple enough until you start to try to define exactly what these dates mean. Is it after the Project Charter is signed? Is it when the schedule is finalized? There are no universally recommended definition for either date. It depends on each organization and whether there are any implications for choosing one alternative over another. Here are some of the options for identifying the project start-date. The need/idea is generated. The definition you choose can depend on what the implication is. You may choose this definition of project start date if your company is trying to focus on the time it takes between when an idea is generated until the idea is fulfilled. Your company may be concerned that it takes too long to commercialize good ideas. If your company wants to minimize this total time span between idea and fulfillment, you might go with an early...

Mistake #3: Not Keeping Schedule Up-to-Date Many project managers create an initial schedule but then don't do a good job of updating the schedule during the project. There are trouble signs that the schedule is not being updated. The project manager cannot tell exactly what work is remaining to complete the project. The project manager is unsure whether they will complete the project on-time. The project manager does not know what the critical path of activities is. Team members are not sure what they need to work on next (or even what they should be working on now). It is a problem when the project manager does not really understand the progress made to date and how much work is remaining. When this happens, the project team is not utilized efficiently on the most critical activities. There are a couple other common scheduling problems. Infrequent updates. Sometimes the project manager updates the schedule at lengthy intervals. For instance, updating the schedule every...

We all have many wants in our lives but only a handful of needs—food, clothing, and shelter being the top three. Similarly, companies may want many things, but really only find a few things absolutely necessary for survival. A Project Management Office (PMO) should be at top of that list of priorities, along with sales, profits, and growth. Read on for the: Six Reasons You Need a PMO Consistent Methodology – The bane of many organizations is when departments and groups develop home-grown ways of completing projects. Some processes may work beautifully, some may work terribly; the point is that none are consistent with each other or across the organization. You need a common project management methodology. A PMO allows everyone in the company to speak the same language and follow consistent processes. Economies of Scale – It’s not uncommon for a company to have a half dozen or so timesheet or project management applications within a company, each with its own financial cost for i...

By using a number of project management process groups to assist the project manager in the next business venture, more can be accomplished in less time. The best way to utilize members of your project team for this application is to look at the specialties each of them possesses. This way, they can make the biggest contribution to the number of tasks you have to complete. Each of your project management process groups must have specific training or experience in the area to assist you. At times, you can even go outside your project team if qualified personnel are available within your organization. It all depends on the size of your organization, along with its standing procedures that are to be followed. A good example of using project management process groups is the inclusion into the cost management process group of an accountant. They are the ones that have to look at all of the figures for your organization. They will know the patterns and what the stakeholders are willing to...

The manner in which you use your project management process groups will determine just how useful they are at contributing towards your next business venture.  These are specialists in your project team that make significant contributions to the project planning process. This allows the documentation of the business venture to proceed swiftly and accurately, so the execution phase of the business venture can commence as quickly as possible. You can have a total of 10 project management process groups . This is one for each of the separate project processes that are involved in undertaking a business venture. Each of these processes has specific elements of the project that must be thought about and planned appropriately.  By assigning specialists to each of the different processes, you can help to ensure you will have the required details included in each of the project process documents you need to fulfill the goals and scope of your next business venture. The lists of the different ...

The main purpose of a project management process is to define the exact tasks and actions that will be taking place for the goals and the scope of the project to be achieved. In all, there are nine separate but equally important processes that are required for a project to be competitive in the global market arena. Each one will also need to be created and tuned for the organization that is using it, along with the current economic conditions of the market place. To develop and document a project management process from scratch is a daunting task that is also time consuming. For these reasons, most project managers of today use a project management tool to assist them. These are the digital templates that are now available from many different software manufacturers. These templates are just like an outline where all the manager has to do is to fill in the designated areas with the data that corresponds to their current business venture. With the use of the project management template...

By applying project solutions to your business venture to help you solve your problems or deal with issues is a productive process for improving your success rate. For many this means finding a solution to a problem after it has already impacted the project. To help keep your business venture on track and moving along, many of the project solutions available to you can now help you to prevent the problems from arising in the first place. This is where the project management templates can assist you. There are templates for both risk identification and resolution along with dealing with issues. By preventing the need for the implementation of project solutions during the course of your project will make a positive contribution to the steady progression of your project. This will allow you to stay on schedule and in budget more of the times over the execution phase of your project. This will increase the success rate of your projects which will always be a favorable sign to the stakeh...

If you are using a project solution , that generally means there was a problem to begin with that needed to be solved. To avoid this type of situation, the use of the proper methodology for your project could be the answer. This solves many of the problems that have occurred in the past when a business undertakes a business venture without a set path to follow. By using a methodology for your project solution , a description of all the tasks that will be involved in your project will be documented so all your project team has to do is follow them. It is like having a set of instruction on how to make money on the path you have decided to follow. Not only does the project solution of having a methodology set in place the tasks that need to be accomplished, but in what phase of the project’s lifecycle they should occur and in what order. This allows the project team to follow the documents with little to no time between the tasks as down time. This allows for your team to be better at t...

When you utilize project management process groups to develop your documentation for your next project, time and money can be saved. This is an advisable approach since there are nine different processes each project must have documented before it can move to the execution phase of its project lifecycle. The use of project management process groups will also allow you to use experts for each process that can add depth and details to them. This is one of the better ways to help your project avoid the bottlenecks that sometime occur during the execution phase of the project. These bottlenecks are formed in many instances because of confusion from the team members when they attempt to follow the process as written because a detail has been left out. The breakup of the project management process groups can be in time, change and tender as all separate. The ones that you might think about combining are risks and issues, quality and acceptance along with cost and procurement. The last thre...

Using project solutions is one of the most useful tools a project manager can utilize to solve any number of problems that arise during a project. This tool can be in the form of a functional methodology that can solve your production problem. As project solutions the methodology of the lifecycle program provides the project manager with numerous tools to use in their project. The exact tool to be used will be decided upon by which part of the project you are in. For the planning stages of the project there are project management templates. These are digital outlines of the nine different processes that make up a project. These too have tools included in them that allow the manger to just fill in the data and graphs and charts will be created in the areas of the process that are common place. Other advantages of using a lifecycle methodology as your project solutions are the inclusion of descriptions and helpful forms for every phase of your project. This will have all the activities...

The creation of a project management process can be done in an efficient manner when the project manager has the right tools available to them. To have such a process documented in the fastest and most accurate manner possible the use of project management templates is now the most common avenue to follow. For each project the project management process will be present to help manage and deal with the different items that a project manager must handle during the course of the project. These items include time management, issue management, cost management, tender management, quality management, acceptance management, change management, communications management and risk management. With each project management process there must be a documented plan so not only the project manager has a path to follow when a problem arises, but also the project team. These sets of documents need to be created and for consistency purpose along with accuracy the project management templates are used. W...

Being a business consultant as a profession is not for the inexperienced or a person fresh out of college. This career is created after a person has acquired the knowledge and expertise of their particular field that is in demand in the business world. The reason a business consultant is in demand by the business world is to fill a need that is not present within a particular organization. This is now common place today with most business organizations running a lean methodology approach to their staff. This constitutes the downsizing on their manpower to the point that a professional consultant will be needed from time to time. In the last couple of decades the most common type of business consultant was to help with this leaning out of the staff or downsizing. This is when the business consultants were made up of human resource professionals and project managers that knew how to make the most out of a limited supply of resources. The human resource business consultant was there to...

A project process needs to be documented so the project team can follow the correct path to achieve the process’s goals. In a project, the different processes that outline the required task that needed to be accomplished are the instructions to the project team. Without this document, the project team would have to rely on only verbal commands from the project manager in order to do their assigned tasks. This documentation of each project process must be completed before the project moves onto the execution phase of the project’s lifecycle. Involved in most projects are 11 different processes in which have the need to be documented. This task of documentation generally falls on the shoulders of the project manager. To complete the documentation of each project process in a timely manner, most project managers make use of the project management tools that are generally at their disposal. The one that makes the greatest contribution at this point in a project are the project managemen...

The need to understand the entire project management process by the project managers of the world is important if their deliverables are to compete on the global market place with an edge over the competition. This way you can manage the entire process from its initiation to the successful conclusion of your projects lifecycle. The sum of a project management process is of all the components that make it. This will include in the global projects the Project management processes of Time management process, Cost management process, Quality management process, Change management process, Risk management process, Issue management process, Tender management process, Procurement management process, Acceptance management process and Communications management process. The vast number of formal documents, procedures and forms that comprise the project management process is the leading reason so many project mangers look for a project management tools to assist them with this daunting task. Th...

The new business consultant does not always perform the same duties as they did 10 to 20 years ago. This is an area of business that has changed the face of how many large corporations do business. There is still the use of a business consultant that will be hired to come into a business to only solve a problem that the staff find either too difficult to handled or they lack the qualifications to handle it properly. This has always been pretty straight forward and common. Once the task is completed and to situation resolved, the business consultant is then done with their duties and will be free to help another business or corporation. The new type of business consultant is hired on a longer term bases than their counterparts brought in for the completion of just one task. Today the common problem is not a task is too difficult and needs a specialist, but they just need more manpower. For many companies the business consultant is a great way to try out new and fresh talent before makin...

Each individual project process is a foundation on which each component of your project is built upon. The sounder this foundation is, the better possibility of a successful project being the end result. To understand all of the different processes takes time and experience to understand their details fully. While each project process has its value and is necessary for the completion of a project, there are some that have a higher level of importance than others. By properly managing time, cost and the quality of the product, a project manager can regulate the success of their project in a more efficient manner. These are the truly most important processes in a project. If any one of them are not planned correctly or executed in the right manner, the project has little to no chance of being a success. Just because a project process is not at the highest level of importance does not mean it should be neglected. It is true that every risk that could possibly encounter a project will n...