Blog Number 8

In my most recent class in project management we talked about Procurement Management. What is procurement management? Procurement means acquiring goods and/or services from an outside source. And Project procurement management means to Acquire goods and services for a project from outside the performing organization.
Some processes included in Project procurement management are:

• Planning purchases and acquisitions: Determining what to procure, when, and how.
• Planning contracting: Describing requirements for the products or services desired from the procurement and identifying potential sources or sellers.
• Requesting seller responses: Obtaining information, quotes, bids, offers, or proposals from sellers, as appropriate.
• Selecting sellers: Choosing from among potential suppliers through a process of evaluating potential sellers and negotiating the contract.
• Administering the contract: Managing the relationship with the selected seller.
• Closing the contract: Completing and settling each contract, including resolving any open items.

Why would outsourcing be a good thing to do? Here are some reasons for outsourcing:

• To reduce both fixed and recurrent costs.
• To allow the client organization to focus on its core business.
• To access skills and technologies.
• To provide flexibility.
• To increase accountability.

In class there was also a discussion about the all around love for contracts. However I believe some contracts to be a great asset, as it is a mutually binding agreement that obligates the selling to provide the specified products or services and obligates the buyer to pay for them. This makes it so one side doesn't get "screwed over" by making both sides fair. Contracts show clarity to the responsibilities and focus on key deliverables for a given project. Due to contracts being legally binding, there is more accountability for delivering the work as stated in the contract.

And just to finish off want to talk about the types of contracts that are used in different situations such as:

• Fixed price or lump sum contracts: Involve a fixed total price for a well-defined product or service.
• Cost reimbursable contracts: Involve payment to the seller for direct and indirect costs.
• Time and material contracts: Hybrid of both fixed price and cost reimbursable contracts, often used by consultants.
• Unit price contracts: Require the buyer to pay the seller a predetermined amount per unit of service.

One single contract can actually include all four of these categories, if it would make sense for that particular procurement.

Blog Number 7

Recently in class we've talked a lot about quality. What is quality, and why is it important?

First what is project quality management?
-Project quality management ensures that the project will satisfy the needs of which is was undertaken such as a client that your working for. Quality is very important as if there is little or no quality in the project that one is working on that the project will loose customer trust and get dissatisfaction.

To make sure quality is all in working order you need to follow these processes.
Quality planning: Identifying which quality standards are relevant to the project and how to satisfy them.
Quality assurance: Periodically evaluating overall project performance to ensure the project will satisfy the relevant quality standards.
Quality control: Monitoring specific project results to ensure that they comply with the relevant quality standards.

Quality Planning: This implies the ability to anticipate situations and prepare actions to bring about the desired outcome. With quality planning it is very important to percent defects by Selecting proper materials, training and indoctrinating people in quality, and planning out a process that ensures the appropriate outcome.
Quality Assurance: Quality assurance includes all the activities related to satisfying the relevant quality standards for a project. Another goal of quality assurance is continuous quality improvement. Benchmarking is a way that you can generate ideas for quality improvement by comparing specific project practices or products within or outside the performing organization. Also a quality audit is a structured review of specific quality management activities that help identify lessons learned that could improve performance on current or future projects. Auditing would be a great way to ensure quality assurance.
Quality Control: The main outputs of quality control are:

• Acceptance decisions
• Rework
• Process adjustments

Some tools and techniques that can be used are: Pareto analysis, statistical sampling, six sigma and quality control charts.

Blog Number 6

Some more I've learned in Project Management.
I've finally am able to remember what the nine bodies of knowledge that are identified by the (PMI) project management institute. And they are:

• IntegrationScope
• Time
• Human Resources
• Cost
• Risk
• Communications
• Procurement
• Planning

I know now how to complete a "Three Point Estimate" for a project. I'll show you what I mean: "Say that the project optimistically can finish in 3 days, most likely will finish in 7 days but, could take as long as 17 days." Below is the equation you would use.

                                           3+ (4 * 7) +17     =     48     =     8 Days
                                                  6                        6

Here's just a few other bits that I have learned over the past few classes.

-A Stakeholder analysis is a project management tool that can be used to help manage relationships with different people involved in a project.
-The main reason why firm incest in information technology projects is actually because they want to support explicit business objectives.
-The project charter is the document formally recognizes the existence of a project.
-The WBS is the main output of the scope definition process and is also an outcome-oriented analysis of the work involved in a project that defines the total scope of the project.
-You must make sure someone has completed the first draft from Finish - Start in order to start editing a technical report.

Blog Number 5

Cost Estimation Tools and Techniques

Analogous or top-down estimates: Use the actual cost of a previous, similar project as the basis for estimating the cost of the current project.

Bottom-Up estimate: Involve estimating individual work items or activities and summing them to get a project.

Parametric modeling: Using project characteristics (parameters) in a mathematical model to estimate project costs.

Computerized tools: Tools, such as speadsheets and project management software, that can make working with different cost estimates and cost estimate tools.


Constructive Cost Model ( COCOMO )

Function points: Technology-independent assessments of the functions involvd in developing a system.

Earned Value Management - STUDY

The planned value (PV), formerly called the budgeted cost of work scheduled (BCWS), also called the budget, is that portion of the approved total cost estimate planning to be spent on an activity during a given period.

Actual Cost (AC), formerly called actual cost of work performed, total direct and indirect costs incurred when accomplishing tasks.

Earning Costs (EC), estimate of physical work actually completed.

Rate of performance (RP) is the rating of actual work completed to the percentage of workk planned to have been completed at any given time during the life of the project or activity.


              Term                                                  Formula
        Earned Value                                     EV = PV to date * RP
        Cost Variance                                    CV = EV - AC
        Schedule Variance                             SV = EV - PV
        Cost Performance Index                    CPI = EV/AC
        Scheduled Performance Index            SPI = EV/PV
        Estimate at Completion                       EAC = BAC/CPI
        Estimated Time to Complete               Original Time Estimate/SPI

Blog Number 4

During this time in Project Management I've learned how to use a Gantt chart for planning and tracking schedule information, and find the critical path for a project, and also to describe how the critical chain scheduling and the program evaluation and review technique would affect schedule development. Also I can now understand the importance of project schedules, that managers often say that delivering projects on time to be one of their biggest challenges. Schedule issues I understand now are the main reason for conflict on most projects, especially during the second half of the project. There is also another factor to keep in mind as well "time" it has no flexibility it passes regardless of what happened on the project.
Here are the Project Time Management Processes

• Activity definition: Identifying the specific activities that the project team members and stakeholders must perform to produce the project deliverables.
• Activity sequencing: Identifying and documenting the relationships between project activities.
• Activity resource estimating: Estimating how many resources a project team should use to perform project activities.
• Activity duration estimating: Estimating the number of work periods that are needed to complete individual activities.
• Schedule development: Analyzing activity sequences, activity resource estimates, and activity duration estimates to create the project schedule.
• Schedule control: Controlling and managing changes to the project schedule.

Another piece I've leaned was the Three Types of Dependencies

• Mandatory dependencies: Inherent in the nature of the work being performed on a project; sometimes referred to as hard logic.
• Discretionary dependencies: Defined by the project team; sometimes referred to as soft logic and should be used with care because they may limit later scheduling options.
• External dependencies: Involve relationships between project and non-project activities

Sample Activity-on-Arrow (AOA) Network Diagram

Blog Number 3

I learned about Project Scope Management and Project Scope Management Processes. Read further to get more of what I learned about these two.

What is Project Scope Management?

Project Scope Management is a combination of the following:

• Scope can refer to all the work involved in creating the products and the processes used to create them.
• A Deliverable is a product as part of a project, such as hardware or software, planning documents, or meeting minutes.
• Project scope management includes the processes involved in defining and controlling what is or is not included in a project.

Project Scope Management Processes are:

• Scope Planning - This phase is when you are deciding how the scope will be defined, verified and controlled.
• Scope Definition - Reviewing the project charter and preliminary scope statement and adding more information as requirements are developed and change requests are approved.
• Creating a WBS - Subdividing the major project deliverables into smaller, more manageable components.
• Scope Verification - Formalizing acceptance of the project scope.
• Scope Control - Controlling changes to project scope.

 I'd also like to touch base on WBS which is a deliverable-oriented grouping of the work involved in a project that defines the total scope of the project. A WBS is a document that provides the basis for planning and managing project schedules, costs, resources, and changes.

I also learned how to make a Gantt Chart. An example of a gantt chat below:

Blog Number 2

This is the 2nd blog regarding what I've learned during my time in Project Management.

I would like to talk a little about Project Initiation.
These are some key outputs which include:

• Assigning the project manager
• Identifying key stakeholders
• Completing a business case
• Completing a project charter and getting signatures on it

 It is always important to identify the project needs, stakeholders, and main goals.

Project Planning I believe is also very important. I believe this to be important because without a plan usually 9 times out of 10 the project will fail or never get finished. For example these blogs that I have been completing which I mentioned in the first blog I would be completing 1 weekly. However, instead this is my second blog and the semester is almost over. Did I really plan this out and understand that it would be a huge work load when I completed the first blog? No, I didn't however here I am now wishing I planned it out.

But, anyways the main purpose of project planning is to guide execution. Meaning it gives you a guide line to make sure stuff gets done.

I also learned about Project Executing.

Which project executing can take the longest and take up most of your time and resources to get a project complete. At this point the project managers must use their leadership skills to handle many challenges that may occur during a project execution.