Project Management for Dummies

In today's time-crunched, cost-conscious global business environment, tight project deadlines and stringent expectations are the norm. So how can you juggle all the skills and responsibilities it takes to shine as a project management maven? Updated in a brand-new edition, Project Management For Dummies offers everything you need to successfully manage projects from start to finish—without ever dropping the ball.

Written by a well-known project management expert, this hands-on guide takes the perplexity out of being a successful PM, laying out all the steps to take your organizational, planning, and execution skills to new heights. Whether it's managing distressed projects, embracing the use of social media to drive efficiency and improve socialization, or resolving conflicts that occur during a project, the soup-to-nuts guidance inside will help you wear your project management hat more prominently—and proudly.

• Get the latest in industry best practices reflecting PMBOK 6
• Motivate any team to gain maximum productivity
• Execute projects on time and with maximum efficiency
• Prepare for the Project Management Professional (PMP) certification exam

It's never been easier to execute projects on time, on budget, and with maximum efficiency.

Stanley E. Portny, PMP^®, is an internationally recognized expert in project management and project leadership. During the past 30 years, he has provided training and consultation to more than 150 public and private organizations. He is a Project Management Institute–certified Project Management Professional (PMP^®).

Introduction 1

About This Book 2

Foolish Assumptions 2

Icons Used in This Book 3

Beyond the Book 4

Where to Go from Here 4

Part 1: Getting Started with Project Management 7

Chapter 1: Project Management: The Key to Achieving Results 9

Determining What Makes a Project a Project 10

Understanding the three main components that define a project 10

Recognizing the diversity of projects 11

Describing the four phases of a project life cycle 13

Defining Project Management 14

Starting with the initiating processes 16

Outlining the planning processes 17

Examining the executing processes 18

Surveying the monitoring and controlling processes 19

Ending with the closing processes 20

Knowing the Project Manager’s Role 20

Looking at the project manager’s tasks 20

Staving off excuses for not following a structured project-management approach 21

Avoiding shortcuts 22

Staying aware of other potential challenges 23

Do You Have What It Takes to Be an Effective Project Manager? 24

Questions 24

Answer key 25

Relating This Chapter to the PMP Exam and PMBOK 6 26

Chapter 2: Beginning the Journey: The Genesis of a Project 27

Gathering Ideas for Projects 28

Looking at information sources for potential projects 29

Proposing a project in a business case 29

Developing the Project Charter 31

Performing a cost-benefit analysis 32

Conducting a feasibility study 34

Generating documents during the development of the project charter 35

Deciding Which Projects to Move to the Second Phase of Their Life Cycle 36

Chapter 3: Knowing Your Project’s Stakeholders: Involving the Right People 37

Understanding Your Project’s Stakeholders 38

Developing a Stakeholder Register 38

Starting your stakeholder register 39

Ensuring your stakeholder register is complete and up-to-date 44

Using a stakeholder register template 45

Determining Whether Stakeholders Are Drivers, Supporters, or Observers 47

Deciding when to involve your stakeholders 48

Using different methods to involve your stakeholders 51

Making the most of your stakeholders’ involvement 52

Displaying Your Stakeholder Register 53

Confirming Your Stakeholders’ Authority 54

Assessing Your Stakeholders’ Power and Interest 56

Relating This Chapter to the PMP Exam and PMBOK 6 57

Chapter 4: Clarifying What You’re Trying to Accomplish — And Why 59

Defining Your Project with a Scope Statement 60

Looking at the Big Picture: Explaining the Need for Your Project 64

Figuring out why you’re doing the project 64

Drawing the line: Where your project starts and stops 74

Stating your project’s objectives 75

Marking Boundaries: Project Constraints 80

Working within limitations 80

Dealing with needs 83

Facing the Unknowns When Planning: Documenting Your Assumptions 83

Presenting Your Scope Statement in a Clear and Concise Document 84

Relating This Chapter to the PMP Exam and PMBOK 6 85

Chapter 5: Developing Your Game Plan: Getting from Here to There 87

Divide and Conquer: Breaking Your Project into Manageable Chunks 88

Thinking in detail 88

Identifying necessary project work with a work breakdown structure 90

Dealing with special situations 98

Creating and Displaying Your Work Breakdown Structure 101

Considering different schemes to create your WBS hierarchy 102

Using one of two approaches to develop your WBS 103

Categorizing your project’s work 104

Labeling your WBS entries 106

Displaying your WBS in different formats 107

Improving the quality of your WBS 110

Using templates 111

Identifying Risks While Detailing Your Work 112

Documenting What You Need to Know about Your Planned Project Work 114

Relating This Chapter to the PMP Exam and PMBOK 6 115

Part 2: Planning Time: Determining When and How Much 117

Chapter 6: You Want This Project Done When? 119

Picture This: Illustrating a Work Plan with a Network Diagram 120

Defining a network diagram’s elements 120

Drawing a network diagram 122

Analyzing a Network Diagram 123

Reading a network diagram 123

Interpreting a network diagram 125

Working with Your Project’s Network Diagram 130

Determining precedence 130

Using a network diagram to analyze a simple example 133

Developing Your Project’s Schedule 138

Taking the first steps 139

Avoiding the pitfall of backing in to your schedule 140

Meeting an established time constraint 141

Applying different strategies to arrive at your picnic in less time 141

Estimating Activity Duration 149

Determining the underlying factors 149

Considering resource characteristics 150

Finding sources of supporting information 150

Improving activity duration estimates 151

Displaying Your Project’s Schedule 152

Relating This Chapter to the PMP Exam and PMBOK 6 156

Chapter 7: Establishing Whom You Need, How Much of Their Time, and When 157

Getting the Information You Need to Match People to Tasks 158

Deciding what skills and knowledge team members must have 159

Representing team members’ skills, knowledge, and interests in a skills matrix 163

Estimating Needed Commitment 165

Using a human resources matrix 165

Identifying needed personnel in a human resources matrix 167

Estimating required work effort 168

Factoring productivity, efficiency, and availability into work-effort estimates 169

Reflecting efficiency when you use historical data 170

Accounting for efficiency in personal work-effort estimates 171

Ensuring Your Project Team Members Can Meet Their Resource Commitments 173

Planning your initial allocations 174

Resolving potential resource overloads 176

Coordinating assignments across multiple projects 179

Relating This Chapter to the PMP Exam and PMBOK 6 180

Chapter 8: Planning for Other Resources and Developing the Budget 183

Determining Non-Personnel Resource Needs 184

Making Sense of the Dollars: Project Costs and Budgets 186

Looking at different types of project costs 186

Recognizing the three stages of a project budget 188

Refining your budget as you move through your project’s phases 189

Determining project costs for a detailed budget estimate 191

Relating This Chapter to the PMP Exam and PMBOK 6 195

Chapter 9: Venturing into the Unknown: Dealing with Risk 197

Defining Risk and Risk Management 198

Focusing on Risk Factors and Risks 199

Recognizing risk factors 200

Identifying risks 204

Assessing Risks: Probability and Consequences 205

Gauging the likelihood of a risk 205

Estimating the extent of the consequences 208

Getting Everything under Control: Managing Risk 210

Choosing the risks you want to manage 211

Developing a risk-management strategy 212

Communicating about risks 213

Preparing a Risk-Management Plan 214

Relating This Chapter to the PMP Exam and PMBOK 6 216

Part 3: Group Work: Putting Your Team Together 217

Chapter 10: Aligning the Key Players for Your Project 219

Defining Three Organizational Environments 220

The functional structure 220

The projectized structure 222

The matrix structure 224

Recognizing the Key Players in a Matrix Environment 227

The project manager 228

Project team members 229

Functional managers 229

The project owner 230

The project sponsor 230

Upper management 231

Working Successfully in a Matrix Environment 232

Creating and continually reinforcing a team identity 232

Getting team-member commitment 233

Eliciting support from other people in the environment 233

Heading off common problems before they arise 234

Relating This Chapter to the PMP Exam and PMBOK 6 235

Chapter 11: Defining Team Members’ Roles and Responsibilities 237

Outlining the Key Roles 238

Distinguishing authority, responsibility, and accountability 238

Understanding the difference between authority and responsibility 239

Making Project Assignments 239

Delving into delegation 239

Sharing responsibility 244

Holding people accountable — even when they don’t report to you 246

Picture This: Depicting Roles with a Responsibility Assignment Matrix 250

Introducing the elements of a RAM 250

Reading a RAM 252

Developing a RAM 254

Ensuring your RAM is accurate 255

Dealing with Micromanagement 257

Realizing why a person micromanages 257

Gaining a micromanager’s trust 258

Working well with a micromanager 259

Relating This Chapter to the PMP Exam and PMBOK 6 259

Chapter 12: Starting Your Project Team Off on the Right Foot 261

Finalizing Your Project’s Participants 262

Are you in? Confirming your team members’ participation 262

Assuring that others are on board 264

Filling in the blanks 265

Developing Your Team 266

Reviewing the approved project plan 267

Developing team and individual goals 268

Specifying team-member roles 268

Defining your team’s operating processes 269

Supporting the development of team-member relationships 270

Resolving conflicts 270

All together now: Helping your team become a smooth-functioning unit 273

Laying the Groundwork for Controlling Your Project 275

Selecting and preparing your tracking systems 275

Establishing schedules for reports and meetings 276

Setting your project’s baseline 277

Hear Ye, Hear Ye! Announcing Your Project 277

Setting the Stage for Your Post-Project Evaluation 278

Relating This Chapter to the PMP Exam and PMBOK 6 279

Part 4: Steering the Ship: Managing Your Project to Success 281

Chapter 13: Tracking Progress and Maintaining Control 283

Holding On to the Reins: Project Control 284

Establishing Project Management Information Systems 285

The clock’s ticking: Monitoring schedule performance 286

All in a day’s work: Monitoring work effort 292

Follow the money: Monitoring expenditures 297

Putting Your Control Process into Action 301

Heading off problems before they occur 301

Formalizing your control process 302

Identifying possible causes of delays and variances 303

Identifying possible corrective actions 304

Getting back on track: Rebaselining 305

Reacting Responsibly When Changes Are Requested 305

Responding to change requests 306

Creeping away from scope creep 307

Relating This Chapter to the PMP Exam and PMBOK 6 308

Chapter 14: Keeping Everyone Informed 309

I Said What I Meant and I Meant What I Said: Successful Communication Basics 310

Breaking down the communication process 311

Distinguishing one-way and two-way communication 311

Can you hear me? Listening actively 312

Choosing the Appropriate Medium for Project Communication 314

Just the facts: Written reports 315

Move it along: Meetings that work 317

Preparing a Written Project-Progress Report 319

Making a list (of names) and checking it twice 319

Knowing what’s hot (and what’s not) in your report 320

Earning a Pulitzer, or at least writing an interesting report 322

Holding Key Project Meetings 325

Regularly scheduled team meetings 325

Ad hoc team meetings 326

Upper-management progress reviews 326

Preparing a Project Communications Management Plan 327

Relating This Chapter to the PMP Exam and PMBOK 6 328

Chapter 15: Encouraging Peak Performance by Providing Effective Leadership 331

Exploring the Differences between Leadership and Management 332

Recognizing the Traits People Look for in a Leader 333

Developing Personal Power and Influence 334

Understanding why people do what you ask 335

Establishing the bases of your power 336

You Can Do It! Creating and Sustaining Team Member Motivation 338

Increasing commitment by clarifying your project’s benefits 339

Encouraging persistence by demonstrating project feasibility 340

Letting people know how they’re doing 341

Providing rewards for work well done 342

Relating This Chapter to the PMP Exam and PMBOK 6 343

Chapter 16: Bringing Your Project to Closure 345

Staying the Course to Completion 346

Planning ahead for your project’s closure 347

Updating your initial closure plans when you’re ready to wind down the project 348

Charging up your team for the sprint to the finish line 348

Handling Administrative Issues 349

Providing a Smooth Transition for Team Members 349

Surveying the Results: The Post-Project Evaluation 352

Preparing for the evaluation throughout the project 352

Setting the stage for the evaluation meeting 353

Conducting the evaluation meeting 355

Following up on the evaluation 356

Relating This Chapter to the PMP Exam and PMBOK 6 357

Part 5: Taking Your Project Management to the Next Level 359

Chapter 17: Using Newer Methods and Resources to Enhance Your Project Management 361

Taking a Look at the Agile Approach to Project Management 362

Understanding what drives the Agile approach 362

Taking a look at the elements of Agile when implemented through Scrum 364

Comparing the Agile and traditional (Waterfall) approaches 365

Using Computer Software Effectively 366

Looking at your software options 367

Helping your software perform at its best 372

Introducing project-management software into your organization 373

Using Social Media to Enhance Project Management 374

Defining social media 374

Exploring how social media can support your project planning and performance 376

Using social media to support your project communications 377

Relating This Chapter to the PMP Exam and PMBOK 6 378

Chapter 18: Monitoring Project Performance with Earned Value Management 381

Defining Earned Value Management 382

Getting to know EVM terms and formulas 382

Looking at a simple example 386

Determining the reasons for observed variances 388

The How-To: Applying Earned Value Management to Your Project 389

Determining a Task’s Earned Value 392

Relating This Chapter to the PMP Exam and PMBOK 6 396

Part 6: The Part of Tens 397

Chapter 19: Ten Questions to Ask Yourself as You Plan Your Project 399

What’s the Purpose of Your Project? 399

Whom Do You Need to Involve? 400

What Results Will You Produce? 400

What Constraints Must You Satisfy? 400

What Assumptions Are You Making? 401

What Work Has to Be Done? 401

When Does Each Activity Start and End? 402

Who Will Perform the Project Work? 402

What Other Resources Do You Need? 403

What Can Go Wrong? 403

Chapter 20: Ten Tips for Being a Better Project Manager 405

Be a “Why” Person 405

Be a “Can Do” Person 406

Think about the Big Picture 406

Think in Detail 406

Assume Cautiously 406

View People as Allies, Not Adversaries 407

Say What You Mean and Mean What You Say 407

Respect Other People 407

Acknowledge Good Performance 407

Be a Manager and a Leader 408

Appendix: Combining the Techniques into Smooth-Flowing Processes 409

Index 413