Project Management For Dummies^®, 2nd Edition

by Stanley E. Portny

• ISBN13: 9780470049235
• ISBN10: 0470049235
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-12-01
• Publisher: For Dummies

Summary

More than two thirds of American companies use teams to execute their most important projects, making project management a highly valuable skill for advancing your career. Project Management For Dummies, Second Edition introduces you to the principles of successful project management and shows you how to motivate any team to gain maximum productivity. You'll find out how to: Define your project and what you intend to accomplish Identify project stakeholders and their expectations Develop a project plan Establish project schedules and timetables Determine which skill sets and resources the project requires Choose team members and define their roles Launch you project and track its progress Encourage peak performance Conclude your project successfully Complete with helpful tips on delegating, shortening schedules, and optimizing your own performance Project Management for Dummies, help you get your project, and your career, off the ground in no time.

Author Biography

Stanley E. Portny, president of Stanley E. Portny and Associates, LLC, is an internationally recognized expert in project management and leadership with 28 years experience.

Table of Contents

Introduction	1	(1)
About This Book	2	(1)
Conventions Used in This Book	2	(1)
What You're Not to Read	2	(1)
Foolish Assumptions	3	(1)
How This Book Is Organized	3	(2)
Icons Used in This Book	5	(1)
Where to Go from Here	6	(1)
Part I: Understanding Expectations (The Who, What, and Why of Your Project)	7	(76)
Project Management: The Key to Achieving Results	9	(14)
What Exactly Is a Project?	9	(2)
Defining Project Management	11	(1)
Knowing the Project Manager's Role	12	(2)
Looking at the project manager's tasks	12	(1)
Staving off potential excuses	13	(1)
Considering the Life and Times of Your Project	14	(6)
The conceive phase: In the beginning	15	(2)
The define phase: Establish the plan	17	(1)
The start phase: Get ready, get set	18	(1)
The perform phase: Go!	19	(1)
The close phase: Stop!	19	(1)
Anticipating the Most Common Mistakes	20	(1)
Do I Have What It Takes to Be an Effective Project Manager?	21	(2)
Clarifying What You're Trying to Accomplish --- and Why	23	(22)
Defining Your Project with a Statement of Work	23	(2)
Looking at the Big Picture: How Your Project Fits In	25	(15)
Figuring out why you're doing this project	26	(8)
Drawing the line: Where your project starts and stops	34	(1)
Designing your approach to project work	35	(1)
Specifying your project's objectives	36	(4)
Marking the Boundaries	40	(3)
Working within limitations	41	(2)
Dealing with needs	43	(1)
Facing the Unknowns When Planning	43	(2)
Knowing Your Project's Audience: Involving the Right People	45	(16)
Understanding Your Project's Audiences	45	(1)
Developing an Audience List	46	(7)
Ensuring your audience list is complete and up-to-date	50	(2)
Making an audience list template	52	(1)
Identifying the Drivers, Supporters, and Observers in Your Audience	53	(6)
Deciding when to involve them	54	(3)
Using different methods to keep them involved	57	(2)
Getting People with Sufficient Authority	59	(2)
Developing Your Game Plan: Getting from Here to There	61	(22)
Dividing and Conquering: Working on Your Project in Manageable Chunks	61	(10)
Thinking in detail	62	(1)
Thinking of hierarchy	63	(4)
Dealing with special situations	67	(4)
Creating and Displaying Your Work Breakdown Structure	71	(9)
Considering different hierarchal schemes for classifying activities	71	(1)
Developing your WBS	72	(2)
Taking different paths to the same end	74	(1)
Labeling your WBS entries	75	(1)
Displaying your WBS in different formats	76	(2)
Improving the quality of your WBS	78	(1)
Using templates	79	(1)
Identifying Risks While Detailing Your Activities	80	(1)
Gathering What You Need to Know about Your Activities	81	(2)
Part II: Determining When and How Much	83	(84)
You Want This Project Done When?	85	(32)
Illustrating Your Work Plan with a Network Diagram	86	(3)
Defining a network diagram's elements	86	(2)
Drawing your network diagram	88	(1)
Analyzing Your Network Diagram	89	(7)
Reading your network diagram	90	(1)
Interpreting your network diagram	91	(5)
Working with Your Project's Network Diagram	96	(7)
Determining precedence	96	(3)
Using a network diagram to analyze a simple example	99	(4)
Developing Your Project's Schedule	103	(8)
Taking the first steps	103	(1)
Avoiding the pitfall of backing in to your schedule	104	(1)
Meeting an established time constraint	105	(1)
Illustrating ways to shorten a schedule	106	(5)
Estimating Activity Duration	111	(4)
Determining the underlying factors	112	(1)
Considering resource characteristics	112	(1)
Finding sources of supporting information	113	(1)
Improving activity span-time estimates	114	(1)
Displaying Your Project's Schedule	115	(2)
Establishing Whom You Need, How Much, and When	117	(22)
Determining People's Skills and Knowledge	118	(4)
Working with a Skills Roster	118	(1)
Depicting skill and knowledge levels in more detail	119	(1)
Creating the Skills Roster	120	(1)
Reconciling ratings: When a person and her supervisor's views differ	121	(1)
Estimating Needed Commitment	122	(9)
Using a Human Resources Matrix	122	(1)
Describing needed personnel	123	(1)
Estimating required work effort	124	(1)
Factoring in productivity, efficiency, and availability	125	(2)
Reflecting efficiency when you use historical data	127	(1)
Factoring efficiency into personal estimates	128	(3)
Ensuring You Can Meet Your Resource Commitments	131	(8)
Planning your initial allocations	131	(2)
Resolving potential resource overloads	133	(3)
Coordinating assignments across multiple projects	136	(3)
Planning for Other Resources and Developing the Budget	139	(10)
Planning for Nonpersonnel Resources	139	(2)
Making Sense of the Dollar: Project Costs and Budgets	141	(8)
Looking at different types of project costs	142	(1)
Developing your project budget	143	(6)
Dealing with Risk and Uncertainty	149	(18)
Defining Risk and Risk Management	150	(1)
Focusing on Risk Factors and Risks	151	(5)
Recognizing risk factors	151	(4)
Identifying risks	155	(1)
Assessing Risks: The Likelihood and Consequences	156	(5)
Gauging the likelihood of a risk	156	(3)
Estimating the extent of the consequences	159	(2)
Managing Risk	161	(4)
Choosing the risks you want to manage	161	(1)
Developing a risk-management strategy	162	(2)
Communicating about risks	164	(1)
Preparing a Risk-Management Plan	165	(2)
Part III: Putting Your Team Together	167	(48)
Aligning the Key Players for Your Project	169	(12)
Defining the Organizational Environment	169	(6)
Matrix structure	170	(2)
Other structures	172	(3)
Recognizing the Key Players in a Matrix Environment	175	(4)
Project manager	176	(1)
Project team members	177	(1)
Functional managers	177	(1)
Upper management	178	(1)
Working Successfully in a Matrix Environment	179	(2)
Defining Team Members' Roles and Responsibilities	181	(20)
Understanding the Key Concepts	181	(2)
Distinguishing authority, responsibility, and accountability	182	(1)
Comparing authority and responsibility	182	(1)
Making Project Assignments: Everything You Need to Know (And More)	183	(8)
Deciding what to delegate	183	(2)
Supporting your delegations of authority	185	(2)
Delegating to achieve results	187	(1)
Sharing responsibility	188	(1)
Holding people accountable when they don't report to you	189	(2)
Illustrating Relationships with a Linear Responsibility Chart	191	(7)
Reading an LRC	193	(2)
Developing an LRC	195	(1)
Ensuring your chart is accurate	196	(2)
Dealing with Micromanagement	198	(3)
Understanding why a person micromanages	198	(1)
Helping a micromanager gain confidence in you	199	(1)
Working with a micromanager	200	(1)
Starting Your Team Off on the Right Foot	201	(14)
Finalizing Your Project's Participants	202	(4)
Confirming your team members' participation	202	(2)
Assuring that others are on board	204	(1)
Filling in the blanks	205	(1)
Developing Your Team	206	(5)
Reviewing the approved project plan	207	(1)
Developing team and individual goals	207	(1)
Defining team member roles	208	(1)
Defining your team's operating processes	208	(1)
Supporting the development of team member relationships	209	(1)
Helping your team to become a smooth-functioning unit	209	(2)
Laying the Groundwork for Controlling Your Project	211	(2)
Selecting and preparing your tracking systems	211	(2)
Establishing schedules for reports and meetings	213	(1)
Setting your project's baseline	213	(1)
Announcing Your Project	213	(1)
Laying the Groundwork for Your Post-Project Evaluation	214	(1)
Part IV: Steering the Ship: Managing Your Project to Success	215	(112)
Tracking Progress and Maintaining Control	217	(26)
Controlling Your Project	217	(2)
Establishing Project Management Information Systems	219	(16)
Identifying the three parts of a PMIS	219	(1)
Monitoring schedule performance	220	(6)
Monitoring work effort	226	(4)
Monitoring expenditures	230	(5)
Putting Your Control Process into Action	235	(4)
Heading off problems before they occur	235	(1)
Formalizing your control process	236	(1)
Identifying possible causes of delays and variances	237	(1)
Identifying possible corrective actions	238	(1)
Getting back on track: Rebaselining	239	(1)
Reacting Responsibly When Changes Are Requested	239	(4)
Responding to change requests	240	(1)
Creeping away from scope creep	241	(2)
Keeping Everyone Informed	243	(12)
Choosing the Appropriate Medium	244	(4)
Just the facts: Written reports	244	(2)
Move it along: Meetings that work	246	(2)
Preparing a Written Project-Progress Report	248	(3)
Making a list (of names), checking it twice	249	(1)
Knowing what's hot, what's not in your report	249	(1)
Earning a Pulitzer, or at least writing an interesting report	250	(1)
Holding Key Project Meetings	251	(4)
Regularly scheduled team meetings	251	(2)
Ad hoc team meetings	253	(1)
Upper-management progress reviews	254	(1)
Encouraging Peak Performance by Providing Effective Leadership	255	(36)
Practicing Management and Leadership	255	(1)
Developing Personal Power and Influence	256	(35)
Understanding why people will do what you ask	257	(1)
Establishing the bases of your power	258	(33)
Using Technology to Up Your Game	291	(14)
Using Computer Software Effectively	292	(7)
Looking at your software options	292	(5)
Supporting your software	297	(2)
Introducing project-management software into your operations	299	(1)
Making Use of E-Mail	299	(4)
The pros and cons of e-mail	300	(1)
Using e-mail appropriately	301	(1)
Getting the most out of your e-mail	302	(1)
Making Use of Communication Technology to Support Virtual Teams	303	(2)
Improving Individual and Organizational Skills and Practices	305	(10)
Continuing to Improve Your Skills and Knowledge	305	(5)
Attending the appropriate formal training	306	(3)
Working with a mentor	309	(1)
Obtaining a professional certification	310	(1)
Bringing Improved Project Management Practices to the Workplace	310	(5)
Using your new skills and knowledge	311	(1)
Sharing your new skills and knowledge	312	(3)
Monitoring Project Performance with Earned Value Management	315	(12)
Defining Earned Value Management (EVM)	315	(5)
Understanding the EVM formulas	316	(2)
Looking at a simple example	318	(2)
Determining the reasons for observed variances	320	(1)
Applying EVM to Your Project: The How-To	320	(4)
Calculating Earned Value	324	(3)
Part VI: The Part of Tens	327	(10)
Ten Questions to Help You Plan Your Project	329	(4)
What's the Purpose of Your Project?	329	(1)
Whom Do You Need to Involve?	330	(1)
What Results Will You Produce?	330	(1)
What Constraints Must You Satisfy?	330	(1)
What Assumptions Are You Making?	331	(1)
What Work Must Be Done?	331	(1)
When Does Each Activity Start and End?	331	(1)
Who Will Perform the Project Work?	332	(1)
What Other Resources Do You Need?	332	(1)
What Can Go Wrong?	332	(1)
Ten Tips for Being a Better Project Manager	333	(4)
Be a ``Why'' Person	333	(1)
Be a ``Can-Do'' Person	333	(1)
Say What You Mean; Mean What You Say	334	(1)
View People as Allies, Not Adversaries	334	(1)
Respect Other People	334	(1)
Think Big Picture	334	(1)
Think Detail	334	(1)
Assume Cautiously	335	(1)
Acknowledge Good Performance	335	(1)
Be a Manager and a Leader	335	(2)
Appendix A: Glossary	337	(8)
Appendix B: Combining the Techniques into Smooth Flowing Processes	345	(4)
Index	349