Project and Campaign Management – Flashcards

A project is defined as a temporary endeavour undertaken to create a unique product, service or result

What is the history of project management and why is it (ever more) important? The credit for the development of project management goes to the military. Modern project management began with the "Manhattan Project", a research and development project that produced the first nuclear weapons (e.g. first nuclear bomb) during World War II. In its early days, project management was used mainly for large complex projects. As the tools and techniques were developed, the use of project organization began to spread. Project management has found wide acceptance in the industry as a whole. It has many applications outside of construction: - Managing legal cases - Managing new product releases - M&A (Merger & Acquisitions) - ... Project management increases the likelihood of accomplishing a goal.

Major Characteristics of a Project: - Importanced - Scope - Life cycle with a finite due date - Resources Not always, but often... - Interdependencies - Uniqueness - Conflict Features characterizing a project: - Target - Financial Limitation - Personnel Limitation - Project Specific Organisation - Uniqueness

- The main purpose for initiating a project is to accomplish some goal and project management increases the likelihood of accomplishing that goal. - Project management gives us someone ( the project manager) to spearhead the project and to hold accountable for its completion

Project management associations are not-for-profit professional membership associations for the project, program and portfolio management profession. Examples for project management associations are: - Project Management Institute (PMI) - Association for Project Management (APM) - ...

- Greater organizational complexity - Higher probability organizational policies will be violated - May implicitly indicate managers cannot accomplish the desired oucome - Conflict

Main forces in driving the acceptance of project management: - Exponential growth of human knowledge - Growing demand for a broad range of complex goods and services - Increased worldwide competition Þ All of these contribute to the need for organizations to do more and to do it faster.

- Achieving strategic goals - Achieving routine goals - Improving project effectiveness - Virtual projects - Dynamic and quasi-projects

- Consensual management - Systems approach - Projects are established in order to accomplish goals agreed upon.

- Achievement of the desired outcome - In time delivery - In budget delivery - Project efficiency - Business impact on the organization - Impact on the customer - Opening new opportunities for the future - Transparency

- Scope - Time - Cost

- Project integration: Several knowledge areas brought together as planning-execution-control - Project scope management: Includes all work required and ONLY the work required - Project time management: To ensure timely performance of the project - Project cost management: Project to be completed within the approved budget; includes resource planning, cost estimates, cost budgeting, cash-flow and cost control - Projects quality management: To satisfy the needs and fulfil the objectives -includes focused measurable objectives, quality planning, quality assurance and quality control - Project human resources management: Most effective use of people -includes project organization, staff acquisition and training - Project communications management: Collection and sharing of information -securing the decision process with management - Project risk management: Identifying, analysing and responding to risk, on-going control - Project procurement management: To acquire goods and services from outside the team, organisation, company -procurement planning, source election, contract

Every project has a beginning, a middle period during which activities move the project toward completion, and an ending (either successful or unsuccessful). A standard project typically has the following four major phases (each with its own agenda of tasks and issues): initiation, planning, implementation, and closure. Taken together, these phases represent the path a project takes from the beginning to its end and are generally referred to as the project "life cycle."

Project screening includes completing a preliminary examination of the project opportunity to obtain an idea of whether the more time-consuming and costly effort for further business case development is reasonable. 1. Sources and solicitation of project proposals 2. Ranking proposals and selection of projects 3. Balancing the portfolio Key words - Strategy - Priorities - Organizational politics - Implementation gap - Project portfolio - Project screening - Evaluation models (Non-numerical;Numerical

- Realism - Capability - Flexibility - Ease of use - Cost

- Provide guidance and direction - Facilitate planning - Motivate and inspire employees - Help organizations evaluate and control performance

- Why? It is recorded in the project order why the project must be realised. What is the background and what are the general targets? - What? These questions are answered in the project order: What must be done? What are the specific qualitative/quantitative project targets? - Who? The project order contains all details with regard to the personnel distribution within the project: Who plays what role, has what responsibility and what decision making ability? - How? The project order reflects in summary: How does the approach or strategy look like? What means and resources are available? How will the information flow be designed? - When? The project order depicts the various deadlines for the project process: When will the project start and when must it be finished? What central milestone must be reached when?

- Pure Project Organisation (Parallel to the existing setup organisation of a company; Independent project framework organization; Project members are drawn from the operating department or also external experts) - Influence Project Organisation (Typical for smaller companies or for networks of equal partners;Projects form own organisational entities) - Matrix Project Organisation (Mixture of pure project organisation and influence project organization; Pure line organisation is supplemented by a further entity; Project leaders receive decision and directive authority; Project members stay in their operational departments)

A kick-off meeting is an opportunity to share the plan for leading the project to a successful completion. It's an opportunity to energize the group, set proper expectations, and to establish guidelines that will help complete the project on time and within budget. Goals: - Announcement of the project - Come to know each other - Get to know each other - Get to know role distribution - Clarification of further course of action Members: - Project initiator - Project leader / manager - Project team (internal /external) - (Worker's council)

Starting from the tasks to be completed, costs and term targets, one can also sort goals hierarchically; after all, not all goals are equal-ranking. In most cases there is a hierarchy. - Tasks to be completed: What must be achieved? - Costs Target: What may be the project costs in total? - Time Target: Until when must everything be achieved?

- Rough Goals - Sub Goals - Operational Goals

The project order is a document that defines the project complete and clear by answering the questions 'why?', 'what?', 'who?', 'how?' and 'when?'. It is part of the project documentation and is incorporated in the project handbook.

- Pure Project Organisation - Influence Project Organisation - Matrix Project Organisation

Mind maps collect and at the same time structure spontaneous ideas.

- List - Tree structure

The gantt chart depicts the schedule and process plan of a project as a bar diagram. It is still used very frequently to present an overview of project schedules and details and it is one of the best known graphical tools of project management.

The project structure plan is the basic document for the internal project communication in the project team because it is the basis for the project manager to assign work packages and to communicate them with the responsible team members.

Network plans allow to depict complex projects and can illustrate inside and outside dependences.

- Registration: Collecting necessary data (Accounting Systems) - Navigation: Variance analysis - Coordination: - Processes - Behaviour

- Flow control - Schedule control - Resources control - Cost control - Quality control

- The Milestone-Trend-Analysis (MTA) is constantly updated during the entire project duration in one single diagram. - It consists of two time axis. - Milestone terms are entered on the vertical axis against the respective project meetings on the horizontal axis. - At each project meeting the responsible project co-workers must provide an estimate of when a milestone will be reached. - This date is then entered into the diagram. - A change of the planned milestone date has to be documented.

The more effort is given to risk response before the project begins the better the chances are for minimizing project surprises. Knowing that the response to a risk event will be 'retain it', 'transfer it' or 'share it' greatly reduces stress and uncertainty in case the risk events actually occurs. - Mitigating risk: Reducing risk is usually the first alternative considered. Most risk teams focus first on reducing the likelihood of risk events since -if successful -this may eliminate the need to consider the potentially costly second strategy. The second strategy is to reduce the impact that the adverse event would have on the project. - Avoiding risk: Risk avoidance is changing the project plan to eliminate the risk or condition. Although it is impossible to eliminate all risks in advance, some specific risks may be avoided before you launch the project. - Transferring risk: Passing risk to another party is common, but this transfer does not change risk. Passing risk to another party almost always results in paying a premium for this exemption. - Sharing risk: Risk sharing allocates proportions of risk to different parties. - Retaining risk: In some cases a conscious decision is made to accept the risk of an event occurring. Developing a contingency plan, it is an alternative plan that will be used if a possible for seem risky event becomes a reality.

- Technical (Requirements; Technology; Complexity; Reliability;Performance) - External (Suppliers; Regulatory; Market; Customer; Weather) - Organization (Dependencies; Ressources; Funding; Prioritization) - Project management (Estimating; Planning; Controlling; Communication; Quality)

- Often organizations find it useful to categorize the severity of different risks into some form of risk assessment matrix. - The matrix is typically structured around the impacts and likelihood of the risk events.

In project management, a critical path is the sequence of the project network activities which add up to the longest overall duration (regardless if that longest duration has float or not). This determines the shortest time possible to complete the project. There can be 'total float' (unused time) within the critical path.

CPM stands for Critical Path Method, it is a system for organizing all of the tasks that need to be done to complete a project and estimating how long the project will take.

The essential technique for using CPM is to construct a model of the project that includes the following: - A list of all activities required to complete the project (typically categorized within a work breakdown structure) - The dependencies between the activities - Logical end points such as milestones or deliverable items. - The time (duration) that each activity will take to complete

To chart the project, put the first item in your list in a square or bubble and draw lines from there to any step that could come next. Put each step in a square or bubble with lines connecting it to its preceding and following steps. Include the earliest and latest start and finish times for each step in the process. Some steps may have earliest start times identical to their latest start times. These are the critical events in your project. Connect all critical events in your project by double lines on the CPM chart to find the critical path through the project.

Program Evaluation Review Technique (PERT) is almost identical to the critical path method technique except it assumes each activity duration has a range that follows a statistical distribution. PERT uses three time estimates for each activity. Basically this means each activity duration can range from an optimistic time to a pessimistic time and the weighted average can be computed for each activity.

- Project team organization - Project leader - Building high performance teams - Acquisition of resources (recruiting) - Training

The project team manages and completes project work. - Most participants want to do a good job. - But they are also concerned with their other obligations and how their involvement on the project will contribute to their personal aspirations and goals. Project managers naturally compete with each other for resources and the support of top management. At the same time they often have to share resources and exchange information Administrative support groups such as HR or IT provide valuable support services. At the same time they impose constraints and requirements on the project.

Five Stage Team Development Model: - Stage one forming - Stage two storming - Stage three norming - Stage four performing - (Stage five adjourning)

- Recruiting project members - Conducting project meetings - Establishing a team identity - Creating a shared vision - Managing project reward systems - Orchestrating the decision-making process - Managing conflict within the project - Rejuvenating the project team

Functions: • Find orderly means to introduce, explain and legitimize the results • Give customers the opportunity for feedback • Dissolve project organisation Instruments: • Presentation of final results • Compilation of the final report • Concluding discussion • Handing over the project results • Arrangement for follow up support service • Dissolving the project organisation

Normal: The most common circumstance for project closure is simply a competed project. Premature: For a few projects the project may be completed early with some parts of the project eliminated. Perpetual: Some projects never seem to end. That is the project appears to develop a life of its own. Failed: In rare circumstances projects simply fail. This can be due to a variety of reasons. Changed priority: In case of dramatic shifts in priorities projects may need to be altered or canceled.

Project Risk Management Process - Risk Identification - Risk Assessement - Risk Response

Assessment of the variance Analysis of causes Introduction of countermeasures

Why? It is recorded in the project order why the project must be realised. What is the background and what are the general targets? What? These questions are answered in the project order: What must be done? What are the specific qualitative/quantitative project targets? Who? The project order contains all details with regard to the personnel distribution within the project: Who plays what role, has what responsibility and what decision making ability? How? The project order reflects in summary: How does the approach or strategy look like? What means and resources are available? How will the information flow be designed? When? The project order depicts the various deadlines for the project process: When will the project start and when must it be finished? What central milestone must be reached when?

The Project results are delivered through a final presentation to the project initiator and a report with written documents and digital version of data, findings and more.

Objective: Evaluation of the project • What went particularly well at the technical content level? • What went not so well? • What could have been done better? • How is the project judged on the communication level? What can be learned for future projects?

The main purpose for initiating a project is to accomplish some goal and project management increases the likelihood of accomplishing that goal, which is why it also applies for political campaign management as project management helps to set guidelines and structure a political campaign. A solid plan seeks strong donor prospects, helps keep the candidate focused on strategy, dampens the impact of opposition attacks, and tightens organizational focus in the endgame. All in all, it helps to keep everyone on task and schedule

Get more votes.

- Importance The importance of the campaign is clear as its aim is to build a campaign strategy to get more voters - Scope - Life cycle with a finite due date A political campaign ends with the elections. - Resources Budget for advertising, donors, voluntary helpers

- Models that do not return a numeric value for a project to be compared with other projects - These are really not "models" but rather justifications for projects - Just because they are not true models does not make them all "bad" Types: - Sacred Cow - Operating Necessity - Competitive Necessity

Models that return a numeric value for a project that can be easily compared with other projects Two major categories: - Profit/profitability - Scoring

The length of time until the original investment has been recouped by the project

- Bar Diagramm/Gantt Chart - Network Plan - Milestone Planning

Providing useful decision support to the project leader and hence contribute to achieving project goals