1.

Introduction
Welcome to the world of project management.

This will be an interesting learning journey in which:

You will think aloud, search your experience database in an attempt to relate your
experience to concepts explained in this book,
Most of the time, you would land in a conflict of thoughts, and would like to challenge
the basics, citing them to be impractical,
Given right fit examples in this book, you would accept the defeat within your
conscious, you would appreciate this book to expose your mistakes you have been
doing till now, to yourself only,
You will vow to, henceforth, make use of all processes and tools shared in this book,
and
You will find a difference in your work style after going through this book. It will be
noticeable to your colleagues and would help you grow.
So why wait, let’s begin!

§ Laying the foundation §

First, we will understand the basics, such that, your foundation is solid and robust. If you don’t
understand any basic element, read it again and make sure it is nailed down. We will cover following
basic elements to build our unbeatable knowledge castle:
What is ‘Project’. What can be, or cannot be, called a project.
Difference between ‘Project’ and ‘Process’
The relationship between ‘Project’, ‘Program’ and ‘Portfolio’
1.1 What is ‘Project’
There are two important and mandatory aspects of a ‘Project’.

Simply putting, we may define a project as:

Isn’t it simple? Let’s check our understanding. Identify projects among following:
1. Design and making a prototype of a solar-powered laptop
2. Mass production of solar-powered laptop
3. Increasing battery efficiency of solar powered laptop
4. Mass production of new solar powered battery
5. Replacement of old batteries

If your answers are A, C, and E then you are correct to the last bit. Let’s put this through our learning
and see how you can identify if the activity is a project.
Temporary Defined Goal
endeavor
Definite Unique output
timeline
Start End Product Service Result
A √ √ √
B √ X √
C √ √ √
D √ X √
E √ √ √
Here Examples B and D will have a start date but will not have any end date. Therefore they don’t
qualify as a project.

If these are not projects, then what are these?

If the term process is coming to your mind then you are awesome.
1.2 What is ‘Process’
Literally, a process is a set of activities that interact to achieve a result. In the context of
management, it is an approach established for repetitive work.

For easy understanding, let’s affix ‘continuous’ and see if helps.

(continuous) + ‘Process’
= ‘Continuous Process’
Yes, it does help. Now we have added lots of information without distorting the meaning. It sounds as
if the process does not have an end date (as in case of examples B and D, where we had mass
production).

There is a challenge for you. Think of any activity which can neither be called a projectnor a
process.

It’s okay if you are not able to find any such activity. In fact, you will not be able to find any. Work
without an end date is process and work with end date is a project. It means project and process are
complementary to each other.

Management approach is different for project and process. This book is focused on project
management. Therefore, we will focus only on projects part.

Let me ask you one question. Can a project include process, or can a process include project?
The answer would be ‘NO’ for both parts as we see it to be mutually exclusive in above picture.

Now let me ask you another question. Can project result into process or can process lead to
initiation of a project? The answer would be ‘YES’ for both parts. To understand it, let’s recall our
previous examples of solar laptop with same options.

1. Design and making a prototype of solar-powered laptop - Project

2. Mass production of solar-powered laptop - Process
3. Increasing battery efficiency of solar powered laptop - Project
4. Mass production of new solar-powered battery - Process
 5. Replacement of old batteries - Project

Here project A results in process B.

Process B lead to the need of project C.
Project C resulted in process D and project C.

It means they are related to each other.

Now you combine point 1, 2, and 3. You will find a unique relationship between Project and Process.
While being mutually exclusive, they are complementary and related to each other.

To further ease out the complexity of the previous paragraph, let’s go through few more examples. We
will take three examples, one from Civil Industry, one from Mechanical Industry and yet another from
IT (information technology) industry.

Example from Civil Industry:

Project: New building construction

Process: Concrete block manufacturing plant
Complementary nature: If concrete blocks are not available on time then construction
will get impacted. At the same time, if construction demand is reduced then concrete block
manufacturing will also get reduced.
Mutually exclusive nature. Concrete block vendors are different and construction
company is different. Construction company doesn’t need to bother about processes being
conducted at concrete block plant.
Interdependency nature: Suppose a special need arises to make a concrete block with
design mix concrete which is not designed and manufactured. This will lead to a project in
which design mic concrete block will be designed, samples will be made, and a quality
check will happen. Once the output is acceptable then the project will close and handover
the details to the manufacturer, which will begin a process of manufacturing new concrete
mix blocks.

Example from Mechanical Industry:

Project: New of change in engines

Process: Manufacturing of engine
Complementary nature: Without certified design, mass manufacturing of engine cannot be
started. Similarly, a new project to rectify manufacturing difficulties cannot be initiated
without experiencing the manufacturing.
Mutually exclusive nature: While design and testing process for new of change in engines
proceeds without impacting manufacturing process.
Interdependency nature: Manufacturing plant may be having trouble during manufacturing
of a particular part and assembly of the same part to the engine. They may think it is
unnecessary complexity. As a result, they may initiate a request to launch a project to
 simplify the design without compromising the output. In such cases, process team
(manufacturing team) will share the problem, project team (engine design team) with
understand the problem and proceed to resolve the problem. Project team (Engine design
team) will work internally to resolve the problem and once resolved, as per their
understanding, they will again work with process team (manufacturing team) to get it tested
and provide acceptance if it is satisfactory. Once the goal is achieved then project team
(Engine design team) will handover new design to process team (manufacturing team) and
close the project launched for this particular work.

Example from IT Industry:

Project: Development work - New or change in IT systems

Process: Production support work – Keeping systems up and running
Complementary nature: Project team (development team) is focused on one-time activity
to design, build, test and transfer the system to the user. Once the system is stable then
project team hands over the system to process team (production support team). Together
they manage the entire lifecycle of any IT system.
Mutually exclusive nature: When a particular IT system (or its release) is live, then the
project team (development team) will not have access to make any change. Similarly, when
IT system is under development then it would not be available to process team (production
support team) to even see new features, etc. This segregation helps in managing IT systems
without ambiguity of ownership.
Interdependency nature: Based on user interactions, process team (production support
team) may raise a change request to the development team to provide a new feature, which
is very high in demand and causing many production issues. Once change request is
approved, it may be launched as a new project to fulfill the requirement. The project team
will understand the requirement with process team (production support team or functional
team) and once work is completed, it will have to undergo acceptance from process team
(support team or functional team). Once work is accepted then it will be migrated to
production environment and project will be closed after handover to process team
(production support team).

If you work in any other industry, I am confident, you would be able to relate to your industry with
help of three elaborate examples given above. Ultimately we need to understand three connects
between projects and processes, that is:
They are complementary (added together they make 100% of work, nothing lies
beyond)
They are mutually exclusive (any work is either a project or process)
They may be dependent on each other (one may initiate other)

Revision: We learnt about Project, Process, and relationship between them. Project has an end
date, process is continuous and they may impact each other.
1.3 What is ‘Program’
Simply put, program is a combination of multiple projects. In other words, If a group of project,
related to each other in some way. Practically speaking, a large project may be converted into
programs of multiple projects (or phases) to make it manageable. Below are few examples:

Civil Industry: Construction of a township in multiple phases

Mechanical Industry: Design of CNC kit for all models in a sequential manner
IT Industry: Roll out of solution in different geography in different phases

If I ask you, why programs are created, your answer would be simple, to make large work
manageable. But if this is your only answer then it is only half answer. Most important part is
optimization of resources. Consider a usual project which demonstrated following deployment of
resources over the lifespan of the project, as shown in figure 1 below.

Figure 1: Single project

Suppose one project manager is supposed to work on two independent projects, which cannot be
launched together due to, say, different geography, different client, or whatsoever reason then project
manager would complete the first project, handover it to the client or any process team and move on
to start a new project. The lifecycle of these two projects would look something like as shown below
in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Multiple projects in series

If these projects are related in some way, say, part of the same township in case of civil industry
example, of part of CNC kit design for all models in case of mechanical industry example or part of
same solution rollout in different geography in case of IT industry roll out then project manager will
not have to wait to start new project till completion and handover of previous project as shown
below in Figure 3:
 Figure 3: Life cycle of multiple projects as part of a program

It would yield, at least, following benefits:

Total elapsed time will be less when considered multiple projects
Idle time of resources can be minimized by earlier start of next project
Having almost same team helps in better results in next project based on the experience
of earlier project
Team building efforts are reduced and performance is more predictable
Shared utilization of resources across multiple projects is possible

Program management is another expertise area which should be learnt by senior project managers to
maximize the utilization of resources, reduction in cost and bringing up the efficiency to raise
customer satisfaction as well.
1.4 What are ‘Portfolio’ and ‘Strategy’
There is a yet bigger area of management, called ‘Portfolio Management’. Portfolio is a collection
of projects, programs, sub-portfolio, and operations (processes) to be managed in order to work
towards organization strategy. Apart from projects and programs, it would include operations like
HR, Admin, Procurement, Finance, etc.

Look at Figure 4 to understand the relationship between project, program, portfolio and complete set
of all organizational activities.

Figure 4: Relationship between project, program, portfolio and organizational activities

Let me ask you one question. If portfolio includes programs (which includes projects) and
operations (which is a combination of all processes, like HR, admin, etc.) then what remains beyond
these two? I am asking about corner areas in above figure 4 which represents organizational activities
not included in any portfolio.

This is a work area for owners, leaders, chairmen, or any such authority who work on something,
which is most significant work for any organization, called…

Figure 5: Strategy as driving factor of organization, supported by programs, projects, and

operations

An organization may have a strategy to launch one new township in every metro every year. Work for
one metro may be grouped into one program which will include multiple projects to achieve it. This
was programs and projects are created to support organizational strategy. Operations also play a very
important role in supporting organizational strategy. For example, proposal department may work to
finalize land for a new township, procurement department may line up suppliers to provide resources
when needed, the legal department would keep all legal formalities cleared, and so on. In this
fashion, any organization needs support from operations, program team, project team to work on the
organizational strategies.

‘Projects are often undertaken for directly or indirectly achieving organizational objective derived
from organizational strategy’.
When we say directly or indirectly, then it means, there can be another factor which may lead to
project initiation after conditions become favorable.
Let’s have a look at such factors leading to initiation of projects aligned to organization’s strategy:

Market Demand: Organization strategy was to manufacture more fuel efficient cars
which have come in demand due to rise in fuel price.
Strategic opportunity: Organization wanted to develop a modern bungalow society
but suitable land was not available. Declaration of a new airport in relatively less
populated area has converted the surrounding land into suitable area. Now bungalow
township project can be started.
Social needs: Organization strategy was to provide clean water to all classes of
society. Recent epidemic in slums got funding for same and clean water supply project
can be launched.
Environmental conditions: Organization strategy was to build electric cars. Recently
government decided to reduce taxes on electric cars to reduce pollution. Now the
organization can manufacture cost-effective car the project to set up the manufacturing
plant can begin.
Customer request: Organization developed technology to rapid charge electric cars in
15 minutes. With the selling of more electric cars, now customers are demanding rapid
charging stations and project to set up such stations can begin.
Technology Advance: A watch manufacturing company strategy was to add data
storage feature in its watches. Recent technology development of smaller storage
device makes it possible now. Related design and development project can begin now.
Legal Requirement: Launch of GST made it mandatory to be implemented. A new
finance project was launched to change the financial IT systems to adapt to new legal
requirement.

There can be numerous such examples of projects initiated due to Strategic decisions. Therefore,
there exist a direct or indirect connection between ‘Strategy’ and ‘Project’.

Revision: We learnt about Project, Program, Portfolio, Operations (processes) and Strategy, and also
about the relationship between them.

In this book, we will keep focus on ‘Project Management’, which creates a base for higher studies
of program, portfolio, strategy management.
2. Project Manager and Team
There are two important ingredients in the recipe of a successful project team.
Project manager
Project Team
If we compromise on the quality of any of above ingredient then other ingredients, e.g., capital,
machines, raw material, expertise, etc. will not suffice for project success. Let’s understand what we
should look for and how to identify a right project manager
2.1 Competencies of a Project Manager
Project manager is a key role for any project’s success. Therefore, it is very important to understand
key competencies of a project manager. These are:

1. Knowledge – There are two segments of knowledge:

1. Project management knowledge – Project manager should be a trained professional on
standard practices, tools, and techniques, the process for various areas like planning,
costing, HR, risk, procurement, etc., to avoid ad-hoc and crisis management. (This
statement would sound vague at this point as we have not discussed about them but you
would ultimately be comfortable by the end of this book).
2. Domain knowledge – Project manager should have knowledge of the domain of the
project, for example, the civil project should have a project manager from civil
background, IT project should have a project manager from IT background, and so on. It
is not mandatory to have technical knowledge up to the last level but technical knowledge
always helps.
2. Performance – Project managers are expected to perform on minimum of following
parameters:
1. Delivery – Delivery of well-defined work scope, on time and within the budget.
2. Quality – Quality of delivery should be equal to or above defined measurable quality
expectations.
3. Client satisfaction – Mahatma Gandhi defined ‘Client’ as the purpose of our work. The
same mantra should be used by project managers, in order to achieve a highest possible
level of client satisfaction.
3. Interpersonal skills – This is one of the most important areas which include multiple identified
areas. Project managers successful in these skills have a magic wand in their hand to deliver
wonderful, memorable projects. Let’s spend enough quality time to understand each of these
skills (12 in number).
Leadership: Leadership is different from management. Leaders have people follow them
while managers have people who work for them. A successful project manager needs to
be a strong leader and manager. As a leader, project managers should share their vision of
success, should be able to show them the path to take for success, guide team for any
difficulty and lead the entire team towards success. Project managers should make them
be part of the project team, rather than considering them to be up above the hierarchy to
be master of the team.
Team building: Accumulating right people for the project is team formation. Team
building is an aspect of creating a sense of bond in the project team. The entire team
should feel as a part of a family which is working towards a common goal of the project.
Project manager should be able to work on team building activities, like team gathering to
celebrate success, connecting hands in challenging times to stand united to clear the
challenge, organize team building events and generate a sense of belongingness in team
members.
Motivation: You perform at best when you are highly motivated. Same happens with the
project team, including project manager. Same as higher up motivates project managers to
deliver the best quality on time on budget project, project managers are also expected to
have motivational skills. There may be various methods of motivation, e.g., recognition in
public, the culture of rewards, nomination for hot skill development training, the culture
of planned career path, and so on. Ultimately, project team members should be
enthusiastic about their work and contribute up to their maximum capability.
Communication: One of my friends says, in Hindi language, ‘Baat karne se hi baat banti
hai’, means it always helps to have a dialogue. It is the importance of communication.
Consider an organization which shares progress details with employees, share the success
and benefits, share challenges and seek advice and support, and such communication
practices. Employees will be informed, feel higher ups are approachable, they are heard,
they are considered important as company share details. The same concept applied to a
project manager. They should establish a communication channel and a regular planned
communication plan has to be implemented.
Influencing: There may be someone in your life who may easily influence you and your
decisions. You don’t need to share name(s) but spend some time to think why they are
able to influence? Maybe you like them? Maybe you respect and trust them? Maybe you
consider them to be more learned or more experienced? Maybe you consider them your
true well-wisher? Maybe they always stood by you in a difficult time? Maybe your past
experience proves them to be helpful? Whatever may be the reason, but the fact remains
same, you trust them. Similar influence a project manager needs to have to work with the
team.
Decision making: You salute your country leader who takes a fast decision and keeps
progressing. Such leaders earn high regards even if her/his 10-20% decisions may be
incorrect. They are always better than another leader who is sitting idle and worrying
about the impact of incorrect decisions and does nothing. Same way project team looks at
project manager. If the project manager has the power of decision making and takes a long
time to take any decision or makes lots of incorrect decisions, then team loose enthusiasm
and momentum. The role needs fast and correct decision making, even 90% accuracy is
acceptable but the decision has to be fast.
Political and cultural awareness: Just like a parent, you know climate or environment
outside of your house and you try to protect the family, same way project managers are
supposed to be aware about the political and cultural situation of the project workplace
and safeguard project and project team. Let’s take an example of IT project manager. If
project’s client base is in the USA then he should not plan for user testing between 25th
December to 1st January. The project manager should be aware about the fact, almost
entire USA goes on vacation during this period.
Negotiation: There are so many different parties involved in the project and often need of
negotiations arise for areas or works which has some grey/unclear
expectations/responsibilities. Project managers are expected to master this novel area in
order to take advantage of such situations. Let’s take an example in which type of wall
painting was not mentioned in contract. Project manager, in all honesty, estimated for
regular paint used in her/his previous projects. Now client noticed it and asking Project
manager to put a designer painting, which is not cost viable in the considered budget.
Instead of going for conflict, the project manager validated the sample output and found no
walls were shown with designer paint. She/he goes back to the client saying, your idea is
great, we never had this demand from any of our client, and the same way it was proposed
in our output sample. If you want then we can also do designer paint with additional cost
and timeline. Here program manager not only safeguarded company but also made sure if
the paint has to be changed then the company will get additional timeline and revenue.
Trust building: Nothing works if you don’t have trust. If the project manager is not trusted
by the team then entire project environment becomes hostile and ultimately team will start
dispersing and the entire project goes for a toss/loss. Trust building happens of honesty
demonstrated by project manager over a period of time. Trust building is like
bodybuilding, it takes time to build it, but lost very fast, even with one small dishonest
move.
Conflict management: What do you do when two of your youngsters or kids flight?
Don’t they look at you to resolve it, when it goes beyond their reach to resolve? A project
manager is expected to do little more than elders or parents. They don’t have to only
resolve already noticeable conflict inside the team, or even across teams, but also sense
future conflict before it is grown to extent of impacting project work. Here the conflict
resolution has to happen with complete honesty and completely aligned to organization’s
interest. The basis of conflict resolutions should be communicated to the project team
Once they understand the honest approach and decision aligned to organizations’ interest
then they would not raise an objection. If they raise an objection and want to go against
organizations interest then project manager should know how to refer such case to HR for
further action.
Coaching: if you know how to reset Rubik’s cube then you find it easy. Ask others who
don’t know steps to reset it. A project manager has complete exposure to all areas of
works in a project. She/he knows what are works available and how a person can grow
in this setup. Those who are working in their defined limited areas do not have such
exposure. It is even limited to larger projects. Team members look at project manager to
help them grow in their career and its responsibility of project manager to work on a
career plan for all team members to ensure they grow over a period of time and their
growth is also aligned to organizational growth. It is equally important for project
managers themselves if their team grows to next level then project manager can also grow
over a period of time.
Working with young generations: I personally believe young generations are always
smarter than the previous generation, and that is the reason the human race is progressing.
This is not a general feeling among most of the senior people and you might have heard
them saying, ‘young generation is not serious at work’, ‘they just want money’, ‘they
cannot do hard work’, ‘they are least bothered about organization’, and so on. At this time
(2018), it is a typical conflict between Gen X (older) and Gen Y (younger). I have a
different opinion, based on my experience of working with teams having almost 90% gen
Y, yet winning best team award in a reputed MNC company. I find then sincere, once you
convey the importance of their work. I find them hard working when you ask them to do
hard work in advance. The reason is simple. Gen Y has nightlife, Gen X does have
anything more than laying down on the couch and watch TV after they return home at night.
If you tell Gen Y in advance they will manage plans accordingly. Obviously, if you tell
them to stay back in last hours then you are encroaching on their plans, which no one
likes. Gen X (older) not having any nightlife plan is not the fault of Gen Y. We have more
 than 73% Gen Y in industry, let’s respect their privacy and plan in right way. You will be
a winner, always!

You learnt about many properties expected from Project managers. How would you use this
information? If you are a project manager then how many things you would target to work upon. If you
are from leadership team or owner, then do you have so much time that needed to evaluate your
project mangers and groom them over all of these points? Is it overwhelming? Then what was the
purpose of knowing them? What’s the way out? Let me try to make it simple, practical and yet being
effective.

Evaluation template and process:

You may implement evaluation process (including mentoring) with a template as shown below. When
you create a template for yourself then put scores range as per the importance of the evaluation area.
Make maximum score as 100, if possible. It will help you gauge the performance in percentage which
will be exactly equal to total evaluation score if the maximum possible score is 100.

Evaluation frequency – You may evaluate monthly, quarterly, half-yearly, yearly, or by end of every
project. I find ‘half-yearly + at end of project’ to be most effective frequency.

These evaluation process may be implemented by two parties:

1. Project manages – They should work on themselves throughout their journey of project
management to do self-evaluation, find areas of improvement for a plan for continuous
improvement.
2. Senior management – Starting from the time of hiring Project managers or during
grooming and mentoring them, evaluation should happen on basis of above
competencies/properties. There should be defined a quantitative evaluation system to
understand current status and management should support project managers to groom
 appropriately.

Keep it simple, implement it simple, make is successful and later add more complexities. It is easy to
adapt with ‘one-baby-step-at-a-time’ approach.
2.2 Project Team and Stakeholders
Just to break the trend, let me be unpredictable and start with the second topic first, that is,
stakeholders of a project.

“Anyone who can affect, get affected, or perceive affected by project”

Close your eyes and think who all qualify to above statement. You would realize there would be more
stakeholders than you could have thought initially. It can be a sponsor, customers, users, sellers,
business partners, functional managers, organizational groups (HR, Procurement, Finance, legal, etc.),
etc.

Once stakeholders are listed, we need to manage them for which we need to understand them, and two
important attributes of them, as given below:
1. Stakeholder may impact positively, negatively, or may be passive.
When project stakeholders are identified then project managers need to identify their nature to be
positive, negative or passive. Utilizing positive stakeholder helps in time of crisis, knowing
negative stakeholders helps you to be prepared about their expected hindrances during the project.
Knowing passive stakeholders is also important. You should know, if they become active then will
it be a positive stakeholder or negative stakeholder, or you have the option to mold them the way
you need. It is done mostly based on their connects with other active stakeholders. If most of their
connects are with negative stakeholders then there is a risk of them becoming a negative
stakeholder, when they become active. Similarly, passive stakeholders may become positive
stakeholder if they are mostly connected to the active positive stakeholder. In such cases, the
project manager should try to make them active when support is needed.
2. Stakeholder may have conflicting interests
It is possible to have a situation when stakeholders may land in conflict with each other. If
stakeholders are from project manager’s internal team, then it is easy to address as explained in
bullet 10 of 3rd point in section 2.1. When conflict is between stakeholder from project
manager’s team and client’s team then also condition is not that difficult to manage, because
project manager will attempt to resolve the issue within team unless it is too absurd to accept
what client stakeholder is asking for. The situation becomes more difficult when all conflicting
stakeholders are from client’s team. In such cases, or otherwise, also, the project manager has
to play a role of mediator/judge with a formula to find a resolution which is aligned to project
goal and strategy of organization for which project is being run. Let’s take an example of the
decision on the internal color of a room which will be shared by two client managers. They
opted for different colors and do not want to change their mind, however not resolving the
matter between themselves. Here project manager can attempt to resolve the issue by acting as
an expert and recommending most suitable color. If they agree then well and good, but if not
then conduct a meeting and tell them the importance of timely decision needed and formally ask
them in writing, with a copy to their boss, to provide common color within given timeline to
avoid project timeline delay and therefore possible cost inflation. Here project manager should
attempt to keep every stakeholder happy, which does not happen every time, in such situation
make use of organization’s interest on top to pacify the conflict.
We will learn more about stakeholder management as we go further. There will be one chapter
dedicated to this subject to manage them.

§ Project team §

When you start forming a new team it goes for a long time. It helps to know all project team members,
their role, contribution and involvement expected. Let’s have a look at different types of team
members:
• Sponsors/Business partners: Mostly help during crisis to provide expertise, external help,
funding, etc. The project team is ultimately answerable to them.
• Sponsor/Business partner member: Most of the time, sponsors deploy their own person in
a project to ensure proper coordination and status information.
• Project management staff: These are people to help the project manager to work on
project management activities, like scheduling, budgeting, reporting, communication,
administration, etc.
• Project staff: These are project staff, which may be 100% available to the project or may
be shared among multiple projects.
• Supporting experts: Often exerts are needed to run a project. They help in planning,
executing, contracting, logistics, legal aspects, safety measures, engineering, testing, quality
control, etc. Depending upon volume, we need to decide if they are needed full time or part-
time.
• User from client side: After the project is awarded, client representative is nominated to
provide clarity on requirements, easy coordination across the team, to be the point of contact
for any liaisons, delivery inspection, testing, and acceptance. This is a key role to be managed
carefully to ensure fast progress of the project.
• Seller/Vendor/Supplier: They are key team member. Often given below than due credit,
they become a part of the team bearing the risk of the project and working with the project
team. If we go in sub-contracting mode then their role is much bigger, in fact, they represent you
in front of the client. In my personal experience, I have seen successful companies building a
team of strong suppliers, treating them well, paying them on time and therefore ensuring most
cost-effective and timely deliverables. If you treat your supplier as you treat your customer, you
will be highly respected in the market. Try it out.

Apart from knowing your project team, the project manager should know the types of team members:
• Dedicated – these team members are full-time engaged on the project.
• Part-time – If the need arises for additional support, or if full-time engagement is not
needed, or resource can be shared among multiple projects, then we allocate resource for part-
time. In such situations, clarity on time distribution, availability, etc. becomes critical to
manage the project.

You learnt about project stakeholders and project team. How will you utilize this
information/knowledge?
Suggested answer: Make a stakeholder register with their attributes being positive or negative or
passive. Utilize positive and passive stakeholders by activating them. At the same time, safeguard
your project from negative stakeholders as explained in the first attribute in section 2.2.

For team formation, first, make your core team. After that, take each type of team member, and list
down people needed in each of them. It would be simple.
3. Organizational influences on ‘Projects’
Few organizations are known to deliver successful projects and, therefore, their growth, while there
are many organizations struggling to deliver their projects, having issues with timelines, budget,
quality, etc. How have these chosen few succeed? Maybe due to an excellent team, may be due to
strong management, may be due to motivating leadership, maybe they are just lucky or maybe we
don’t know? Rather than guessing, let us be sure about factor influencing project and know the tricks
of the game to achieve the highest level of project performance by implementing them. Have a look:
3.1 Vision, mission, and values
These are often taken as fancy statements written on walls/poster to make an impressive statement
about the organization. Actually, it is exactly opposite. These are used to provide direction to the
organization, to motivate its people towards a common goal, and share its beliefs and expected
behavior of the organization. Let’s understand each term separately.

§ Vision §

‘A vision statement is a clear and inspirational hope for the future.’

It may be future of the organization
Future or others as a result of organization’s work
It may or may not have a timeline in it

Let’s see few nice examples:

Facebook: “People use Facebook to stay connected with friends and family, to discover what’s
going on in the world, and to share and express what matters to them”.
Amazon: "Our vision is to be earth's most customer-centric company; to build a place where
people can come to find and discover anything they might want to buy online".
Google: “To provide access to the world’s information in one click”.

Your organization’s vision statement may be little comprehensive to short and crisp. The intension is
to convey the message in simplest possible form.

Suppose you want to provide high-quality free health care to the lower social segment in India then
you may chart our vision statement as:

Our vision statement: “To be the most trusted organization in India providing high quality and
free health care services to below poverty line population of India”.

If you want to associate a timeline, then you may modify your vision statement by adding “by 2030” in
above statement.

§ Mission §

Mission statement supports the vision statement. It is to define work/purpose of the organization. The
details it should include are:
Why organization is taking this work
Description of the work or purpose
The beneficiary for whom the organization is working
How the work or purpose will be fulfilled

Let’s look at the mission statement of same three companies taken above:
Facebook: “To give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected”
Amazon: “We strive to offer our customers the lowest possible prices, the best available
 selection, and the utmost convenience.”
Google: “To organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”

Above mission statements show alignment to vision statement (given above) and take it to next level
by sharing the work they will perform to achieve it.

Let’s see another elaborate example of McDonald’s vision and mission to make it more tangible:

Vision: “Our overall vision is for McDonald’s to become a modern, progressive burger
company delivering a contemporary customer experience. Modern is about getting the brand
to where we need to be today and progressive is about doing what it takes to be the
McDonald’s our customers will expect tomorrow. To realize this commitment, we are focused
on delivering great tasting, high-quality food to our customers and providing a world-class
experience that makes them feel welcome and valued”.
Mission: “Our mission is to be our customers’ favorite place and way to eat & drink. We’re
dedicated to being a great place for our people to work; to be a strong, positive presence in
your community; and to deliver the quality, service, cleanliness, and value our customers
have come to expect from the Golden Arches – a symbol that’s trusted around the world”.

Again let’s take our example of a free health care service organization and chart our own mission
statement. We may share details of our work, how to fulfill realize the vision and

Our mission statement: “Our mission is to create hygiene awareness among people living below
poverty line in India and to be most trusted free medical service provider up to minor surgeries. It
will be financially supported by the profit of another service line to provide high-quality world
class services facilities for higher class people, while we also welcome financial, infrastructure
and service charities”.

Here you might have noticed the inclusion of all four attributes (i.e., work description, purpose,
beneficiary, and approach) of the mission statement

Now you should try to right vision and mission statement of few examples of the business line you
may think of. Validate it with pointer given for both of them.

§ Values §

It guides the people of organization on the way of work. It should include:

The basic belief of the organization
Guiding principals of the organization
The way in which work is to be carried out

Let’s see examples of same three organizations again:

Facebook: 5 core values:

Focus on impact,
 Move fast,
Bo bold,
Be open, and
Build social values
Amazon: There are many values Amazon is pursuing, like,
Customer obsession,
Invent and simplify,
Hire and develop the best,
Insist on the highest standard,
Think big,
Bias for action,
Earn the trust of others,
Dive deep,
Deliver result, etc.
Google
Focus on the user and all else will follow.
It’s best to do one thing really, really well.
Fast is better than slow.
Democracy on the web works.
You don’t need to be at your desk to need an answer.
You can make money without doing evil.
There’s always more information out there.
The need for information crosses all borders.
You can be serious without a suit. and
Great just isn’t good enough.

Isn’t all of above are telling the way of work, suggested approach, guiding principals, etc., which are
sufficient to guide employees of an organization to decide about course of action to be taken by any
company, board, executives, project managers, etc.?

Let’s take an attempt to write value statement for our same free medical service initiative. It may look
like as given below:

Our value statements:

Focus on saving lives, not cost.
Quality not to be compromised for quantity.
We would be grateful for an opportunity to serve the community.
Intend to give more than asked for.

Above value statements should be comprehensive enough to guide the team when they find any
situation for which clear path is undefined. Therefore value statements can keep on growing as we
learn along the journey of the organization.

Exercise: I would request all readers to have a consolidated view of vision, mission and values for
Apple, Microsoft, and Intel. You will enjoy the exercise. You would get enough examples to form one
set by yourself. Do attempt for same, make your own set for any organization, maybe you belong to, or
own, or planning to create one.

Revision: Let's have a quick glance to recap what we learnt for vision, mission and values:

Vision: ‘A vision statement is a clear and inspirational hope for the future.’
Mission: To support vision statement, it is to work/purpose description, beneficiary and describe
how to achieve the purpose.
Values: It is guidance on work ethics, beliefs, and way to think forward.
3.2 Strategic planning
“Strategic planning is a comprehensive review of the organization as an entity and is focused
exercise to determine long-term goals”.

A key function of ‘Management committee’ (or leadership or senior management or whatever it may
be called in your organization) is to determine the direction and scope of the organization for a longer
run, say 3 to 5 years. This exercise is called strategic planning.

Guidance to strategic planning is taken from vision, mission, and value statement of the organization.
It is aimed to provide following output:
Clarifying about the purpose of the organization, that is reset or re-iterate vision, mission and
value statement,
Deciding the priority for the use of resources,
Analyzing the internal and external environment,
Handling of upcoming changes and transitions,
Clear direction for future, and
Setting concrete goals for future.

The main exercise is about looking at what was the purpose of the organization, where the
organization is now, where it wants to go, and how to go there.

Strategic plans are summarized in a written document shared with all concerned to be clear about
aims and objectives of the organization

It sounds more like yearly process in which strategies are made, documented are written and
distributed for clarity on directions and goals, but on contrary, it should be “Active” (repetitive)
process with as higher frequency as possible, to address continuous changes in internal and external
environment and act at earliest to have minimum negative impact and maximum positive impact.

§ Steps to develop your strategic plan §

1. Determining the participants: The management committee generally picks up group or people
against following activities:
1. Plan implementation – Management, Staff, Volunteers, etc.
2. Affected people – Members, users, etc.
3. Monitoring of implementation – Management committee
4. Contributors for development – Funding bodies, community activists, etc.
Apart from above regular pickups, below approaches can be adapted to identify critical
contributors to strategy meeting:
 Conducting multiple workshops (like ‘steward of changes’, ‘one day as CEO’) to identify
bright persons for valued contribution,
Organizing multiple consultation meeting with specific groups to identify if any group is
needed for a specific reason,
Inviting written submission from employees on their views and suggestion for better
functioning and growth on the organization and then inviting suitable persons,
Asking employees to fill a questionnaire to sense any radical but potentially beneficial
thought and invite them,
A steering group made from a range of stakeholders
2. Analyze external and internal environment: Most usually, SWOT analysis is conducted for
same. It is to find out:
1. Strength (internal) – Example – strong technical expertise and reputation in the market.
Leveraging client reference will help.
2. Weakness (internal) – Funding for latest hi-tech machines.
3. Opportunities (external) – More suppliers of machines, significant negotiation is
possible.
4. Threat (internal and external) – Limited funding resulting in reduced salary hike
discouraged employees and competitors are approaching them to hire on their payroll.
This is also elaborate process in which you may collect information by means of a survey,
questionnaire, hiring consultants, etc. You may be more creative, by thinking out of the box, to
devise any other means you feel more appropriate.
3. Discuss where the organization will be going: After analyzing the organization’s situation and
environmental conditions in the previous step, we need to reach common agreement on
following points:
1. Priorities for the coming year (3 to 5 years): Priority area should be driven from
SWOT analysis. These priorities should be aligned to vision, mission and values.
2. Long-term strategic goals: These are broader statements about what the organization
hopes to achieve. They should help in achieving the mission and keep it limited in number
(e.g., 4-10).
These short term and long term goals clear in providing directions and performance should be
measurable.
4. Determine how the organization will meet the goals: It is roadmap from organization’s
current state to future state decided in the previous step. There are four parts in which roadmap
can be created:
1. Setting objective: Objective is an outline of how each aim will be achieved. They
should be SMART.
S – Specific
M – Measurable
A – Achievable
R – Realistic
T – Time-bound
It will give clear guidance about what, how, how much, when, by which date to achieve
the objective.
2. Providing Resources to meet the objective: To fulfill the action items defined in the
 previous step, the management committee must analyze the additional resource
requirement for manpower, machines, facilities, finances, etc.
3. Approval of work plan: Action plan must be prepared to capture the details of
responsibilities, a method to accomplish the works, resources allocated and timeline.
5. Written strategic plan: It is important to create a formal document for a strategic plan with
sign off from key stakeholders. Sample content outline is given below for reference. It may vary
among organizations.
• Executive summary: A summary of the plan to build internal and external support.
• Introduction: This is a placeholder for the purpose of the plan, current status and
developments, brief statistics about a number of staff/volunteers, finance, service users,
etc. Try to put a snapshot of the whole strategy and future ahead.
• Internal appraisal: Provide concise review of the current health of the organization,
summarize strengths and weakness and their implications, key achievements in the
previous period, and overview of governance arrangements.
• Future potential: Outline potential future challenges, like external opportunities and
threat, other potential competitors, stakeholder expectations, etc.
• Strategic aim and priorities for next three years: Cover main focus areas of work
over next three years, with k=y tasks and outcomes associated with each of them. This
will help in the development of annual goals, and guide teams/individual to develop
their plans.
• Delivering the plan (resources and timetable): In this section, you should try to
build confidence to deliver the plan with planned resources. Attach budget and timeline
to show how each main objectives will be managed and achieved.
Having a written and sufficiently circulated strategic plan helps in avoid any communication
gap and also helps the team to build their aligned plans.
6. Monitor and review your strategic plan: Before you complete your plan, you need to agree on
monitoring and review mechanism, like, how the plan will be monitored and reviewed, what
information the management committee needs to receive for a progress review. The role of the
management committee is to:
1. Ensure that activities are within defined objectives and goals
2. Ensure that activities are aligned with vision, mission, and values
3. Publicize the output to keep the confidence of stakeholders
4. Review internal and external changes which may raise a need to adjust the strategic
plan to keep it realistic and relevant.
The ownership of strategic plan remains with management committee and they are line project
manager for any project.

Revision: Let's have a quick glance to recap what we learnt about strategic planning.

“Strategic planning is a comprehensive review of the organization as an entity and is focused

exercise to determine long-term goals”.

It is driven from (new) vision, mission, and values. Notice the word (new) here, which indicates, if
any change in vision, mission, and values are made then impact of same needs to be planned and
propagated through strategic planning. A key function of ‘Management committee’ is to determine the
direction and scope of the organization for a longer run, say 3 to 5 years. This exercise is called
strategic planning.
3.3 View of leadership, hierarchy, and authority relationship
Depending upon the work culture of an organization, or view of the leadership, the project
management also takes different routes. For example, a youngster’s startup will have open
environment and hierarchy will be relatively flat and authorities would NOT be too formal. On
contrary, another organization may have well defined multi-layered hierarchy, approval authority
chain and leadership may have the opinion to run their projects in the same manner. I am not trying to
qualify any approach bad or good, just sharing extreme situations.

Let’s consider an example of a hypothetical company, GEEYEE. Consider it to be a large and highly
process-oriented organization. All processes are documented and must to be followed. Required
approvals must follow their defined hierarchy and approval authorities are also well defined.
Obviously this setup is aligned with leadership view and it is working fine.

Let’s consider another example of another hypothetical company, Daylight. It is to be another large
organization which is always a frontrunner and takes challenges to solve any problem by thinking out
of the box and being the front-runner in technology to try out its hand on latest developments and
keeps its position of being a market leader. Their output is considered more important as they venture
into a new path, and therefore, well-defined processes do not work. The hierarchy can be jumped if it
helps in innovation, more individual authorities are granted to least impact the project and these
practices have got the blessing of leadership.

Having set the context for two different approaches, now let’s see the impact of these organizational
attributes on project management.

Project management consideration for GEEYEE:

Project work has to be planned in waterfall method, in which you follow one step after other. For
example, in IT industry, you will begin with requirement gathering, design, development, testing, user
acceptance, go-live, post-production support, and handover. All phases are distinct and need
approval before changing the phase. Entire project planning has to be done to conduct work in the
same style.

Project management consideration for Daylight:

Here project course is unpredictable, as they venture into unknown areas. So waterfall method will
not work. They decided to go for the Agile method, in which work groups are formed, the co-located
team is built, one problem is taken as a time, requirement gathering, development, testing, acceptance
is done in a same closed group. Once they get acceptable output then they close the workgroup with
documentation. Here formality of requirement sign off, technical design before coding, test case
preparation, etc. are skipped. Work is first accomplished and the formalities, like documentation,
approvals, etc. are done.

Both approaches mentioned above have their own merits and demerits. Both works in different
situations. There is no one-size-fits-all concept in project management. So you have to understand the
view of leadership, hierarchy and authority structure of the organization and see if it works for the
project. If works then go with the flow but if not then you need to discuss these important aspects with
leadership to create a suitable project structure to make it successful.
3.4 Regulations, policies, methods and procedures
This point is more related to compliance than project delivery. Project managers should be
completely aware about these points when planning for any project or execute it or in any phase of the
project.
Let’s consider a regulation by the UAE government according to which labors cannot work between
12:30 pm to 3 pm, due to heat stroke, at open site for three peak summer months. Dates are decided
by UAE government which varies from year to year, depending upon actual condition. If this
regulation is not known by project manager then the project planning would go for a toss.

Consider another example in which DHL drivers are not supposed to work for more than 6 hours. In
exceptional cases (less than 5%) it can be extended to 8 hours. This policy has to be known for
scheduling a person to plan a delivery truck route for appropriate utilization of resources while
following policies.
3.4 Risk Tolerance
There are few organizations which have a high-risk appetite and vice versa. This attribute of the
organization or management approach impacts a project. Suppose you are owning a civil construction
company and well versed with high rise residential building. Your project manager (PM) is under
discussion with a client who is asking to set up a small healthcare unit in the basement of the building.
PM is aware of the fact that his organization never made any healthcare unit.

Consider a case when the PM is working for GEEYEE, which is a process oriented organization
where deviations are minimum. PM would never dare to talk about this change request from the client
with her/his higher-ups, understanding it will not click as the risk appetite for new work is very low.
In another situation if PM is working for Daylight, PM will not only proceed with the discussion but
also may take the risk to even accept the change within her/his capacity and deliver the work. Here
PM knows that his organization (Daylight) is always supportive in doing new work and has higher
risk appetite to support this culture.

Having, or not having, enough risk tolerance make a difference on the project is planned and
executed. In today’s world, where things are changing faster than ever, there virtually lies no work in
which risk is zero. So consider increasing your organizations risk tolerance to be more successful.
3.5 Beliefs and expectations
It is related to values of the organization. Suppose one organization, say again ‘Daylight’ has value
statement as ‘We will never give or take a bribe.’ The message is a clear instruction to all employees,
including PM, not to pay bribe even work is impacted and work with honesty. It also says, do not take
any costly gift, for more than US$ 25, to make sure no one is taking undue advantage of you.
When PM is aware of this belief and expectation then entire team is geared up to adopt the path of
hard work and honesty.

Consider another organization, hypothetically say ‘Tuchcha’, treats such people who make the work
moving by paying some bribe, as smart people. If PM knows about this culture then her/his focus
would be to find an easier way to get the work moving by means of a bribe. Remember such practices
would come back and bite you sooner than you expect.
3.6 Motivation and reward systems
We often say, appreciation should be done in public. We observe also same practice. It is used to
keep best performers motivated. Apart from motivational measures, reward system also works well,
as it is very tangible.

Two of my friends (Arjun and Sakuni) are entrepreneurs. Both had brilliant ideas. They started their
startup, built their teams and achieved what they wanted in the first year. Revenue started flowing and
within one year they were able to meet their organizational expenses.

For the first-year anniversary celebration, my first friend (Arjun) personally hosted a get-together and
thanked all employees, appreciated their efforts to bring the company to meet its expenses, distributed
some bonus on the spot to whatever budget allowed.

My second friend (Sakuni) arranged for team lunch (pizza party) to celebrate the first-year
completion. Employees were excited and expecting nice comments and some surprise. The surprise
was given by Sakuni but in an unexpected manner. He started with thanking entire team. He shared the
financial progress and said we are just able to meet our expenses. This way it will be extremely
difficult to grow. All of you (employees) need to understand the seriousness and put more effort, else
I will not be able to run this company for the long run. Somehow taste of pizza was gone, all mouths
turned sour and team lunch was over in stressed environment.

Needless to say, Arjun’s company is growing rapidly while retaining his team, but Sakuni is almost
bankrupt and looking for a job.

Therefore, having a culture of motivation and reward is a must for an organization. PM should also
plan for such team gathering and fund for rewards.

Disclosure; Arjun and Sakuni are hypothetical entities.

3.7 Code of conduct, work ethics
Setting up the professional environment in an organization is the responsibility of higher management.
Setting up the professional environment in a project team is the responsibility of Project manager.

§ Code of conduct §

Code of conduct is the first element in this exercise which establishes a set of rules, principles,
values, employee expectations, behavior and relationship. Establishing and publishing a code of
conduct not only helps an organization to work in a professional manner but also to present itself in
the market as a remarkable organization following standards and ethics. Code of conduct is named
differently, for example, Code of business ethics, Code of ethical business conduct, Code of ethics
and standards, and so on. These are attractive names given to Code of conduct to establish themselves
as a market leader. Let’s look at a few code of conducts to get a feel of the subject:

Johnson & Johnson code of conduct (called Credo):

We believe our first responsibility is to the doctors, nurses and patients, to mothers and
fathers and all others who use our products and services. In meeting their needs everything
we do must be of high quality. We must constantly strive to reduce our costs in order to
maintain reasonable prices. Customers' orders must be serviced promptly and accurately.
Our suppliers and distributors must have an opportunity to make a fair profit.

We are responsible to our employees, the men and women who work with us throughout the
world. Everyone must be considered as an individual. We must respect their dignity and
recognize their merit. They must have a sense of security in their jobs. Compensation must
be fair and adequate, and working conditions clean, orderly and safe. We must be mindful of
ways to help our employees fulfill their family responsibilities. Employees must feel free to
make suggestions and complaints. There must be equal opportunity for employment,
development and advancement for those qualified. We must provide competent management,
and their actions must be just and ethical.

We are responsible to the communities in which we live and work and to the world
community as well. We must be good citizens – support good works and charities and bear
our fair share of taxes. We must encourage civic improvements and better health and
education. We must maintain in good order the property we are privileged to use, protecting
the environment and natural resources.

Our final responsibility is to our stockholders. Business must make a sound profit. We must
experiment with new ideas. Research must be carried on, innovative programs developed
and mistakes paid for. New equipment must be purchased, new facilities provided and new
products launched. Reserves must be created to provide for adverse times. When we operate
according to these principles, the stockholders should realize a fair return.

Coca-Cola – Highlights of the code of conduct

• PROTECT WHAT IS OURS - WE CARE FOR ALL ASSETS THAT MAKE US COCA-
 COLA.
We Protect Non-Public Information
We Safeguard Company Assets
We Maintain Accurate Records We Prevent Money Laundering
• DEMONSTRATE ACCOUNTABILITY - OUR NAME IS SYNONYMOUS WITH
INTEGRITY, AND IT IS UP TO US TO KEEP IT THAT WAY.
We Avoid Conflicts of Interest
We Are Responsible with Gifts, Meals and Entertainment
We Build Transparent Relationships
• DEAL FAIRLY WITH OTHERS - WE HAVE BUILT A REPUTATION FOR DOING
THINGS THE RIGHT WAY.
We Compete Fairly
We Comply with Trade Compliance Laws
We Do Not Tolerate Bribery
We Do Not Trade on Inside Information
We Follow Privacy Laws
• CARE FOR OUR COMMUNITIES - WE WORK AS A TEAM – SUPPORTING
OTHERS AND LEAVING A POSITIVE FOOTPRINT ON OUR WORLD.
We Respect Human Rights
We Show That We Care

Having a well-defined code of conduct helps employees of the companies to take guidance and
comply with rules set in it. It also helps project managers to set right expectations for the team,
working with clients and delivering the project. If needed, project managers can define additional
guidelines for a code of conduct specific to the project as necessary in the situation while keeping it
aligned to organizations code of conduct. For example, if the client has a huge next door competitor,
which always keep trying to get insider information. The project manager was made aware of the
situation and requested her/him to instruct team not to interact with any personnel from a competitor
in any manner, even at a personal level. In this case, the Project manager can issue an additional code
of conduct to team member advising them to keep away from all personnel of next door competitor in
any manner, while being polite if approached from their side.
3.8 Working environment and work hours

If the working environment is good then performance will be rewarding, both for organization and
individuals (WIN-WIN situation). It is exactly opposite when the environment is tense, high pressure,
less rewarding, etc. Similarly, work hours also plays a major role in work-life balance. If you
working longer hours defines you a hard working person then you are at wrong place. If you are
delivering high-quality work in stipulated, or around stipulated time and, therefore, winning
appreciations then you are the right place.

As a project manager, or leader, or owner, you must understand the importance of good working
environment and its direct relationship to project or group or organization output.

In order to build a cohesive working condition, now or later, you would have to streamline following
factors influencing the same:
• Employee level processes and initiatives: You need to manage each employee not only
as an asset but also as a most precious asset.
Career planning – You must have a defined and well-planned career path for your all
employees. It should be discussed with them. They may not be able to understand it to
last bit, as they have less exposure than you, but they will appreciate the consideration
and effort and would also work towards common growth.
Goal setting and performance feedback – Goal setting for employees set the
expectations at the beginning. It becomes the baseline for performance evaluation. Goal
setting can be done on yearly basis or project-wise, depending on the kind of work to
be done. In process-oriented organizations, it can be for a financial year or calendar
year. Performance evaluation can be yearly, half-yearly, quarterly or at the end of every
project. There can be a mix of these two options, that is performance cycle for each
project and yearly consolidation for salary hike and promotions. A better approach is to
start with a simple yearly goal setting and half-yearly appraisals. Poor performance
management often leads to dissatisfaction among employees and they feel improperly
awarded due to lack of documented goal setting, evaluation and record of evaluated
facts.
Supervisor support and mentoring – For any employee to grow, she/he expects to
support from a supervisor or any mentor. To fulfill this need, it is very important for an
organization to have streamlined mentoring setup in which employee can discuss any
matter with mentor/supervisor. The role of the mentor is to guide for success in the
organization and be a success in long run. Like goal setting and appraisal cycle,
mentoring cycle should also run in parallel. The practice of merging these two
processes are widespread but it has few disadvantages. If you make supervisor as a
mentor then employees don’t get any ventilation for conflicting thoughts with a
supervisor. If the mentor is someone else then the situation becomes different and it
works best in the interest of the organization as well as employees.
• Team/Group level initiatives – As a group leader, or project manager, you represent
your organization and it's your duty to work on following points:
Team formation – Just as proper ingredients are necessary to prepare a nice meal, the
same way, proper team composition is necessary for a successful project team, or any
team for that matter. Instead of making it as one time exercise, it should be taken as
regular improvement measure to ad people, skills to people, expertise, tools,
techniques, etc.
Role mapping and clarity – Employees should be given a suitable job to match her/his
skills, position and experience. Either way variation, lower skills-higher profile, or
higher skills lower profile, are less survival model for any job assignment.
Rules of the ground – These rules are related to best practices to be followed to avoid
reworks and conflicts. For example, prior meeting setup when multiple parties are
involved, no gossip in the workspace, no bullying or harassment, not accepting of
giving gifts of higher values, respecting women, no gender-specific comments, no nick-
naming, appreciation in public, counseling in private, etc. It is the additional job of
project manager to establish and implement such rule. This exercise avoids lots of
intra-team conflicts and confrontations.
Conflict management – Even after setting up the rule, discussed in the previous point,
conflicts may happen. As a team leader or project manager, you should be chart out the
transparent and systematic approach to resolving any conflict may arise. Let’s take an
example of conflict management approach, which says, first, the conflict must be
discussed without any record and attempt should be made to resolve it in the interest of
the organization. If resolved then all is well, else register the conflict including details
of parties involved and associate a facilitator, in suitable role, to resolve the issues. In
case the conflict is still not resolved then execute final option to involve senior
management and issue the resolution which is best in the interest of the organization and
seek agreement from all parties. In case parties are not agreeing for something which is
in the interest of organization then probably you need to refer the case to HR to ensure
minimum impact on the project. It is just an example. Since conflict resolution is an art,
you can devise a better approach and utilize the guidance to keep organization’s interest
at highest interest, you can deploy all your skills and learning to come up with
something amazing.
Inadequate resources – While forming a team, it is difficult to get unlimited resources,
like, human resources, machines, technologies, finance, time, etc. Having scarcity of
resources puts the project in a crisis situation and it impacts the quality of work.
Therefore, it becomes mandatory for a project manager to arrange least adequate
resources to meet the objective of the project or rest the objective of the project with
respect to available resources. Not meeting either of two options will lead to failed
project or low-quality output. And that is not desired.
Heavy workloads and stress – It may sound like a corollary to above point where
human resource is inadequate. This is only one case of heavy workload and stress.
Other reason may be, accepting change request without asking for more time, absorbing
delays from counterpart from client side to provide requirement, acceptance, etc. and
pressuring your team to deliver output in the same timeline, not accounting for planned
leaves on long holidays and not adjusting delivery timeline, etc. Whatever may be the
reason, heavy workload and stress cannot be permitted as regular nature of your project
or workplace. It does work for long term. People will come and go, leading to high
attrition and dissatisfaction.
 Depleting health condition – As a project manager, you are representing your
organization to your team. Like your tea treats you as guardian, You have to treat your
team as your ward. Accordingly you have to monitor their health condition. If there is a
slightest sight of depleting health condition of the team then you need to act as fast as
possible to correct it, with due honesty. No one would like to affect their health due to
office work. If you cannot change the health condition, they will find an alternative
place to work with a better health condition. It is a no-compromise zone of employee
satisfaction.
Perceived discrimination – Last but not the least, discrimination is inhumane and you
may land up in a very difficult situation if proven to do discrimination. This is against
law and we all make sure to abide by laws. Leaving legal aspect aside, even one feels
or perceives of being discriminated, she/he will start feeling disgraced, depressed,
disrespected, and will drench herself/himself in negativity. Obviously a project
manager cannot afford that. Take the example of the most sensitive discrimination
issues, black versus white, and consider it appearing in your team. Instantly inform HR,
then talk to discriminator about the seriousness of the matter and ask to refrain from any
such action which may hurt anyone. This is another area of zero tolerance. It is
advisable to involve HR in such situations to conduct a workshop or information
session or even simple formal communication to convey the message in a proper
manner, which is taken seriously by all employees.
• Organization level initiatives – There are few initiatives which are to be taken at the
organization level. It may be HR initiative or business line initiative, or leadership initiative,
or any other group. Point is more related to an initiative to be taken, in the interest of making
your organization as the best place to work. Look at following initiative to facilitate same
intention.
Learn and apply skills – There should be an encouraging environment to develop hot
skills and employees should be given a chance to apply newly acquired skills.
Defined processes – There are many operational works, apart from career planning
and management, which are a matter of interest to the employees. Let’s consider the
most interesting example of on-site assignment in IT industry. If I write from India
perspective, then it is related to going out of India and working with a client, the most
favorite place being the USA. Almost every employee in IT industry dreams for same
as it adds to their exposure, knowledge, comfort of life, and finances. Since it is most
desired assignment so, sometimes, it becomes a point of contention as well. In case you
are a leader of such an IT organization then it is advisable to chart put a clear process
to prepare and getting selected for onsite assignment. After defining the process, make
sure it is honesty followed by people executing it. Sometimes it becomes difficult to
create such process to pinpoint a decision and such cases define the exception path also
which should remain with senior people to decide in favor of organization.
Workplace incentives – Incentives sounds good. As an organization, you should make
sure to provide as par or better incentives than your competitors. It always helps to
retain good people. Don’t worry about sludge (I hope you understand it, else explained
below) getting stuck in your organization. Since they are sludge so anyways they will
not move, you have to clean it up.
Sludge is a community of people who are like sludge of river, stuck to the bottom of
 the river bed, making river shallow, restricting the flow of the river.
Poor leadership – Hope is lees if your leadership is poor. Sometimes it difficult to
accept it but its important. It is difficult to rectify it from outside but owner community
is capable of correcting such situations. As an organization, there should exist a
mechanism to convey such feeling from the bottom. Such example may be 360-degree
feedback, in which lower hierarchy people can provide feedback on higher up. Serious
consideration should be given to creating a mechanism to address this issue by
management committee or board or chairman. If it does not exist then the organization
success cannot be guaranteed beyond a mere coincidence or more appropriately, we
can say “Bhagwan bharose company” in Hindi language, which means, luck by chance.
Lack of transparency – There is secrecy needed, I don’t deny that, but everything need
not be hidden from the team, I don’t accept that. Wherever secrecy is needed, convey it
clearly and appropriately, and maintain transparency at all other places. If we take an
example of bidding process then definitely we cannot afford to be transparent about bid
price, negotiation lowest limits, etc. On the other hand, if we don’t keep transparency in
promotion guidelines, processes, etc., then it may create a sense of unfair practices.
Then is no gain, only lose, in lacking the transparency of something you are doing
honestly. So protect only sensitive information and be transparent to all other
processes.
Clash of values – this is dangerous but controllable. When there is a clash of values
between two or more higher stakeholders, then the team gets confused, the direction is
lost and motivation goes for a toss. The organization should have a mechanism to
address such issues and direction to resolve such clashes in alignment with value
statements of the organization. If value statements do not cover such aspect then senior
management should get involved to resolve the matter and provide clarity to
organization and team to keep coherent behavior.
Organizational Communications – We all like to hear from horse’s mouth, trust it most
and consider it the truth. Same is the case of organizational communication. It
establishes an effective bonding between employee and employer, it is highly
recommended to keep the communication channel open between two parties. Getting
newsletter from CEO desk on monthly basis may not sound great idea but it is a great
idea. Consider a situation in which you are a team member at the beginner level and
your organization is being discussed on television news channel as having a tough time.
You get worried, about your career and your organization too. It is only one week and
you know your CEO is going to write a newsletter with all developments. When you
receive the same, you found the truth and it was not as bad as portrayed. On contrary, if
you don’t have any communication channel with your leadership then you might start
looking for a job change. Definitely communication channel helps. It becomes more
effective as you make it more in person communication where employees can talk to
leadership on regular basis.

Revision: Let's have a quick glance to recap what we learnt about working environment. The
highlight is to control it at three levels, (i) employee level (working on their career), (ii) group level
(for team building and managing), and (iii) at organization level (to have defined processes, learning
environment, sound incentives, transparency and strong leadership)
3.9 Organizational structure

In the first chapter, we learnt any work can be categorized into either as project work or as process
work. For example, mass production is process-oriented work and installation of the production plant
is project types of work. We also learnt project and process are mutually exclusive, complementary
and related to each other.

Management approaches for both of them are different. Project management approach works well
when the project is completely exclusive of any process.

But what will happen when you get a mix of these situations? If you are a project manager of a project
which is expected to work with another running process then how will you manage such situation?
Let’s take few examples to understand the situation first.

Mechanical industry example:

You are given a project to upgrade existing assembly line to add a couple of machining equipment to
increase the efficiency. Assembly line is already operational and you have to work in tandem with
production personnel to get a downtime to work on your project. Obviously you would expect
downtime as per your convenience and production personnel would provide you downtime according
to their convenience.

Civil industry example:

You are given a replace railways electric signals on a stretch of 50 Km. Tracks are already in use and
you need at least 2 hours downtime to replace one signal. Your team cannot work independently and
need as big as possible downtime from railways operating organization, which has its own priorities
to meet on regular basis.

IT industry example:
You are given an enhancement project to improve the functionality of an existing IT system. It is about
adding ordering and tracking system for an e-commerce site. Obviously you will need downtime to
migrate your enhancement but even before that you will need time from functional team to provide you
detailed requirements, create the test cases, do regression testing for existing functionalities, test for
new functionalities, provide acceptance to a new solution. Since the functional team is already
occupied with current workload and full-time engagement is also not needed for the project, so you
would be required to work with them per their convenience to manage and deliver your project.

NOTE: Process-oriented organizations are also called functional organizations.

In all above examples, you found that the projects are not completely independent. The project
management becomes a little bit tricky and it becomes important to have a systematic approach t
handle such mixed scenario.

To accommodate such situations, let’s call mixed structure as MATRIX structure. Now we have three
types of organization structure:

1. Functional structure
 2. Matrix structure (newly added for a combination of 1st and 3rd)
3. Projectized structure

Project manager authority and resources available to the discretion of project will be least in
functional structure while it is maximum in projectized structure. In matrix structure it can remain
anywhere in between.

To manage matrix structure in a better way, let’s divide it further as shown below:

1. Functional structure
2. Matrix structure (newly added for a combination of 1st and 3rd)
Weak matrix
Balanced matrix
String matrix
3. Projectized structure

Let’s review table given below to understand the impact of organization structure on multiple project
characteristics.

Obviously any project manager would like to work in projectized organization structure to have full
control on a project to deliver best out of her/him.

Understanding above is important but not the whole purpose of the section. We need to have a defined
management approach for other cases as well. Let’s see how it works in one of the examples for the
mechanical industry, as taken earlier.

Continuation of Mechanical industry example:

Earlier we took an example of a project to install a couple of machining tools in running assembly
line. We discussed the possible and inevitable impacts on the project by regular assembly process.
After learning about MATRIX organization structure, we can say it is a similar case. Let’s see the
possible way of handling such cases:
1. Identify the type of matrix (weak, medium, or strong).
2. Identify the resource needs from the functional team. It includes human resources, machine,
financial supports etc. Here it may be assembly line downtime, a technical expert from
functional team to be available during the same downtime to test the installations.
3. Have a well-defined process for scheduling and intimation for required meetings and common
working hours.
 4. Formalize the acceptance criteria and sign-off process, timeline, people to be involved, etc., to
avoid any confusion at the time of the project.

You may further refine and crystallize the process by adding few clauses like:

Written communication to confirm assembly line downtime needs to be sent at least 3 working
days in advance to mobilize the resources. In case of a short notice, the project team may not be
able to mobilize which may result in additional time and cost for the project.
Work acceptance confirmation needs to be provided within 1 working days after successful
testing. If no defect was raised during testing then work will be considered as accepted even if
no acceptance communication was sent within 1 working day. Any defect raised after this period
would be considered as a change request, may lead to additional time and cost for the project.
It is mandatory to provide financial approval at least 15 working days in advance for any change
request. Approval of change request from client side needs counter approval from service
provide side to consider is acceptable.
Escalation mechanism must be adhered to process as described in this point, in order to
minimize any delay of the project. First level escalation will be addressed to project manager
from the client side, if not resolved in 2 working days then goes up to program manager, if still
not resolved then the matter would be referred to the business head and resolution is expected
within 7 working days from the client side. Further delay will lead to a change request from the
service provider to inflate time and cost.
Above are few examples to give you a feel of putting right process in place to safeguard yourself or
your project manager in a matrix structure. You will have to completely re-write this section as per
the structure you encounter.

WARNING: In case we miss to conduct this analysis and include such relevant clauses and assume
the full power to project manager, it is bound to create problems during execution. The problem
becomes more severe as we from right to left in above table, that is, as we move from projectized to
functional organizational setup.

Revision of the chapter: Let's have a quick glance to recap what we learnt in this chapter, as it
was a big one having 9 sections.

We learnt about following factors which impacts a project:

1. Vision, mission, and values – Sets the foundation for the organization
2. Strategic planning – Set the next level goals, processes and methods
3. View of leadership, hierarchy and authority relationship – impacts the flow of work in
a project to keep it aligned to the view of leadership and adhering to a hierarchical
approach
4. Regulations, policies, methods and procedures – impacts the project planning in
compliance with policies, etc.
5. Risk tolerance – impacts the project in unclear situations
6. Beliefs and expectations – It is more towards unwritten values, like a bribe or not to
bribe, etc.
 7. Code of conduct and work ethics – It is written, live and expanding, set of rules for
conducting business in different situations.
8. Working environment and work hours – It is related to the environment in which team
works and feel comfortable or not.
9. Organizational structure – It is mostly focused on matrix type of organization structure
of project workplace and impact on the project.

There may be additional factors which may impact a project and needs to be handled exclusively. For
example, if you are given a project to install nuclear power plant then many of the restriction would
apply from United Nation’s IAEA (International Atomic Energy Association) and you need to factor
in the impact, e.g., like getting machines certified as safe from IAEA lab in Vienna, getting nuclear
fuel supply arranged in coordination with UN scientists, installation and commissioning of nuclear
power plant in coordination with US team, and so on.

So look around, find all factors which can impact your project, prepare a process to address those,
and prepare your project plan by including their impacts on timeline and cost of the project.
4. Support systems for Project Managers
A mature organization is identified by its product and/or services, distinct vision, growth, client
satisfaction, ‘approach to work’ and its people. Here the approach to work largely depends upon
three factors. These are:
1. Practices and processes followed for an effective way of working
2. The centralized accessible knowledge base for reference
3. Support groups in the organization, e.g., PMO, COE, R&D, etc.

In this chapter, we will look at these three support systems for project managers.
4.1 Organizational Process Assets
Every organization is unique, so is their business, so is their leadership, so it way or working, and
therefore, so is their processes. For example, procurement process in one organization will be
different from other organization. One may go for approved supplier concept, another may go for the
most economical supplier. One organization may have purchase order approval linked to available
bank balance, another may have approval linked to projected revenue, and so on. In order to have
your well defined streamlined process below are few most important processes for which you should
have well-defined process flow:
1. Processes and Procedures: This is a bigger group in which you will cover:
Standards: These are standards to be followed for any work, for example, coding
standards for IT company, design codes for civil engineering, mechanical engineering
code for tolerance, etc.
Policies: These are companies policies, for example HR policy, promotion policy,
working condition policy, etc., to be adhered by all employees. Let's consider one policy
which mandates truck drivers not to be given work for more than 8 hours in a day. Due to
this policy, if work shift is for 12 hours then project manager will have to deploy 2
drivers to cover one shift. Therefore, the project manager should be aware of the policies
and plan their work to remain complaint with organization’s policies.
Templates and samples: Templates are the format of different documents which can be
taken as a base to create a new document. For example, you may pick up purchase order
template, fill up details required like item, quantity, unit price, discount, taxes, billing
address, shipping address, reference to quotation, etc. Samples are basically an example
of a filled template. For example, in above case, along with purchase order template, you
may have a couple of samples such that user can look at samples to make their document.
2. Change control process: This is the second most important process to create awareness in all
employees who control the scope of the work. Most projects get delayed due to project creep.
Therefore it should be defined and agreed process before launching the project or during
definition phase of the project. We will cover this area in detail in upcoming chapters. For the
time being, consider it to be a process to help you to get time and cost for change in scope.
3. Financial control process: It has a wide range of processes. We discussed procurement
processes in the previous point. Similar processes can be revenue recognition process,
budgeting process, receivable process, and so on. We will cover this area in details in
upcoming chapters.
4. Issue and defect management procedure: This is an important area to manage to make your
project more predictable. Here you will list all issues and defects along with the type of
issue/defect, their impact, the person responsible to resolve, reason, impact on cost, impact on
time, etc. It will also be covered in detail in upcoming chapters.
5. Communication procedure: Communication helps. Having planned and regular communication
makes your organization a better place to work or better partner to work with. In this
procedure, we make a plan for sending a communication, with the type of communication, a
method of communication (oral, verbal, email, newsletter, standing meeting, etc.), the frequency
of communication, authorities to communication, etc. This procedure will also be covered in
detail in upcoming chapters.
6. Work prioritizing process, approval process: When multiple projects are running then there
 may arise a situation to prioritize works in the best interest of the organization. Let’s take an
example of IT industry in which onsite deputation (manpower deployed at client location) is
always challenging. Organization guideline is to maintain a ratio of 20:80 of onsite: offshore
team. Imagine, the organization has total 1000 employees. With this guideline, only 200
employees can be sent to offshore. One project required more onsite manpower to satisfy the
needs of the client and asking for additional manpower. Organization understood the
expectation of client to have up to 30% manpower at onsite. In spite of making revenue, the
organization can take a call to either limit the ratio to 20:80 or give up the project as satisfying
this company would lead to loss of two more projects. There can be many such examples to
create a need to work priority for which a process and approval authority has to be decided.
7. Risk control process: We all know few risks and think, we will manage it when it comes. This
is dangerous to project and organization. The project manager is badly stuck in a difficult
situation when risk gets materialized and you, as a project manager, did not intimate any
stakeholder. To address this issue, you, as a project manager, should maintain a risk register to
give it a name, category, statement template, probability definition, fallback plans B and C, etc.
This procedure will also be covered in detail in upcoming chapters.
8. Proposal evaluation process: It is organizations handshake mechanism to outside world.
Either you are sending a proposal or receiving a proposal, there should be a well-defined
process to evaluate it before you communicate with outside world. Procurement procedure will
also be covered in detail in upcoming chapters, however, sales proposals topic is out of the
scope of this book as it is not in a preview of project management.
9. Closure process: When a project comes to an end then it is must to close all points, get
acceptance from the client, complete documentation, close all project related contracts for
procurement, assets rentals, etc., get final audit completed, conduct lessons learnt session and
document learning from the project and finally close the project. This procedure will also be
covered in detail in upcoming chapters.
4.2 Corporate Knowledge Base:
Often when you start working in any organization, not only you are eager to know about the
organization but also you look forward to referring to a centralized location where you would reach
to find out all policies, processes, templates, and other documents to use in your interest. In earlier
days, we used to have libraries to visit the refer these documents. Now it is converted into online
repositories, or more commonly known as a corporate knowledge base. Below are few important
points which you should consider when creating or using your corporate knowledge base:
• Configuration management: This is basically a management plan for all your documents. It
starts with the mechanism of placeholder for these documents. It may be a server with a folder
structure to keep documents grouped into different categories, for example one folder may be
related to all HR policies. Another consideration would be to create, review and authorize the
release of any new document. This is called base-lining of the document.
• Financial database: To control the finances, it is always better to have a financial database
to which project manager can refer for multiple purposes, like, driving the cost budget based
on past records, identifying right supplier based on past supplier performance, hiring people
from right human resourcing companies, etc.
• Historical information and lessons learnt: These are past experience of the organization
and helps the project manager to plan their project in most predictable manner. For example, if
any geography has significant social or climate disturbances then schedule should be prepared
to accommodate such disturbances with additional of buffer time based on average
disturbances found in past in that geography. Another example may be referring to lessons
learnt while running other projects for the same client for which project is launched. If lessons
learnt says, user testing is always a time taking the process and it is generally double than our
regular estimate, then project manager can plan project schedule in such a way that user testing
can be accumulated to save time. There can be so many such examples which you should read
and make your project more successful based on historical information.
• Issues and defect management database: This is yet another asset any project team
should dig into to find details of issues and defect occurred earlier while executive similar
project. For example, let’s take IT industry in this case. Consider a practice of e-commerce
system development in which global user load handling was found as one of the most recurring
issue. Having known that, the project team should work in parallel to system development, to
create a systematic global load testing environment. It would avoid future surprises and save
from system redesign for load distribution.
• Process management database: We define processes and follow these. It should also
participate in continuous improvements by means of reviews and getting feedback from users
of the processes. This process would result in process improvement and a new version of the
process. In version control, we start with draft version and after approval we release 1st
version of the document. After process performance evaluation and revision, a new version of
the document is released. The version number is changed. It becomes very important to refer to
the latest version and, therefore, a feature of latest base-lining become important. Let’s
consider a case of purchase order template in which reference quotation number of supplier
was not available. The need was felt to include same and the template was revised
accordingly. Suppose earlier version was V1.0 and next version, after inclusion of supplier
quotation number, created was V1.1. In this case user should be always be referred to latest
 base-lined version, which is V1.1 in this case.

Overall, incorporate knowledge base, we try to keep all documents readily available for reference by
the team. Appropriate access control is also important to provide the right information to right
people. For example, financial information may be restricted to limited people of positions.
4.3 Project Management Office (PMO)
It is another support system we create to facilitate project managers. It is a central organization
created by higher management for the additional purpose of consolidated reporting of all projects. It
may be a group of as small as one person, or as large as the organization needs. In this section we are
focused on PMO being a support system for project management. Let’s see how it should work:

We can consider PMO as a management structure to standardize project- governance processes and
facilitates the sharing of resources, methodologies, tools, and techniques. The responsibilities of a
PMO can range from providing project management support functions to actually being responsible
for the direct management of one or more projects.

Broadly, there can be three types of PMO, based on varying degree of control and influence on
projects:
1. Supportive (Lower control): It provides a consultative role to projects by supplying templates,
best practices, training, access to information and lessons learned from other projects. This type
of PMO serves as a project repository.
2. Controlling (moderate control): Additionally, It requires compliance through various means.
Compliance may involve adopting project management frameworks or methodologies, using
specific templates, forms and tools, or conformance to governance.
3. Directive (High control): It takes control of the projects by directly managing the projects.

Above natures can be mixed and matched based on your need. You can design a PMO which posses
all above characteristics.

Let’s take an example of a civil engineering organization in which PMO is established with following
seven points agenda:

Let’s look at them in little more detail to understand the type of PMO activity:

1. Providing support to its project managers– It is related to share process documents,

templates, tools and techniques, and other resources to start and run the project in a coherent
manner. Therefore, it is supportive action,
 2. Ensuring governance and legal compliances – It can be further divided into two parts, one is
related to governance of organizational processes and compliances and another is legal
compliances. Project managers need to ensure these compliances and submit the proof to PMO.
Therefore, it is controlling activity.
3. Executing strategic project – Organization may execute few strategic projects whose success
is most important and therefore it may depute senior experienced project manager from PMO
team. Let’s consider an example of a new initiative by the government to roll out biometric data
collection for particular community and awarded a pilot project for a small community. If the
organization is successful in the pilot project then it opens a door of huge opportunity to get
projects for pan country. Organization to not want to take any risk and ask PMO to manage it
and execute it with help of project team. Here full responsibility and control lies with PMO.
Therefore, it is directive nature of the PMO.
4. Maximizing business –In order to maximize the business, PMO is given complete authority to
allocate resources to projects from a common pool, PMO is expected to ensure maximum
utilization of resources and focus on projects with maximum future potential. In this endeavor,
PMO may even withdraw resources from one project of lower potential to another project of
higher potential. Here PM becomes powerless to control resources. Therefore, it is controlling
nature of PMO.
5. Reporting and coordination of risks and issues – Rather than depending on capabilities of
project managers, an organization instructed PMO to implement risk and issue management plan
at all projects and assign a senior experienced person from PMO to foresee possible risks and
highlight existing issues with accurate implications. Additionally, PMO is also expected to
guide project managers to create risks mitigation plans and issue resolution. These plans will
be reviewed and approved by PMO and PMO will also be responsible to present these details
to higher management and ensure project manager implement the plan of actions. Therefore, it
is controlling nature of PMO.
6. Consolidated MIS for status at a glance – As a single point of contact, higher management
seeks consolidated reporting from PMO for all project at a single platform. In order to provide
this service, PMO will support all project managers to collect data and prepare the final MIS
report. Therefore, it is supportive nature of PMO.
7. Recommendations for improvements – Being central organization and also having the
experience of running many projects, PMO is assigned with an activity to prepare improvement
plans to be implemented for all projects. With this assignment, PMO will support projects to
collect performance data (like productivity, efficiency, etc.) and compare with organization
averages to come up with the identification of areas of improvements. Further PMO will also
support the implementation of improvement initiatives at projects. Therefore, it is supportive
nature of PMO.

Having a combination of all three types of activities in PMO will lead to a successful PMO when
different activities are clearly defined with a kind of control over those activities. It reduces conflict
between PMO and project managers.

Revision of the chapter: Let's have a quick glance to recap what we learnt in this chapter.
We learnt about different support systems we may provide to project manager. These are broadly
divided into three parts:
1. Organizational process assets
2. Corporate knowledge base
3. Project management office (PMO)

There may be more support systems provided to a project. It is your setup you need to explore more
to find areas of difficulty for project managers and find a solution to help them. The motive is simple,
help projects to run smoothly.
5. Grouping of project management processes
There are lots of processes, templates, documents required to manage a project. In order to make it
convenient to learn and implement, these processes are grouped into following groups.
5.1 Process groups
This grouping is aligned to different phases of a project. Refer below for same:
1. Initiating Process group: Process to start a new project or new phase
2. Planning Process group: Process to establish scope, refine objectives, and define the course
of action
3. Executing Process group: Processes to complete the project work.
4. Monitoring and Controlling Process group: Processes required to track, review and regulate
the progress, and performance. It also identifies changes needed.
5. Closing Process group: Processes required to finalize activities in all process group and close
the project.

Figure 6: Process group activities over the life cycle of a project

In figure 6 shown above, the thickest curve line shows the life cycle of the project. Other lines
showed different process group life cycles. Look at first process group (initiating process group)
which starts at beginning of the project and completes as soon as onboarding is completed and
execution has started. Similarly have a look at all other process group’s graphs to understand their
nature with respect to project life cycle.

Reading Note:
With above limitations, Let’s look at project management activities covered in these process groups.

Initiating process group

Below are the activities covered in initiating process group:
Create Project Charter (EL) and Stakeholder register (EL) to
define Initial scope
commit Initial financial resources
identify Internal and external stakeholders who will interact and influence the overall
outcome of the project
select project manager.
Imp: Business Case assessment, approval and funding is prerequisite to initiate a project,
Initiating processes may be performed at the organizational, program, or portfolio level and
therefore, would be outside of the project’s level of control.

Planning process group: Activities covered are to

establish total scope by refining and defining scope
develop project management plan (EL) and required documentations. This will lead to all 10
knowledge areas (EL) to be dealt in future chapters.
Notes:
Interaction with key stakeholders is maximum in this process group.
A key aspect is to develop a process to ensure minimum deviation from project plan and to
lead the project to completion
Imp: Project management plan is one of the key document in project management, which covers all
processes, scope, work, resource, and virtually everything. If a project manager is able to create a
strong PMP and get it approved, then half of the groundwork is completed.
Executing process group: It includes all processes to complete the work defined for the project.
Activities covered are to
include processes to complete the work defined
coordinating people and resources
manage stakeholder’s expectations
re-plan and re-baseline the plan (may be or may not be required)
re-define the management processes (may or may not be needed)
manage productivity, availability, and unanticipated risks
Imp: This process group covers most of the processes of project management. Refining and defining
these processes based on project needs should be given sufficient time to make it simple to adapt and
comfortable to all team members.

Monitoring and controlling Process group: Processes in this group is used to:
track, review, and manage the progress and performance of the project
identify required changes and managing changes
identify corrective actions for potential future problems
continuous monitoring of performance and re-baseline of the project to remain feasible
Imp: If possible, form a separate team to work in this process group. It should be independent of
persons who are in execution. It will help you to expose problematic areas and you would be able to
address them on time, other you can only delay, cannot avoid these problems.

Closing Process group: Process in this group are intended to:

formally complete project or phase, contractual obligations
close all processes in other groups
obtains acceptance by sponsors and key stakeholders
conduct post-project review
review the impact of the change in any process made
document lessons learnt.
update organizational assets
archive documents
close all procurement and agreements
perform team member assessment
release resources

Imp: Generally, closure processes are not given due respect. It should be given in order to have
professional closure and documenting all lessons learnt to benefit future endeavors.
5.2 Knowledge areas
A Knowledge Area represents a complete set of concepts, terms, and activities that make up a
professional field, project management field, or area of specialization.

Below are ten Knowledge Areas used on most projects most of the time:

1. Project Integration Management – All 10 knowledge areas are presented as independent

management areas but they are interlinked towards common objectives of the project. Project
integration management fulfills this requirement to establish unification, consolidation, inter
knowledge area communication, etc. to integrate all for easier decision making of resource
allocation and making a trade-off between internal conflicting objectives.
2. Project Scope Management – It includes the processes required to ensure that the project
includes all the work required in its scope and only the work required, nothing more, nothing
less.
3. Project Schedule Management – It includes processes required to ensure timely completion
of the project.
4. Project Cost Management – It includes processes to plan, estimate, budget, finance, fund
management and controlling costs to ensure project completion within approved budget.
5. Project Quality Management – It includes processes to determine quality policies,
objectives, and responsibilities such that quality can be controlled.
6. Project Resource Management – in includes processes to organize, manage and lead project
team with required skills and defined roles and responsibilities.
7. Project Communications Management - It includes processes required to ensure timely and
appropriate, planning, collection, creation, distribution, storage, retrieval, management,
control, monitoring, and the ultimate disposition of project information.
8. Project Risk Management – It includes processes to identify, analyze, respond, and control
risks on a project.
9. Project Procurement Management – It includes the processes to purchase or acquire
products needed from outside project, contract management and change control for contracts
and purchase orders issued to outside team, and also controlling contracts from outside for
deliverables from the project team.
10. Project Stakeholder Management – in involves processes to identify people, group or
organizations stakeholders, their involvement and management.

Project teams should utilize these ten Knowledge Areas and other Knowledge Areas, as appropriate,
for their specific project.
6. Project Integration management
Now we are starting our journey to understand 10 knowledge areas, viz., Integration, Scope,
Schedule, Cost, Quality, Resource, Communication, Risk, Procurement, and stakeholder management.
Project integration management is a pivotal element in this lot.

Combination of these 10 elements is like our solar system in which project Integration management is
equivalent to ‘SUN’ and other management areas are planets. Like all planets were created from
SUN, project integration management creates all other management areas by defining them. As planets
impact each other (e.g., eclipses) different management areas also interact with each other. Let’s see
how this setup works in a project.

There are seven processes through which our SUN, i.e., Project Integration Management works:
1. Develop Project Charter
2. Develop Project Management Plan
3. Direct and Manage Project Work
4. Manage Project Knowledge
5. Monitor and Control Project Work
6. Perform Integrated Change Control
7. Close Project or Phase
Let’s pick up each process one-by-one in the same sequence
6.1 Develop Project Charter process
It is a process of creating project charter document to formally authorize a project to exist and project
manager to utilize project resources for project activities. This process is one of the simplest
processes. You collect all available documents, work with experts, fill the Project Charter template,
highlight assumptions, and get it authorized. Your project charter is ready. Below is the workflow for
same:

Picture 7: Process flow for Integration Management Develop Project Charter

Students are advised to create a “Template of Project Charter” suitable to their organizations. Below are suggested sections to be
included in the template:

• Project purpose or justification,

• Measurable project objectives and related success criteria,
• High-level requirements (preliminary scope baseline),
• Assumptions log to highlight all the assumptions made
• Constraints considered while making project charter
• High-level project description and boundaries,
• High-level risks,
• Summary milestone schedule (preliminary schedule baseline),
• Summary budget (preliminary cost baseline),
• Stakeholder list,
• Project approval requirements (i.e., what constitutes project success, who decides the
project is successful, and who signs off on the project),
• Assigned project manager, responsibility, and authority level,
• Name and authority of the sponsor or another person (s) authorizing the project charter.
• Document control to mention baseline version of the charter, and
• Signature block for authorized personnel.
6.2 Develop Project Management Plan
It is the process of defining, preparing and coordinating all subsidiary plans and integrating them into
single comprehensive document resulting in to project management plan. It becomes a central
document for the basis of project work.

Picture 8: Process flow for Integration Management Develop Project management plan

If I ask you to prepare project management plan at this stage then probably you would not be able to
make it solely on the basics of topics discussed in this book until this point. You may think to create
management plans for remaining nine management plans, as listed below, and combine them.

Scope, Schedule, Cost, Quality, Resource, Communication, Risk, Procurement, and stakeholder
management plans.

Plus
You additionally need following baselines:
• Cost baseline,
• Scope baseline,
• Schedule baseline, and
• Description of how the integrity of the project baselines will be maintained;
The practice of baseline must begin from project charter stage itself. There you need to mention about
preliminary baselines of scope, schedule and cost, which would revise after due diligence and
detailed planning. If revision is expected then you need to ask for approval of revision and get
baseline completed again. The latest baseline is only relevant to project team to work upon.

Plus
Few plans, which seems more like housekeeping but are important for being organized. For example,
approved requirements or changes are included in scope but all are not approved and may be parked
for the time being. Have a placeholder for them. It will avoid duplication of requirement gathering
effort. Similarly, the method of organizing documents varies from person to person. Have a
configuration management plan to streamline it. Detailing of work is another such helpful document.
Rather than leaving process improvement initiative on personal choice, make a plan for same. Be sure
about the level of involvement you need from top management. Overall, you may include following
sections included in project management plan to make it more helpful to project team to seek guidance
from it.
• Requirement management plan
• Configuration management plan that documents how configuration management will be
performed;
• Description of how work will be executed to accomplish the project objectives
• Process improvement plan
 • Key management reviews for content, the extent of, and timing to address, open issues
and pending decisions.
Here nine core management plan and baseline mechanism must be included in project management
plan and remaining sections mentioned above this paragraph are optional, but important. Take a call
which you feel is appropriate for your setup. You may choose to start simple and then grow the
coverage. It is perfectly fine, rather it is recommended for those organizations who are starting such
project management practices for the first time or are in initial phases.
6.3 Direct and manage project work
As it appears, it is related to performing the project work defined. Activities included may be as
shown below or even more:

• Perform activities and create project deliverables

• Provide, train, and manage the team members
• Obtain, manage, and use resources including materials, tools, equipment, and facilities
• Implement the planned methods and standards
• Establish and manage external/internal project communication channels
• Generate work performance data, such as cost, schedule, technical and quality progress,
and status to facilitate forecasting
• Issue change requests and implement approved changes into the project’s scope, plans,
and environment
• Manage risks and implement risk response activities
• Manage sellers and suppliers
• Manage stakeholders and their engagement, and
• Collect and document lessons learned and implement approved process improvement
activities.

Picture 9: Process flow for Integration Management Direct and manage project work

Here most of the points are either already covered in this handbook or self-explanatory, however two
terms need attention.

Project Management Information system (PMIS) and work performance data: PMIS is an IT
system for project reporting. Based on the data available, various kind of reports may be needed
which may together be called as, work performance data (such as cost, schedule, technical and
quality progress, and status), Apart from work performance data, there will be other reports to
monitor change requests, risks and issues, etc. All these reports are used to facilitate reporting,
forecasting, and planning.
6.4 Manage project knowledge
In today’s world of BIG DATA, we aspire to get intelligence from huge data accumulated over time.
Approach for a project manager is also changing with time. Earlier approach of project manager was
to work on lessons learnt at the end of the project. Now the situation has changed. Modern project
managers collaborate in real time. Lesson learnt documentation has become a continuous process due
to ease of online documentation. Similarly, retrieval of information on lessons learnt from other
projects is not limited to look at the beginning of the project. It can be invoked at any time.

Refer below for workflow of the process of managing project knowledge:

Picture 10: Process flow for Integration Management Manage project knowledge

Note: It is new process introduced in PMBOK 6th edition. It is closure to reality in today’s online
collaborative environment where information is omnipresent.
6.5 Monitor and control project work
It is a process of tracking, reviewing, and reporting project progress, including:
• Comparing actual project performance against the PMP,
• Assessing performance to determine actions required,
• Identifying new risks and analyzing, tracking, and monitoring existing project risks to make
sure the risks are identified, their status is reported, and that appropriate risk response plans
are being executed,
• Maintaining an accurate, timely information base concerning the project’s product(s) and
their associated documentation through project completion,
• Providing information to support status reporting, progress measurement, and forecasting,
• Providing forecasts to update current cost and current schedule information,
• Monitoring implementation of approved changes as they occur, and
• Providing appropriate reporting on project progress and status to program management
when the project is part of an overall program.

Below is the workflow for the process:

Picture 11: Process flow for Integration Management Monitor and control project work

A new term appearing here is Analytical techniques. There are numerous techniques which need to
be learnt in isolation and to be utilized as per the convenience of the organization, management team,
and project team. Key to select an analytical for a situation is easy to understand, easy to prepare,
easy to analyze for the future course of action. Let’s look at the list of few most popular tools:
• Regression analysis,
• Grouping methods,
• Causal analysis,
• Root cause analysis,
• Forecasting methods (time series, scenario building, simulation, etc.),
• Failure mode and effect analysis (FMEA),
• Fault tree analysis (FTA),
• Reserve analysis,
• Trend analysis,
• Earned value management, and
• Variance analysis.
These analytical tools are generic tools applied in many cases, project management is just one
application of these tools. These are, generally, statistical tools to present graphical output to help in
decision making. We will learn about all these tools, and even more, as we go along this book. You
will learn new things up to last page of this book. This is my promise to you, as I value your time.
6.6 Perform integrated change control
This is one of the most important processes. I will elaborate it little more due to the importance it
carries and the impact it makes on the success of any project. Let’s check our basics in form of
question and answers.

Q. What is a change in terms of project?

A. It is any change in scope, timeline, etc., mentioned in project charter, schedule, project
management plan, etc.

Q. What is a change request?

A. It is a formal request to be raised by individual or group proposing the change,
explaining the details, providing impacts of making changes and not making the change, etc.
Change can be submitted in a form or through IT system workflow. Ultimately these change
requests are to be submitted to project managers and plan of action is expected from them.

Q. What should be next step from project manager after change request is received?
A. The project manager should evaluate the change request, take expert opinion on impacts
of both making and not making the change. If the change is acceptable, and beneficial for the
project, then project manager will add comments from her/his side to provide business impact
analysis, additional resource, cost and time required to implement the change and also change
in the overall timeline of the project and add all other details required in change request form.

Q. Who will approve the change request?

A. Submitting change request does not mean that it is acceptable to start working on change.
It has to undergo an approval process. An approving body needs to be formed with
representatives from both client side as well as supplier/service provider side. Involvement of
experts is necessary to discuss the importance and impacts of the change. Involvement of senior
management or representative is also necessary to take a call on escalation or cost and timeline.
Such group may be called Change Request approval committee or Change control board or any
other name may be given, as practice may be followed in the organization. If this practice is
new then you can give it a name of Change control board.

Q. How Change control board functions?

A. Periodically, change request meeting is conducted and accumulated changes are
discussed. Change requestor puts up the change request and discussion is carried out for the
reason and implications of the change. Looking at the importance, change control board either
reject, approve or defer (postpone) the change request. If it is rejected then change request is
buried forever. If it is approved the decision is also made on the timeline of implementation of
the change request. If it is deferred then it is also to be advised that for how long (timeline) or
until what milestone the change is deferred.

Q. Where do you document all events of the change request?

A. Generally a change log is maintained to capture all details of all changes such that
discussions, detailing, etc. are available in future. In case the change request was rejected then
 in future there may a suitable time come when change request becomes necessary to implement.
In such events, maintaining change log helps to retrieve all details, else it would be rework
from multiple parties.

Q. What are the action items from different parties after approval of any change request?
A. First of all, client senior management has to update the budget to accommodate funding
of the change request. The project manager has to update change log, update project plan
(timeline, resource allocation, cost, etc.) and update project management plan and other
documents. It also has to intimate all dependent parties, for example functional team for testing
of change and acceptance of change made. The functional team will also have to make a change
in their plan to be available to work with the project team in the change request.

The biggest challenge faced in the entire process is ambiguity in scope definition. Requesters assume
their work to be included in scope and supplier considers it to be out of scope as it is not explicitly
mentioned in scope. This is a delicate situation which needs diplomatic handling. One option may be
- refer to detailed approved project plan in which work is not included and the plan is approved.
Alternatively ask them to submit change request and discuss the matter in change control meeting.

Another problem area is generally created by project execution team, including project manager. With
a mentality of getting favor from the client, project managers try to accommodate changes within same
budget and timeline. This is a dangerous approach. If you accommodate the change in the same budget
then you are compromising on finances only. That may be acceptable from strategic point of view, if
you are looking for long-term association perspective. However, compromising on timeline impacts
the quality of the work, which does not help you at all. You invested time and money but you got poor
quality and unsatisfied client, in return. So it is not recommended at all.

Having gone through the change request process, I would urge you to go through few samples of
change request forms, which are easily available on internet. It will help you to visualize it and also
to create one for your project/organization.

Figure 12 below shows the process flow of same.

Figure 12: Process flow for Integration Management Perform integrated change control
6.7 Close project or phase
Assume you have sold your earlier home and shifting to a new home. Just getting keys to the new
home does not mean you have moved to new house, yes, you become eligible to move.

In the same way, delivering final output and getting acceptance is like getting keys. You can begin the
process of closing project or phase.

Based on project charter, details in project management plan and other documents, different
agreements, procurement document, etc., the project manager can decide to close the project after
transitioning project product and/or services, submission of final report, and updating organization
assets, as shown below in figure 13.

Figure 13: Process flow for Integration Management Close project or phase

Revision of the chapter: Let's have a quick glance to recap what we learnt in this chapter.

Out of 10 knowledge areas, Integration management is most critical to hold and integrate all
knowledge areas to work independently and together as well. There are seven processes included in
Project Integration Management works:
1. Develop Project Charter
2. Develop Project Management Plan
3. Direct and Manage Project Work
4. Manage Project Knowledge
5. Monitor and Control Project Work
6. Perform Integrated Change Control
7. Close Project or Phase

We reviewed and learnt about each one of them in detail and found that all areas are greatly important
to run a successful project.
7. Project Scope Management
To ensure delivery of all works included in a project is the primary purpose of scope management.
You should deliver nothing more and nothing less.

You may ask what is the harm in giving something more? Definitely your question is genuine however
that is not the intention of the scope management. You may give little more for client delight but that
has to be highlighted as given extra than scope, may be for free, for client delight. Otherwise it will
be considered as part of the scope and another similar scope creep may be attempted. So beware of
this risk when you are giving more than expected.

There are six processes in scope management to ensure objectives of the project:
1. Plan scope management
2. Collect requirement
3. Define scope
4. Create WBS
5. Validate scope
6. Control scope

Let’s look at workflow of each one of above and related important points.
7.1 Plan scope management
This is a subsection of project management plan to explain approaches to create:
1. Scope management plan
2. Requirement management plan
By taking help from project charter as a starting point. Refer figure 14 given below to understand
input, tools and techniques, and output of the process.

Figure 14: Process flow for Scope Management Plan scope management

Referring project charter, PMP, organizations environmental factors and assets, you will engage in
meeting, taking help of expert judgment and data analysis, (Data analysis is used to describe how to
collect and elaborate the requirements and analysis of possible alternatives to meet these
requirements), below are the outputs expected at the end of working on plan scope management:
Scope management plan describes how the scope will be defined, developed, monitored,
controlled and validated. It components as:
Process to prepare scope statement
Process to create WBS from detailed scope statement
Process to approve and maintain scope baselines
Process to formally accept project deliverables
Requirement management plan is used to analyze, document and manage the project
requirements. It should include following:
Process to plan, track and report project activities
Process for configuration management and change management
Process to prioritize requirements
Process of using requirement traceability matrix to track requirements

Requirement traceability matrix is new term found here. It is a matrix to list all client’s requirements
and their all minute details. For example, you may like to note description, requested by, requested
date, functional area, impact areas, estimated effort, estimated cost, included in the project (Yes/No),
the status of requirements, etc. It is usually an excel sheet (if no IT solution is used in the project).
Better to start with less number of field and expand as you grow.
7.2 Collect requirements
This section deals with implementation of cope management processes defined in the previous
section. Refer figure 15 to understand the workflow of the process.

Figure 15: Process flow for Scope Management Collect requirements

Input from project documents may be:
Assumption log
Lessons learnt
Stakeholder register

Data gathering techniques in tools and technologies may be:

Brainstorming
Interviews
Focus groups
Questionnaire and surveys
Benchmarking, etc.

Context diagrams are a visual representation of project deliverables with the process, equipment,
user input, output, etc. to bring all stakeholders on the same page

‘Prototype’ is physical making the product, maybe non-functional, to give an idea to get a feel of the
product or output.

Basically, you have to work on all possible venues to expose as much work included in the scope as
possible. Earlier you are able to identify the work details, better you would be able to plan.
7.3 Define scope
This process is to develop a detailed description of requirements included in and excluded from
project scope, since all the requirements may not be included in the scope. The basis of
inclusion/exclusion may specifically be highlighted with assumptions, constraints, and risks.

Figure 16: Process flow for Scope Management Define the scope

Usually it is an iterative process leading to agreed scope. It may also happen to break the project into
multiple phases and freeze only first phase of the project and chart out remaining phase scopes upon
getting more clarity during completion of earlier phases.

It is highly advisable to create agreed project or phase scope statement and get is signed off by
stakeholders.
7.4 Create Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
It is a process of subdividing project work into smaller, more measurable and manageable
components. It provides structured vision to understand what needs to be delivered. Refer to figure
17 to understand the workflow of the process.

Figure 17: Process flow for Scope Management Create WBS

Work breakdown structure is hierarchical decomposition of the total scope of work. When you
decompose the work up to the last level, then last leave reached component is called activity. The
logical group to achieve a component of the work is called work package and all work packages
together are required to be completed to complete the project work. Below is the hierarchical
representation:
Project works
Work packages
Activities

For example, for IT system development project, we may have WBS as shown below:
1. Procurement system development project
1.1 Requirement gathering
1,2 Software development
1.3 System testing
1.4 Production deployment
The first line is highest level work for the project
Next four lines are work packages
Now let’s look at activities for, say, 1.1 requirement gathering. It may look like:

1.1.1 Functional requirements gathering

1.1.2 technical feasibility analysis
1.1.3 Confirming feasible requirements
1.1.4 freezing requirements and sign off

With a similar approach you will build WBS for entire project scope.

Here activities are assigned with resources, which may be human resource, machine or finance. It
may have dependencies, like activity A can be started only after activity B. We will cover it in more
detail when we learn about schedule knowledge area.

WBS is intended more for planning, tracking and controlling the work. Therefore, it is associated
with WBS dictionary, in which, lots of other information is kept at a central place for reference.
WBS dictionary is a document which provides following details about deliverables, and activities:
Description of work
 Responsible organization
Resources required
Cost estimates
Quality requirements
Acceptance criteria
Account code
Assumptions and constraints
Technical reference, etc.

Developing WBS is a good amount of work. It should not be compromised and should not allow any
ambiguity else it will impact the project.

If the project is large, or the project itself has ambiguity, or output is unpredictable, then it is
advisable to start with less scope for phase 1 and then expand project scope later. But whatever you
start, have sufficient clarity and then only accept to proceed.

If 100% clarity is not possible then adapt agile approach, in which planning happens only at work
package level and we proceed as matter crystalize. (Agile methodology is out of scope for this book)
7.5 Validate scope
It is a very important step, and it is in utmost interest of project managers. In this process you chart
out the acceptance criteria. It means, you would document when project deliverable will be
acceptable by the client. Having known it brings clarity on work expected to both sides of the project,
i.e., project team and client.

Figure 18: Process flow for Scope Management Validate scope

There is a difference between verified deliverables and accepted deliverables. Verified deliverables
are delivered by project team after reviewing and testing the deliverables. Then it undergoes the
quality check process from someone other than who created the deliverables. Quality control may be
internal to project or external too. Once the deliverables have been verified olay by quality control
team then it is submitted to the client for final verification of agreed scope and acceptance criteria.
Once the client accepts the deliverables then these become accepted deliverables.

If the client is not accepting any deliverable even though it matches the expectations, quality
parameters, and acceptance criteria then, as a project manager, you should not hesitate to ask for a
change request to meet new requirements or acceptance criteria. This is the reason of ‘change request’
being shown into the output of the process.

Another output to notice is “work performance data”. When you delivered any deliverable and once it
is accepted then you need to match the amount of time, cost and resources it took as compared to what
you planned for. It is an analysis between planned and actual. This will give you the performance of
not only your resources but also your plan.
7.6 Control scope
This is a process of monitoring and maintaining the status of project scope and its baseline.

Figure 19: Process flow for Scope Management Control scope

It is highly integrated to integrated change control process learnt in integration management plan. One
point is worth highlighting at this point, that is, no plan is considered active plan unless it is accepted
and the baseline is revised. For the entire project team, only approved latest baselines project plan,
WBS, or any document should be considered for any work. Without having approved baseline, the
document is not considered effective.

Revision of the chapter: Let's have a quick glance to recap what we learnt in this chapter.

There are six processes in scope management to ensure objectives of the project:
1. Plan scope management
2. Collect requirement
3. Define scope
4. Create WBS
5. Validate scope
6. Control scope

The first process is focused on management/handling of the scope of the project. Next three processes
are important time investment from project manager and team to decompose the task to last level such
that nothing is missed out. The fifth process is to validate the decomposition and getting it reviewed
by all parties involved. The last step is to control the scope based on the process defined in step 1.
And the cycle continues until the end of the project.
8. Project Schedule Management
Timely completion of the project is the main objective of project schedule management.

After defining the scope, WBS, constraints, etc. are in previous knowledge area (scope management),
we create project schedule using three components:

Scheduling method (PERT/CPM/Agile, etc.)

Scheduling tool – (MS Project/Primavera, etc.)
Project data – (Scope, WBS, Constraints, etc.)

PERT is the short form of Program/Project Evaluation and Review Techniques ‘chart’. It is basically
a network diagram to show project activities, their relationships, duration, etc.

Any network diagram is made up of “Nodes” and “Arrows”. There are two options for drawing a
network diagram.

1. Define activities on arrows, as shown below:

Figure 20:Network diagram Activity on Arrow Arrow Diagramming Method (ADM)

In Figure 20, M1, M2 are milestones and A1, A2 are activities with its estimated duration next
to it. Notice “branching” at M1 and M2, which indicates starting of multiple activities after
reaching these milestones. Also notice “merging” at M5, which indicates the milestone
completion only after completion of merging activities (A3, A5, and A6 in this case).

Exercise for you: Find out minimum time to complete the project, details of which are given in
ADM network diagram above.
Answer: If you answer is seven months then you are right on spot. If you found another shorter
duration then rework. Completing all activities in less than seven months is not possible to
complete all activities with given dependencies shown as branching and merging in above
diagram.

PERT-ADM was devised by USA Navy in 1857 to manage their projects.

2. Define activities on nodes, as shown below

 Figure 21:Network diagram Activity on Nodes Precedence Diagramming Method (PDM)

In this method we define activities on nodes and arrows are used to establish pre-requisites or
precedence of any activity to begin. For example activity A1 does not have any precedence,
means it can begin anytime. All other activities have some precedence, for example to begin
activities A2 and A3, it has a dependency on A1. A4 has a dependency on A2, and A5 has
dependencies on A2, A3, and A4.

Exercise for you: Find out minimum time to complete the project, details of which are given in
PDM network diagram above.

Answer: Once again, you will find minimum seven months would be required to complete the
project.

IMPORTANT: There can be a node with zero (0) duration. These are logical nodes used for
visual representation purposes. For example, work package discussed in WBS will have zero
duration. Any milestone in the project may be put on network diagram with zero duration. Even
start of project and end of a project can also be separately put as distinguished nodes

Among above two PERT methods (ADM & PDM), the second method (PDM) is most widely used in
project management. Project management software are also built on this method. Therefore, it makes
more sense to further explore PDM method.

Beyond PERT and project management: Above PERT network diagrams expects good
predictability and linear sequence of work which may not be true in all situations. For example, if you
are building something for the first time then it may fail in initial testing and go for multiple iterations.
In such cases, your network diagram should show looping feature and conditional diagramming to
proceed to next step only after successful test output. This method is called Graphical Diagramming
Method (GDM). GDM belongs to another network diagramming technique is called GERT (Graphical
evaluation and review technique). The fundamental issue to GERT is complex programming using
Monte Carlo simulation with queuing feature. This feature is generally not found in popular project
management software. It is even out of scope to learn for most of the project managers and therefore it
is kept out of scope for this book as well.

§ Components of network diagram §

In the introductory note of this chapter, we looked at the preliminary level of PDM (precedence
diagramming method) network diagram, which is widely used. In this section, we will dive deep to
the extent of using it for practical purposes.
§ Precedence §

Let’s begin with understanding the word “Precedence”. Literally, and in our context, it is ordering of
activities. The first impression comes as if we are talking about the need to complete one activity
before starting next activity, for example, laying the foundation of a building before starting
construction of upper part of the building. This is correct but not entirely correct. Let’s see how?

There are following types of precedencies: (let's consider the first activity as “from” activity and next
activity at “to’ activity.
1. Finish-to-start (FS) – It is easiest to understand in which “from” activity must finish before
“to” activity can be started. Example of building construction was given above. Yet another
example from IT industry can be testing of software only after the development of same.
2. Finish-to-finish (FF) – In such cases, both “from” and “to” activities can progress
simultaneously but “to” activity can be finished only after “from” activity is finished. For
example, in IT industry, “from” activity is development and testing of objects and “to” activity
is production deployment, which can begin for tested objects but final deployment can finish
only after all required objects are developed and tested. Let’s take an example from mechanical
industry. You may begin painting of car along with other modular assemblies, like bucket seat
assembly, in a separate assembly line, however final painting touch up can be done only after
complete assembly of the car. Let’s another example from civil industry to have no doubt left.
Wall painting and wooden work polish can continue in parallel. To cover the spillover from
wooden polish, the final touch of wall paint can be done only after completion of wooden
polish.
3. Start-to-start (SS) – It is another situation of parallel work when starting of “from” activity
will enable the starting of “to” activity. Let’s take an example from civil industry in which
delivery of raw materials at the site must be started to start the construction work. Similarly, for
the mechanical industry, delivery of machining parts must be started to start the machining
work. Considering IT industry, delivery of objects must be started to start the testing work.
4. Start-to-finish (SF) – Here the “from” activity must start before the “to” activity can finish.
Let’s look at an example from civil industry. Activity to Set up water supply for casting can be
considered finish only when a water supply has started. For mechanical industry example,
activity to install an engine in a vehicle can be considered finished only when the engine starts
running. Finally taking an example from IT industry. An activity to set up alert mechanism can
be considered finished when alerts would start coming from IT system.

Based on the types of dependency applicable to a case, you should define it either for manual
scheduling or for software to create a schedule.

§ Idle time §

Refer to picture 22. Minimum time required to complete the project is seven months. Consider you
have a person (A) full time assigned to work on activities A1, A2 and A5 with suitable skills. A3 and
A4 require different skills for which separate persons B and C are hired for a limited period of these
activities. In this case, person A will have no work for 2 months during the project, no matter how
you plan. This is called idle time of resources.

§ Leads, and Lags §

Lead is time period by which any activity can be advanced (begin earlier).

Consider a case of bungalow project in which garden set up is last activity with predecessor activity
is the completion of bungalow building with a precedence type FS (finish-to-start). In order to
expedite the project, you found it to be feasible to begin a garden work by maximum 15 days prior to
completion of building work because last 15 days works are all internal bungalow work. In this case,
lead is defined by 15 days.

Lag is time period by which an activity can be delayed (begin later).

Consider a case of brickwork on top of roof RCC casting. It is needed to wait for 24 days for RCC
casting to gain required strength. In this case, minimum lag for brickwork will be 24 days.

Few important points about leads and lags:

Leads and lags are always mentioned with respect to the predecessor.
Leads are generally represented as –ve numbers and lags as +ve.
Few softwares do not have the option to define leads, in which case leads are defined as minus
of lag, i.e., lag with a –ve value.
Leads are generally mentioned with FS predecessor
Lags can be SS or FS. Example of SS can be to start book editing 15 days after starting of book
writing. Example of FS was given above.

Exercise for you: A bungalow project is divided into four activities with relationships and time
duration as shown below.. How soon can you complete the project? Fill in last 2 columns.

Here Foundation will take 15 days, construction can start 20 days after the foundation is finished.
Finishing work can start 10 days ahead of the completion of construction work. MEP (mechanical
A/C ducting, Electric wiring, plumbing) can finish 15 days ahead of the completion of finishing work,
and garden setup can start 5 days ahead of the completion of finishing work.

If you filled up as shown below then I am happier than you. Else you are requested to find out where
you missed.
Look at the logic given below to arrive at the start and end days.
1. Foundation is the 1st activity planned for 15 days. It's straightforward.
2. Construction can begin after 20 days of foundation completion, that is after 15 + 20 = 35 days.
So start day is the 36th day. Since it takes 40 days so it will end on 35+40, that is, on the 75th
day.
3. Finishing work can start 10 days ahead of construction completion day, that is after 75-10=65
days, which is the 66th day. It will take 30 days, so it will finish on 65+30=95th day.
4. MEP work can finish 15 days ahead of the completion of finishing work. So it will finish in 95-
15=80 days. Since it takes 10 days, so it will need to start on the 71st day.
5. Garden work can start 5 days earlier than completion on finishing work, that is 95-5=90 days,
that is, 91st day and it takes 10 days so it will finish on the 100th day.
6. So it will be possible to complete the entire project in 100 days.

Suppose we don’t consider any leads, then let’s see how would schedule appear:

It is evident from above example that leads can help to reduce timeline.

Question for you: How knowing lags can help?

Answer: I will leave it for you to think, although I will give one hint. You may free up some
bandwidth of such resources, by using lags, to utilize them for any additional work by accumulating
idle times. Try for such example. It will be fun.

Can you attempt to draw network diagram for above simple project? I am sure you would draw
something like given below:

Figure 22: PDM PERT Network diagram of example

Revision till this point: Let's have a quick glance to recap what we learnt till this point in this
chapter.

We follow activity on node method of the network diagram. It is also called precedence
diagramming method (PDM)
There are four types of precedence in network diagram:
Finish-to-start
Finish-to-finish
Start-to-start
Start-to-finish
Leads – a time period by which next activity can be advanced
Lags – a time period by which next activity can be delayed
Leads and Lags has to be defined with a type of precedence

After covering basics for schedule creation, we will now proceed with Project Scheduling
Management as per PMBOK 6th edition in which will cover as 6 processes as listed below:
Plan schedule management
Define activities
Sequence activities
Estimate activity duration
Develop schedule
Control schedule

Stay focused to learn such important topics of project management and Enjoy!
8.1 Plan schedule management

It is a management document to describe the processes to plan, develop, manage, execute, and control
the project schedule throughout the project. Refer to figure 23 for the workflow.

Figure 23: Process flow for Schedule Management Plan Schedule Management

The schedule management plan should focus to establish following:

Project schedule model development: To highlight scheduling method and tools to be used.
Phase or release length: Evaluating the ambiguity in project scope, it should guide the team to
decide release or phase length to control deviations. Idea is to keep phases or release very
specific, small and time-bound. As ambiguity may reduce, phase length may increase.
Level of accuracy: Instead of guesswork, it should highlight the level of accuracy needed for
decomposition and estimation. The document should guide the team for reference to past data,
experience and need of due diligence for planning. If possible, you may also mandate the
detailing of the basis of decomposition and estimation.
Unit of measures: Define UOM for manpower, materials, currencies, and everything which
needs measurement in the project. It will help to reduce the confusion and inaccuracy in different
calculations/planning.
Schedule maintenance process: It should also explain the process to track and update the
project schedule and further communications.
Rules of performance measurement: It is important to set a process to measure the
performance of the project. There are many aspects of performance measure, for example,
difference variances (the difference between planned and actual) like schedule variance, cost
variance, quality inspection rejection ratio, rework ratio, etc. EVM (Earned Value Method) is
one of the most important performance measurement method from a revenue point of view. It
determines the amount of value or work completed by a project at any point in time during its
life. It may be calculated on the basis of:
Percentage of work completed w.r.t total work, where w.r.t. = with respect to.
Percentage of cost spent w.r.t. total planned cost
Milestones completed
Any other fixed formula
If I ask you to calculate the earned value of project then you will not be able to do so on the
basis of information provided above. You will have lots of questions. Let's take an example of
the first method of percentage of work completed. You may ask, how to assign percentages to
different work components, how do I agree with other stakeholders to assign these percentages,
if particular work delivery has happened but client acceptance is pending then shall I include
that work in completed work of not, as there is no action pending from our side, and so many
such questions may arise. Answering these questions should be covered at this point such that
your team and project can sail smoothly.
Control threshold: These are maximum variation allowed for different parameters of work
performance, for example, cost variance, schedule variance, quality rejection ratio, etc. In
 addition to defining these maximum allowed thresholds for different KPI (key performance
indicators), you should also define next step to be followed, after a breach of these thresholds,
as corrective actions.
Reporting formats and frequency: It is to be defined for all scheduling related reports.

How to Implement schedule management:

Implementing schedule management is the most critical part for the success of any project. The first
decision you have to make is about scheduling tool. Go for:
Microsoft project for smaller businesses
Oracle Primavera for large businesses
It freezes you schedule method selection, as both of these use PDM method, most widely used method
in the industry.

Next step is to spent sufficient time on the decomposition of project activities. If you miss any activity
and do not include in the plan, then obviously you would either have to accommodate missed activity
within given time and budget, or revise these. And none of these are good options for you. So make
sure to reach the last level of activities which can be assigned, monitored, measured and controlled.

After completing above two steps, roll out the schedule plan with minimum possible details and
processes if you are doing it for the first time or you are rolling out a new approach. Go slow, take
baby steps, be successful and then expand. Being small and successful is much better than being large
and failure.
8.2 Define activities

It is a process of decomposition of project works into work packages and further decomposition in
terms of activities to schedule, estimate, monitor and control. Look at figure 24, given below, for the
workflow of the process.

Figure 24: Process flow for Schedule Management Define Activities

Remember, it is a continuous process. In today’s environment, when you, very often, executive new
work which leads to ambiguity. In this situation, it may not be feasible, at the beginning of the project,
to decompose entire project work up to the last level. Even if you do so, activity list may change
based on finding during initial phases of the project. So it is advisable to create detailed schedule
only for near future milestones and plan at a higher level for further phases or milestones. As you
progress, you keep on expanding next phases or work packages. This approach is called ROLLING
WAVE PLANNING.

Most important output are activities and their attributes like cost, resource requirements, need by
date, assigned resources, planned start date, planned end date, dependencies on other activities,
account code (for costing), procurement needs, etc.

During defining activities process, you may create work packages or milestone as a logical grouping
for management and control.

Another important output may be change requests which may pop-up due to unforeseen activities
surfacing out based on work experience in an earlier phase of the project or any other circumstances.
You need to trigger change control process to manage these changes rather than assuming all changes
to be absorbed under earlier defined timeline and budget.

Do not forget to update project management plan to update the impact of changes, particularly to
update schedule baseline and cost baseline.
8.3 Sequence activities
It is a process to identify relationships among activities to define a logical sequence of work to
achieve maximum efficiency with given project constraints. Look at figure 25, given below, to
understand the workflow of the process.

Figure 25: Process flow for Schedule Management Sequence Activities

Again, sequencing activity is a continuous process to be carried out through the project just like
defining an activity, as seen in the previous process. In this process, we will make use of learnings
about types of dependencies (FS, FF, SS, and SF), leads, lags, etc. In addition to earlier learnings
about types of dependencies (FS, FF, SS, SF), let's look at another perspective of these dependencies
which will help in decision making at the time of scheduling.

Dependency attributes:
Mandatory/Hard: These dependencies are must to adhere due to legal, contractual, or
feasibility point of view. For example, the building can be made only after the foundation is
ready, the prototype can be tested only after the prototype is built, nuclear machine can be
installed only after certification from UN-IAEA, etc.
Discretionary/optional: These are based on best practices, may be or may not be followed. For
example, it is advisable to do electric work in a building after plumbing work is completed, to
reduce the project risk and increase safety. It can be overruled, with precautions, to reduce
overall timeline, but documenting such decisions is advisable to highlight the project risk and
intention should be known and agreed,
External: These are out of project control, for example, testing of a nuclear device by UN-
IAEA, civil project alteration approval from government authorities, etc. You should list down
all such dependencies in risk register to highlight possible delays due to external factors. It will
not only save you in case of delays but also may open a way to control it based on connecting
any stakeholder with external agencies affecting the project.
Internal: Just like it is important to know external dependencies to highlight risk and prepare for
same, it is also important to know the dependencies which are totally in control of the team.
Since it would be in your control so people will look at you to make it happen.

You need to note these attributes at the time of defining dependencies such that you can take
appropriate actions and make informed decisions. In case your software or tool is not providing an
option to mark this attributes then make your own additional attribute, give it a name of “Nature of
dependency” and marl it appropriately.
8.4 Estimate Activity Durations
It is to define the time required for each activity. In case of work package and milestones, the estimate
will be zero (0) as these are only logical grouping and do not involve any work. Look at figure 26 to
understand the workflow of the process.

Figure 26: Process flow for Schedule Management Estimate Activity Durations

Look at the inputs in the picture above. At this stage you have got all the details needed to provide
estimates based on activity details, your prior experience, lessons learnt from the earlier project and
your organizational assets.

As you are responsible for an estimate you provide, it has to have a justifiable basis and the scientific
method to calculate it. Below are few approached, as listed in tools and techniques mentioned in the
picture above.
Analogous estimating: It is based on historical data from a similar project, on basis of size,
duration, complexity, geography, budget, etc. There may be some fine-tuning required rather than
just going by past data. You may be able to reduce the timeline based on the lessons learnt or
you may need to increase the timeline to further improve the quality. This method is less
complex and less time to consume among all.
Parametric estimating: It is based on formula or algorithm used in past, for example, civil
work on basis of square footage, software coding effort based on functional points, etc. This
method has the capability to provide the highest accuracy among all.
Three points estimating: To increase the accuracy of the estimates, you may calculate a final
estimate on the basis of following three estimates:
Most likely (tM): It is the duration of activity based on resource most likely to be
assigned, their productivity, realistic expectations, dependencies and interruptions.
Optimistic (tO): It is the duration of the activity on best case scenario for the activity.
Pessimistic (tP): It is the duration of the activity on best case scenario for the activity.
Final estimate (tE) may be calculated based on following formula:
tE = ( tM + tO + tP ) / 3
This approach not only provides you a most accurate estimate but also provides you with a
range within which you may expect actual effort to stay.
Bottom up estimating: When you don’t get confidence on the estimate then you try to break such
activities into further sub-activities, estimate those sub-activities and aggregate all next level
estimate to come up with a final estimate.
Estimation is a combination of art and science. It will be iterative approach and you would lead to
finer and more accurate estimations as you gain experience in your field. During your journey, you
may keep track of estimates and actual data using above method to find out best estimation tool
suitable for you.

Alternative analysis is yet another tool used to find out a better estimate for an activity. Alternate
analysis may include analysis of using alternative human resources, equipment, make/rent/buy
analysis and any other factor which may impact the activity duration.

Reserve analysis is another tool for activity durations. It is contingency duration reserve kept by
management to address unforeseen and unplanned situations. It may be allocated against identified
agreed risks, unidentified risks, an unknown amount of rework. Contingency reserve may be kept as a
fixed percentage of total duration or fixed total duration. It need not be allocated against each activity,
rather it should be defined at the project level or workgroup level, It should be clearly defined in
project management plan but not included in schedule baseline. It’s like emergency fund which is not
allocated to any activity. As we proceed in project, clarity increases, due to which, contingency
reserve may be used, reduced or may be eliminated.
8.5 Develop schedule
It is a process to analyze activity sequences, durations, resource requirements, and schedule
constraints (e.g., precedence) to create a project schedule and derive planned dates for all activities
and overall project. It is a continuous process to be carried out throughout the project. Refer figure
27, given below, to understand the process flow.

Figure 27: Process flow for Schedule Management Develop schedule

All inputs mentioned here are self-explanatory. These will include all the components you need to
develop a schedule, for example, Activity details, estimates and its basis, milestone lists, schedule
network diagram and dependencies, team assignment, resource requirements, calendars, etc.

Learning about tools and techniques is a matter of utmost importance and we will explore all options
listed in picture 27. Let’s start rolling the balls.

§ Schedule network analysis §

Once you have activities, estimates, sequences, dependencies, etc. are available then feeding them in
any planning software will give you preliminary project schedule. It can be seen in following
formats:

1. Activity list, as shown in figure 28 as seen in Microsoft Project:

Figure 28: Sample of activity list in Microsoft project

2. Bar chart, as shown in figure 29 as seen in Microsoft Project:

 Figure 29: Sample of bar chart diagram in Microsoft project

3. Schedule network diagram, as shown in figure 30:

Figure 30: Sample schedule network diagram

Below are most popular schedule network analysis options:

Critical path method
Resource optimization
Data analysis
What-If analysis
Simulation

§ Schedule network analysis – Critical Path Method §

In any network diagram, there may be more than one path between start and finish. The longest path
on the network is called Critical Path, because any delay in any activity on the critical path with
delay entire project. Refer to figure 31, shown below, in which solid thick line shows the critical on
which activities A1, A2, A4, and A5 are located. This is the longest path and total duration us 7
months before which project cannot be completed. If we delay any of A1, A2, A4, and A5 activity
then project timeline will also increase.

Figure 31: Network diagram showing critical path

Now look at activity A3. It takes only 2 months to complete can start as soon as A1 is finished and it
needs to complete by the time A4 is completed. Therefore, it can be performed anywhere in 4 months
between these two milestones,
let’s add few details to nodes to work on scheduling. Refer figure 32 below:
 . Figure 32: Node Details for scheduling

“Total Float” is the new term appeared here. It is very close to your guess and literal meaning. The
total float (or schedule flexibility) is measured by the amount of time that a schedule activity can be
delayed or extended from its early start date without delaying the project finish date

IMPORTANT: Since any delay of critical path activity will delay the project, so total float will be
zero for all activities on the critical path,

Based on above information, we can recreate the network diagram as shown in figure 33, given
below:

. Figure 33: Working on schedule network diagram

Now focus on A3, to understand the concept of total float. A3 can have the earliest start at month 2
after completion of A1 and earliest it can finish in 2 months, that is by end of 3rd month. We will fill
these details in the upper part of the node.

Similarly let’s fill the lower part of the row by doing backward calculation. A3 need to finish by the
time A4 is finishing, that is by the end of 5th month. Since it takes 2 months so latest it needs to start at
beginning of the 4th month. Let’s fill these details in the lower part of the node. Only remaining detail
is to fill total float, which is time difference between earliest start and latest start, which are 2 and 4
respectively. Therefore total float for A3 will be 2 months. The complete diagram will look like as
shown below.

. Figure 34: Working on schedule network diagram

As you can see, total float in non-zero only for activity which is not placed in the critical path. If you
know about this float then you would not panic even if resource required for A3 is not available for
2nd and 3rd month. It is one use. Let's look at the main reason to understand total float. Basically it
gives you the flexibility to reduce project timeline by reducing duration for activities on the critical
path.

Let’s try to reduce the timeline of the project. We add resources for A2 and A4 (which are on critical
path) and reduce duration for both of them to 1 month. Revised network diagram will look like figure
35 as shown below:

. Figure 35: Revised schedule network diagram with multiple critical paths

Now you can notice there are two critical paths and all activities are on critical paths. There is no
total float for any of the activities. This is the way you work on critical path and play with floats to
arrive at a most optimal schedule for a project.

§ Free Float and Negative Total Float §

In the earlier example, we calculated total float using backward calculation from the end. The
approach was to keep every activity on the latest timeline and compare it with the earliest timeline. It
may not be a good idea to work on the entire network, when manually working on large network, to
find out total float. You may be working on part of the network and may be interested only in few
activities. In this case, when we consider only one activity, without impacting next activity or
activities then we get float applicable to that activity in isolation. This is called free float for that
activity. In simple words:

Total Float is the amount of time that an activity can be delayed from its early start date without
delaying the project finish date. Free Float is the amount of time that an activity can be delayed
without delaying the early start date of any successor activity.

Negative total float: Sometimes you may find total value coming as negative when you try to reduce
total project timeline by changing project end date. It meaning is simple, you have to compress
schedule by that many days.

§ Schedule network analysis – Resource optimization §

Resource optimization is focused to optimally utilize the available resources. It can be managed by
playing with total floats by adjusting the activities to minimize inconsistencies in the resource
requirement, to minimize on-boarding off-boarding of resources, minimize idle time of resources, etc.

It is a balancing act on two parameters:

Minimum impact on project timeline – This is called resource smoothing in which critical path
is not changed and activities may only be delayed within available floats. In order to keep the
 timeline intact, we may have to overload few resources.

Minimum impact on resources – In this case, we avoid overloading of resources and allow to
change project timeline. This is called resource leveling.

§ Schedule network analysis – Data analysis §

When you work on the scheduling then you would consider many options to do data analysis. You can
consider following options for same.

1. What-if analysis: List down most likely alternatives to optimize a schedule. Work on your
schedule to see the impact of all listed alternatives and make an informed decision to come up
with the best alternative.
2. Simulation: There are softwares available to take different alternatives available at the activity
level. You can feed these alternative details and software will run all possible combinations
and give you best output for your project schedule, expected timeline and impact in resource
requirements.

Software-based simulation is currently prevailing in large planning scenario and generally it is not
cost viable to buy these softwares for small size project. Such software is generally effective where
you have multiple large projects running and you already have a planning team to come up with best
integrated plans.

§ Schedule compression §

Figures work better than words. Let’s try it out. Try to understand two options of schedule
compression. One is Fast tracking, another is Crashing.

. Figure 36: Schedule compression by fast-tracking and crashing

Actually it worked. Figure spoke much faster than words. You can see fast-tracking is to start work in
parallel which adds risks due to dependencies. Crashing reduced timeline by adding resources, which
resulted in higher cost. Isn’t it simple? I bet it is very effective too. You just need to keep these
options in mind to play around. And remember, no one is stopping you make a mixed model. So go
ahead and play the way you want and come out with the best combination for your project.
8.6 Control schedule
The main purpose of this process is to monitor the status of the project, update and manage schedule
baseline to maintain is throughout the project. Look at figure 37 for the workflow.

Figure 37: Process flow for Schedule Management Control schedule

Most of the points are self-explanatory however we will look at iterative burndown chart as it comes
as a new point.

§ Iterative burndown chart §

It is related to iterative work which has less predictability and mostly addressed by agile method.
Here we create iterations to pick up a part of remaining work, assign resources and expected timeline
and track the progress of remaining work against planned remaining work to forecast the expected
output. Let’s look at figure 38 to understand it.

Figure 38: Iteration burndown chart

The figure shows the planned 10 days iteration will complete the work however actual data and its
projection gives the forecast of 12 days.

One last, but not the least, important point: Subnet or Fragnet:

Portions of project schedule networks are commonly referred to as subnets or fragnets. Subnets are
especially useful when a project has several identical or near identical features. Examples of subnets
include constructing multiple identical theaters in a multiplex theater, or any such repeatable part of
the project.
 Revision of the chapter: Let's have a quick glance to recap what we learnt in this chapter.

There are six processes in schedule management:

1. Plan schedule management – to create schedule management plan
2. Define activities – by decomposition, defining milestones, work packages, using rolling wave
planning
3. Sequence activities – using precedence types (FS, FF, SS, SF), Precedence diagramming
method (PDM), Leads, lags, etc.
4. Estimate activity durations – using analogous, parametric, three-point, bottom up methods.
5. Develop schedule – using critical path method, using total floats, schedule compression (fast-
tracking, crashing), and agile method.
6. Control schedule – by monitoring, controlling and rescheduling and creating re-baseline of
schedule and cost.
9. Project Cost Management
Project completion within approved budget is the main objective of project cost management. It
includes planning, estimating, budgeting, financing, funding, managing and controlling costs. It is
achieved with help of four processes.
Plan cost management
Estimate costs
Determine budget
Control costs
Let’s roll…
9.1 Plan cost management
It is a process document to guide the team to estimate, budget, manage, monitor and control the project
cost. It should be performed at predefined points in the project. Look at the process flow for the
process in figure 39, given below.

Figure 39: Project Cost management Plan cost management

The most important tool is Expert Judgment to get create cost management plan based on following
experiences:
Previous similar projects
Industry information
Costing and budgeting
Cost management plan should include following points:
Units of measure – Define UOM for all resources as well as currency
Level of precision – It is to decide number of digits after decimal and rounding methods. In
software, generally precision is set to 5 digits after the decimal. For example, any amount
123.45 will be stored as 123.45000 instead of 123.45. It helps t achieve greater accuracy. It is
also observed projects to use 3 or even 2 level of precision. Rounding rule also needs to be
defined, for example, if we do accounting only for whole numbers then 20.5 may be considered
as 20 or 21, depending upon practice you follow. The team needs clarity to maintain details in
the required format to avoid post error reworks.
Level of accuracy – We may define the acceptable range of estimate in the range of +/- 10%,
including contingency, from the actual cost.
Account code link to WBS elements – In order to capture all costs, you need to attach account
code to each cost element in WBS, and integrate it with your costing process.
Rules of performance measurement – There are three important components to be defined in
this section.
Define which formula (percentage complete, fixed formula, weighted milestone, will be
used to calculate earned value.
Also define points in EBS to run the account control process.
Also specify a formula to calculate estimated cost at completion.
Control threshold – These are agreed on variations in cost performances after which corrective
actions need to be taken.
Reporting formats – Formats and frequencies of various cost reports are determined, to
manage cost and to keep stakeholders informed.
Additional details – It may include anything else you may want, e.g., how to manage the funding
and preferred funding choices, handling currency fluctuation exchange gain-loss, etc.

Overall cost management plan should be able to guide the team to manage the cost in a well-planned
way to provide details of the current situation, forecast, the best way to handle different situations,
etc.
9.2 Estimate costs
It is a process to develop an approximation of the cost of resources required to complete the project.
This process needs to be performed at regular intervals.

Few important points to consider while estimating cost:

1. Generally, the cost is estimated in terms of currency (INR, USD, EUR, etc.) but it can be
provided in terms of manpower, like man days, man month, etc.
2. Alternatives consideration is an important part of costing. Challenge the proposed solution and
find alternatives and then decide on an alternative to select based on a trade-off between cost
and risk. This analysis will include alternatives to make/buy/rent, sharing of resources, etc.
3. Periodic review of costing helps to refine it. As you progress on the project, ambiguity will
decrease and it would provide clarity to costing as well. You will be able to validate
assumptions made earlier and refine your costing accordingly. Cost estimates may go up or go
down, but it always helps to know the correct picture.
4. In addition to including the cost of manpower, machines, materials, services and facilities, you
should also include the cost of inflation, financing, contingency funds, etc.

Look at figure 40, given below, to understand the workflow of cost estimation:

Figure 40: Project Cost management Estimate cost

All looks fine in input section but what is the purpose of risk register? Unless until your risk is not
materialized, how it would add to cost estimates? Basically it is used in conjunction with lessons
learnt which may share some input to find a trend of the cost incurred in past project due to similar
risks. If found so, then you need to keep the budget for such risk mitigation, and to keep that budget,
you need to estimate the risk response costing.

For organization’s environmental factors, you should consider supply and demand situation and
market condition. You may get costing standard data from the commercial database. You should also
work on the exchange rate and inflation to have a realistic view of costing.
Cost estimation tools are similar to Schedule estimation tool, which includes:
Analogous estimation
Parametric estimation
Bottom up estimation
Three points estimation

The only difference is in three points estimation. For time estimation, we learned triangular
distribution but for cost estimation, we use triangular distribution as well as beta distribution, as
shown below:
Triangular distribution: cE = (cO+cM+cP) / 3
Beta distribution: cE = ( cO + 4cM + cP ) / 6
Where cE = estimation cost estimate,
cO = Optimistic cost estimate
cM = Most likely estimate
cP = Pessimistic estimate

When you have less historical data or less reliable historical data then you would opt for triangular
distribution. As you move towards maturity, you will shift to beta distribution.

When we look at data analysis part then we find alternative analysis and reserve analysis same as
used in schedule estimation. The only new term is the cost of quality which needs explanation, and
same is given below.

Cost of quality is the cost incurred on quality controls. There is a trade-off between the cost of quality
and impact of ensuring or ignoring quality. I will explain it with help of an example. I will hide the
name of the company who tried to play with the cost of quality is a non-preferred way. It is a large
electronic consumer company based out of one of the largest consumer market in the world. Instead of
spending on the cost of quality control, it started releasing products in the market without quality
check along with an offer to replace with a brand new piece if any problem occurs within the
warranty period. The thought process was to save the cost of quality and making customers happy by
giving new piece instead of repairing old piece. Strategy sounded path-breaking but it went another
way. When customers started getting issues then started losing trust in the brand. Customers were
unhappy even with the new piece as they did not have confidence in the longevity of the product.
Slowly the brand was reputed as low-quality product and sales went down, the company had to
reduce the price to continue sales and the downward loop started. Ultimately quality control measures
had to be implemented but by that time, the damage was made.
Therefore, you need to evaluate your cost of quality in relation impact of quality and in relation to
your client's trust, which is most important.
9.3 Determine budget

The first question to you: What is the difference between estimate and budget? If you said, the
estimate is at activity level and budget is at project level then you are correct. If you said the budget
is the sum of estimates of all activities in the project then you are partially correct. If you said the
budget is the sum of all activities estimates plus contingency reserves plus other overhead costs then
you are absolutely correct.

So whatever you thought, if aligned to above answers then you are correct.

Now let’s start the main points of this section.

Determine Budget is a process to aggregation of the estimated cost of all activities or work
packages to authorize cost baseline to monitor and control the cost of the project. It includes
contingency reserves. Refer to figure 41, given below, to understand the workflow of the process.

Figure 41: Project Cost management Determine budget

All inputs mentioned are self-explanatory, so we will start with tools and techniques to be used.

Tools and Techniques:

Definitely we need expertise of cost analysis with industrial experience to determine budget
who can work with project details, financial principles and familiar with working on funding
requirements and sourcing.
The cost aggregation starts from WBS to roll up to work package group and cost is aggregated
(summed up) to control accounts, and further to project level.
Reserve analysis is split into two parts. One is contingency reserve, included in the project
budget, which is kept by the project manager to address an unforeseen situation. Another is
management reserve, which is kept outside of project budget to be used by senior
management/sponsors to address unknown risks to the project.
Historical information review is used to create a base for costing, which needed adjustments
for timing, geography, urgency, etc.
Funding limit reconciliation is the process of validating current expenditures and expected
expenditures with respect to funding limit committed for the project.
 Financing is the process of ensuring fund flow to project based on funding limit applicable. It is
mandatory for project execution.

Look at figure 42 to understand the steps used in project budgeting:

Figure 42: Steps to determine project budget

In above figures, you can see steps involved in project budgeting and how it is built with adding one
component over other. We start with cost estimates of activities in step 1. Then in step 2, we add
contingency at activity level to get work package level cost estimates. Further we add contingency
reserve at work package level in step 3 to get cost baseline for the budget. Finally, we add the fourth
component of management reserve to arrive at project budget.

IMPORTANT: When we create multiple phases of a project then management reserve does come
count at phase level. It is obvious when you realize that phase is also a type of work package, to
which management reserve does not apply.

Look at another figure, 43, given below, to understand the nature of funding:

Figure 43: Nature of funding as compared to costing

It is cumulative values graph of cost baseline, expenditures, and funding requirement over time. The
solid curved line shows planned cost baseline. The dotted curved line shows actual expenditures.
The upper portion between two parallel line shows management reserve. The top line shows project
budget.

Now look at funding requirement. It is stepped in nature, means you need intermittent funding to
execute the project. It should never come below expenditure line, else it is practically not possible to
execute the project without the fund. Also notice, management reserve is released when other funds
are exhausted.
9.4 Control costs
It is one of the most important processes of cost management by means of updating project costs to get
the real picture and maintaining cost baseline throughout the project to share a true picture with
stakeholders. Look at figure 44, given below, to understand various components of the process.

Figure 44: Project Cost management Control costs

Cost control is not about only monitoring the expenditures. The cost has to be analyzed with respect to
work accomplished. If the budget for a work was 1000 then you would be fine is 400 is spent for
50% of work but you would not be fine is 400 is spent for 30% of work. Isn’t it?

Therefore, the cost is controlled by analyzing expenditure versus estimated cost for the
accomplished value of work. Cost control includes:
Monitor work performance against expenditure
Ensuring expenditure do not exceed authorized funding
Monitor cost performance and variance from approved cost baseline
Manage change requests to create most realistic cost baseline based on cost performance and
remaining work
Preventing unapproved changes to creep into the scope
Informing appropriate stakeholder about approved changes and cost
Earned Value Analysis (EVA) is the most important tool to control the cost.

EVA starts with three important measures:

1. Planned Value (PV): It is authorized budget for scheduled work. Clearly sum of all planned
values (budget) will be budget at completion (BAC). Remember, management reserve is
excluded from it.
2. Earned Value (EV): It is authorized budget for completed work. It is used to calculate
percentage completion of the project.
3. Actual Cost (AC): It is actual cost incurred for completed work.

Next is Variance analysis in EVA. Below are two most important analysis:
1. Schedule variance (SV): It is a measure of schedule performance. The formula is ( SV
= EV – PV ). It will be positive for the project ahead of schedule and negative for
projects behind schedule. And zero (0) for project exact as per schedule. Clearly it will be zero
at the end of the project, isn’t it?
 2. Cost variance (CV): It is a measure of cost performance. The formula is
( CV = EV – AC ). It will be positive if the project is running within budget and it will be
negative if but budget deficit projects.

Next is two important Performance Indexes:

1. Schedule performance index (SPI): It is measured as (SPI = EV / PV ). SPI > 1 indicates
work completed was more than planned work, and
SPI < 1 indicates work completed was less than planned work.
2. Cost performance index (CPI): It is measured as (CPI = EV / AC ).
CPI > 1 indicates cost underrun for work completed, and
CPI < 1 indicates cost overrun for work completed.

Next EVA step is Trend Analysis and Forecasting:

It is to predict the project performance based on past performances (EV, PV, and AC) and “revised”
estimates for future activities. Notice I have highlighted the ‘revised’ word. It is done so to indicate
that we need to rework on estimates of remaining work based on the performance of past work. When
we have variances then it does not help to continue with earlier estimates and, therefore, we need to
revise future estimates. This revised estimate for remaining work is called Estimate to Complete
(ETC). The new total estimate will be the sum of actual cost spent plus cost of remaining work,
which is ETC. The revised total estimated cost is called Estimate at completion (EAC). Clearly we
can see EAC = AC + ETC to represent new cost baseline. Most popular method to calculate ETC is
bottom up approach to start from bottom most activities and roll it up to the top.
Having understood EVA terms, look at figure 45, given below, to visually understand these terms. The
figure shows different graphs plotted for cumulative costs against time. Pay attention to following
details:
The middle line is PV which is initial cost baseline and therefore it has a budget at completion
(BAC) at the end. When we add management reserve then we get total project budget.
There is a vertical line in the center which represents date on which data is taken for the earned
value analysis (EVA).
Look at the lower curved line. It represents earned value (EV), which shows work completed
and its allocated budget (value).
The upper curved line shows the actual cost for the work completed up to data capture date. The
graph shows the actual cost for the work completed is more than planned budget.
Last part of the projection of actual cost to future up to completion of the project. It is shown as
a continuation of actual cost graph with the dotted line, which terminates at “Estimate At
Completion” (EAC)

Figure 45: PV, EV, AC graphs and forecast

I mentioned above to consider the past performance to chart out future budget. It is done by extending
the actual cost line in figure 45. There may be a question coming to your mind. Do we simply extend
the graphs or there is any mathematics to derive new cost estimates? The answer is, definitely yes!

We can calculate remaining budget needs by assuming the remaining work:

a) will need adjustment in the budget (based on CPI)
b) will need adjustment in budget and timeline (based on CPI and SPI)
c) will follow existing budget and schedule (ignoring CPI and SPI)
Let’s see mathematics for above options.
a) will need adjustment in the budget (based on CPI):
EAC = AC + [(value of remaining work)/CPI]
Here, AC = EV/CPI, and value of remaining work = BAC – EV, therefore
EAC = EV/CPI + [(BAC - EV)/CPI] = EV/CPI + BAC/CPI – EV/CPI, and
EAC = BAC/CPI - It is same as applying current CPI to the entire project!
b) will need adjustment in budget and timeline (based on CPI and SPI)
c) EAC = AC + [(value of remaining work)/(CPI X SPI)], therefore
EAC = AC + [(BAC - EV)/(CPI X SPI)]
d) will follow existing budget and schedule (ignoring CPI and SPI)
EAC = AC + ETC = AC + (remaining
original budget for remaining work)
EAC = AC + (BAC – EV)

You, as a project manager, worked on earned value analysis (EVA) and came up with a new estimate
to complete (ETC) the project and EAC. You proposed same to your management. Below may be
possible responses:
1. No more budget. Complete the project as per earlier approved budget. Your delay is your
problem, you have time, fix the issue and bring the project back to track by yourself rather than
asking for more budget. Here total budget, BAC, remains fixed.
2. Ok dear, I trust you. Your new budget is approved. We all know life is not so simple, but let’s
consider you being so smart that you convinced your management. Here new ETC is approved
and you will have new EAC, which will be different from earlier BAC.
3. We understand your problems but management cannot give you approval for all you ask. We
will allocate some funds and your new EAC will be EAC2. You need to manage in same.

In all three situations, you may have to change the performance of the team. How do you calculate
new required team performance? It is called:

To-Complete Performance Index (TCPI)

The formula is simple,

Now taking above cases to calculate TCPI:

Case 1: No
additional budget
 approved
Case 2: New
EAV approved
Case 3:
Alternative
EAC2 is given

Revision of the chapter: Let's have a quick glance to recap what we learnt in this chapter.

There are four processes in cost management:

1. Plan cost management – to create cost management plan
2. Estimate costs – using analogous, parametric, three-point, bottom up methods.
3. Determine budget – It deals with cost aggregation at WBS level while adding different
reserves. It also deals with fund management.
4. Control costs – It is a place of elaborate earned value analysis (EVA) in which following steps
are followed:
Measurement of key values – Planned value (PV, Earned value (EV), and Actual cost
(AC)
Variance analysis – Schedule variance (SV = EV – PV) and cost variance (CV = EV –
AC)
Performance indexes – Schedule performance index (SPI = EV/PV) and cost
performance index (CPI = EV/AC)
Forecasting by trend analysis – to calculate estimate to complete (ETC) remaining work
to find estimate at completion (EAC).
For continuation of same CPI:
EAC = BAC / CPI
For continuation of same CPI & SPI:
EAC = AC + [(BAC - EV)/(CPI X SPI)]
For continuation of old budget (ignoring CPI and SPI):
EAC = AC + (BAC – EV)
Future performance target is called To-complete performance index (TCPI).

As a project manager, you will look world class professional when you talk in above language, and
would give you a leading edge over others. All concepts are simple to understand and, with help of
software, you can work in it with great ease. All the best to take it ahead!
10. Project Quality Management
Meeting quality expectation and following organization’s quality policy is the main objective of
project quality management.

Question for you: What is quality? It is always comparable (e.g., good, bad, better, inferior, etc.) or
it has some absolute value? Can you measure quality?

It seems to be a matter of perception when we hear people saying that product from China is poor. But
on contrary, Apple devices (iPhone, iPad, etc.) get manufactured in China which is accepted
worldwide. Why?

Isn’t is a shift in paradigm? Yes it is. And we need to understand it.

As the industry is maturing, quality is shifting from being subjective to objective. When we say, we
need a good quality product then we need to specify the meaning of good quality. Quality of product
or service will be evaluated to given specification, rather than creating a perspective. The same
approach was followed by Apple. China was able to produce to the quality specification of Apple
and, therefore, it was accepted.

ISO 9000 [18] defines quality as the degree to which delivery meets specified requirement. Let’s take
few examples of quality expectation or specification:
IT Industry: 98% system availability for 10000 simultaneous user login. This is a case of a
specified quality requirement rather than keeping it loose by asking to provide high availability.
As a project manager you should ask for the definition of high availability and if it is acceptable
then your target should be to meet the specification, like given above, to quality against quality
expectation.
Civil Industry: No permanent deformation in railway track till 200 km/h speed of passenger
train. This is another case of specified quality requirement. However, it cannot be accepted due
to a technical issue. As the project manager or your technical team would highlight the impact of
fatigue due to which it will be susceptible to failure after exceeding the usage beyond fatigue
limit. So you should ask for a change in quality specification to include the number of cycles to
keep below fatigue limit. It may be rephrased as “No permanent deformation in railway track till
200 km/h speed of any train for 2000 trips”
Mechanical industry: Manufacturing as per geometric tolerance provided in GD&T. Instead is
asking to perfect flat plane, you should ask for flatness geometric tolerance in terms of GD&T
symbol.
As a project manager, you should keep following points in mind:
If you rush project work, you will impact quality.
If you overload project team, you will impact quality.
If you rush quality inspection, the defect will go undetected.
Prevention to avoid quality issue is better than fixing them.
Quality is not free. It needs time and money. Ask for it, explicitly.
If your client found a quality issue, then you are not doing your job. Fixing quality issues after
delivery is very costly, result in loss of reputation and business. So proper quality check is
 mandatory.
Quality is the most critical element of client satisfaction.
Quality improvement is a continuous process.
Let’s look at quality management approach, which is based on three processes.
Plan quality management
Manage quality
Control quality
10.1 Plan quality management
It is a process document to guide the team to identify quality requirements and/or need to be
compliant with any standard, approach to achieve and verify these throughout the project. Look at
figure 46 to understand its workflow:

Figure 46: Project quality management Plan quality management

Most of the input is already explained. Let’s cover new topics surfaced here:

Benchmarking is to set output expectation by referring to past comparable projects output and best
practices.
Cost-benefit analysis is done to compare the cost of quality control implementation with the benefits
of quality, which includes less rework, higher productivity, lower cost, increased client satisfaction
and increased profitability.
Cost of quality can be of three types:
Prevention cost: Cost to ensure required quality parameters are met.
Appraisal cost: Cost to ensure evaluate, audit, and test the deliverables.
Failure cost: Loss due non-conformance of needed quality. It can be the cost of rework, scrap,
liability or warranty work, and lost business.
The flowchart is used to represent the sequence of work with different features like branching,
decision making, parallel paths, and overall process to map processing details for high-level
visibility. Look at figure 47 to learn few important flowchart legends on the left side and small
sample flowchart on the right side.

Figure 47: Flowchart symbols and sample

Logical data model is used to understand underlying data and their integration. Look at figure 48
below in which one dataset is created for employee (on left) and another dataset is created for the
project (on right) and one common dataset is created for employee project assignment. These three
datasets are created based on the logical functioning of employees and projects. Notice the
relationship among these data elements. Employee number and project ID are used to connect these
data elements. Once you think through then you would gradually build your logical data model which
will help you to create your own management system.

Figure 48: Logical data model

Matrix diagrams are tools to represent relationships between two or more list of items like action,
people, equipment, function, concepts, data, information, etc. There can be different types of
relationships as shown below:

Strong relationship
Medium relationship
Weak relationship
No relationship

There are different types of matrix diagrams as explained below:

1. I-Type – Here relationship between two lists are mentioned

Figure 49: I-type matrix diagram

2. T-Type – Here relationship between three lists are mentioned in which one list is common

Figure 50: T-type matrix diagram

3. Y-Type – Here relationship between three lists are mentioned in which relationships between
any two lists are provided as shown in figure 51.
 Figure 51: Y-type matrix diagram

4. X-Type – Here relationship between four lists are mentioned in which one list is connected to
two other lists as shown in figure 42:

Figure 52: X-type matrix diagram

5. C-Type – There three lists are considered simultaneously to define an output then C-type
matrix diagram is used. It becomes little complicated to visualize the diagram and therefore it
comes with two options. One is external and another is internal as shown below:

Figure 53: C-type matrix diagram

6. Roof shaped – it is used to establish the relationship among elements of the same list as shown
below.

Figure 54: Roof shaped matrix diagram

Depending on your suitability, you may choose the any one or more matrix diagram to serve you
purpose to identify the factors affecting the quality of the product.

Mind mapping is an effective way to read minds. You start with any topic, situation, concern, goal,
etc. and keep it extending with thoughts coming to your mind. For example, if your topic is how to
search job, then start writing whatever comes to your mind, like, qualification, salary, location, work
life, reputation, growth. Identify approximately six main topics. Further go to next level of first level
details. And keep it expanding for three or maximum four levels. You use images, colors, etc. If you
implement it in quality management then it would greatly help in gathering quality requirement.

Testing and inspection plan is another tool to ensure you to testing and inspection as per plan to
avoid any unpleasant situation rather than conducting these when some problem arises.
Output of this process: Definitely quality management plan would be the output of the process
which should provide clear guidance to the team to manage the quality of the project delivery or
services. It should include at least:
The quality objective of the project
Quality standards to be followed
Quality roles and responsibilities
List of deliverables subjected to quality review
Quality control and management activities
Quality tools to be used
The process to deal with non-conformance
Corrective action procedure, and
Continuous improvement procedure
10.2 Manage quality
It is the implementation of the quality management plan to increase the probability of meeting the
quality objective of the project. It is a continuous process. Look at figure 55 to understand inputs,
tools and techniques and outputs of the process:

Figure 55: Project quality management Manage quality

Most of the points are already covered earlier. Let’s cover new terms appearing in the flowchart.
Checklists: It is a structured tool to verify if required steps have been performed in order to
meet requirements. It can be work steps checklist, work review checklist, testing checklist,
quality inspection checklist, etc. Look at sample checklist, given below, of the coding quality
checklist in IT industry:

Above checklist shows the output of one quality review and output in the checklist in which 2
quality parameters are met, 1 failed and 1 is not applicable.
Root Cause Analysis (RCA): It is a systematic approach to identify the basic underlying reason
that causes variance, risk or defect. Below is the approach:
1. Describe the problem
2. Gather data related to the problem
3. Identify potential causes of the problem
4. Identify which causes you will remove or change to prevent a repetition
5. Identify solution for identified causes
6. Implement solution/changes
7. Check if the implementation has removed the problem

There are various methods of RCA, few important are listed below:
1. Five WHY analysis – It is a simple but effective tool to get to the root of the problem.
You simply need to ask five-time WHY. For example, suppose you want to investigate
 a problem of poor print quality from a printer. The answer to your (1st ) WHY may be
poor cartridge. Now when you ask (2nd) why poor cartridge then answer may come as
an old cartridge. When you ask (3rd) why old cartridge then answer may be you had
over stock. Now you ask (4th) why over stock, then answer you may have unplanned
over purchase. Now you ask (5th) why unplanned purchase then you may find no one is
responsible for stock analysis and purchase. In this process of five WHY, you found the
root cause of bad printing lies in the purchasing process, not in the printer. It saves you
time and money by identifying root cause and acting on it. Isn’t it?
2. Fishbone diagrams: The name is given so because of the output of the exercise looks
like Fishbone. It is also called Ishikawa or Cause and Effect diagrams. It goes one step
ahead of five why method by adding cause category. Look at figure 56 as a sample.

Figure 56: Fishbone / Ishikawa / Cause and effect diagram

Here problem statement is written on the fish head (right side) and cause categories
are defined (e.g., planning, equipment/supplier, Policies/procedures, and project
team. Further possible causes in these categories are written on the diagram (on
bones of the fish). Once all possible causes are written then you would do the
analysis of finding the root cause to take an informed decision.
There are many such tools which may be beneficial for practicing project managers. You are
encouraged to do self-study for following methods:
Pareto analysis
Fault tree analysis
Current reality tree (CRT)
RPR problem diagnostics
Kepner-Tregoe technique
Failure mode and effective analysis (FMEA)

Affinity diagram – It is a method to organize ideas and large data in groups and subgroups for
systematic working. Let’s consider an example of working on a startup. Below example (figure
57) is created as a final output of collecting and sorting of ideas, presented as affinity diagram,
on which team will further work on startup.

Figure 57: Affinity diagram

Scatter diagram – It is graph between two variables to find a pattern of dependencies. In our
context, we may put quality control defect on one axis and processes or activities on another
axis, as shown in figure 58 below.

Figure 58: Scatter diagram

Design for X (DfX) – It is the short form of Design for Excellence. Any design can be made in
multiple ways. In DfX you define your priority for design work, for example, you may like to
design for: assembly (DfA), cost (DfC), logistics (DfL), manufacturability (DfM), reliability
(DfR), serviceability and/or repairability (DfS), or something else. Use of DfX may result in
cost reduction, better quality, performance, and customer satisfaction.
10.3 Control quality
It is a process of monitoring and reporting if the output is as per requirement and quality
specifications. Look at figure 59 to understand the flow.

Figure 59: Project quality management Control quality

Most of the terms are well covered till now. Below are the only two new terms which need some
detailing.
Statistical sampling – It may not be feasible to check the quality of every item produced.
Consider the example of Kellogg in which it is practically impossible to check all corn flakes.
In such cases, a sample is collected to conduct a quality check. If the quality is consistently
found better, then sample size can be reduced, or vice versa.
Control charts – Control charts are used to determine if the process is stable or not. It has
upper and lower limits of deviations. These limits are calculated based on concepts of statistics.
It should be +/- 3 times of standard deviation from the mean distribution of output. Look at figure
60 for a sample.

Figure 60: Control chart

Here the central line is mean value of the sample. Upper and lower control lines are placed at
3 times standard deviations from the central line. If all sample values come between UCL and
LCL then the process is called stable, however that is not the case in above figure. There are
three samples which came out of range of UCL and LCL. As a project manager you would need
to take action to find the root cause of the issue and ensure it is not repeated in future.

Revision of the chapter: Let's have a quick glance to recap what we learnt in this chapter.

There are three processes in cost management:

1. Plan quality management – we learnt about the cost of quality, different matrix diagrams,
 flowchart, logical data modeling, mind mapping, etc., to create a quality management plan
2. Manage quality – we learnt about checklists, root cause analysis, five whys method, fishbone
diagram, affinity diagram, scatter diagram, DfX, etc., to manage the quality.
3. Control quality – we learnt about statistical sampling and control chart to monitor and control
the quality of the project.

If you are able to deliver desired or little better quality of the project, be sure you will be better
qualified to grow in your career!
11. Project Resource Management
To Identify, acquire and manage resources for successful completion of the project is the main
purpose of this knowledge area. It is achieved with help of following six processes:
Plan resource management – to estimate, acquire, manage and utilize physical and team
resources
Estimate activity resources – to estimate team resource, material and its types, equipment,
supplies, etc.
Acquire resources – To define the process of obtaining needed resources.
Develop team – to improve team competencies, interactions, environment for better
performance
Manage team – to track team member performance, providing feedback, resolving issues, and
manage team changes.
Control resources – to ensure allocated physical resources are available and working as
planned and take corrective actions, as needed.

Before we jump into these process, let me set up some fundamentals.

Types of resources – There are two types of resources, one is human resources, another is physical
resources (equipment, material, facility, infrastructure, etc.). The method to manage the widely differ
from each other. .In case of human resources, you have to use emotions, motivations, team building
activities, growth planning, appraisals, etc. For physical resources, you have to plan in advance, enter
into agreements with the supplier, have an arrangement for safekeeping, optimize utilization to make it
cost effective and so on.

Virtual / distributed team – To optimize the usage of human resources across the globe, there has
been a need to work remotely. The team may be distributed across the globe but they can work
together with help of technologies like web conferencing, group screen sharing, data sharing, common
workplace servers, etc. Its project manager’s responsibility to ensure accumulation of all facilities
needed for proper functioning of such virtual or distributed team.

Colocation and Agile framework – We all know colocation always helps to work faster. So
whenever your team is co-located, you should try to utilize the concept of agile methodology for two
purposes:
1. The team is faster utilize to close work packages
2. Your involvement may be reduced if you identify suitable scrum master
Since agile methodology is not covered in this book, I would recommend doing self-study of same, as
it has high potential to do wonders in your project.
With above latest fundamentals, let’s us start exploring underlying 6 processes mentioned above.
11.1 Plan resource management
It is a process to create Resource Management Plan defining how to estimate, acquire, manage and
user project team and physical resources to meet project requirements. Although PMBOK (6th
edition) mentions it to be one-time exercise or to be performed at pre-defined points, but in practical
situations, you may need to revise resource management plan on basis of changing environmental
conditional and/or dynamic team/resource/market conditions. Let’s look at process details in figure
61, given below.

Figure 61: Project resource management Plan resource management

All points mentioned in input may not bother you but what about quality management plan? How does
it impact resource management plan? Your answer is correct if you said, the project manager will
need to acquire suitable resources to meet quality expectations.

As usual, we will cover all new terms appearing in this process.

Hierarchy chart – It is traditional organization structure to show position and relation in the
graphical top-down method. There are three types of hierarchy chart prevailing in practice:
Work breakdown structure (WBS) – We already learnt about it and saw examples to
decompose work into activities and work packages (e.g. milestones) to create a hierarchy
by adding dependencies.
Organizational breakdown structure (OBS) – It is structured similar to WBS to show
departments, units, teams, and relationship with WBS. For example, one department may
be assigned a particular work package.
Resource breakdown structure (RBS) – it is decomposed structure of all resources.
These are often grouped on the basis of resource category, type, or anything else which
makes it suitable to assign last level element to the last level of WBS.
Responsibility assignment matrix – It is used to assign WBS activity or work package to
individuals or group/team. There are four different types of responsibilities which are assigned
to team resources. Short form of same is called RACI, which elaborates as below:
Responsible (also recommender) – who does the work, at least one role.
Accountable (also approver) – who is responsible for work, one who delegates work to
responsible, e.g., team lead.
Consulted (also consultant or counsel) – whose opinions are sought in 2-way
communication.
Informed (also informer) – who are kept up-to-date on progress, usually in 1 way
communication.
 Figure 62 shows a sample RACI matrix:

Figure 62: RACI sample

Interesting note: RACI is not The Start and The End. It is most popular responsibility matrix
but people do make changes to suit them. For example, RACI does not consider people
supporting the project. For that, there exist another template called RASCI matrix where S
stands for supported. When you search for “Responsibility assignment matrix” on
Wikipedia, you will find so many such templates, e.g., PASCI, PARIS, RASI, RACI-CS,
RASIQ, CAIRO, DACI, RAPID, RATSI, DRASCI, etc. The message I want to convey is,
you are also free to customize it the way it works for you.
Text-oriented formats – When detailed role description is needed then we use forms like
position description and Role-responsibility authorization form. It includes details like
authority, competencies, qualifications, etc. You should keep such templates ready for future
use in the project.
Organization theory – It provides information about the way in which people, team, and
organization behaves. For example, organization theory may recommend having a flexible
leadership to adopt changes. These are guidelines to be more successful for those who are
new in an organization.
Team charter – A team charter is a document to establish team values, agreements, and
operating guidelines for the team. It includes:
Team values
Communication guidelines
Decision-making criteria and process
Conflict resolution process
Meeting guidelines, and
Team agreement
Team charter helps a lot to communicate expectations regarding behavior. Earlier
communications help in higher productivity and quicker onboarding.

Contents of Resource Management Plan:

Based on above inputs, tools and techniques, project managers are expected to come up with resource
management plan to include at least following details:
Method to identify project team and physical resources
Guidance for acquisition of project team and physical resources
Define roles in the project, e.g., civil engineer, business analyst, etc.
Define responsibilities assignment approach for the team.
Define authorities in the project, e.g., right to use project resources, make a decision, sign
approvals, quality acceptance criteria decision, delivery acceptance, etc.
Define competencies (skill and capacity) required for project, and method to acquire these by
means of training, or hiring. It should also guide the team to handle the impact of competencies
issues on schedule, cost or scope.
Define project organization chart at earliest as possible, maybe formal or informal, detailed
or broadly framed.
Define the method of defining project team resources, staffing, managing and releasing them
after their work is completed.
Define training strategy for the project team.
Define the method of team development.
Define physical resource control method for acquisition, managing inventory and equipment,
supplies during throughout project.
Define recognition and reward program for the team.
11.2 Estimate activity resources
This process is used to estimate team resource, material, equipment, supplies, etc. If you look at
figure 63, given below, then you would recall it to be very close to time estimate and cost estimate. It
is actually simple as we just need to estimate same activities we found while creating WBS and need
to estimate for human resource and physical resources.

Figure 63: Project resource management Estimate activity resource

There is nothing new but still we will look at few points to add further clarity:
Resource calendars – It is to identify the working days, shifts, start and end of normal business
hours, weekends and holidays, when each resource (team resource, materials, equipment, and
material are available to plan for resource utilization for a planned schedule of the project.
The basis of estimates – These are additional supporting details for an estimate, like:
Method of estimation
Source of reference estimation,
Estimate Assumptions,
Known constraint,
The range of estimation,
The confidence level of estimation, and
Risk documentation influencing estimates.

Remaining all points in the flowchart is already covered earlier.

11.3 Acquire resources
Acquiring right resources at right time is the most important activity of a project manager. In spite
of having money or authority, you would not be able to proceed if you don’t have right resources.
Even if you have resources but they are unfit for your project then also you can’t progress. There may
be a scarcity of resources, but you, as a project manager is only responsible to get it. Look figure 64
for to understand the process to acquire resources.

Figure 64: Project resource management Acquire resources

Here inputs on the left side are just to give you resource requirement. Focus on tools and techniques.
The first point itself is multi-criteria decision analysis. As a project manager you are expected not
only to get right resources at right time but also to get these resources are the right price with the right
skill and your resources should be best available resources at best price. You are answerable for
your decisions. Therefore, you have to consider following factors before making decisions:
Availability – Get written confirmation for resource to be available for your project when
needed.
Cost – Verify price is best available and also within your approved budget, else either utilize
activity contingency fund or get an additional budget through change request.
Ability – Double check the capability of the resource is sufficient to meet project needs. It is
applicable both to human resource or equipment.
Specific to team resources
Experience – The team member should have relevant experience.
Knowledge – Should have knowledge about a particular customer, similar projects, and should
be aware about similar project environment.
Skills – Should have skills to use project tools.
Attitude – Ensure the member has team player and learning attitude.
International factors – evaluate member’s country, communication style, time zone,, work
style which varies for international members.

Further look at interpersonal and team skills in which negotiation skill is highlighted. This is
particularly important as everyone wants to get hold of good resources and you have to find your
ways to get hold of them. There are three level at which you may have to negotiate to get good
resources:

1. Functional managers: Deal with the functional manager to provide their best resource who can
help you to get accurate requirements, provide right input for design, can help the team to stay
on right track and saves time.
2. Other project managers within your organization: If you identify a resource which can make
a difference then do not hesitate to explore an option to share resources with other project
managers. Check the feasibility from all perspective and propose for same if you feel it is
manageable.
3. External organization and suppliers: When scarce, specialized, qualified, certified, team
resource is needed then look outside with considering prevailing guidelines, policies, laws,
etc.

Another trend is prevalent in the market. Clients are asking to provide the name of the team members
who will work on critical works of the project. You provide names of your best team resources to get
the project, but you need to ensure they are available when the project starts. This is called Pre-
Assignment, which needs to be managed even from the beginning of the project, probably when you
were not even assigned as project manager of the project. Therefore, look at project charter or any
document which has named resources, and if found, you ensure those named resources are assigned to
your project. Take help of project owner as mentioned in project charter to mobilize such resources.

I want to share a story of one of largest and most successful project in USA in which I was fortunate
to participate. I was surprised to see the highest position holder from my organization (CEO level)
camping in India office for almost 4 weeks to gather right people. I thought he was being over
conscious. He should delegate this task to the project manager or other senior people to form a team.
The big boss knew each and every person on the team, he led the team and placed them appropriately
and made comfortable in their roles, else made an adjustment, and stabilized the team and then
authorized them. It was a systematic approach in which entire team was prepared for the large
assignment. As a result of such exercise by the leader, the project was a grand success, won the
technical award in the USA and we all felt fulfilled by working on the project.

So give proper importance to the selection of right resources. If you have a nice team then you are
favored, not other way around.
11.4 Develop team
It is a process to improve team competencies, team member interactions, and overall team
environment for produce better performance. Review figure 65 given below to glance through the
process.

Figure 65: Project resource management Develop team

There are few bi-products of the process, like, improved teamwork, enhanced inter-personal skills
and competencies, motivated team members, reduced attritions, and improved project performance.
Isn’t it nice to have all in your kitty? Placing you in such successful situation is the intent of this book.
Keep tuned.

Model of team development (Tuckman ladder model)

Review this model to understand the generic behavior of team development. According to this model
every team travels through five stages:
1. Forming – In this phase, team members meet and learn about project, technology and solution of
the project, their formal roles and responsibilities. They generally don’t open up in this phase.
2. Storming – During this phase, team members start opening up by sharing their thoughts, ideas,
technical decisions, management approach. If the team environment becomes non-collaborative
then the team may not be able to perform properly. As a project manager, you need to keep team
aligned and create a collaborative environment.
3. Norming – In this phase, trust building starts. Members begin to work together. Make
adjustments in their work habits and behavior to support the team. From here onwards you can
expect project output.
4. Performing – Team reaches this stage when they start working as an interdependent unit, sails
smoothly and effectively through challenges.
5. Adjourning – This is the last phase in which team complete their work and moves on to another
work.

With this background let’s review the points mentioned in the workflow of developing team process
as shown in figure 65, shown above. Most of the points are already covered. All points in the input
are already explained. Let’s review new points from tools and technologies.
Communication technologies – Communication plays an important role in team building. If
your team is remotely located or distributed across the globe, then you would need good help of
communication technologies, for example you may think of using:
Shared portal – (internet, intranet, document repository, etc.)
 Audio/Video conferencing – for distant team members
Email/Chat – Regular, fast and effective electronic communication
Interpersonal and team skills – Explicit repeat is to make you recall whatever you learnt in
section 2.1 (Competencies of a Project Manager). Refer it back again if forgotten and start
implementing those tools.
Recognition and rewards – You should have a planned recognition and reward plan, else it
will appear ad-hoc and sometimes biased. Keep the reward only if it is respected by
individuals for whom you planning.
Individual and team assessments – There are various tools like individual surveys, specific
assessments, structured interviews, ability tests and focus groups. These tools are used to
understand strengths and weaknesses of the team, team member’s preferences and aspirations,
how they make decisions, how they approach work, how they organize information, etc. Once
you know about these details then you would be able to work to create a more cohesive group
which will work best in the given scenario.

Remaining all points are already discussed earlier. So we are moving to next process to see how to
manage the team.
11.5 Manage team
It is a process to track team member performance, providing feedback, resolving issues, and manage
team changes. Look at figure 66 to under the process.

Figure 66: Project resource management Develop team

Almost all points are covered but I would like to elaborate on conflict management which is one of
the critical activity of a project manager, as they are often placed as a judge to give justice to all
conflicting parties. So the expectation is high from project managers, particularly when you know
there does exist any solution which is heartily acceptable to all. So whoever wins, whoever loses, the
project manager will have to lose a bit out of her/him.

Conflict will still happen. So how to resolve them? Here are five techniques:
Withdraw/Avoid – Keep away from conflict, if it is too small, or you know it is temporary, or
you are not fully prepared, or you know someone else will get it resolved.
Smooth/Accommodate – emphasis area of agreements, make them know they can help each
other and try to create a constructive environment out of conflict closure discussion.
Compromise/Reconcile – Try to find a solution which is partially agreed by all such that
conflict heat is quenched for some time. I personally don’t like this method as no one is happy
and it looks like a lose-lose situation. So instead of adopting this solution, I would say, go for
what is right and best for the organization.
Force/Direct – You simply put your decision which is correct from project guidelines and is in
the interest of the organization. It may lead to the win-lose situation but you need to handle the
losing side separately.
Collaboration/Problem solve – include multiple views, insight from different perspectives and
open dialogue to lead to a consensus and commitment after everyone agrees what is correct.
This is a win-win situation in which project manager can focus on severe conflicts.
11.6 Control resources

Look at figure 67 for the process to control resources.

Figure 67: Project resource management Control resource

This process is related to physical resources controlling. Team resource control is addressed in
‘Manage Team’ process. Control resources are related to:
Monitoring resource expenditure
Identifying resource shortage/surplus in time
Ensuring resources are used and released as per plan and project needs
Informing stakeholders for their relevant resources
Managing actual change as they occur

All inputs provide in figure 67 will help you to get desired resource and output. In tools and
techniques, problem-solving point you may utilize skills learnt earlier for identification, definition,
investigation, root cause analysis, solving the problem and analyzing the output.

Revision of the chapter: Let's have a quick glance to recap what we learnt in this chapter.

There are six processes in resource management:

1. Plan resource management – to estimate, acquire, manage and utilize physical and team
resources
2. Estimate activity resources – to estimate team resource, material and its types, equipment,
supplies, etc.
3. Acquire resources – To define the process of obtaining needed resources.
4. Develop team – to improve team competencies, interactions, environment for better
performance
5. Manage team – to track team member performance, providing feedback, resolving issues, and
manage team changes.
6. Control resources – to ensure allocated physical resources are available and working as
planned and take corrective actions, as needed.
12. Project Communication Management
Communication management is focused on the flow of timely, accurate and needed information across
team and stakeholders. Forms of communication may be:
Written form – may be physical or electronic. Hard copy or soft copy.
Spoken – Either face-to-face or remote
Formal or informal – as in formal papers or social media.
Through gestures – Tone of voice or facial expression
Through media – Picture, action or just choice of words

Communication gap is the difference between idea to be communicated and idea perceived. It leads
to misunderstanding and causes issues. Misunderstanding cannot be eliminated but can be reduced in
written media by following 5C’s of written communication, as given below:
1. Correct grammar and spelling – poor grammar and incorrect spelling may not only diminish
the credibility of communicator but also have a risk to create different meaning altogether.
2. Concise expression and elimination of excess words – to reduce the opportunity for
misunderstanding.
3. Clear purpose and expression directed to the needs of the reader – to ensure the interest of
the reader.
4. Coherent logical flow of ideas – using “markers” like an introduction, summery, etc. to keep
reader guided.
5. Controlling flow of words and ideas – by means of graphics or other creative ideas.

In addition to above consideration for written communication, few additional communication skills
would be helpful, as given below:
Active listening – keeping engaged with speaker and summarizing conversation to ensure
correct information gathering.
Awareness of cultural and personal differences – to understand speakers culture and personal
habits to get the intention of communication. I can’t hold to share an example here. Kindly bear
with me, I bet you will learn something out of it.
I was visiting the USA for the first time in 2004 for my official work. My favorite boss gave
me this opportunity and he called me to provide some inputs related to same point such that I
can succeed. One of his many teachings was related to confirmation to take responsibility for
any work. Suppose there is a work to be done about which you are not sure if you would be
able to do it or not but you want to try it. In India you will say “let me see”, which means “I
will try but can’t promise success”. If you say same words “let me see” in the USA then it is
perceived almost opposite, as “I will look into it and get it done”. Look at the difference
between understanding for same minimum words. This difference is a matter of culture,
which generates different meaning of same words.
Clarity about purpose of the communication – When you communicate then you should be
clear why you are communicating and it should be made clear to the person or group to whom
you are communicating.
Understand receiver’s preferences – like mode, time, style, detailing and other attributes of
communication.
 Monitoring and measuring the effectiveness of your communication – you should keep on
eye to see how others are receiving your communications and find a trend to keep on improving
on it.

With above background, let’s look at processes used in project communication management:
12.1 Plan communication management
in this process, a communication management plan is developed for project communication activities.
Look at figure 68 given below to see the workflow.

Figure 68: Project communication management Plan communication management

Inputs are already discussed earlier, we will start with tools and techniques;
Expert judgment – Involve an expert who has knowledge of:
Politics and power structure of the project
The culture of the organization
Organizational change management approach and practices
Industry or project deliverables
Organizational communication technologies
The organizational legal requirement of corporate communications.
Organizational policies and procedure regarding security
Stakeholders, including customers or sponsors
Communication requirement analysis – It is an analysis to find requirement for different types
and formats of communication:
Stakeholder communication requirement as mentioned in stakeholder register and
stakeholder engagement plan
Establishing communication channel for 1-2-1, 1-2-many, many-2-many
Roles or people listed in the organizational chart.
Different departments, groups, specialties involved in the project.
People placed across different locations
Internal communication flow (within the organization)
External communication flow (media, contractor, public, etc.)
Legal requirements (proving business details in pre-defined format)
Communication technology – You may select options from conversations, meetings, written
documents, databases, social media, and websites. Selection is made on the basis of:
The urgency for the need of information – it may vary between phases.
Availability and reliability of the technology – should be compatible, available and
accessible throughout the project.
Ease of use – it should be suitable for participants, else provide training
Project environment – consider team locations (colocation or virtual team), different
time zone and language considerations.
Sensitivity and confidentiality of the information – Consider sensitivity and
 confidentiality aspects before planning to release any information. Also guide project
team to avoid any social media to share project information outside of the project.
Communication models – There are two types of communication models between two parties,
sender and receiver. These are;
Basic sender/receiver model – The basics of this model is to protect the message by
encoding it before it is sent from the sender, delivering it to the receiver and decoding it
on the receiver side. Ensuring delivery is prime purpose of the model. Our usual email is
a good example of same.
Interactive sender/receiver model – There are two additional steps in this method. These
are (1) acknowledgment from the receiver when communication is received, and (2)
response/feedback from the receiver after understanding the message.
Communication methods – These are classified as:
Interactive communication – between two or more parties in real time, e.g., meetings,
phone calls, instant messaging, a forum on social media, video conferencing, etc.
Push communication – used for mass communication without worrying about delivery to
every individual and without getting any confirmation about understanding the
communication. For example, letter, memo, reports, email, faxes, voice mails, blogs and
press releases.
Pull communication – for a large audience, these are provided with security check to pull
information as per need. For example, get lessons learnt from the database, information
from the portal, intranet, e-learning portal, knowledge database, etc.
Approaches of communication – Choose suitable approach from the list:
Interpersonal communication – typically face-to-face
Small group communication – for 3 to 6 people
Public communication – a single speaker addressing a group
Mass communication – with the minimum connection between sender and a large group
of receivers.
Mass and social media communication – a new model for many-to-many communication
over social media.
Interpersonal and team skills – evaluate and work on following skills:
Communication styles assessment – For unsupportive stakeholders, you may need to
evaluate their preferred communication method, format, and content and update
stakeholder engagement plan to follow same.
Political awareness – to understand the power trend in the organization, and make use of
communication to start influencing them.
Cultural awareness – to make sure that communication is sent while being sensitive to
available cultures.

Ultimately you need to make a communication management plan with at least following points
included in the plan:
Stakeholder communication requirement
Information, language, format, content and level of details
Escalation process when communication plan is not followed
Reason for the distribution of the information
Timetable, the frequency of information distribution along with acknowledgment or
 response, if needed.
The person responsible to send communication
Authority to release confidential information
Recipients of the information
Method of the technology used for communication
Resources allocated for communication, including time and budget
Method to revise communication management plan
Glossary of common terminology
Flowchart of information flow for communication
Constraints or limitation due to specific regulation, organization policies, technology,
etc.

Once you prepare the communication management plan then you make sure you cross check details
with above points to see if missed anything can improve your communication management plan.
12.2 Manage communications
This process is used to implement communication management plan while providing flexibility to
choose appropriate technologies, methods and techniques to accommodate the change in stakeholders
and project needs. Look at figure 69 to understand the workflow of the process.

Figure 69: Project communication management Manage communications

As most of the points are already discussed earlier, we will look into 3 points:
Communication skills – Below are explicit communication skills in which you may plan to train
yourself (considering you as project manager):
Communication competence – How to add clarity to the purpose of communication,
effective relationship and information sharing.
Feedback – These are not responses to communication. These are additional activities like
coaching, mentoring, negotiating between the project manager and team.
Nonverbal – it is soft skill training related to body language, the tone of voice, facial
expression, eye contact, etc. It is used to supplement you to convey few hard messages
which you cannot explicitly say in words.
Presentations – it is a formal delivery of information. For example, progress report,
information update to stakeholders, detailing of work and decision-making process, etc.
Presentations can be more effective when you consider following two factors:
The audience, their expectations and needs
Need an object of project and presentation
Meeting management – to conduct effective meetings, ensure:
Agenda stating objective and flow of meeting is prepared and distributed in advanced such
that participants are better prepared.
Meeting start and finish at predefined time
Required participants are invited in advance and attending too.
Keep the discussion focus, on the topic only.
Manage expectations, issues and conflict during the meeting.
Create minutes of meeting (MOM) to record all points discussed, actions identified and
persons responsible for action items and dates associated with them, if decided during the
meeting.
Networking – It is the art of interacting with others, developing contacts, and exchanging
information. It is considered as access to an informal organization to solve problems, influence
 actions from stakeholders, increase support from them to improve project performance.

You would notice an update on lessons learnt in output. You should contribute to your organization by
sharing your learning while working with above tools.
12.3 Monitor communications
it is the process of ensuring the information needs of project and stakeholders are met. Look at
process details in figure 70 given below:

Figure 70: Project communication management Monitor communications

Almost all the points are already explained earlier. We will look at one point seems not so obvious.
Stakeholder engagement assessment matrix – It is a comparison between the current level of
stakeholder engagement and desired level of stakeholder engagement. The engagement level can
be classified as follows:
Unaware – unaware about project progress and impacts.
Resistant – They are aware about the project developments but resist any change due to
work progress or any reason.
Neutral – Aware about the project but neither supportive nor unsupportive to the change.
They can turn in any direction.
Supportive – Aware about the project and support next steps.
Leading – They work with the team towards the success of the project.

Revision of the chapter: Let's have a quick glance to recap what we learnt in this chapter.

There are three processes in communication management:

Plan communication management – to articulate appropriate approach and plan for project
communication activities based on needs and assets.
Manage communications – It is the process to ensure timely collection, creation, storage,
retrieval, and distribution of project information.
Monitor communications – it is the process of ensuring the information needs of project and
stakeholders are met.
13. Project Risk Management
Every project has risks. It is implied from the definition of the project which is learnt in the first
chapter as “A Project is a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service or
result”

Since every project is unique, therefore it brings the risks for unforeseen situations. Risks are also
introduced due to conflicting and changing expectations from stakeholders. Risks can also invade
from outside of the project, say market conditions.

Generally, we perceive risk as a negative situation but it is not true. There can be positive risks as
well. For example, civil industry construction steel price falling instead of expected rise in price, too
high response to launch of the new product instead of the risk of very low response, adapting to new
technology resulted in an increase of efficiency rather than expected slow down of work due to the
impact of change, etc. Positive risks can also be considered as opportunities.

Risks and its impact can be evaluated at two levels:

Individual level: It is related to the identification of one risk at a time and evaluating the impact
on one specific project objective or multiple specific objectives.
Overall (or Combined) level: It is an evaluation of all risks together on an overall project.
Remember, it is not the sum of all impacts calculated at an individual level. It may be less, it
may be more.

Non-event risks: above examples of risks looks to be triggered based on an event. There can be non-
event risks also which may need attention and management. There are two types of non-event risks:
1. Variability risks – it is related to possible variation in output, for example actual errors are
more than expected, productivity may be below expected, and so on. So basically you are
recognizing performance variance as risks.
2. Ambiguity risks – it is related to unknown areas, for example unknown technical details,
unknown possible change in regulations, etc. These are covered by external expert advice
or following the benchmark of the industry.

Unknowable unknowns are (emergent) risks which yet not visible. As a project manager you need to
factor in through creating project resilience, means creating a mechanism using which project can
tackle unknowable-unknown when they come on the surface. Mechanism to create project resilience
can be:
Adding budget and schedule contingency for emergent risks.
Flexible project process to quickly accommodate emergent risks
Authorizing project team to work on emergent risks to keep the project on target within agreed
deviation limits
Frequent review of an early warning sign of emergent risks
Seek input from a stakeholder for response to emergent risks

Most of the project managers put less or no effort to manage risks. They register risks in their mind or
engage in informal discussion. The general approach is to handle it when risk is converted into
reality. This approach results in ad-hoc management and creates a scene of chaos. You, as a project
manager, come under huge pressure to find a solution on short notice, try to manage it with given
resources and your management says, you should have visualized this risk and have created risk
mitigation plan. It is a loose-loose situation for you. Wouldn’t it be good to work on it in a planned
manner and keep all stakeholders posted to seek support during risk management process as
explained further.
13.1 Plan risk management
It is a process to define how to conduct risk management in the project. Look at figure 71 for
subcomponents of the process.

Figure 71: Project risk management Plan risk management

You will take help of your organizational asset to follow standards, templates, definitions, etc. to
come up with risk management plan, which will include:
Risk strategy – it is a general approach to manage risks of the project.
Methodology – it describes specific approaches, tools and data sources to be used for risk
management.
Roles and responsibilities – it defines risk management role and assignment of responsibilities
to team members.
Funding – defines the funding needed to run the risk management activities and also setup
process or protocol to utilize contingency funds for risks.
Timing – it determines the timing of risk management activities and the inclusion of same in the
project schedule.
Risk categories – It helps to divide risks into groups to manage them. It is similar to grouping
for resources. So as we had resource breakdown structure, we can have Risk Breakdown
Structure (RBS) as shown below.

Figure 72: Sample risk breakdown structure

Definitions of risk probability and impacts – look at figure 73 below to convey a clear
definition of risk probability and impact their impacts:
 Figure 73: Sample risk probability definition and their impacts
Probability and impact matrix – It is matrix used to visually prioritize action to negative as
well as positive risks. Two factors, probability and impact, are considered together for further
decisions. Look at figure 74 for a sample.

Figure 74: Sample probability impact matrix

With help of this matrix, you multiply probability and impact to get a probability-impact score.
It becomes very simple to decide priority to select risk to be taken for action.
Stakeholder risk appetite – The risk appetite of key stakeholder should be recorded in risk
management plan. To achieve it, you have to define risk probability and its impact on project
objectives (explained above). Here you will need to get maximum allowed risk probability
(threshold) acceptable to key stakeholders and define mitigation plan after reaching this
threshold.
Reporting formats – to determine the formats in which outcome of risk management will be
documented, analyzed and communicated.
Tracking – how to record risks and how to audit risk management process.
13.2 Identify risks
It is a process to identify individual and sources of overall project risk. Risk categories are also
documented. It is also advisable to document risk statement during the process to add clarity to the
risk. This process is conducted throughout the project to include new risks emerging during the
project.

Following participants should be included in the process of risk identification:

Project manager
Team members (involve them to create a sense of ownership)
Internal or external risk specialists
Customer
Subject matter experts (of functional areas of the project)
End users
Other project managers (to share their past experience)
Operations managers
Stakeholders (particularly for individual risks)

Refer to picture 75 to understand the workflow if the process:

Figure 75: Project risk management Identify risks

Inputs are already covered earlier in this book. Most of tools and techniques are also discussed,
except prompt lists, which is a predefined list of risk categories which your organization may be
having. It can be the starting point for your team to start identifying project risks. Some common
prompt lists are:
PESTLE (political, economic, social, technological, legal, environmental),
TECOP (technical, environmental, commercial, operational, political), or
VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity)

As an output of the process, you would start creating your risk register with following initial details,
which would be added with more details as we go ahead:
List of identified risks – give a unique number to all risks identified, add sufficient description
to have an unambiguous understanding.
Potential risk owners – Add initial risk owner which will be reviewed and updated during
 qualitative risk analysis process (explained soon).
Potential risk responses – if it was possible to discuss risk responses during identification
process then document it in the risk register. It will be reviewed during plan risk response
process.
Other data as possible – you may add more data if found during the identification process.
These may be current risk status, one or more causes, one or more effect on project objectives,
risk trigger, WBS reference or affected activities, timing information, etc.

Risk report is another output which will have fewer details at the time when risk register was
created for the first time. Risk report is a summary document to provide an output of risk management,
the current status of risks and details about their mitigation plans.
13.3 Perform qualitative risk analysis
It is a process to prioritize risks for further analysis and action. Refer figure 76 below to understand
the workflow of the process:

Figure 76: Project risk management Perform qualitative risk analysis

The main theme of the process is to remove baisness from risk evaluation. You should include one
facilitator to do so as you may also be biased based on your past experiences. This exercise to clean
the data of the risk register is listed as risk data quality assessment in tools and techniques.
Similarly, you would assess the quality of risk probability and impact assessment.

You may do an assessment of other risk parameters for prioritization, for example:
Urgency – It is period of time within which risk has to be responded. Shorter the time period,
high is the urgency.
Proximity – It is period of time before which risk will impact the project. Shorter is time
period, higher is proximity.
Dormancy – It is period of time between risk occurrence and impact is discovered. Shorter is
time period, lower is dormancy.
Manageability – It is the ease with which risk can be managed. Easier the risk management,
manageability is higher.
Controllability – It is the degree to which risk’s outcome can be controlled. Easier is to control
the outcome, higher is controllability.
Detectability – it is the ease with which result of risk occurrence can be detected. Easier it to
detect the result of risk, higher is detectability.
Connectivity – It is the extend to which a risk is connected to other risks. If the risk is
connected to multiple risks, then connectivity is high.
Strategic impact – It is potential to impact organizations strategic goals.
Propinquity – It is the degree to which risk is perceived by stakeholders. When risk is
perceived very significant, propinquity is high.

Hierarchical charts: When there are more than two dimensions to consider to decide the priority then
we use hierarchical charts. One such chart is bubble chart as shown below in figure 77.
Figure 77: Sample bubble chart
13.4 Perform quantitative risk analysis
It is a process to understand risk in terms of numbers. It is an optional process and is suitable for
large complex, strategic projects, contractual or specific requirements. Look at figure 78 to
understand the process flow:

Figure 78: Project risk management Perform quantitative risk analysis

Most of the points in the workflow has been covered except following points:
Representation of uncertainty: Activity duration, cost estimates, technical solution, etc. adds
to the uncertainty of activities, In such situation, we can represent a range of values with a
probability distribution. You should work on probability distribution as per your project
specific condition of uncertainty.
Optional activities also add to the uncertainty of the project. These are added as branches
which may or may not be included in the project without impacting the overall duration of the
project.
Simulation: Computer software are used to run thousands of possible combinations to consider
all activities cost and duration variables along with probability distribution to come up with
cumulative probability distribution (S-curve) for the project. Refer to figure 79 for one such
example.

Figure 79: Cumulative probability distribution (S-curve) for a project

The upper point on S-curve states 70% probability of final project cost is 2.6 MUSD however
if senior management asks for the probability to complete work in 2.4 MUSD then you may
refer to the second point on the curve and say the probability of same is around 35%. It gives
an idea to stakeholder for the direction of the project.
Sensitivity analysis: It determines which project risk or other sources has maximum impact on
project outcome. It is represented at the correlation between project outcome and individual
element of project risk or activity. You may use tornado diagram to represent it graphically and
quantitatively as shown below in figure 80. The name is given as diagram looks like a tornado.

Figure 80: Tornado diagram sample for sensitivity analysis

13.5 Plan risk response
It is a process of making strategy and selecting options to handle individual and overall project risk.
In this process, we also update the plan to include activities and resources to handle risks. This
process is conducted throughout the project. Look at figure 81 to understand the details of the process.

Figure 81: Project risk management Plan risk response

There can be multiple strategies for threats and opportunities:

Threats Opportunities
Escalate Escalate
Avoid Exploit We will start with strategies to handle threats:
Transfer Share Escalate: When threats are outside the authority zone of
Mitigate Enhance the project manager, and can be handled only at program
Accept Accept or portfolio level then the project manager communicates
appropriately and get acceptance of escalated risks for further action beyond the project. There
is no action required by the project team or project manager after escalation. For example, if the
corporate supplier is increasing price for all sites then project manager cannot do anything other
than escalating it to be handled by the corporate office.
Avoid: In this strategy you avoid the high-priority, high-impact, by means of either removing the
cause of threat, extending the schedule, changing project objective, reducing scope, clarifying
requirement, or acquiring expertise. Ultimately the risk probability has to reduce to zero.
Transfer: It is shifting of risk to the third party, maybe by paying a risk transfer premium. For
example by means of insurance, subcontracting special works to experts, warranties, guarantees,
etc.
Mitigate: It is strategic action to reduce the risk probability. It can be done by means of
adopting less complex solutions, conduct more tests, increase quality requirement parameters,
choosing a stable supplier, etc. Earlier is better to mitigate the risk, to avoid rework.
Accept: It is to acknowledge the risk but taking response action to counter the risk. This strategy
can be active or passive. Most common active acceptance strategy is to allocate contingency for
time and fund. Passive acceptance strategy can be not to even allocate contingency and just keep
on reviewing the situation until when the risk has occurred. That time you allocate contingency
 for time and/or cost, whichever is needed.

Below are strategies to handle opportunities:

Escalate: Case is same as a threat, where it was out of control of project team or project
manager. Just escalate and focus on other activities.
Exploit: It is used for high priority opportunities to ensure it is realized. For example, utilizing
organization’s most talented employee assigned to project to complete the work at earliest, using
new technology to work faster, etc.
Share: It is taking help of thirty to ensure the opportunity is realized. For example, taking a joint
venture, hiring special purpose companies, etc.
Enhance: It is used to increase the probability of such opportunities or increase the impact of
such opportunities. For example, you may hire more people to reduce overall timeline of project
wherever possible. It will reduce idle time for other resources and save the overall cost of the
project.
Accept: It is used for low priority opportunities. Active acceptance is just to allocate resources
to utilize it when occurs and passive acceptance is to take no proactive action for it. Mostly we
don’t work on low priority opportunities.

Contingent response strategy: These are fallback plans executed only after the risk has realized. It
is possible for only such risks whose response will get sufficient time to respond after the realization
of risk, for example, increasing the speed of supplies when the need arises, invoking advance fund
release to expedite the project, etc.
Strategy for overall project risk: After working on individual project risks, you should look at overall
project risks, which might have come due to a combination of individual risks, to be addressed in the
same fashion as above, i.e., by means of:
Avoid
Exploit
Transfer/Share
Mitigate/Enhance
Accept
Di you notice the “ESCALATE” strategy is not included here. It is so because it applies to only
individual risks.

Update risk register

One of the important output expected is updating risk register to:
Agreed upon risk strategies
Specific action to choose based on strategy
Trigger symptoms, warning signs of a risk to occur
Impact on budget and schedule
Contingency plan and risk triggering event
Fallback plan when risk has occurred
Residual risks for which no action is planned
New risks as the outcome of the implementation of risk responses
In every risk review meeting, the update should be made and risk report should be made after meeting
to circulate in a pre-defined format.
13.6 Implement risk response
It is a process to ensure implementation of responses to risks. Look at figure 82 for details of the
process

Figure 82: Project risk management Implement risk response

When the team is busy working on current action items, it becomes natural to ignore action items for
future risks. But it comes back and bites us. Therefore, as a project manager, you need to ensure that
risk owners work on agreed action items. All the points in the workflow are already discussed
earlier.
13.7 Monitor risks
It is the process to track risks, implementation of responses, the effectiveness of responses, and
identifying new risks if missed out in earlier processes. Look at figure 83 to understand the details of
the process.

Figure 83: Project risk management Monitor risks

Below are main objectives of monitor risks process to determine if:

Implemented risk responses are effective
Level of overall project risk has changed
Status of individual project risks have changed
New project risks have appeared
Risk management approach is still appropriate
Project assumptions are still valid
Risk management procedure and policies are followed
Contingency reserves for cost or schedule are still valid, and
The project strategy is still valid

Based on findings of above points, corrective actions are taken.

Revision of the chapter: Let's have a quick glance to recap what we learnt in this chapter.

There are seven processes in risk management:

1. Plan risk management – to define how to conduct risk management activities in the project.
2. Identify risks – to identify individual and overall project risks, their sources and
characteristics
3. Perform qualitative risk analysis – to prioritize risks for further analysis and action. Priority
is derived from risk’s probability and impact,
4. Perform quantitative risk analysis– to analyze the numerical value of individual project
risks, uncertainty in the project and overall impact
5. Plan risk response – to develop option, selecting a strategy and finalizing actions for
identified individual and overall project risks.
6. Implement risk responses – to implement agreed risk response plan
7. Monitor risks – to track the status of individual project risks, overall project risks, identifying
new risks, the status of contingency funds, and effectiveness of risk management and risk
responses.
Final note: It is one of the ignored areas of project management. The impact is directly proportional
to size, complexity and criticality of the project. If you have worked on smaller projects so far and
you did not work on risk management and still you are successful then you should not undermine the
importance of risk management. You are just being under-exposed or lucky. For large size complex
projects, it is must to implement risk management to save you from awkward situation when you don’t
have agreed response and running from pillar to post after realization of risks, specially when you
knew about it, had informal chat but did not arrange to make it official and arrange for contingency
fund or time. To avoid such situation, you should start using risk management as you grow.
14. Project Procurement Management
Project procurement management includes the processes necessary to purchase or acquire the
product, services, or results needed from outside of project team. It also includes the processes to
develop and administer agreements, for example contracts, purchase orders, memorandum of
agreements (MOAs), service level agreements (SLA), etc.

Procurement is one of the most complicated areas from legal, binding, penalty point of view.
Procurement contracts can be simple material purchase at a given rate to fairly complicated multiyear
multi-item multi-location contract. Although project managers are not expected to be expert in
procurement, they are expected to understand the process and details such that they do not become a
soft target for the trap.

A project manager should be familiar with following basics of procurement:

A purchase contract should clearly provide details of goods, services or results expected.
Whatever is not mentioned in the contract cannot be expected.
Before working on any internal contract, know the local laws, don’t assume anything. If unsure
then take help from experts.
A contract should include terms and conditions and procurement policies should be followed as
per standard procurement process of organization.
Most of the organization has written policies and procedure for procurement. They have
designated people to create or review contracts and signatories to sign contracts on behalf of the
organization. Project managers are expected to follow the same route.
All purchase documents are subjected to review and approval due to legal binding and
complaint to prevailing laws of the land. These sections are often separate appendices or
annexure, with standardized legal language to use.
A complex project may involve multiple contracts and some of them may end during the project
life cycle. Such contracts need to be managed diligently.
Desperate sellers would try to sell for an unsustainable price and more than their capacity. The
approach taken may be “to penetrate and expand”. You should be aware about this possible trap
and you should be evaluating the supplier’s capability to supply what you need.

In some cases, winning supplier may manage the work or supply as a project.
In those cases, the seller becomes sub-contractor and buyer becomes a customer.
The seller’s team becomes part of the extended project team and expected to work as per
guidelines of the project.
Terms and conditions of the contract and procurement statement of work (SOW) include inputs
like major deliverables, key milestones, cost objectives, buyer’s approval for supply of suitable
resources (like manpower in IT industry), acceptance of delivery by the buyer, etc.
The seller itself may become buyer to procure needed goods or services.

There the many new trends prevailing in procurement, which can be utilized:
Advance in technology: There are many softwares which have resulted in more efficient buying
and management. For example, there are softwares in which all procurement needs are released,
sellers can submit their bids/proposals while attaching a soft copy of relevant documents. Buyer
 can analyze all bids through software and award the contract to the selected seller through
software where all terms and conditions are also included. Deliveries are tracked in software,
inspection results are recorded and final invoices are generated online, payments are also
approved online and payments are also made electronically. Using these tools can establish the
buyer as a preferred buyer in seller community which ensures better supply services and
intangible but beneficial brand building.
More advanced risk management: As maturity is increasing, now contracts are created where
risks are distributed appropriately. Even though you may like to transfer risk in seller’s side but
if it not feasible then you have to live with it, for example risk of change in law compliances,
change in your organization's policies, etc.
Changing contracting process: As the world is moving towers mega projects supported from
multiple countries, standardization of contracting process is becoming very popular, it helps in
avoiding confusion over terms and conditions, expectations, acceptance criteria, etc. You and
your organization should be exploring such standard contracting processes.
Logistics and supply chain management: When supplies are coming from around the world
and industry scale is growing multifold, you should be aware about lead time and logistics of the
supplies you need. Longer the lead time, earlier you would need to plan, find primary suppliers
and their lead time, find a secondary or backup supplier and know their lead time too.
Ultimately you need supplies to run your project and you are responsible to procure these
supplies.
Technology and stakeholder relations: There are more and more projects running under
surveillance. You would be able to find many construction sites where live cameras are
installed to record the work and also to show progress to all stakeholders, even to look at live
progress. Such measures have only reduced conflicts but also increased the efficiencies.
Trial engagement: One of the prevailing trends is to engage multiple sellers in the initial phase
of the project to find the most suitable seller for your environment. These engagements are short
and paid on delivery basis for limited deliveries. You may consider this option while selecting
your sellers.

Following may be typical steps of project procurement:

Prepare procurement statement of work (SOW) or terms of references (TOR)
Prepare a high level cost estimate for high level budget
Advertise the opportunity
Identify a short list of qualified sellers
Prepare and issue bid document
Collect and compile proposals by the sellers
Conduct technical and quality evaluation of the proposals
Perform a cost evaluation of the proposals
Prepare final cost and quality combined report to select the winning proposal
Finalize negotiations and sign contract between buyer and seller

There can be many types of contracts:

Broadly there are two types of contracts. One is Fixed Priced and other is Cost reimbursable. It is
also possible, actually being practiced, to mix these two types of contracts in single procurement,
depending on need and comfort.

Fixed price contract: This type of contract is to provide well defined scope for a given price. It
is generally used there is sufficient clarity of the work and significant changes are unexpected.
Further types of fixed price contract are:
Firm Fixed Price (FFP): It is most popular for the buyer as the price is fixed unless until
the scope is changed.
Fixed price incentive fee (FPIF): This type of fixed price contract will have some
performance bonus for seller upon meeting the certain target set in terms of timeline, cost,
technical performance, etc. Along-with incentive bonus, maximum ceiling of the total cost
is also mentioned such that upper cap is controlled by the buyer. There is increasing trend
in the market to win these performance bonuses which not only helps the seller to earn
more but also they use it as a marketing tool to present themselves as the best performer in
the market. The buyer also is happy as they get better output than normal. So it’s a win-win
situation.
Fixed price with economic price adjustment (FPEPA): These are used for multiyear
multi currency contract which needs pre-defined adjustment to factor in the change in
exchange values, inflation, etc.

Cost reimbursable contracts: In this type of contract, the actual cost of the service or products
is paid along-with supplier fee/profit. This type of contract is preferred when there is a fair
amount of change in scope is expected. There can be three types of cost reimbursable contract:
Cost plus fixed fee (CPFF): In this arrangement, all allowable expenses are reimbursed
along with the pre-defined fixed charge for the seller, which may be decided on the basis
of percentage of total initial project cost or any other factor. Even if the factor has changed
but scope remains same, the fixed fee will not change.
Cost plus incentive fee (CPIF): In this arrangement, cost of the project is decided at the
beginning with an agreed formula to share any further deviation in cost, for example 80%
by the buyer and 20% by the seller. Apart from project cost there will be a payout for
incentive fee based on achieving certain objectives of the project.
Cost plus award fee (CPAF): In this arrangement, all legitimate costs are reimbursed but
the major payout is linked to subjective performance criteria defined in the contract.

Hybrid contract model

Time and material contracts (T&M): This is a hybrid model in which fixed component and
reimbursable component are included. It is more prevalent in manpower supply in IT industry in
which there is hourly billing for work done by team member plus there would be additional
actual cost reimbursed for travel, visa, accommodation, etc.

Source selection method

You would have source selection method in which you will invest a good amount of time and
resources. It is a good idea to share your source selection criteria with bidders such that they know
how they are going to be selected and accordingly they will share relevant details for you to easily
select the right source and everyone is given a fair chance. Common source selection criteria may
include:
Least cost: it is suitable for a supplier which are standards and specification and there exists
the least chance of deviations. For example branded devices.
Qualification only: It is applicable to procurement of relatively less value and where
qualification of seller like credibility, experience, expertise, recommendations, etc. matters.
Quality base/highest technical proposal score: In this approach sellers are asked to submit a
technical and financial proposal. First technical evaluation is done and qualified sellers are
invited for discussion and negotiations and upon successful negotiation process, the work is
awarded.
Quality and cost based: In this approach both cost and quality are included in selection
criteria. For high uncertainty and risk project, quality should be given higher importance.
Sole source: When the seller is fixed then entire process revolves around negotiation. Generally
it is not a good idea to proceed with this option as there is no competition and you may be losing
something better. This approach should be adopted only as an exception with proper
justification.
Fixed budget: This approach is followed when the budget is fixed and cannot be exceeded. You
share your budget with all sellers and ask to submit technical details of the work. Selection is
made on the basis of technical evaluation, in which you need to ensure that solution meets your
requirement and seller will be able to provide what you need.

Source selection criteria

After selecting most appropriate source selection method, you need to decide on source selection
criteria, which may be based on:
Sellers expertise, capacity, and level of experience
Key staff qualification and expertise
Product cost and life cycle cost
Delivery approach and alignment to procurement SOW
Financial stability of the seller
Management experience
Knowledge transfer and training approach

Types of bid documents

Bid, tender or quotation terms are used when seller selection is primarily based on price only (when
buying standard items). We use word proposal when the technical aspect is also important for seller
selection. It is the generic behavior of the market not defined anywhere. We will call them bid
documents, few important are given below:
Request for quotation (RFQ): it is issued from buyer to get a quotation for standard
items/services etc. in which uncertainty is less.
Request for proposal (RFP): It is also issued by buyer to get proposals for a solution to a
problem, seeking a solution, approach, timeline and cost.
Request for information (RFI): It is query document from sellers to whom RFQ/RFP was sent
in order to get more details about the supply.
Response to RFI: It is a response to an answerable question raised in RFI. There are various
 methods to respond. The most popular method is to share all RFI questions and share a response
to all of them with all bidders. It adds clarity and a fair chance is given to all with the same
level of clarity. Another approach is to respond individually at seller level. This is not a good
option as the different seller will have different input and there is a chance of missing details
which will impact the proposal quality. The third option is to conduct bidder’s conference for
all shortlisted sellers to answer all question such that all can participate in the discussion and
take away of information is maximum to the seller, It will also benefit buyer to get a high quality
solution at this level
Response to RFQ/RFP: This is same as quotation or proposal from the seller.

With above basic understanding of procurement process, we will start exploring project procurement
management which has 3 underlying processes:
1. Plan procurement management: it is a process of documenting procurement
approach, identifying potential sellers and decisions.
2. Conduct procurement: It is the process to get seller’s response, selecting a seller,
and awarding the contract.
3. Control procurement: it is the process to monitor the performance of sellers, make
corrections as needed, and successfully closing the contracts.
14.1 Plan Procurement Management
It is a process to project procurement decisions, specifying the approach and identifying potential
sellers. As a project manager, you should have procurement skillset available in your team or you
should have support from procurement or purchasing department. Look at figure 84 given below for
details of the plan procurement management process.

Figure 84: Project procurement management Plan procurement management

I am sure you must be happy to see yourself familiar with most of the terms in the flowchart. Few
terms which are not explicitly discussed are covered below.
Benefit management plan: It is described when specific project benefits are expected to be
available. It is generally prepared with the business case.
Components from enterprise environmental factors to utilize when preparing your
procurement management plan:
Product, services and results available in market and market condition
Part performance and reputation of sellers
Typical terms and conditions for your applicable industry
Local requirements, for example, regulatory, labor rules, etc.
Legal advice
Contract management and change control systems
Pre-qualified multi-tier supplier based on your organization’s experience
Financial accounting and contract payment system
Procurement management plan: It should include at least following points to provide guidance
to your team for procurements
How to coordinate procurement activity with other project activities like schedule and
control process.
Timetable of key procurement activities
Procurement matrix to be used to manage contracts
Stakeholder roles and responsibilities for procurement
Assumptions and constraint considered for procurement
The legal jurisdiction and payment currency
Insurance contracts, performance bond issued for risk management
Pre-qualified seller to be used, if available.
Procurement strategy: the objective of procurement strategy is to determine project ‘delivery
method;, the ‘contract types’, and how procurement will advance through the ‘procurement
 phases;. We are digging a bit to better understand these new terms:
Delivery method: It is to decide on the delivery of services/goods by the seller. For
service procurement example, we may adopt a strategy to allow/not to allow
subcontracting. For large construction project example, we may have strategies like turnkey
design build (DB), design bid build (DBB), design build operate (DBO), Build own
operate transfer (BOOT), etc.
Contract type: You may adopt following contact type selection strategies. Use fixed-price
contract when the specification is clear and deviations are limited. Cost plus incentive/fee
contract type can be used when there is ambiguity in scope. Other contract types are not to
be considered.
Procurement phases: you may create a strategy to divide procurement into phases with the
following guideline
Divide entire procurement into different phases with description and objective of
each phase.
Procurement performance indicators and milestones for evaluations
Criteria for moving from one phase to another phase
The process of knowledge transfer between phase.

Remaining points are already covered earlier. We will move to next process.
14.2 Conduct Procurements
It is a process to float RFQ/RFP, get responses from sellers, selecting sellers and creating an
agreement. Look at picture 85 for details of the process.

Figure 85: Project procurement management Conduct procurement

All points are already discussed in details except agreement details. We will review important
elements of the agreement, as given below:
Procurement statement of work (SOW) or major deliverables
Schedule, milestone or date to submit a schedule
Pricing and payment terms
Performance reporting
Inspection, quality, and acceptance criteria
Warranty and future product support
Incentives and penalties
Insurance and performance bond
Subcontractor approval
General terms and conditions
Change request handling process,
Dispute resolution mechanism, and
Termination clause

At this stage you have just awarded the contract. We will manage and control the procurement process
in next section.
14.3 Control procurements
It is a process to manage procurement relationship, contract performance, making changes as needed
and finally closing the contract.

Since procurement is a lucrative area for corruption, an organization may have different means to
control the procurement. In addition to your internal audit team, you may think to deploy external
auditors, anti-corruption initiatives, well defined elaborate code of ethics, legal advisory
arrangements.

Due to legal binding nature of the procurement agreements, it needs to be administered diligently to
take care of following activities:
Collection of procurement data to create defined financial and physical performance reports
Creation of financial and physical performance reports
Refinement of procurement plans and schedules
Ensuring procurement activities are supported to proceed as expected
Payment of invoices as per payment terms.

Payment is a sensitive area where buyer tries to relate payment to the seller with the progress of the
project, for which the procurement is made. The generic thought process is to pay the seller when the
project gets some payment such that there is no investment required from the buyer, who is running the
project. No seller will agree to this term but buyer internal intention is same. This intention becomes
the issue when payment is delayed. To address this issue, you should enter into an agreement in which
payment to the seller would be linked to project delivery.
Let us consider an example to understand it. Suppose you are given a contract to erect metro network
in a town. You are entering into a contract with a civil construction company for building metro
stations and a mechanical air conditioning company for air conditioning the entire station along the
route. Here you may enter into a contract to release the payment for one station work when the station
is completely ready and accepted by the client, else we need to close all pending issues before
payment is made. By going for such approach, you would be comfortable to release payment as the
work is already completed and agreed.

Look at figure 86 to understand the components of the process.

 Figure 86: Project procurement management Control procurement

Most of the terms are already covered except claim administration. We will understand it as well.

Claims and its administration: As in any change request, both parties generally do not agree. At the
first level buyer do not agree to change, saying it should b part of the contract. Seller is saying it is
not explicitly mentioned in contact, so it is additional delivery. So the first dispute is to accept the
change. Next area of dispute it to agree for a compensation if it is agreed to be a change. Such
disputed changes are called claims. When they cannot be resolved, they become disputes and finally
appeals. Claims are documented, processed, monitored, and managed throughout the contract
lifecycle, usually in accordance with the terms of the contract. If the parties themselves do not resolve
a claim, it may have to be handled in accordance with alternative dispute resolution (ADR) typically
following procedures established in the contract. Settlement of all claims and disputes through
negotiation is the preferred method.

Revision of the chapter: Let's have a quick glance to recap what we learnt in this chapter.

We started to build our foundation with learning following topics:

Basics of procurement
New trends in procurement
Typical steps of project procurement:
Types of contracts
Fixed price (FFP, FPIF, FPEPA),
Cost reimbursable contract (CPFF. CPIF, CPAF), and
Hybrid (T&M)
Source selection method and source selection criteria
Types of bid documents

Further we understood three processes used in procurement management:

1. Plan procurement management – It is a process to project procurement decisions,
specifying the approach and identifying potential sellers.
2. Conduct procurement – It is a process to float RFQ/RFP, get responses from sellers,
selecting sellers and creating an agreement.
3. Control procurement – It is a process to manage procurement relationship, contract
performance, making changes as needed and finally closing the contract.
15. Project Stakeholder Management
The stakeholder is people, group, or organizations that could impact the project or perceive to be
impacted by the project.

Project stakeholder management includes processes to identify stakeholders, to analyze their

expectations, their impact on the project and strategy to effectively engaging them in project
decisions, planning, and executions. It helps to create a sense of ownership and belongingness to
project and to get better support.

Due to changing interest and involvement, developing a relationship among stakeholders, growing
awareness of the project, developing understating of project impact to their area of interest,
stakeholder participation keeps changing through the project. This dynamic situation makes it
mandatory to keep revising the stakeholder details throughout the project. Such revisions are more
apparently needed in following cases:
Project moves through multiple phases
Current stakeholders are no longer involved in the project and new stakeholder have joined the
project and becoming active
There is a significant change in organization structure of the project

Stakeholder community is growing. In today’s world external groups, who are distantly related, for
example, regulators, lobby groups, environmentalists, financial organizations, media, etc., are also
claiming themselves as a stakeholder.

Stakeholder engagement effectiveness can be positive and negative. Positive engagements are derived
from involving powerful stakeholders in the project for decision making, updating regularly, etc.,
which satisfies them and they help in project progress. Negative engagements are either due to not
involving stakeholder, which hurts their ego and result is hindrances on the project, or due to any
active stakeholder carrying negative attitude towards the project. Both situations need to be managed
in the interest of the project.

There are four processes in project stakeholder management:

1. Identify stakeholders: It is a process to regularly identifying stakeholders, documents their

information like interest, involvement, interdependences, influence, and potential impact on the
project success.
2. Plan stakeholder engagement: it is a process to develop approaches to engage stakeholders
based on their interest, need, and potential impact on the project.
3. Manage stakeholder engagement: The process of communicating and working with
stakeholders, address issues, and engage them in the project.
4. Monitor stakeholder engagement: The process of monitoring the effectiveness of stakeholder
engagement and modifying it as needed.

We are proceeding to explore each process in the same sequence.

15.1 Identify stakeholders
It is a process to regularly identifying stakeholders, document their information like interest,
involvement, interdependences, influence, and potential impact on the project success. Refer to figure
87, given below, for details of the process.

Figure 87: Project stakeholder management Identify stakeholder

All input will provide you list of the stakeholders already identified at the beginning of the project,
however, we would need to add to the list and keep updating it throughout the project life cycle. You
may start with stakeholder register template from your organization’s asset and may also get a sample.
You would conduct few sessions for brainstorming or conduct surveys to find more stakeholder. Once
you are ready with your first list of stakeholders then detailing with start with stakeholder analysis in
which you will find out their position, project roles, “Stakes”, expectations, attitudes, and interests.

“Stake” can be one or combination of following types:

Interest – This types of stake keeps interest in the project.
Rights (legal or moral) – Legal stakes are legislative in nature, for example, health and safety.
Moral stakes are protection oriented, for example, saving heritage or environmental sites, etc.
Ownership – This stake is related to legal title or ownership of an asset or properties may be
inside the project, or outside.
Knowledge – This stake is related to expertise or specialist which can be used for the project.
Contribution – this type of stake is to provide direct help to project, for example, providing
fund, human resources, shielding the project from internal organization politics, advocating for
benefits of the project, etc.

Stakeholder mapping/representation: To make it easy to understand and visualize, few popular

stakeholder representation tools are used as given below:
Power/Interest grid (also known as power/influence grid or impact/influence grid): It is
placing all stakeholders on basis of two properties out of power, interest, and influence. Below
is an example given in figure 88:

Figure 88: Stakeholder Power/Interest grid

Stakeholder cube: It is a three-dimensional analysis of stakeholder mapping. You may take

‘Power’ + ‘Interest’ + ‘Attitude’ as shown below in figure 89:

Figure 89: Stakeholder cube (Power/Interest/Attitude)

Salience model: It is analysis on the basis of power, urgency, and legitimacy (appropriateness)
of the stakeholder, as shown in figure 90 below.
 Figure 90: Salience model (Power/Legitimacy/Urgency)

Direction of influence: It is based on their influence on project work. There are four options
considered:
Upward – It is mostly applicable to senior management, sponsor, steering committee, etc.
Downward – it is mostly applicable to temporary team or specialists.
Outward – it is applicable to groups outside of the project, for example, suppliers,
government departments, public, regulators, etc.
Sideward – it is applicable to peer project managers, shared resources, competitors, etc.

After selecting the method of mapping your stakeholders, you would complete your stakeholder
register and makes updates to PMP and other project documents.
15.2 Plan stakeholder engagement
It is a process develop plan/approach to engage stakeholders on the project, based on their interest,
needs, expectation, and their possible impact on the project. You will start with an assessment of
current engagement level of stakeholders and plan towards desired engagement level. There are five
levels of engagements:
1. Unaware – they are aloof of the project and its impacts
2. Resistant – they are aware of the project work and outcome but they would always be
unsupportive to project work of changes.
3. Neutral – they are aware of the project but neither supportive or unsupportive.
4. Supportive – they are aware of the project and supportive of it.
5. Leading – they are aware of the project and actively support the project to push it forward.
Look at figure 91, given below, for such an example, in which C represents current level of
engagement and D represents desire level of engagement. Notice the level of stakeholder 3 is
currently same as desired based on his capacity but for stakeholder 4, the current level is supportive
but higher management wants stakeholder to progress to next level, that is, leading level.

Figure 91: Stakeholder engagement assessment matrix

Finally, you would prepare stakeholder engagement plan to get maximum benefit from all
stakeholders. Look at figure 92 to find details of the entire process.

Figure 92: Project stakeholder management Plan stakeholder engagement

15.3 Manage stakeholder engagement
It is a process of communicating and working with stakeholders to satisfy their needs and
expectations, address issues and involve them in the project as per engagement plan. Look at figure
93 below to understand the process.

Figure 93: Project stakeholder management. Manage stakeholder engagement

Here almost all terms are explained earlier except ground rules in tools and techniques which is
rules of behavior which any stakeholder needs to follow. Rest all items are self-explanatory and
already explained earlier.

Secrecy requirement of stakeholder management:

In this entire process, we are keeping details of all important stakeholders. These data may be
offensive to many stakeholders. For example, if any stakeholder finds his name to be tagged as
“dangerous” or “insignificant passive backer” then he may get offended and would not support the
management team in any future activity. To avoid any such situations, stakeholder management,
planning, detailing and execution should be done only with limited senior people. Medium and junior
level team members are not to be involved in this exercise.
15.4 Monitor stakeholder engagement
It is a process to monitor stakeholder relationship, evaluating the effectiveness of stakeholder
engagement plan, tailoring strategies to engage them in more effective manner. This process should be
conducted throughout the project life.

Figure 94: Project stakeholder management Monitor stakeholder engagement

Look at figure 94, given above, showing all components involved in the process. We have already
covered them earlier.
16. Concluding notes
Congratulations for completing this book. I would like to thank you for your time and sincerely hope
you would be able to use the concepts explained in your real life scenario. If you are aspiring to
appear for PMP certification exam then also it would help you to great extent. You can reach out to me
anytime through www.azukotech.com by simply leaving a message to me.

Before we wind up, I would like to share few important tips for you as a token of appreciation for
spending time with me.

$ Revisit Project Integration Management $

The purpose of integration management is to create project management plan which is single
document referring to all other areas of management, namely, scope management, schedule
management, cost management, quality management, resource management, communication
management, risk management, procurement management, and stakeholder management.

We can say integration management is the parent and all other management areas together can be
called children. While you were learning about integration management then you were actually
learning parent behavior without knowing about children behavior. Now when you know about
children behavior then you again read about parent behavior. You will get better insight now.

$ Using Tools and Techniques $

In our journey, we learnt so many tools for data gathering, data analysis, meeting handling, planning
and scheduling tools, different types of charts, some mathematical calculations, and so on. Also, we
found the use of these tools and techniques listed in different processes. Using tools and techniques in
specified processes are only for guidance purpose.

The practical approach is to understand generic use of these tools and apply it wherever you are
comfortable to use it and wherever it serves the purpose. It's your kingdom, your choice. We are only
in advisory mode.

$ Take baby steps, go slow $

Most of the time managers are overwhelmed by looking at a long list of management plan, numerous
templates, multiple types of project documents and feel lost in the world of management. It is obvious
and it is expected, particularly when you are starting from scratch. In this case, you have to start with
baby steps by starting with the implementation of management practices for a limited number of
knowledge areas.

One option is to roll out your management improvement initiative in the same sequence as given for
10 knowledge areas or you may follow phase wise approach given below:
Phase 1:
• Integration management
• Scope management
• Schedule management
• Cost management

Phase 2:
• Quality management
• Resource management
• Procurement management,

Phase 3:
• Communication management
• Risk management
• stakeholder management

I have changed the order a bit, pulled procurement management little above risk management and
communication management, based on my personal view of importance ranking among all.

$ Sample Template and document $

When you start working on your management plans then you would need multiple templates to run
your projects. If your organization is mature then you will get those templates from a repository, else
you have to find one or create one. You will wish if someone can give you readymade templates. You
will try to find templates on the internet. There will be multiple templates, all different. Why so?
Because all organization is unique, needs are different, business is different, the methodology is
different, and obviously, templates are different.
Every organization develops its own templates. If you have to develop it for your projects then you
start simple. Add only those details in the template which is needed for any purpose. As you and your
team become comfortable with simple to use templates, you can start adding more details to it.
Slowly you would have to build multiple templates. It will take time because it refines with your
organization getting maturity. Therefore, have patience, start small and grow gradually. You are
building culture, which is historic.

$ Preparation for PMP certification exam $

PMI tests your understanding on PMBOK, not based on your experience or based on your perception
of the real world. You don’t need to remember Input, Tools, and techniques, and output for 49
processes. You need to make your concept clear based on explanations given in this book or PMBOK.
Relate it to your industry and frame your own set of examples for different situations.

There are numerous practice options available on the internet. I have my personal experience of using
them when I was preparing for PMP certification exam. I would say, it is dangerous to attempt any
non-reputed practice tests. When answer and reason are incorrect then you get confused. You try to fit
it into your learning and just to believe them to be correct, you modify your correct understanding to
incorrect understating, which is sad. So visit only reputed practice question sets. Or simply go for
limited sets available with PMI.

You may also visit www.azukotech.com to check if I am able to launch any practice book for PMP
certification exam.

$ Final words $

I wish success to all my readers to wish to be known as world-class managers. My success lies in
your success only. If I can be of any further help, you may reach me through www.azukotech.com and I
will respond to you as soon as I can.

See you soon!