#2 PMP - Organizational Influences and Project Life Cycle

 PMP

Fifth Edition

#2: Organizational Influences and Project Life Cycle

Organization Cultures and Styles

Organizational culture is shaped by the common experience of members of organization. Common experiences include, but not limited to:

-          Shared Visions, mission, values, beliefs, and expectations.

-          Regulations, policies, methods, and procedures.

-          Motivation and reward system.

-          Risk tolerance.

-          View of leadership, hierarchy, and authority relationships.

-          Code of conduct, work ethic, and work hours.

-          Operating environments.

Influence of Organizational Structures on Projects

Organizational structure is an enterprise environmental factor, which can affect the availability of resources and influence how projects are conducted

Organizational Process Assets (OPA)

Organizational process assets are the plans, processes, policies, procedures, and knowledge bases specific to and used by the performing organization. They include any artifact, practice, or knowledge from any or all of the organizations involved in the project that can be used to perform or govern the project. These process assets include formal and informal plans, processes, policies, procedures, and knowledge bases, specific to and used by the performing organization. The process assets also include the organization’s knowledge bases such as lessons learned and historical information. Organizational process assets may include completed schedules, risk data, and earned value data. Organizational process assets are inputs to most planning processes.

Organizational process assets may be grouped into two categories:

1.       Processes and procedures.

2.       Corporate knowledge base.

Corporate Knowledge Base

Storing and retrieving information includes, but not limited to:

-          Configuration management knowledge base containing the versions and baselines of all performing organization standards, policies, procedures, android any project.

-          Financial database.

-          Historical information and lessons learned.

-          Issue and defect management database.

-          Process measurement database.

-          Project files from previous projects.

Enterprise Environmental Factors

Refers to conditions, not under the project team, that influence constrain, or redirect the project. EEFs are considered inputs to most planning processes, may enhance or constrain project management options, and may have a positive or negative influence on the outcome. EEFs include, but not limited to:

-          Organizational culture, structure and Governance.

-          Geographic distribution of facilities and resources.

-          Government or industry standards.

-          Infrastructure.

-          Existing human resources.

-          Personnel administration.

-          Company work authorization systems.

-          Marketplace conditions.

-          Stakeholder risk tolerances.

-          Political climate.

-          Organization’s established communications channels.

-          Commercial database.

-          Project management information system.

Project Stakeholders and Governance

A stakeholder is an individual, group, or organization who may affect, be affected by, or perceive itself to be affected by a decision, activity, or outcome of a project. Stakeholders may be actively involved in the project or have interests that may be positively or negatively affected by the performance or completion of the project. Different stakeholders may have competing expectations that might create conflicts within the project. Project governance—the alignment of the project with stakeholders’ needs or objectives—is critical to the successful management of stakeholder engagement and the achievement of organizational objectives. Project governance enables organizations to consistently manage projects and maximize the value of project outcomes and align the projects with business strategy. It provides a framework in which the project manager and sponsors can make decisions that satisfy both stakeholder needs and expectations and organizational strategic objectives or address circumstances where these may not be in alignment.

Project Stakeholders

Stakeholders include all members of the project team as well as all interested entities that are internal or external to the organization.

The following are some examples of project stakeholders:

The Project team - The Project manager – Sponsor Customers and users – Sellers – Business partner – Organizational group – Functional managers.

An important part of a project manager’s responsibility is to manage stakeholder expectations, which can be difficult because stakeholders often have very different or conflicting objectives.

The relationship between Stakeholders and the project

Project Governance

Project governance is an oversight function that is aligned with the organization's governance model and that encompasses the project life cycle.

Project governance framework provides the project manager and team with structure, processes, decision-making models and tools for managing the project, while supporting and controlling the project for successful delivery.

For project governance, the PMO may also play some decisive role. Project governance involves stakeholders as well as documented policies, procedures, and standards; responsibilities; and authorities. Examples of the elements of a project governance framework include:

-          Project success and deliverable acceptance criteria;

-          Process to identify, escalate, and resolve issues that arise during the project;

-          Relationship among the project team, organizational groups, and external stakeholders;

-          Project organization chart that identifies project roles;

-          Processes and procedures for the communication of information;

-          Project decision-making processes;

-          Guidelines for aligning project governance and organizational strategy;

-          Project life cycle approach;

-          Process for stage gate or phase reviews;

-          Process for review and approval for changes to budget, scope, quality, and schedule which are beyond the authority of the project manager; and

-          Process to align internal stakeholders with project process requirements.

Project Success

Since projects are temporary in nature, the success of the project should be measured in terms of completing the project within the constraints of scope, time, cost, quality, resources, and risk as approved between the project managers and senior management. To ensure realization of benefits for the undertaken project, a test period (such as soft launch in services) can be part of the total project time before handing it over to the permanent operations. Project success should be referred to the last baselines approved by the authorized stakeholders.

The project manager is responsible and accountable for setting realistic and achievable boundaries for the project and to accomplish the project within the approved baselines.

Project Team

The project team includes the project manager and the group of individuals who act together in performing the work of the project to achieve its objectives.

Project team may include roles such as:

Project management staff – Project Staff – Supporting experts - User or customer representatives – Sellers – Business partner members - Business partner.

Project Life cycle

A project life cycle is the series of phases that a project passes through from its initiation to its closure. The phases can be broken down by functional or partial objectives, intermediate results or deliverables, specific milestones within the overall scope of work, or financial availability. Phases are generally time bounded, with a start and ending or control point. The life cycle provides the basic framework for managing the project, regardless of the specific work involved.

Characteristics of the Project Life Cycle

Projects vary in size and complexity. All projects can be mapped to the following generic life cycle structure:

-          Starting the project

-          Organizing and preparing

-          Carrying out the project work

-          Closing the project.

The generic life cycle structure generally displays the following characteristics:

Cost and staffing levels are low at the start, peak as the work is carried out, and drop rapidly as the project draws to a close.
Risk and uncertainty are greatest at the start of the project. These factors decrease over the life of the project as decisions are reached and as deliverable are accepted.
The ability to influence the final characteristics of the project’s product, without significantly impacting cost, is highest at the start of the project and decreases as the project progresses towards completion.

Project Phases

A project phase is a collection of logically related project activities that culminates in the completion of one or more deliverable.

Phase may emphasize processes from particular project management process group, but it’s likely that most or all processes will be executed in some form in each phase.

Project phase typically are completed sequentially, but can overlap in some project situations.

The high level nature of the project phases makes them an element of the project life cycle.

Project phase is not Project Management Process Group.

Phase to phase relationships:

1- Sequential relationship: a phase con only start once the previous phase is complete. Its nature approach reduces the uncertainty, but may eliminate option for reducing the schedule.

2- Overlapping relationship: the phase starts prior to completion the previous one. This can be applied as an example of the schedule compression technique called fast tracking. Overlapping phases may increase risk and can result in rework.

Types of Life Cycles

1- Predictive Life Cycle:

Known as fully plan-driven.

Generally preferred when the product to be delivered is well understood, there is substantial base of industry practice, or where a product I s required to be delivered in full to have value to stakeholder groups.

2- Iterative and Incremental Life Cycle:

Called iterations.

Generally preferred when an organization needs to manage changing objectives and scope, to reduce the complexity of a project, or when a partial delivery of a product is beneficial and provides value for one or more stakeholder groups without impact to the final deliverables or set of deliverables. Large and complex projects are frequently executed in an iterative fashion to reduce risk by allowing the team to incorporate feedback and lessons learned between iterations.

3- Adaptive Life Cycle:

Known as change driven or agile methods.

Generally preferred when dealing with a rapidly changing environment, when requirements and scope are difficult to define in advance, and when it’s possible to define small incremental improvements that will deliver value to stakeholders.