What are the Common Project Risks and How to Tackle Them?

Irrespective of your venture, chances are the daily tackling of projects to reach professional and personal career objectives.

However, with projects comes risks. While the risks are a given, you don't want to fall into the trap if you can avoid them. Providentially, a few common risks are easy to determine and handle, saving one's time, resources, and money.

Before discussing the typical project risks and how to handle them, let's first see common loopholes in project management and why they're perilous.

Common Project Management Problems and How They are Perilous

Businesses and experts these days understand that to get ahead, it's significant to take risks, but how you handle them is crucial. For several project professionals, this means business planning, strategizing, and development all depend massively on a careful balancing of resources you've and planning risk assessments around them. Working this way ensures that your enterprise safeguards itself as it develops.

Amid risk management, project experts look for ways to determine events that may adversely affect the entire project performance.

Risks are both external and internal; hence, risk assessment and management typically include several features such as:

• Operational assessment
• Program risk assessment
• Cost uncertainty
• Investment risk assessment
• Alternative analysis

9 Most Common Project Risks the Business Encounter

Here is the list of organizations' most common project risks, thus helping you an added advantage in risk management and planning. By understanding and learning what these risks are, you're in a better role to avoid them and balance your business for longevity, success, and growth.

Performance Risks

These types of risks aren't anyone's fault, thus, making it incredibly tiring. Finally, performance risks are the risk that the project won't generate the outcomes and benefits outlined in the properties. Even if you maintain a budget and stick to the schedule, this risk means you've lost money and time on a project that ultimately didn't deliver.

Legal Risks

This risk can be unpredictable and might arise from regulatory and legal duties. These include contract risks, an action brought against an organization or business, and internal legal issues.

Cost Risk

This is probably the most common project risk resulting from inaccurate planning, scope creep, and cost estimation. When this occurs, project professionals end up spending more money than they've on a project, which may harm the enterprise or cause the project to go unfinished if resources and funds can't be restored.

Market Risk

This includes interest rates, credit risks, competition, liquidity, commodity markets, and foreign exchanges. Market risk is more unpredictable and challenging to plan for; however, there're ways in which project professionals can safeguard their business.

Schedule Risk

The outcome of poor planning and schedule risk is that risk where project activities consume more extended time to complete than estimated. These risks are closely related to cost risk as any slips in it often increase expenses, reduce project benefits, and discard timelines, which lose any competitive edge you've begun.

Strategic Risk

This is another type of performance risk. Problems result from fallacies when strategizing, like selecting project management software that doesn't operate well for your project.

Operational Risk

This risk results from poor execution and process issues, including procurement, production, and distribution. Operational risks are part of performance risk as the expected result doesn't occur at all or in the way project professionals had planned.

Governance Risk

This risk is linked to the board and management performance concerning ethics, community stewardship, community, and organization reputation. Governance risk is easier to mitigate as it relies massively on the executive's behavior.

On a serious note, this risk is real and needs to be taken care of immediately.

External Hazard Risks

External hazard risks are the most unpredictable type and come from external sources such as society, nature, government, and other individuals. These risks include earthquakes, terrorism, storms, vandalism, floods, sabotage, and labor strikes.

How to Tackle Project Risks

Here, we'll see different methods to safeguard your business and drastically reduce the risk of falling into common project risks.

Early Risk Identification with Risk Register

Determining project risks before the start of a project is the best method to handle and mitigate common loopholes. One way to do it is with a risk register. A risk register is a significant part of risk management - created at the beginning of a project and serves as a tool that aids project professionals in tracking problems and tackling them at the earliest.

Using a risk register in risk and project management records details of determining risks and their analysis and plans to tackle them. A risk register determines various risks and their severity, thus, offering actions and methods to avoid the same.

Use Project Management Software

The software lets us streamline project activities and plan work to the last detail. Project management software is one of the top methods to mitigate risks as it allows project professionals to view issues and risks in advance and plan accordingly. Moreover, your bases are efficiently covered when leveraged with a risk register.

Prioritizing Risks

Once determined, you can prioritize the most common risks in a way that best suits your enterprise. You can decide which risks are more pressing and handle those first. Some risks can wait, while others, like legal and cost risks, are more serious.

How to Develop a Project Charter

What Is a Project Charter?

A Project Charter is a document that outlines a project's goals, objectives, and activities. It is used to determine whether or not a project is feasible and, if so, how much it will cost. If your organization plans to implement a new project, one of the first things you need to do is develop a Project Charter.

Project Charters are generally created for large projects with multiple departments or divisions. This can include an entire department moving into a new office space or positioning itself in an entirely different industry segment.

For example, if your organization has been in business for 20 years and has grown from 5 employees to over 100 employees, creating a new Project Charter may be needed.

Purpose of Project Charter

Project charters are the foundation of all projects and are essential to a successful project. A well-written project charter will ensure that all parties involved in the project understand the scope of work, time frame, deliverables, and responsibilities. It should also highlight any risks that might impact the project's success.

Project charters can vary in length depending on what is required for each project.

However, they must include all essential information to ensure you have a clear understanding of what needs to be achieved by your team during their time on the project.

The Project Charter is used to convince stakeholders about the advantages of working with your company and what you have planned for their business. It also explains how you will meet their expectations as well as yours.

The charter includes the following sections:

A project Charter is a document that outlines a project's scope, deliverables, and schedule. In addition, it includes all the relevant information needed to plan and manage the project, including:

Project Purpose

This document's purpose is to define why we are undertaking this project. This can be anything from improving customer satisfaction to enhancing productivity. However, it should always be focused on the customer and their needs.

Project Objectives

This section defines what you want to achieve using your project. These objectives should not just be about meeting your expectations but also those of the sponsor, stakeholders, and other stakeholders. It should also include measurable results showing if you have achieved your objectives.

Project Scope

This section defines what is included in the scope of your project. It can consist of all aspects of the work you need to do, including marketing, technical, administrative, etc.

In addition, it should include all deliverables, such as reports, presentations, etc., that will form part of your project output, along with timelines for completion and budget estimates for each phase of work (both short-term and long-term budgets).

Project Schedule

This section defines how long your project will take to complete, along with dates for completion against each phase of work.

Analyze the Situation

This involves gathering information about the project and its objectives.

The next step is to determine what resources are needed for the project. These include time, money, people, equipment, and information.

The third step is to determine if there are any constraints on completing this project. These constraints may be legal or physical limitations that must be considered before proceeding with a project.

For example, suppose you want to build a house on your property and want it to be suitable for habitation. In that case, you must consider whether it can be made under the existing zoning laws in your area before starting construction on the house itself.

Create Assumptions and Constraints

Assumptions and constraints are the lifeblood of a good project charter. They are the things you have to be able to answer when people ask you questions about your project.

If you don't have any assumptions, how can you know how much money is needed? How long will it take? What technologies does it require? It would help if you had assumptions to answer these questions.

Assumptions are also crucial for setting expectations with other stakeholders.

If you don't set expectations, your team will be disappointed when they find out they didn't get what they expected.

Assumptions help keep everyone on the same page, so they can focus on their work and not waste time arguing about who has done more job or why some things weren't included in the plan.

Describe Milestones

Milestones are important because they allow you to track progress, manage time and budget and ensure you meet your deadlines. The purpose of a milestone is to clearly define a specific point in time by when the project must be complete.

Milestones are an excellent way to keep people on track. Still, they can also lead to resistance if poorly thought out or communicated.

Milestones should be defined at the beginning of the project and should reflect what will be completed by each milestone. It's best to avoid using vague terms like "weeks" or "months" when referring to milestones because these terms can be misleading. Instead, use specific dates such as "by June," "by August," etc., so everyone knows when the milestone must be completed.

Identify Major Risks

The key to developing a good project charter is to identify significant risks in advance so you can plan for them ahead of time. By doing this, you will be able to minimize any potential problems during your project.

For example, suppose you know that there is a chance that your client may not pay for services rendered. In that case, it's essential to include this risk in your project charter so that everyone involved knows what's at stake if this happens.

Project Budget

The project budget is the total cost of all the work to be done by your company. It includes all the expenses for each project stage, such as salaries, materials, equipment, and other costs.

In addition, the project budget may include additional charges such as travel expenses, administration fees, software licenses, and overhead expenses.

The total cost of a project is usually expressed in thousands or millions of dollars. However, the actual amount may vary depending on how much work you want to do on different parts of your project and how quickly you want to complete it.

Stakeholder requirements

The stakeholders involved in a project are those affected by it. They might be customers, partners, or other stakeholders.

The stakeholder requirements in the Project Charter are to identify the people affected by the project or their roles in it.

The purpose of a project charter is to delineate what each stakeholder expects from your project.

In other words, it allows you to identify who should be involved in each phase of the project and their responsibilities. You can use this information to manage your efforts better and ensure everyone understands what they need to do.

Conclusion

It's essential to develop a project charter because the process forces you to identify and structure everything that needs to be done to create the features that are being requested.

Whether you're working alone or on a team, having all these different pieces in one place ensures that no development aspect is overlooked. It also provides information for anyone else who might need it—including managers, senior leaders, and clients.

 Ultimately, whether you're developing a product from scratch or implementing new features, the process for creating a project charter doesn't change. Instead, there will be several steps involved, each one being important.

The result is a document that is detailed enough to serve its purpose—which is ensuring that all requirements have been met.

What is Project Cycle Management? Everything You Need to Know

Project Cycle Management (PCM) is a technique based on years of development, focused on planning and organizing projects via basic principles and defined stages. This method encloses project inception to its planning and execution.

What are the benefits of the PCM method?

• Strategic risks
• Better efficiency leading to cost and time savings
• Effective rate of timely project execution and delivery
• Precise and quantifiable objectives
• Better likelihood of meeting expectations
• Efficient resource management

In this blog, we will discuss about PCM and why it adds value to the projects.

Working of Project Cycle Management

PCM enforces a project's lifecycle by focusing on an efficient system with proven outcomes. It's organized in phases aligned for precision, objective targets and expectations, and universal practice.

Each stage works similar to a book's chapters, to begin and complete before moving on to the next step. This ensures better quality results and fulfillment of agreed project expectations.

When a level is complete, the new one begins. As a project professional leads a team through each stage, they can shift their initial point ahead until the total project completion.

PCM leverages fundamental project management principles - prioritizing project structure, a defined stage, accurate targets, transparency, identifying risks, and other elements.

A significant positive result from leveraging this technique is budget-oriented and organized with quality outcomes on time.

Why Project Cycle Management?

Various experts have experienced the mind-blogging feeling that comes with a massive project. It sometimes seems paradoxical, especially if similar projects have faced significant challenges. Several factors can twist things when dealing with a team, a stringent deadline, several partners, and myriad financial risks.

PCM is a proven technique that helps eradicate that risk and build a more effective practice. In addition, this method allows experts to manage projects throughout the complete project lifecycle confidently.

There are three significant reasons why we leverage the PCM technique, and they're:

1. Transparency

When managing a project, it can be daunting to communicate along the path. The PCM leverages accurate techniques to define each stage and where teams are along the procedure.

This provides leaders to communicate with partners, stakeholders, and interested parties related to the project. A practical and transparent communicated project makes everyone delightful, and aids promote expectations and objectives.

2. Simplicity

The PCM technique simplifies the project. Simplicity is essential in a challenging situation with several elements working simultaneously. When leaders can streamline the procedure, this develops better outcomes that lead to optimum success. PCM leverages stages that break up the process.

3. Enhanced Productivity

Effective productivity means everything when it comes to saving time and expenses and enhancing quality. Teams can perform the project successfully when the PCM stages simplify the process.

Once a project upgrades from overwhelming to possible, employee morale and proficiency enhance. In addition, a more productive project develops a healthy and prosperous workspace.

Project Cycle Management Phases

The center of PCM is its five stages, where each phase ensures successful levels that add up to one complete project performance. This technique is an effective and accurate way to meet expectations on time and foresee challenges. The five phases of PCM are:

1. Initiation

Every project begins with a simple idea. The initiation stage promotes that idea and creates a big image, scope, and project goal. Next, project professionals will review the critical project controls required and domains for enhancement before starting a project and assess what it will take for project completion.

2. Planning and Design

Similar to any good project, planning is a vital step. It's where outcomes, preparedness for hurdles, and other crucial factors occur. A good plan makes a drastic difference, and PCM focuses on developing a robust blueprint to reduce risks.

3. Execution

The most prolonged phase of a project's lifecycle is execution, where all the hard work gets done. This is the literal plan execution, where a team works on a project to deliver quality products. The previous stage clearly defines each level of the way.

4. Monitoring and Controlling

Sometimes there are worst and best-case situations, and a good plan ensures professionals can expect both. The monitoring and controlling stage is the trial-and-error process that tracks progress to ensure issues are promptly solved and the deadlines are still aligned to fulfill their target.

This stage is about balance, as too much control can consume time, and insufficient control can exceed risks.

5. Closure

If a project isn't closed professionally, it can continue to drain resources and create unexpected issues. In this phase, a project professional will lead the formal steps with their client to end and deliver the final project. The closure is thus a significant step to gaining feedback and assessing the outcome.

Conclusion

PCM has proven to be an effective and developing technique to generate successful outcomes for projects worldwide and in several sectors. When project manager decides to learn about the process in-depth, they provide themselves with a successful result and a better leadership role.

Top 40 PMP Exam Questions and Answers for 2022

Project Management Professional (PMP) accreditation is the world's leading project management credential. It captivates many enterprise and project professionals who wish to take their careers to the next level.

Given that you have stopped at this PMP exam questions and answers 2022 blog, we are guessing you are already familiar with the significance of the PMP credential. Hence, without much fuss, let's get started.

Top 40 PMP Exam Questions and Answers

Q1. A schedule compression technique used to shorten the schedule duration for the least incremental cost by adding resources is called:

1. Fast tracking
2. Crashing
3. Precedence diagramming method (PDM)
4. Program evaluation and review technique (PFRT)

Q2. Performing integration is a foundational skill for all project managers; the following describe the three different levels of performing integration EXCEPT:

1. Complexity level
2. Cognitive level
3. Process level
4. Context level

Q3. Web interfaces to scheduling and project management software, as well as electronic communications management, are examples of:

1. Internal management systems (IMS)
2. Project records databases
3. Project management information systems (PMIS)
4. Internal communications systems (ICS)

Q4. The process of validating resource availability and assembling the team required to accomplish project tasks is known as resource acquisition. Except for the above, the enterprise environmental factors that might impact this process typically include all of the following:

1. Personnel administration policies, such as those affecting outsourcing
2. Levels of competence, past experience, and cost rate
3. Political philosophy
4. The organization's structure

Q5. A primary function of a project management office (PMO) is to support project managers in a variety of ways, which will include all of the following EXCEPT:

1. Managing shared resources across all projects administered by the PMO
2. Identifying and developing project management methodology, best practices, and standards
3. Coaching, mentoring, training, and oversight
4. Intervening in project execution directly and without involving the project manager

Q6. You are managing a $10Mn project. For "re-baselining" the project, which of the following is an acceptable cause?

1. The client has approved an addition to the scope of the project with a $150,000 budget increase and a two-week extension of the scheduled completion
2. The contractor’s company has instituted a quality assurance program in which it has pledged to spend $1 million during the next year
3. The productivity in the design department is lower than estimated, which has resulted in 1,000 additional hours over what was budgeted and a forecasted two-week delay of the scheduled completion
4. The engineering department of the performing organization has converted to a new $250,000 CAD system

Q7. What is Configuration management focused on?

1. Identifying, documenting, and controlling changes to the project and the product baselines, while change control is focused on the specifications of both the deliverables and the processes
2. The identification and correction of problems arising in functional areas of project implementation
3. The specification of both the deliverables and the processes, while change control is focused on identifying, documenting, and approving or rejecting changes to the project documents, deliverables, or baselines
4. Testing new systems

Q8. The following are some of the inputs to the Plan Communications Management process:

1. Stakeholder management approach, RAM, work breakdown structure, and administrative processes
2. Project management plan, project documentation, enterprise environmental variables, and organizational process assets
3. Organizational structure, stakeholder analysis, and communication obstacles in project management
4. Stakeholder requirements, project scope statement, budget, and timeline

Q9. What is the output of the Define Scope process?

1. Work breakdown structure (WBS)
2. Resource breakdown structure (RBS)
3. Project scope statement
4. Scope and schedule delays control plan

Q10. The precedence diagramming method (PDM) is defined as:

1. A time-phased graphical depiction of the arrow diagramming technique (ADM) that displays project activity durations and dependencies.
2. More accurate than the critical route approach for scheduling when the durations of project activities are unknown.
3. A technique for scheduling project activities that employ a probabilistic approach.
4. A methodology in which activities are represented by nodes and visually connected by one or more logical connections to illustrate the sequence in which the activities are to be done.

Q11. Parametric estimating entails:

1. Creating a cost estimate for project work by using a statistical link between relevant historical data and other variables
2. Defining project life cycle cost and duration parameters
3. Estimating the cost of the present project based on the actual cost of a prior similar project
4. Creating independent cost estimates for each work package and combining them to determine the final project cost

Q12. Which of the following statements is true about the work breakdown structure (WBS)?

1. The WBS is the bill of materials (BOM) needed to accomplish the project objectives and create the required deliverables
2. The WBS is the same as the organizational breakdown structure OBS
3. The WBS is a simple list of project activities in chart form
4. The WBS is a hierarchical decomposition of the total scope of work to be carried out by the project team to accomplish the project objectives and create the required deliverables

Q13. Project tailoring is an important consideration for most of the projects. Which of the following is the least likely project consideration?

1. Project manager’s skills and competency
2. Each project is unique
3. Addressing competing constraints
4. Level of project governance varies

Q14. Which is NOT true about tools and techniques of Perform Integrated Change Control?

1. They include project plan updates
2. They include change control meetings
3. They include expert judgment
4. A change control board (CCB) is responsible for meeting and reviewing the change requests and approving, rejecting, or other disposition of those changes

Q15. The "fast tracking" approach of schedule compression entails the following steps:

1. The application of industrial engineering approaches to increase productivity, allowing the project to be completed sooner than anticipated
2. Performing operations or stages that are typically done in sequence in parallel for at least a portion of their duration, which may result in rework and higher risk
3. Implementing a "necessary overtime plan" in order to complete the project on time or sooner if possible
4. Assigning "dedicated teams" to key path tasks in order to meet project deadlines

Q16. Project Quality Management encompasses the methods for implementing the organization's quality policy into project and product quality criteria in order to:

1. Maintain control over products, services, and outcomes
2. Meet the project team's performance standards
3. Meet the goals of stakeholders
4. Enhance process capabilities

Q17. What does Portfolio management refer to?

1. The centralized management of one or more portfolios to achieve strategic objectives
2. Applying resource leveling heuristics across all the organization’s strategic objectives
3. Managing the levels of the levels of financial authority to facilitate
4. Project decision making

Q18. The Responsibility Assignment Matrix (RAM) is:

1. Used to create the project budget and network diagrams
2. Created at the activity level and utilized to tightly connect project roles and responsibilities to project network activities
3. Used to show the relationships between work packages or activities and project team members. It guarantees that each work is assigned to only one person in order to minimize misunderstanding of responsibilities
4. Used in individual performance assessments of project team members to establish accountabilities and duties

Q19. During the middle of a technical project, a key team member is requested to shift to another project. This is a risky approach, according to the team, and they are concerned. Which action will help to resolve the issue?

1. Discuss the conflict with the project sponsor and formulate a response
2. Use coaching tools and techniques to motivate the project team
3. Acknowledge the team’s concern and analyze the impact to the project
4. Replace the key team member with a new resource who has the same skills

Q20. A component of the quality management plan, which explains how the organization's quality policies will be executed.

1. Project scope
2. Project management plan
3. Governance management plan
4. Program management plan

Q21. As an example of a mandatory dependence, consider the following:

1. A dependence developed based on knowledge of best practices in a certain application area
2. A dependence formed because of an unusual element of the project that requires a certain sequencing
3. To erect the superstructure only after the foundation has been completed for a construction project
4. On a software development project, begin design only when all project requirements have been completed and approved

Q22. Project managers spend most of their time communicating with team members and other stakeholders. In general, to effectively communicate, the project manager must perform all of the following tasks EXCEPT:

1. Calculating the potential number of communication channels accurately
2. Developing finely tuned skills using multiple methods of communication
3. Incorporating feedback channels
4. Seeking to understand project stakeholders' communication needs

Q23. Understanding, assessing, specifying, and managing needs are critical for achieving:

1. The scope statements
2. Upper management
3. Functional requirements
4. Customer expectations

Q24. All of the following are components of culture EXCEPT:

1. Values
2. Norms
3. Intelligence
4. Beliefs

Q25. Except -------------- for the following resource categories, activity cost estimate includes all of the following resource categories:

1. Labor
2. Materials
3. Equipment
4. Time constraints

Q26. While managing a software upgrade project for your company you realize that your sponsor has high authority in decisions but low interest. What stakeholder management strategy should you employ to ensure the sponsor’s continued support?

1. Keep the sponsor informed
2. Keep the sponsor satisfied
3. Manage the sponsor closely
4. Monitor the sponsor's actions

Q27. A project manager is quantifying risk for her project. Several of her experts are offsite but wish to be included. How can this be done?

1. Do a Monte Carlo analysis using the Internet as a tools
2. Apply the critical path method
3. Determine options for recommended corrective action
4. Apply the Delphi Technique

Q28. You are part of a project team that’s designing a new type of vehicle. You are on the brink of getting started with working on a set of tasks (work package) for the braking system of the vehicle. You would like to assess the acceptance criteria before beginning the work. Where should you look in order to find this information?

1. The WBS dictionary
2. Project management plan
3. Activity attributes
4. Requirements documentation

Q29. A company sets up a change control board (CCB) dedicated to the purpose of reviewing and evaluating the changes submitted for all projects. Which of the following best describes an individual or group that can request a change on a project in a situation where the project sponsor is a member of the CCB?

1. Any stakeholder
2. Project sponsor
3. Project team
4. Project manager

Q30. Being assigned as a project manager, you noticed during project execution that conflicts arise in the team on both technical and interpersonal levels. What is an appropriate way of handling conflicts?

1. Conflicts distract the team and disrupt the work rhythm. You should always smooth them when they surface.
2. A conflict should be handled in a meeting so that the entire team can participate in finding a solution.
3. Conflicts should be addressed early and usually in private, using a direct, collaborative approach.
4. You should use your coercive power to quickly resolve conflicts and then focus on goal achievement.

Q31. To reduce the defect rate of a manufacturing process, a project is carried out. The project team is carrying out QA activities to analyze and improve the process. Which of the following would be the most beneficial for this project?

1. Introducing the use of a Kanban board into the manufacturing process
2. Consulting with a certified Six Sigma Black Belt expert
3. Utilizing rolling wave planning for the project
4. Adopting a just-in-time (JIT) manufacturing process

Q32. While monitoring the baseline cost of a project, it is noted that the project expenses are higher than expected at this point. What is the most likely cause of this?

1. Overestimated material costs
2. Lack of stakeholder support
3. Excess inventory
4. An incomplete milestone lists

Q33. Using an agile framework, you are to lead a product development project. You want to bring together stakeholders and SMEs to discuss risk, success criteria and other topics. What is the best way for you to accomplish this objective?

1. Facilitate an iteration retrospective
2. Conduct interviews with the identified individuals
3. Schedule a focus group
4. Invite the relevant participants to the daily scrum meetings

Q34. Alpha and Beta are two projects considered by a company. $50 million net profit is expected of Alpha and $45 million from Beta. Both are lucrative and rewarding projects, but the company can only invest in one of the projects. If Alpha is chosen, calculate the opportunity cost?

1. $5 million
2. $45 million
3. $50 million
4. $95 million

Q35. The organization’s leadership wants to include more agile methodologies in their projects. Before starting to take any agile approaches in a project, what is the first thing to be done?

1. Evaluate the organizational culture and transformation readiness
2. Conduct a survey of employees to find those willing to participate in agile projects
3. Conduct agile training for those in the team assembled for the pilot project
4. Put current projects on hold to readjust them to the new agile cadence

Q36. A road project was planned to be completed in 8 months. Calculate the SV when the earned value information at the end of six months is given as: BAC = $8000, AC = $12000, % complete = 100%.

1. $8,000
2. $6,000
3. $2,000
4. $4,000

Q37. How will a Pareto Chart help in a project with a lot of identified action items?

1. Prioritization
2. Identify root causes
3. Understand the trend of deviations
4. Complete all activities on time

Q38. What is the Japanese method of modern quality management called, which relies on continuous small improvements involving everyone from the top management to the lowest level worker in the organization?

1. Kanban
2. Kaizen
3. Deming Cycle
4. PDCA

Q39. Being the project manager on a STP project, you decide to respond to an identified risk by contracting out work. Which of the following will lead to the minimum risk of the buyer?

1. Time & Material (T&M)
2. Cost Plus Fixed Fee (CPFF)
3. Cost Plus Percentage of Cost (CPPC)
4. Firm Fixed Price (FFP)

Q40. If SPI = 0.75 and CPI = 0.8, then which of the following reports is correct?

1. SV = $3750
2. CV = $4000
3. TCPI = 0.8
4. The project likely needs more money than planned to complete

Conclusion

Project management is the most prestigious profession, adding to the recent boom in project management roles and responsibilities in the job market. However, in a working space where more than 1Mn PMP certified professionals have proven their worth, one must be proactive in their approach.

Enroll in iCert Global's PMP certification training course to begin a successful journey in the project management field.

Top 6 Reasons Project Management is a Top Career Choice

Irrespective of the industry, project managers are always in high demand to plan and provision the work. However, that is just the top-level project management view, which can be a challenging and rewarding career, but why project management career?

If you have pondered whether becoming a project manager is appropriate, this blog will illuminate the top 3 reasons why project management might be the best career move.

The Role of Project Managers

The fundamental project management principles include planning, organizing, monitoring, controlling, leading, and managing resources and activities to attain particular business objectives.

This personnel identifies strategies to start the project, evaluates and understands the project criteria, analyzes and gathers the needed workforce on board, and monitors the work progress.

Some of the other roles and responsibilities of project managers include:

• Set the work budget
• Decides how the task will be finished
• Manage the team and organization culture
• Leads meetings to track the progress of the project
• Decides which talent needed for the project
• Fix the schedule and deadline for the projects and subprojects
• Reports on the project progress to stakeholders

Shuffling multiple projects, activities, and schedules can be daunting, but with proper training and experience, professionals can learn how to handle this.

Methods Leveraged in Project Management

It's crucial to note that any business or workflow in the modern world will pace towards success only if it adopts the innovative forms of approaches that fit into the digital world.

In addition, project management has no predefined steps that can be followed hazily. Therefore, the goals of a project can be satisfied only when one or more effective project management approaches are applied.

Here are some well-adopted methods to perform the project management functions efficiently:

• Agile
• Scrum
• Lean
• Six Sigma
• Waterfall
• Kanban
• Extreme Programming (XP)
• Adaptive Project Framework (APF)
• PERT

Sectors Demanding Project Management

There are no limitations in the frequency of project management to a specific sector. However, there are distinct and various areas that demand the input of project managers, which are:

• Manufacturing
• Software and IT
• Marketing
• Insurance and financing
• Constructions
• Architecture and infrastructure
• Engineering

Top 6 Reasons Project Management is a Top Career Path

With the growing business procedures and the idea of expansion, there is a strong demand for professionals who have a greater understanding of the sector and streamline the method to attain definite project objectives.

This is where the role of project managers comes to light, making management a great career path. A professionally accredited person in this domain has a high chance of tempting offers that aren't only profitable for business goals but also to help satisfy personal gains.

Here are the top 6 reasons why choose a project management career:

1. Handsome Remuneration

The pay scale is the first thing we come across when applying for a job. Besides the salary payment, we check a few before enrolment, such as stability, incentives, and bonuses.

The positions in project management pave off very well. But, sooner or later, you'll notice a drastic progression in your designation and salary terms. According to Glassdoor.com 2022 survey, the average salary of an entry-level project manager is $88,907/year.

Your salary package shall increase with the years of expertise you gain as a project professional. Therefore, ensure that you grab the best opportunities if you have significant skills and ideal project management accreditation.

2. Communication Skills

Other than your technical skills, there is a vast space and opportunity to work on having excellent communication skills. The fundamental role of a project professional is to interact with several people in the business hierarchy. Therefore, there is no getting away from constant working mode on your communication to complete the task.

Discussions have to be modified according to the teams you interact with. For instance, communication will be different when speaking to a group from HR and interacting with a team from the IT department.

As a project professional, you can swiftly recognize the best course of action, formal or informal communication, keeping in mind the end goal.

3. Rising Demand

The demand for project professionals has been sky-rocketing ever since there was a drastic growth in the industrial and digital phase. Within the company, there's always a constant requirement for people with essential skills and proficiency, and this can be best fulfilled via project management.

Based on a survey from various reliable sources, it is estimated that by 2027, the project management jobs in different industries are expected to grow by 33%, which is approximately 22Mn new job roles.

Project management is a vast area to flourish, and you can explore to grow in different ways. You don't have to work in a specific organization, whether large or small-scale businesses; clients are available. The type of sector that you can access is also surplus. You have the fair means to get exposure to different work situations.

4. Enhance Work Culture

Its team members will follow and collaborate on a project manager's goals and vision. If you're a project professional, you can easily influence your team. Juniors working under a professional will learn suitable managerial lessons. Undoubtedly, an enhanced work culture increases the demand and standard of a company.

5. Greater Career Choices

Project management provides you with vast opportunities if your vision is to have constant and steady growth in your career. PMPs are the most sought-after career due to the emerging demands. You can prepare, manage your projects, and expand your skills by choosing a project management career.

Most excellent job security in any dynamic field is a part of this role. In addition, it allows for global travel to take the lead in multiple projects.

Moreover, some sectors do provide opportunities to project professionals given below:

• Telecommunications
• Engineering
• Pharmaceuticals
• Insurance
• Architecture
• Software development

6. Skill Development

You will develop several skills and learn new techs as you move ahead in the profession. Project professionals develop soft and hard skills to succeed in a project. Each project will need novel ideas and visions.

You can enhance creativity and talent as this workspace domain will never limit your invention. Your current skills will be developed, helping you handle the clients and projects efficiently.

In addition, a project manager must bring their team together from initial to final, find out the team member's strengths and weaknesses, make them challenge themself, and motivate them.

You're responsible for analyzing business requirements and making accurate decisions as a leader. Strong analytical and leadership skills can assist you in being efficient and enhance team productivity.

Conclusion

Constant learning is vital for your career development in the evolving job market. You have to learn more and develop unique skills and expertise for a better job landing. In addition, this will aid in making a shift from your existing firm to another industry or a specific type of project management.

Simply put, project managers with professional accreditation have the highest probability of receiving handsome remuneration and more opportunities for development than non-certified people. The two most common project management certifications are PRINCE2 and PMP.

iCert Global provides multiple project management training courses that can help project enthusiasts receive the certification education and real-world expertise beneficial for any project management career.

6 Successful Project Estimation Techniques in 2022

Project estimation is one of the most crucial elements in any business. You have to have it down to a science if you want your project to continue – and complete in time.

The planning and management of your projects depend on an accurate estimation. Missing out on all critical aspects of your project can result in huge losses and cause delays, negatively impacting the results and viability of your final product.

Time is money, and a lot of times, we forget that when we're planning a project. If you've ever come across a problem where you have no idea how long a task will take to complete, then this article is for you. We have collected 6 successful project estimation techniques that anyone can use!

Project Estimation Techniques in 2022

Many projects have been planned and executed successfully. However, some unsuccessful ones can be avoided using the proper estimation techniques.

Project estimation is an essential part of any project. It helps determine the project's value and cost, which is then used to determine how much funding should be allocated for it.

The most important thing about project estimation is that it should be done correctly. Otherwise, it will lead to low-quality results and delays in project implementation. The estimation techniques are:

Analogous Estimating

Analogous project estimation technique is a type of modeling and forecasting that involves the comparison of one or more projects to other similar projects. This technique can be used for projects with similar characteristics but not identical.

The analogical approach involves determining the completion percentage for each project phase on which you will base your estimate. For example, suppose you are estimating the time required to complete three steps of a project. In that case, you will calculate the percentage of completion for each phase based on its independent variables.

The Analogous Project Estimation Technique allows you to determine how much time you will need for each phase as a percentage of the total time required for your entire project.

However, it does not tell you how much time it will take an individual step to complete in full and therefore cannot be used alone as an accurate basis for estimating overall project completion times.

Parametric Estimate

This technique uses a parametric model to estimate the project cost. The parametric model is based on the product design and material requirements. The given parameters are those that are required for the entire project.

For example, the roof area (A), the number of rooms (N), and so on. The parametric estimation technique is a powerful and reliable tool that helps estimate the cost of any project with accuracy without requiring extra effort from you as an estimator.

Parametric estimation also reduces your workload because it can be used for multiple projects in a single day or week. In addition, it requires less time to do your job because you don't have to estimate each component separately but only for one product or feature.

Also, make mistakes while counting. You will have difficulty getting rid of them because it's part of your job as an estimator, and it has become a habit for you now.

Three-point Estimating

The three-point project estimation technique effectively estimates the amount of work required for a project. The process involves three steps:

The first step is to identify the resources and skills required to complete the project. This step involves identifying all the help and skills needed to complete a particular task or project.

The second step is to determine how much time it will take to complete each task or job on the project. This can be done by estimating how long it takes you to complete a specific task on your own and comparing this with how long it takes to achieve the same task when working with others under your supervision or leadership.

The third step is to calculate how much time you need to budget for everyone involved in completing each task or job on your project team (including yourself) as well as all other members of staff working on other projects (including yourself).

Top-Down Estimate

The top-down project estimation technique is a method to estimate the size of a project. It is a top-down approach to assessing the size of a project rather than calculating it from the bottom up.

The estimation starts with high-level goals, and then it breaks those goals down into smaller tasks and objectives. This technique is used for large projects as well as small ones.

The top-down approach to estimating the size of a project can be used by any person when they have to define a project on paper.

For example, suppose you want to write an article for your company's newsletter and have no idea how much time it would take. In that case, you can use this technique to estimate the work.

You can use this technique in any form of designing an organization's product or service.

For example, if you want to design a new website for your company, then you can use this technique to calculate how long it will take before you get started with your work.

Bottom-Up Estimate

This method is also known as the "divide and conquer" approach. Here we divide the work into small chunks and then calculate the total amount required for completing those tiny chunks of work. This method helps us to get more accurate results than other methods, such as the Top-Down or Expert Judgment Approach.

What-If Analysis

The what-if analysis project estimation technique is a simple but effective tool for estimating the cost of a project. This technique defines the scope and evaluates the time required to complete each activity.

The next step is calculating the total time required to complete the project using a formula based on the average duration per activity multiplied by the number of activities in each phase.

Finally, you need to add some buffer time to account for any possible delays or issues arising during execution.

This calculation will give you an approximate cost range for your project that can serve as a starting point when deciding how much time and money you should invest in it.

Conclusion

One thing to keep in mind is that there's no one-size-fits-all way to do the estimation. The type of product will influence the estimations and, more importantly, how teams prioritize work within the product.

Using a simple scorecard and pinpointing requirements, developers can ensure they've considered all aspects of a project so that the final estimates are thorough and accurate.

The Significance of Work Packages in Project Scope Management

If you're preparing for the Project Management Professional (PMP) credential test, you may know there's a lot to understand. Regarding project scope management, the work package concept is crucial to learn. Work packages are significant when preparing the WBS structure for any project.

What is Work Package?

A work package is a compact unit of a WBS structure. When preparing a WBS leveraging the decomposition method, deliverables usually are broken down into smaller, more manageable chunks of work.

This method of deconstruction continues until the deliverables are small to be considered work packages. Each of these should be compact to help the project professional calibrate the cost and duration. Work packages can be scheduled, cost estimated, monitored, and controlled.

What’s in a Work Package?

Every project management dataset has a set of smaller pieces linked with it called work packages.

• Budget - a must to account for how much was allotted to the work package.
• Deadlines - provides the project professional a reference point to estimate the work progress.
• Risks - identifying risks and formulating a risk management plan is a crucial step to avert the issues before they start. You also need to monitor progress to stop any potential issues prior to getting worse.
• Task Priority - by structuring your work according to the WBS, you set priorities for each task, informing teams of their activities.

Work Package Specifications

When a person completes a work package, they generally share a standard set of traits. For instance, these might include the type of work performed and whether that sort of work is done on programming, marketing, or other skills.

Undeniably, it would help to find what activities you will perform in this package, when they'll take place, and how much time they'll consume. Resources may also be relevant to achieving these tasks; some may be material or technological-based.

Every project must have a dedicated team leader and stakeholders that are deeply committed to that specific project. It's one's responsibility to get their contact information and keep them updated with the work progress.

Importance of Work Packages

By breaking down a project into work packages, the creation of WBS becomes seamless, and project professionals will have excellent control over tasks. 

Other benefits of why work packages are of utmost significance include:

• Work packages allow concurrent work on various project elements parallel by several teams. Each team follows the assignments defined for the package and completes them within a specified timeline.
• Once the teams are done with their packages, the whole project unites together with smooth collaboration. Completing these packages is overseen by a professional such as a supervisor, designated team member, manager, or team lead. 
• Even though costs are calibrated at an activity level, these cost estimates are clustered to the work package level, where they're estimated, managed, and controlled.
• For each package, we can find the direct labor costs, the direct material costs, equipment, contractual services, other non-personal material, and indirect costs.

Essential Tips for Work Packages

Some of the essential project management tips to assist with work packages are:

1. Don't ignore bringing your team into the process to make a WBS. Your team is the work frontier and your best resource when ensuring the project has enough time and budget to evaluate potential risks.
2. Two added advantages of a work package are that it offers a precise time and expense estimate while making it seamless to view which project portions are a more significant percentage of the whole.
3. It's recommended to assign a single person to tackle each job and report to the project professional, thus, ensuring accountability and efficient management of workloads. 
4. Every WBS package should be something only that package will generate and shouldn't repeat the package elsewhere. 
5. Limit your project, so it's accomplishable within a limited time, i.e., not more than two weeks at the most. You want to perform the campaign simultaneously with your reporting schedule.

Estimating Work Package Performance

a. With Earned Value Management

The Earned Value (EV) management measurement can estimate the work package performance. It merges project scope, schedule measures, and cost to help the project management team assess and evaluate project progress and performance. In addition, it calls for the prep of a collaborated baseline against which can calculate the work package performance for the project duration.

1. EV measurement develops and monitors three crucial dimensions for each package.
2. Planned Value - an authorized budget dedicated to the achievement of work for the package.
3. Earned Value - a value of work performed expressed in terms of the approved budget allotted to the package.
4. Actual Cost - total cost incurred and recorded in achieving work performed for a package.

b. With Other Metrics

1. Cost Variance (CV) - a measure of schedule project performance. It's the difference between earned value and actual costs, i.e., CV = EV – AC
2. Cost Performance Index (CPI) - a measure of work completed value compared to the project's actual cost, i.e., CPI = EV / AC
3. Schedule Variance (SV) - a measure of schedule project performance. It's defined as the difference between earned value and planned value, i.e., SV = EV – PV
4. Schedule Performance Index (SPI) - a measure of achieved progress relative to a project's planned progress, i.e., SPI - EV / PV

Work packages give teammates a perfect understanding of their responsibilities with organization charts and other aids. In addition, several formats exist to document teammate roles, most of which fall under three categories: hierarchical, text-based, and matrix-based.

For example, the responsibility assignment matrix (RAM0 is leveraged to display the relation between work packages and project team members. On massive projects, a higher-level RAM defines what a project unit or group is responsible for within each package. Moreover, a lower-level RAM is leveraged within the group to assign roles, authority, and responsibility for specific tasks.

Understanding the Difference between ROM Estimate Vs Definitive Estimate

Table of Content

What is a ROM Estimate?

Components of a ROM Estimate

Advantages of ROM Estimates

What is a Definitive Estimate?

Components of a Definitive Estimate

Advantages of Definitive Estimates

Difference between ROM Estimate and Definitive Estimates

What is a ROM Estimate?

ROM Estimate is a project estimate that summarizes the work required to complete a project. It gives an idea of the major activities and tasks involved in the project, along with the effort and resources needed for them.

The ROM Estimate is used to calculate the size of work packages (WP) and duration. It also determines whether other elements must be considered in the estimation process, such as cost drivers and resource requirements.

Components of a ROM Estimate

The Following are the component of the ROM Estimate

• Relevant work is defined and quantified.
• A schedule is created based on the tasks, resources, and other relevant factors required to complete the project.
• The process of creating and updating this schedule is known as Project Management.
• The project manager or the team leads define their scope of work and then assign tasks to various group members.
• The scope of work can be divided into many other sub-tasks. Each sub-task has a set of resources that are required to complete it. These resources include human resources and the funds needed to pay them.

Advantages of ROM Estimates

In project management, the ROM estimate determines the time and money needed to complete a project. This is done by calculating the total cost for all activities (from start to finish) in one specific calendar year. Advantages of ROM are:

• Comparing projects with different scopes, sizes, and complexity is more manageable.
• Comparing projects with similar scope, size, and complexity is easier.
• It's more accurate than using detailed cost breakdowns.
• It's more flexible than using detailed cost breakdowns.
• It can negotiate price or scope changes with customers or vendors.

What is a Definitive Estimate?

A definitive estimate is an estimate that the project manager has confidence in because it has undergone a process of review, revision, and consensus. A final assessment is based on analyzing all relevant factors and includes the best information available at the estimation time.

A definitive estimate provides a more accurate view of what can be achieved than an estimate derived from preliminary data. This is because it takes into account all known facts, as well as assumptions about future events. These assumptions are based on current performance trends and experience with similar projects.

Suppose a project's budget is not updated in line with actual costs incurred. In that case, it will be challenging to manage effectively over time.

For example, if a company expects to spend $1 million on a project which costs $1 million to complete but then discovers that it costs $2 million to build, then this discrepancy between budgeted and actual costs will affect future business decisions by management.

Components of a Definitive Estimate

The components of a definitive estimate include:

• Cost baseline -Defines all costs associated with the project, including personnel costs and subcontractor fees. This component also includes any expenses related to the acquisition of the work.
• Activity list- Provides details about each activity required during the life cycle of your project.
• Resource requirements -Provides details about each resource needed to execute your project plan.

Advantages of Definitive Estimates

The advantages of definitive estimates are:

• Definitive estimates are more accurate than ROM estimates. This is because they include all the inputs and assumptions used to determine the original ROM estimate.
• Definitive estimates are easier to verify because they include all of the information used to make the previous estimates so that you can double-check them more easily.
• Definitive estimates are more detailed and comprehensive than ROM estimates. For example, they describe what the project will cost, how long it will take, how much it will cost, how much it will take to complete, etc., making it easier to manage and plan for.

Difference between ROM Estimate and Definitive Estimates

The main difference between a ROM estimate and a definitive estimate is that with a ROM estimate, you have to make sure that the project's scope is defined correctly. In contrast, with a final estimate, you must ensure that enough information has been gathered to go ahead with your project without any significant problems.

The ROM estimate will have more variables than a definitive estimate. For example, in a ROM estimate, you will include how much time it takes to develop the product, how much time it takes to test the product, and how long it takes to launch the product.

Suppose you include all these variables in your ROM estimate. In that case, you can quickly get an accurate idea of how long your project will take to complete according to your schedule.

Conclusion

The estimate for a project is a culmination of the various data and information gathered about the project. When sourcing quotes and compiling data or information, it is easy to make mistakes.

Understanding the difference between ROM estimates and definitive estimates will therefore be crucial in minimizing the possibility of making errors in predictive analysis.

Artificial Intelligence Engineer: Education, Roles, and Skills 2022

Artificial intelligence (AI) engineers are the most sought-after career. This is because AI has an endless ability to boost and simplify tasks generally performed by humans, such as speech recognition, business process management, disease detection, and image processing.

In AI, machines learn from previous actions and data, which are negative or positive. With the new data, the device can rectify itself, so the issues don't resurface and create relevant adjustments to tackle new inputs. Moreover, the machine also performs human-like activities.

If you are technically prone and have a software programming background, you may want to consider a productive AI career and know how to become an AI engineer.

How to be an AI Expert?

To become a proficient in AI, you'll require the following steps:

1. Obtain a secondary school diploma
2. Complete a Bachelor's degree and to enhance competitiveness for AI engineering careers, go for a Master's degree
3. Participate in AI courses or diploma programs and earn accreditations
4. Search for employment after obtain a sufficient amount of expertise.

Roles of AI Engineers

An AI engineer creates AI models leveraging Machine Learning (ML) algorithms and Deep Learning (DL) neural networks to derive meaningful insights, which helps in making crucial decisions that impact the whole organization. These professionals also build weak or strong AIs based on what objectives they want to accomplish.

AI engineers strongly understand programming, data science, and software engineering. They leverage various tools and practices to process data and maintain AI systems.

Responsibilities of AI Engineers

As an AI engineer, you need to accomplish specific tasks: develop, test, and deploy AI models via programming algorithms (Linear Regression, Random Forest, etc.)

Let's see some of the significant responsibilities of AI engineers.

• Develop data ingestion and transformation system
• Be a good game-changer, as coordinating with employees is a must.
• Convert the ML models into Application Program Interfaces (APIs), so other software can leverage them.
• Conduct statistical analysis and enhance the outcomes so the companies can make better decisions
• Create AI models from scratch and assist various organizational components like stakeholders and product managers to understand what results they receive from the model
• Set up and manage AI product and development system
• Automate the system that the data science team leverages

Skills Required for AI Engineers

Professionals who are keen on becoming an AI engineer must know the following prerequisite skills.

Technical Skills

1. Spark and Big Data technologies (Apache Spark, MongoDB, Hadoop, Cassandra)
2. Programming skills (Python, Java, C++, and R)
3. ML and DL algorithms (KNN, SVM, Linear Regression, recurrent neural network, convolutional neural network, generative adversarial network) and Frameworks (PyTorch, TensorFlow, Caffe, and Theano)
4. Linear algebra, probability, and statistics

Soft Skills

The difference between successful engineers and those with a hard time is rooted in their soft skills. Though being an AI professional is primarily a technical job, the potential to seamlessly communicate with others, deal with issues, organize an individual's time efficiently, and work in partnership with others are the crucial factors that determine whether or not a project is successfully executed and delivered.

1. Problem-solving
2. Teamwork
3. Critical thinking
4. Communication skills
5. Domain expertise
6. Business Intelligence (BI)
7. Time management

AI Engineer Salary

According to Glassdoor, an AI engineer's average salary per year is $114,121 in the US and INR765,353 in India. But, of course, the salary may differ in several companies, and with the expertise and knowledge you bring to the table.

AI Engineer Job Roles

Since various sectors across the globe leverage AI to some point, including education and healthcare, there has been significant growth in the career choices within the AI field.

Some of these job roles are:

• Data scientists
• AI developer
• ML Engineer
• BI developer
• AI architect

Understanding Types of Organization: PMP Study

To become a PMP, you need to learn about organization types defined by the Project Management Institute. The PMI defines an organizational structure as a framework for determining the hierarchy of people, function, and workflow—along with the reporting system in an organization.

Every organization must have an established organization type in order to work efficiently and achieve its business goals.

Project managers should be aware of different types of organizations and how they operate so they can identify stakeholders and other team members. Here is the list of different type of organizations:

Projectized Organization

Such an organization is based on projects. Therefore, the company's entire work is divided into more minor project-sized activities, which are completed in a specific time frame.

For instance, you might work on a project expected to last for two years, but you will complete different tasks every day or week. If you are working in such an environment, it means that you are constantly working on other projects at the same time.

Projectized organizations can be found in various sectors of the economy: government agencies and private companies. Most large organizations rely on projected structures for their daily operations.

The main advantage of this type of organization is that it allows companies to rapidly adjust their resources according to changing customer and stakeholder demands.

For example, suppose there is a sudden increase in demand for one product or service offered by your company. In that case, you can quickly increase the number of employees working on this project without having to make any significant structural changes.

Functional Organization

The most common type of organization is the functional organization. This type of organization is designed to perform tasks in a specific area with a transparent chain of command, and it's usually used when several departments work together toward a common goal.

Functional organizations are also known as departmental organizations because they're broken down into individual departments or divisions that each have their own goals and responsibilities.

The different departments within this type of organization typically have separate budgets and may even report to other executives.

The most significant benefit of using a functional organization is efficiency.

If each department has its own goals, it will be able to focus on those goals without worrying about other areas or departments within the company. This allows each department to work independently and devote time and energy to achieving their purposes.

There are also some downsides associated with using this type of organizational structure.

 For example, one downside is that it can create silos within the company where information isn't shared between departments or divisions. This can cause problems when employees from different departments need access to data from other departments but aren't able to access it because they're not in contact with each other very often (or at all).

Composite Organization

The composite organization has two or more functional organizations combined into one. This type of organization is called a composite because it combines different functions. The advantages of this type of organization are:

• It can be very effective when there is a need for multiple types of skills and resources in the exact location or region.

For example, suppose an enterprise wants to combine the resources of its production and distribution operations. In that case, it can create a composite organization. This will help them reduce the cost of operating multiple facilities and increase the process's efficiency.

• It allows enterprises to take advantage of economies of scale by combining different functions into one unit.
• It helps enterprises access resources that they might not have been able to use effectively due to their specific needs or requirements.

Matrix Organization

A matrix organization combines elements of both functional and projectized structures.

A matrix organization has multiple divisions or departments but also has cross-functional teams that report to their functional manager and a project manager for each project team they are assigned.

The benefit of this type of structure is that it provides stability and flexibility within an organization because each employee can be assigned to multiple projects simultaneously, depending on their skill set and availability.

The disadvantage is that when an employee switches from one project team to another, he may have difficulty keeping up with the latest information because he was not present during critical meetings or decisions were made without input.

Conclusion

Before embarking on a new project, it's always helpful for a project manager to know what type of organization you are working in. This understanding will better prepare you for the challenges ahead and help make your job as easy as possible.

The good news is that most organizations listed on the PMBOK® Guide cover each of the different types and provide some ideas about the differences between them.

Project Quality Management: Cost of Quality

Cost of quality is a significant concept in the project quality management knowledge area. However, it's also misinterpreted by several PMP credential exam-takers. A strong understanding of this concept can help increase a participant's score as there're very few questions on the exam based on it.

Let's take a quick and profound journey into the cost of quality concept.

If a product meets/exceeds its design features and is null-defect, it's said to have a top-notch conformance quality. So, for example, if a steel watch has zero defects, it can have a high conformance quality as a zero-defect diamond-studded watch. The steel one may not be attractive or expensive as the diamond, but you can expect it to be free of defects.

The prevention, identification, and handling of defects incur costs of quality. The term indicates total costs incurred to prevent product defects or costs that result from product defects.

Quality costs don't just relate to manufacturing but all the tasks from research and development (R&D) to customer services. So, the whole product life-cycle is included while deriving quality costs.

The quality cost is reviewed as a part of project management to make crucial decisions on how much to invest in quality.

When it comes to the definition of quality cost, there are two categories:

Cost of Conformance

These costs are incurred to maintain defective products from falling into customers' hands. The cost of conformance is made of:

1. Appraisal Costs

These are also known as inspection costs incurred to determine defective products before they're shipped to consumers. However, performing appraisal tasks doesn't prevent defects from happening. Most managers realize that keeping a team of inspectors isn't an effective way to control quality.

A better method is to ask employees to be responsible for their quality control, followed by creating designs for how to manufacture a zero-defect product. This method enables quality to be built into the product, rather than depending on inspections to determine defects.

2. Prevention Costs

These costs include all those expenses incurred for tasks mainly designed to prevent the low-quality product from occurring. It's much less expensive to prevent an issue than to identify and rectify the problem after its occurrence.

Prevention costs are incurred for activities that minimize the defects number. Companies employ several practices to prevent them, including statistical process control, quality engineering, and training.

Cost of Non-conformance

These costs are incurred due to defects generated despite efforts by a company to prevent them. Hence, these costs are also called costs of poor quality. These failure expenses are incurred when a product fails to conform to its design properties.

The non-conformance costs consist of 2 categories:

1. Internal Failure Costs

These costs result from defects found before they are shipped to consumers. They are determined within the project scope. Internal failure costs include rejected products, downtime, and reworking detective systems caused by quality issues.

It also includes costs if an organization has to reject and throw units of their project work, called scrap. If the company's appraisal activities are productive, it has a good chance of identifying defects internally; thus increasing the internal failure cost level.

2. External Failure Costs

These costs are an outcome of delivering a defective product to the consumer. The external failure costs include many sales arising from a poor-quality reputation, repairs and replacements, product recalls, warranty, and liabilities arising from legal action against a firm. Such expenses can even reduce a business's profit.

These costs also give rise to intangible expenses. For example, a company may lose its future venture with its existing consumer for delivering a poor-quality product. These expenses aren't there on the balance sheet; instead, they significantly impact the income statement.

The best method a company can follow amid these scenarios is to ensure the defective products never reach the consumer.

By minimizing internal loss, one can ensure they don't slip through to become external failures. Even if they have an external failure, one should act quickly and resolve the customer problem. This is the benchmark of good customer service.

Hence, the cost of quality includes costs of conformance and non-conformance. This method helps us estimate the amount we spend to assure quality. It also involves looking at the conformance and non-conformance costs of the project and creating a suitable balance.

Critical Chain Project Management

What is Critical Chain Project Management?

Critical Chain Project Management is a project management methodology that focuses on managing the critical path of a project. This is done by reducing the time spent on non-critical tasks and ensuring that resources are allocated to jobs so they will not delay the project's completion date.

There are two main concepts associated with Critical Chain Project Management:

Critical Path Method: This refers to a schedule management tool used to determine which tasks must be completed first for the project to be completed on time. This is done by analyzing dependencies between functions and deciding which ones are necessary for completion first.

Project Buffer: A project buffer refers to any amount of time added onto the critical path which does not contribute directly towards completing a task but would help prevent delays caused by other factors such as resource availability or weather conditions.

Using Critical Chain to Improve Project Performance

The critical chain is defined as the longest path through the network of activities in the project schedule. Any delay in moving along this path increases the overall project duration. In other words, Critical Chain is also the most extended sequence of dependent activities without a float (i.e., without slack).

The float associated with each activity determines its position in the critical path (or critical chain). Activities with zero float are always on the essential way; activities with positive float are never on the critical path, and activities with negative float may or may not be on it depending upon whether there are other higher priority zero-float activities ahead of them in the schedule.

For Critical Chain Project Management to work effectively, you need first to identify your key activities and then determine if they require more resources or not.

Application of critical chain in project management

It aims to improve the performance of projects by managing their schedules according to the critical path method and ensuring that all activities are completed in the most efficient manner possible.

The critical difference between CCPM and other project management approaches is that it does not rely on resource leveling but instead determines the critical path for each activity and ensures that resources are applied to those activities first. This helps prevent resource bottlenecks, which can lead to project delays.

Resource Management in CCPM

Resource management in critical chain project management is assigning resources to tasks and projects.

The resource management process involves four steps:

• First, select the right resources for your project or task. Then, the right help can do the job, have the required skills and experience, and are available when needed. This step is crucial for successful critical chain project management.
• Allocating resources to tasks. Once you've selected the right resources, you must assign them to tasks using a fair method that doesn't favor one study over another. For example, you might want to use an algorithm like shortest job first (SJF) or longest job first (LJF). Both methods are discussed below.
• You are monitoring resource utilization against capacity constraints. This step helps ensure that your resources aren't over-allocated and that your projects stay on track for completion dates. Suppose your projects fall behind schedule or use more than their allocated capacity. In that case, you should take corrective action immediately so as not to affect other projects in production.
• Managing unplanned work by ensuring it doesn't impact scheduled work or delay delivery dates.

Advantages of Critical Chain Project Management (CCPM)

• It offers a more realistic way of scheduling projects.
• It helps you use project controls to make better decisions, so you have a clear idea of each project's scope, cost, and schedule.
• It'll help you predict, plan and manage your projects better.
• It helps prevent you from having too much or too little slack in a project.
• It lets you more easily plan your schedule to get work done on time.
• It helps project managers to stay on task.

Conclusion

Critical Chain Project Management, or CCPM, is a type of project management methodology that analyzes tasks and breaks them into smaller, less complex chunks called critical path method projects or CPM.

Critical Chain Project Management then tries to reduce or eliminate the lag time of task completion as much as possible to get work done faster. Additionally, it prioritizes the parts of a project that are most important to the outcome of a goal.

10 Best Time Management Apps for 2022

Time management is the potential to leverage the time you've on your hands effectively for executing any activity; this is significant for any business. Technology has undoubtedly enabled us to connect, enhance, perform, and optimize our resources beyond imagination. One of the most outstanding examples of it is time management apps.

What is Time Management App?

These apps are a system that allows both individuals and businesses to monitor time through a detailed view. Leveraging a time management app is one of the most suitable methods to achieve what most of us try for - productivity.

From to-do lists and calendar reminders to meetings, it's easier to get overwhelmed with the number of required tasks. However, due to time management applications, one can track and monitor all the activities and the time needed to finish them.

Leveraging such software helps us to achieve our targets promptly and save time in the long run.

Pros of Time Management Softwares

Time tracking is highly significant. However, it's pretty unnatural as we don't possess the potential to remember everything we perform with natural accuracy.

This is why individuals and companies are letting go of the fallacies-prone spreadsheets and notepads for sophisticated time-tracking software. Now, before investing in the app, you must consider the advantages of such apps:

• Enhance productivity
• Accurate billing
• Evaluate client value
• Project management
• Communicate progress

10 Best Time Management Softwares

Time tracking software makes it simple and convenient to manage time and activities, thus improving productivity objectives for you or your peers. These apps are crucial as time management is a vital skill to learn.

TSheets

This app by QuickBooks is an all-inclusive mobile timesheets software that tracks time on any device for teams of all sizes. Leveraging the TSheets, workforces can log in and out seamlessly and promptly from a mobile app, time clock kiosk, or a computer.

Benefits of TSheets:

• Interactive, real-time reports
• GPS location tracking available to keep tabs on where your workforces are working
• Connects to the favorite accounting software
• Exhibits overtime alerts to inform about weekly overtime limits
• Develops employee schedules by jobs or shifts

Calendar

With solid analytics resources, this app lets us view how much time one spends in meetings to structure the time for prioritizing crucial activities.

Benefits of Calendar:

• Have a broad user base ranging from massive teams to freelancers Connects all the calendars in one place
• Detailed analytics to understand how one spend their time

TimeCamp

It's a unique project system that develops transparent and challenging management. The software offers features like invoicing, reporting, and budgeting to help teams perform better and deliver outcomes on time and within budget.

Benefits of TimeCamp:

• Evaluates the time spent on project with a wider report range
• Allows you to choose between two timesheet templates, i.e., daily and weekly

Timely

This app is an automatic time management software that tracks project durations and helps one organize their workweek effectively. All you need is to offer the workweek in advance to evaluate the time you need to set aside each day for activity completion.

Timely is available for Windows, Android, Mac, iOS, and as a browser app.

Benefits of Timely:

• Makes time entries for the recorded work
• Record each thing you perform while leveraging its Memory Tracker
• Holds an individual accountable for the quantity of time they set apart from work
• Creates reports for easy communication
• Provides a realistic image of how much time projects take for completion

TimeTree

This app is one of the best time management software, with the potential to efficiently share memos and calendars between users. It's suitable for busy families targeting to maintain their schedules in one place.

More than just a calendar, this software comes with an added functionality of memos, replacing the conventional to-do list so that there's a committed place for managing one's busy life.

Benefits of TimeTree:

• Perfect for split households or merged families
• Free app
• Works on different devices

Harvest

This expensive time tracking software leverages the power to answer significant questions like where's my time going? Harvest has vital time-tracking aspects and is installed with an intelligent interface that is seamless and swift.

Benefits of Harvest:

• Ensures that teams have sufficient time to finish all the planned projects
• Tracks billable time and enables us to create invoices promptly to send to clients
• Easily updates time data on the weekly timesheet

Toggl Track

Toggl Track can be leveraged by freelancers, corporate teams, and small enterprises due to its personalized features. For example, this app has the potential to track time spent on activities and run reports to view where people spend most of their time to aid them in being efficient.

Benefits of Toggl Track:

• The support team responds within hours
• Free account for 5 users
• Tracks time directly in tools being leveraged with its merge with different softwares

Trello

It lets us see what all teammates are doing at a peek, so you never miss a chance amid a crucial project. If you're looking to manage activities and projects efficiently, use Trello. This collaboration tool allows you to see and dedicate activities and projects across teams.

Benefits of Trello:

• Collaborates with other tools like Google Drive and Dropbox
• Has free version that is packed with aspects
• Personalized

TMetric

This app gives reports and time tracking aspects that can be automated with browser extensions. So, for example, you can create invoices and send them to clients. There's also a choice for the workforce to monitor, which is relevant when you work with a remote team.

Benefits of TMetric:

• Has an excellent UI that comes with the Chrome extension
• Software available in web and desktop modes
• Has in-built extension with Jira Software
• Includes an API that can be collaborated with the business management software

Wunderlist

It's an effective and straightforward app to manage online to-do lists. This enables us to tick off all professional and personal activities. We can keep track and complete the respective tasks, share our objectives and dedicate tasks to our teams.

Benefits of Wunderlist:

• Integrates with team members and colleagues
• Shares your lists and work done to integrate on a project
• Sets reminders and due dates
• Includes everything from the Web to Wunderlist
• Adds notes to ensure all your ideas are recorded

How To Become a Product Manager?

Product management is the most in-demand job portfolio in the current business market. Yet, they're the few highest-paid professionals in a company because of the extent of their contribution and responsibilities.

Behind every good product provided by an organization that alters the consumer's lives drastically lies the prescient of a product manager. The project manager's responsibilities include analyzing customer requests, monitoring product design catering to that request, and overseeing its development, delivery, and feedback.

What is Product Management?

It is a structural technique in a company that covers every service/product aspect, from its plan to development and marketing. It forms the center of any successful business.

Without any proficiently operating central product, it's almost impossible for organizations to expand their brands and leverage them to sell other services/products.

Project Manager Vs Product Manager

What the firm provides is its product. The workflows it must engage in to make the product accessible to people and earn profit turn to project. Product managers are the prime figures in the release and plan of a product, getting employees within the firm on board with its aim.

After this phase, the project manager's role is to take the responsibility of turning that creative business into a reality.

In contrast, the product manager monitors the internal changes within the product aim. Project professionals convert the concept explained and envisaged by the product managers into actionable steps and timeline-based activities, leading to what the product professional defines as product success.

Project managers are also responsible for the departmental and logistics merging in the project performance.

Prerequisites of Becoming a Product Manager

A degree within the domain in which you're striving to become a product manager and an MBA should make you professionally equipped to apply for product management positions.

Round off this with online programs focused on aspiring product managers that give you a sneak peek into the routine system and technique that product managers deal with daily. It'll put you ahead of more than 70% of your counterparts.

Product Manager Responsibilities

A product manager strategizes a product's vision, launch, profit, and loss potential. Based on the company they work for, their work scope can differ from brainstorming goals for various features, management of engineers working on the execution of that product, to providing exclusive value depending on customer requisites.

The particular responsibilities of the product manager depend on the organization they work for and the product they're executing.

Their roles include:

• Cross-communication between different stakeholders
• Enabling clarity on the product goal
• Creating structures and techniques for a healthy feedback strategy, and
• Setting accurate markers for a particular product's success at what development phase.

Tools For Product Managers to Learn

A committed online program on product management will take you on a trip through different beneficial tools once you set foot into the domain. User tracking tools like Pendo and Roadmapping software like ProductPlan, customer survey tools like Typeform, and Industry Analyst accounts are significant for every product manager. In addition, fundamental expertise in SQL for data-driven analysis comes in handy.

Product Manager: Job Prospects and Salary

They have excellent career prospects and can work in various organizations and roles. For example, based on your educational background and subject expertise, you can apply for the product manager positions in healthcare, Fintech, food technology, or Edutech.

Even if there's no public vacancy, creative product professionals can be recruited depending on their ability to add value to a company. Product managers can earn up to an average of $125,782 annually.

Product Manager: Pros and Cons

The most significant benefit of being a product manager is the freedom and ideation they can practice with the product. They're the game changer behind the minor and prominent features of the product life-cycle and lead the way towards user benefits.

However, considering the negative side, these professionals often face the rage of all stakeholders in case of product failure and end up being victims of many imperfections in the company's structure and red tap behavior.

Tips to Become a Product Manager

• Consider applying to Jr Product Manager, Associate Product Manager, or Product Owner (PO) positions to gain experience that'll help you land in product manager job.
• Don't misjudge the significance of networking.
• Research intensely about the firms in which you're looking for a product management role. Don't be afraid to drop in cold emails highlighting the product strategy you think will add value to their organization.
• Ensure you seek the product manager role because it genuinely captivates you and not because of the job title.

Fast-tracking vs crashing

Let work pile up when we're busy with multiple projects of varying sizes is easy. It's even easier to forget about obligations and commitments in our personal lives. However, planning for various contingencies and scheduling our time can help us avoid these issues.

Fast-tracking and crashing are techniques of schedule compression through which we can avoid the issues. Before moving forward to fast-tracking and Crashing, let's briefly know about schedule comparison.

Schedule Compression Definition

Schedule compression reduces a project's duration by speeding up the project team and resources. This can be done by increasing the number of working hours or by decreasing the number of holidays and other non-working days.

Schedule compression is an integral part of project management because it allows you to shorten the duration of your projects. Therefore, schedule compression is the answer if you want to deliver your products or services faster. However, there are some downsides to using this technique.

The main benefit of schedule compression is that it allows you to deliver projects faster than they would have been born without reduction.

What is Fast-Tracking?

Fast-tracking is a project management technique used when a project is needed to accelerate the completion of a project. Fast-tracking can be used when problems with the originally scheduled completion date or when it becomes clear that the original date is not achievable.

Fast-tracking can be applied to one project or several phases at once. However, it involves adding resources and reducing the scope to complete the project on time.

It can also be applied at any project's life cycle stage. Still, it is most commonly used during the early stages of development when costs are lower. Risks may be more significant if action is not taken quickly.

What is crashing?

Crashing is a technique used to fast-track a project if you've run out of time with regular fast-tracking. You add more people to the project, but since they're working less per hour than the other team members, their salary will be cheaper than additional people.

Their time will be more affordable than regular employees'. However, Crashing can be expensive because you're paying all these extra people, so you have to find activities that save the most time while costing the least money.

You categorize your actions by the lowest cost per unit time, called crash cost. Then you look at which activities will bring the most value while costing the least money.

The results of a crash analysis are usually presented in a crash graph, where activities with the flattest slope are considered first—these lead to an equal amount of time savings but have a minor increase in cost.

Comparison between Fast Tracking and Crashing

Fast-tracking is a technique used in software development whereby a project is accelerated by adding resources to the project team. The main benefit of fast-tracking is that it reduces the time taken to complete a project and allows for earlier release dates.

On the other hand, Crashing is mainly used in software development, which involves adding more people to a task to complete it quickly. Therefore, Crashing can effectively get things done quickly, but there are also disadvantages associated with this project control method. These include:

• Less experienced team members may be unable to keep up with the pace required by crashing. This may result in poor quality work or, even worse, poor quality code, which can cause problems later on down the line!
• There will not be enough time for testing, meaning that any bugs discovered during testing may have already been missed by the developers who have written them!

Fast-tracking also means more resources will be required to complete the project in time. Therefore, it can be implemented only if there are enough resources available within the organization.

Compared to Crashing, Fast Tracking is less labor intensive as it does not require much overtime work from your team members. In contrast, Crashing involves a lot of overtime work from your team members, which may lead to burnout and high-stress levels among them.

The main difference between fast-tracking and Crashing is that Crashing focuses on shortening cycle times while fast-tracking directions create high-quality products as quickly as possible with limited resources.

When to use fast tracking and crashing in a project

Fast-tracking is useful when working on a project with a deadline, and there is no time to do it all by the book. For example, suppose you need to create a website for your business but don't have the time to design it from scratch. In that case, you can use an existing template and customize it yourself instead of paying someone else to do it for you.

There are a few situations where you can use Crashing:

When you want to get rid of some code that is no longer needed. For example, if you have a method used only in one place but isn't called, it still needs to be there. If you don't want to delete the code but don't want it in your program, you can use a crash to remove it.

Suppose you have a method that crashes and wants to test how your program handles this situation. For example, you could ensure that any exception information is logged correctly or displayed in an error dialog box.

Conclusion

Now you know about the two techniques of schedule comparison and their difference. Also, when to use these two techniques, we're sure you'll soon begin to see results in no time.

Best Practices for Preparing a Lessons Learned Document

What do you do when a project is finally over? You celebrate. But not so fast; you might yet finish with your project if you haven't prepared a lessons learned document.

If you're attending a PMP training program or learning for PMP certification, you will understand why preparing lessons learned document is mandatory.

By gathering and publishing lessons, the team learned while finishing previous projects, your company as a whole benefits. You can help minimize the odds of other groups making the same errors and offer insights into how numerous procedures and workflows can be enhanced.

Here, we'll see some of the top practices in preparing a lessons learned document and how they can help a company enhance its project performance.

Best Practices

• You'll study in the PMP certification program, and you should reuse lessons learned from previous projects to manage your current ones better.
• You can save time by gathering lessons as you go along, and you can finalize them amid project closure when the project is completed. This is one of the top methods to ensure that the lessons are accurately recorded.
• Consider conducting regular brainstorming processes with the team to mine lessons that are insightful to the project. This helps in promoting the success of future projects. It's best not to leave until the project ends when memories become vague. 
• Ensure to include positive and negative experiences in the lessons learned document to add the highest value to the upcoming company projects.
• Ensure to include everyone, even relevant stakeholders, while preparing the document, where you prepare the list during or after the project. This will aid in collecting all the lessons in the documents.
• Consider holding a post-project survey to seek feedback on the project from the team, stakeholders, and customers well-acquainted with the project management. This helps in obtaining the lessons learned fresh in people's minds.
• Store your lessons document in a central repository in your company. This makes it seamless and more accessible for other teams to access whenever needed. Several companies have an e-portal for document sharing, such as OneDrive, SharePoint, or different centralized network locations.
• Lessons learned documents should be archived as historical data and merged into organizational lessons learned.
• The primary goal behind documenting the learned lessons is to offer other project teams data that increases their effectiveness and creates an experience earned after each project completion. Sharing your lessons learned with others helps enhance the overall company performance.

Conclusion

If you are working toward a project management accreditation, or considering to do so, iCert Global has project management programs, including PMP certification course that is created to help you pass the test on your first attempt.

Effort vs. Duration vs. Elapsed Time: Project Management Series

What is Effort?

In project management, the effort is the amount of time it takes to complete a task. The action is usually expressed in hours, days, or weeks.

Effort can be used as a metric to measure progress on a project.

For example, if you have a project with ten tasks, each task is estimated to take 30 days. Therefore, you can use the total effort of all functions to indicate how much progress has been made on your project.

Suppose you were working on two projects simultaneously, having ten tasks each with an estimated 30 days per task. In that case, you'd have combined 20 and 60 days of total effort for both projects. If both projects run at the same speed and finish all tasks within 60 days, then you can use the actual attempt to indicate that both are running at the same rate.

What is Duration?

Duration is the length of time for which a project will be in progress. It can be stated in terms of days, weeks, months, or years. The scope, resource availability, client's requirements, and constraints determine the project's duration.

Duration is one of the essential concepts in Project Management because it determines how long the project will take to complete.

Suppose you cannot decide on the time of your project correctly. In that case, there are chances that you may end up overrunning your schedule or underrunning your plan, thus leading to the failure of the project.

Duration is "the amount of time required to complete an activity or process."

What is Elapsed Time?

A project's elapsed time is the amount of time that has passed since the project began. Elapsed time is recorded in days, weeks, months, and even years.

Project managers use elapsed time to indicate how much time has been spent on a particular task or phase.

For example, if a team member has been working on a task for two weeks, then the elapsed time for that task will be two weeks.

It's important to note that elapsed time does not consider any delays or obstacles that may have occurred during a project's life cycle.

 In other words, if an obstacle has affected your team member's progress at work, their actual work hours may be greater than what you see in the report.

The Effort, Duration, and Elapsed Time in Project Management Series

The effort, duration, and elapsed time constitute a small part of the project-scheduling module. You may not need to know these concepts for your exam, but it's good to understand them anyway.

As a project manager, you'll want to be well-trained in project schedules to efficiently manage deadlines and other time constraints. If you're not skilled at this, your projects could start costing more than they should due to delays and other problems.

Conclusion

We hope you enjoyed reading this article on our effort vs. duration vs. elapsed time: project management series. We hope that it cleared up any confusion you may have had about the differences between these values, how they can help you in project management, and how they are implemented into software systems that automatically track the progress of projects.

In the Project Management community, there has been a long debate about which metric is best for tracking the progress of a project and for managing people's expectations.

Usually, the conversation centers on Effort vs. Duration vs. Elapsed Time. However, the critical thing to remember when measuring project progress is that it is not necessary to choose just one metric.

Project Charter

One of the most crucial and significant documents for every project is the Project Charter. It's the first project document and lays down the fundamentals for the project.

A Project Charter explains a project at a top-notch level and displays the project's stakeholders and method. Moreover, it introduces the project manager to the project.

When it comes to the project sponsors, they own a project charter. These professionals authorize the Project Charter; however, the project manager can create it.

Project stakeholders should approve every Project Charter; once approved, it can't be modified throughout the project life cycle.

What Does a Project Charter Have?

There's no standard norm for what data a Project Charter must have. A Project Charter's format can differ from company to company.

Here, we have listed data that a Project Charter can have:

• Project Name
• Project Description
• Project Scope
• Project Stakeholders
• Business Case
• Project Objective
• Project Timeline
• Project Deliverable
• Project Constraints
• Project Assumptions

Project Scope

The majority of the project bites the dust as the scope of a certain project is not precisely defined. For any project to be practical, the scope has to be clear to all stakeholders without any guesswork.

What is a project scope?

Project Scope is a project's boundary, where every project team needs to deliver as defined and agreed in the Project Scope. This document is the backbone on which the schedule and budget are created.

According to the PMBOK, Project Scope is all the work needed and only the work necessary for project completion. Therefore, every project manager needs to record the project scope and get approval from all stakeholders.

Project scope can vary over time depending on the client's demand change, business case change, or any other applicable reason. However, any modification in the scope is supported by a Change request.

The requester should raise a change request, and it has to get approval from the Change control board. Any change to the project scope will affect the cost, HR, time, communication, quality, and risk.

Project Scope Impact

The impact of project scope change on quality, communication, time, HR, cost, and risk is daunting and takes much time for any project professional to determine the effect. However, if the scope change impact isn't identified clearly, this will adversely affect the project's success.

Define Project Scope

Defining Project Scope is the initial step wherein the project's scope is defined. The scope can be defined in three ways:

1. Deliverable (Internal & external)
2. Functionality (Functional properties of the project)
3. Technical structure (Diagram determine the entire system at a high-level)

Concluding Thoughts

Defining scope is a crucial problem in many projects. An error in project scope can lead to a project disaster. Unless and until the scope is determined accurately, the project cannot be under control, and the scope will keep increasing.

A Project Charter offers a strong foundation for a project. All the project stakeholders are informed about their duties and the level of effort needed from their side.

A Project Charter is leveraged during the starting and planning stages; hence a good Project Charter can aid the project's success. Therefore, a professional must have a Project Charter before taking over a new project.

If a Project Charter is unavailable, it's better to design a Project Charter and get approval from the stakeholders before one begins the project.

Top Project Manager Qualifications and Career Path in 2022

What do project managers do?

Project managers ensure that projects are completed on time, within budget, and to the customer's satisfaction. They have a broad range of skills and must be able to multitask and work under pressure.

Project managers need to be able to:

• Manage multiple tasks at once
• Priorities tasks based on what is most important or urgent
• Work well under pressure, meeting deadlines with minimal supervision
• Solve problems quickly when things go wrong

Requirements for a project manager

Project management is a career that has been around for decades and is still growing in popularity. It's no surprise, considering how many different industries are affected by projects and their success or failure. In addition, project management is constantly evolving to keep up with technological changes and new ideas about how best to manage projects.

Project managers need to have a wide range of skills, from leadership abilities to understanding business processes and concepts. They must also communicate effectively with all members of an organization involved in the project — from executives down to individual workers who perform the tasks associated with a project.

The following are some qualifications required for a project manager:

• Experience managing projects within an organization
• Knowledge of various tools used for managing projects (such as Microsoft Project)
• Knowledge of standard business processes and their place within an organization
• Ability to work well with others and understand their needs

Responsibilities of a project manager

Project managers are responsible for ensuring a project is completed on time, within budget, and quality. Project managers help their teams to determine how to accomplish their goals. They ensure the work meets the stated objectives, is within the budget, and meets quality standards. They also:

• Set objectives and deadlines
• Manage team members' tasks and workloads
• Oversee procurement processes
• Communicate with stakeholders (customers, vendors, and others) throughout the life of a project

Project manager career path

Project management is a profession that covers the entire life cycle of a project, from its conception to its final delivery. Project managers use various tools and techniques to ensure that projects are completed on time and within budget.

Project managers are responsible for planning, organizing, staffing, and leading all aspects of a project from beginning to end. They are also responsible for monitoring each project's performance against budget and schedule, setting priorities, and resolving issues as they occur.

Project managers can be found in almost every industry sector and every type of organization.

Career Path:

Most project managers start with an entry-level position in their chosen field. As a result, they may have little or no experience with project management concepts when they begin their careers.

Still, they generally learn these skills on the job through training programs offered by their employers or courses offered by colleges or universities.

 As they gain experience working on projects, they may advance into more senior positions such as team leader or technical lead.

Project management qualifications are crucial to success

Project management qualifications are crucial to success. The proper certification can help you land a job, get promoted, or grow your business.

Project management is a complex discipline that requires more than just technical expertise. It is also about managing people, resources, and time effectively. A project manager should possess excellent communication skills, problem-solving abilities, and an understanding of human behavior.

Project managers come from various backgrounds and have varying field experience levels. However, some basic qualifications can help them start their career path.

Here are some of the most critical project management certifications:

• Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM)
• Project Management Profession (PMP)
• Program Management Professional (PgMP)
• PMI Risk Management Professional (PMI-RMP)

Takeaway: There are many ways to be a successful project manager and no single right way.

There are many ways to be a successful project manager, and no single right way. However, some basic skills and qualifications are essential for success.

Project management is an integral part of any business or organization. A project can be anything from a new product launch to a construction project. It requires careful planning, scheduling, budgeting, and monitoring to ensure successful completion.

The following list covers the skills needed by project managers in 2022:

• Communication skills
• Creativity and innovation
• Customer service orientation
• Leadership skills
• Budgeting and forecasting skills
• Interpersonal skills (including dealing with conflict)
• Technical knowledge (for example, software)
• Planning ability (specifically in terms of managing time to meet deadlines)

How To Become a Sales Manager?

A sales career can be both exciting and captivating. As a result, it's no secret that several aspire to have a sales manager position. However, what does it take to move from single contributor to sales manager?

Today's article will show how one can become a sales manager.

What is a Sales Manager?

Sales managers are the foundation of any successful sales organization. They're responsible for coaching and training sales teams, setting performance targets, and meeting sales metrics.

To become a proficient sales manager, it's significant to have a strong understanding of the process and robust leadership and coaching skills. Moreover, building relationships with clients and understanding their demands is vital. Last but not least, managing and encouraging a sales team is crucial.

Prerequisites to Become a Sales Manager

A sales manager is crucial in any organization that sells services/products. But what is the prerequisite to becoming a sales manager, and what are the managers' critical skills and abilities?

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, most sales managers have a Bachelor's degree in marketing, business, or a related domain. However, some may prefer individuals with a Master's degree.

A sales manager must have good communication and interpersonal skills and experience in sales and customer service. They should also be able to lead and encourage sales representatives' teams.

Some of the critical areas that are covered in the sales management course are:

• Sales fundamentals (Prospecting, qualifying, closing, and account management)
• People management (Coaching, training, and leadership)
• Business awareness (Understanding financial statements, market analysis, and business strategy)
• Technology (CRM, data analysis, and social media marketing)

Personality Traits of Sales Manager

Certain traits are common among sales professionals. They're usually highly competitive, persuasive, and outgoing. They also have much energy and are very determined to reach their objectives. To be successful in sales, it's significant to have a positive attitude and take a rejection pace.

• Resilience
• Passion
• Assertive
• Integrity

Duties and Roles of Sales Manager

The routine duties of a sales manager are comprehensive and can change often. However, some significant functions are always vital. For example, sales managers must encourage and inspire their team, set and track objectives, analyze data, and offer support.

Sales managers are responsible for creating and executing a strategy. They must also coach and develop their sales team, manage customer relationships, and determine new sales opportunities. Moreover, they must often track sales performance and analyze data to optimize outcomes.

When it comes to the roles of sales manager, there are three primary types:

• Hunter: This sales manager is responsible for determining and closing new venture opportunities. They're outgoing and aggressive and try on the challenge of identifying new leads and winning new contracts.
• Farmer: They're responsible for developing and maintaining the business relations that have been established. They're more introverted and focus on building strong client relationships.
• Nurturer: This manager takes care of their clients and nurtures the relationship. They offer an emotional outlet for their clients and are excellent at developing trust. Due to this, they're usually successful in roles like inside sales, account managers, and relationship managers.

Sales Manager Salary

Sales manager salary can vary significantly based on the organization, experience, and position. However, some wide ranges can give you an idea of what to expect.

• According to Indeed, the average salary per year for a sales manager in the US is $76K.
• According to Glassdoor, the average annual salary for a sales manager is $77,811. This can vary from $41K at the low end to $130K at the high-end.
• The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the median annual wage for managers is $117,960. This too can go from $57K to $208K.

Benefits of Becoming a Sales Manager

The benefits of becoming a sales manager are as follows:

• Sales jobs are often the first to be cut during difficult times; however, sales managers are usually more daunting to replace. Hence sales manager has more significant job security.
• Sales managers have greater control over their work life, allowing them to set their hours to balance work and personal life.
• Sales professionals make more than their sales representatives as they have more knowledge and experience.
• A good sales professional can move up the career ladder more swiftly than a sales representative.

How to Become a Sales Manager

Sales managers are vital for any enterprise. They connect the organization and its clients and are responsible for bringing in new ventures and maintaining customer relationships. However, becoming a successful sales manager isn't a piece of cake. It takes hard work, commitment, and some tips to assist you on your path.

• Understand the services/products that your organization sells
• Develop robust listening skills
• Excel the art of negotiation
• Ensure you give and receive feedback efficiently
• Be passionate about sales.

Enterprise Environmental Factors and Organizational Process Assets

Table of Content

What are the enterprise environmental factors?

What are the organizational process assets?

Organizational culture, policies, and procedures

Organizational infrastructure

Market conditions

Organizational knowledge base

Corporate lessons learned from databases

Conclusion

What are the enterprise environmental factors?

Enterprise environmental factors are the external conditions that affect the organization. These factors include:

Economic Factors: Economic factors include the availability of capital, fluctuations in the business cycle, and changes in government policy.

Technological Factors: Technological factors include technological advances, new products and services, and competitors' use of technology to create new markets.

Social Factors: Social factors include changes in demographics (changes in population age groups), cultural influences on individual behavior, and government regulations on business practices.

Political Factors: Political factors include changes in laws and regulations affecting an organization's operations or profitability.

What are the organizational process assets?

The organizational process assets are the organization's knowledge, information, and experience. They include processes and procedures, policies, work instructions, standards, guidelines, and other similar documents.

The assets exist at all levels within an organization — from strategic planning to day-to-day operations — and comprise a large percentage of the total value of any company.

Organizational process assets provide a competitive advantage to any business because they enable companies to perform their work more efficiently and effectively than their competitors.

Organizational culture, policies, and procedures

The organizational culture, policies, and procedures result from the corporate environment. They exist because the environment needs to be supported by them. The organization aims to create an environment where employees can do their jobs effectively.

For an organization to accomplish its goals, it must support the people who work in it. It does this in many ways:

• By creating a workplace that is safe and secure.
• By providing tools and resources that help employees get their job done.
• By offering training so employees can learn new skills and so on.

Organizational infrastructure

The organizational infrastructure is the foundation of the organization. It includes the human, physical, and technological resources used to support the organization's activities. The corporate infrastructure may be divided into two major components:

Process assets refer to the knowledge and expertise used by an organization in its daily processes. Process assets include training manuals, procedures, or checklists required to perform specific tasks. Process assets may also include computer software programs that allow employees to perform their jobs more effectively or efficiently.

For example, a company might have a process manual that describes how to operate their cash registers properly or a software program that allows workers to enter data into their computer systems faster than they could be using paper records.

Physical assets refer to equipment, buildings, furniture, and other tangible items an organization uses for day-to-day operations.

An example of physical support would be a water tap inside an office building where employees could fill up their water bottles on hot summer days before returning to work.

Organizational knowledge base

The organizational knowledge base is the accumulated body of information that describes the steps and procedures used to perform tasks. This includes experience, corporate knowledge, and best practices.

The organizational knowledge base can be internal (company-owned) or external (public domain).

Knowledge management is an area of research and practice devoted to increasing the value of an organization's intellectual assets.

The field has been studied for more than two decades. Still, it wasn't until the 1990s that organizations realized the value of their intellectual assets (intellectual capital).

Knowledge management can be defined as "the identification, creation, accumulation, and dissemination of knowledge to generate wealth through innovation and action.

Corporate lessons learned from databases

The use of databases has become an essential part of the work environment for many organizations. There are several characteristics of databases that can provide businesses with a competitive advantage. These include:

Reliability: Reliability is the ability of a database to be up-to-date, accurate, and consistent at all times. When a business relies on its database for critical information, it must be able to trust its accuracy at all times.

Accessibility: A database should be accessible by authorized users anywhere at any time. This allows employees to make decisions based on the latest information available in the system.

Efficiency: A good database will make it easier for employees to store, retrieve, and manage information. The more efficient employees use the system, the less time they spend on tasks that don't directly contribute to their jobs, and the higher productivity rates will be for each employee.

Conclusion

As you can see, EEFs and OPAFs are only two of many different aspects that need to be considered to create a practical process map. Creating a meaningful process map is not as simple as simply drawing some boxes, connecting them with arrows, and deeming your work done. To be truly effective, a process map must be developed considering the various factors affecting the success of the processes being mapped—internal and external.

Five Levels of Organizational Conflict| PMI-ACP Agile Certification Training

One of the primary criteria for an Agile project manager is the potential to identify and resolve conflicts at the earliest. In Agile, conflict is referred to in two diversions:

1. Conflicts indicate that the Agile team has the freedom to voice their opinions and differences, and problems within the group.
2. If the conflict isn't settled immediately by the teammates, it can cause issues impacting the broader interests of the project.

Depending on the intensity, conflicts are differentiated into five levels and named the five levels of Agile conflict. The higher the level, the more challenging it becomes for leaders to resolve the problem with a polite settlement.

The Five Levels of Agile Conflicts

Agile Conflict Level 1

Here, the Agile team determines the issue rising in the project. Then, the team discusses and shares the issue among members and the project leader. This conflict level is a constructive issue-solving stage common to all high-level projects.

Agile Conflict Level 2

Here, the conflict becomes a disagreement matter among the team members. The members start to distance themselves from each other, and due to several issues, they stop taking the initiative to resolve the conflict. Though this level doesn't witness an open war; however, all the members wait for others to enter and resolve the conflict.

Agile Conflict Level 3

At this level, multiple issues were left unresolved, creating complex scenarios within the team. Different groups in the same team are made, and every member stands supporting one or the other group. In such a case, the conflict becomes like a competition, and more than problem-solving, the focus is more thrown light on winning than compromising.

Agile Conflict Level 4

Here, the contest becomes a battle, where groups start to imagine that the other group will never change and must be desolated. As a result, positions get replaced, and the only focus is safeguarding one's belonging group.

Agile Conflict Level 5

Here, the conflict becomes a war where no solution seems to arise. It heads to destruction by mutual consent. Level 5 of Agile conflict is the highest difficulty conflict level.

Agile Conflict Resolution

An Agile project leader should understand the conflict level and take relevant actions depending on the difficulty. Here are some methods of conflict resolution that an Agile project professional requires to follow against the different conflict levels:

1. At Agile conflict level 1, one must focus on consensus and collaboration. The crew is in a constructive discussion, and all they require is motivation and a push to make them strive towards achieving a resolution. The project leader should ensure that each member is heard and respected throughout the discussion.
2. The team should be reunited at Agile conflict level 2 for a discussion. Here, there's a willingness to discuss and settle the issue; therefore, the unit must be supported to come ahead as they'll not do so on their own.
3. In Agile conflict level 3, one must involve the team in some compromise and initiate discussions. One must ensure that personal enmities take a step back and everyone negotiates for an open discussion.
4. At Agile conflict level 4, shuttle diplomacy is a must. Here the conflict level is higher, so bringing both groups as one for a discussion is impossible. One must take both teams separately and strive to settle the differences before letting them for a table discussion.
5. At Agile conflict level 5, the collateral damage is fixed. The only thing one can do at this level is to strive and limit the damage.

These are the five conflict levels in Agile and the methods following which project leaders can solve the conflict. To know more about Agile leadership and practices, join iCert Global's PMI-ACP training program.

Top 10 Project Manager Interview Questions and Answers for 2022

Hr managers and Sr. executives recognize project management as requisite to enterprise success. They know that certified project professionals are among their most valuable assets.

According to the Project Management Institute (PMI) survey in the US, over $122Mn gets wasted for every $1Bn invested due to poor project performance. When it comes to recruiting certified project professionals, things get a little challenging, and candidates are reviewed in several ways.

Getting through an interview proficiently is both a science and an art. There're many unknowns; however, focusing on relevant areas and providing the right answers based on the questions in the interview aids you to get selected.

In this top 10 project manager interview questions and answers 2022 article, we will help you prepare for your interview and excel in it.

Q1. According to you, what is Project Management?

Project management helps in performing numerous methods, techniques, knowledge, skills, and experience to attain the goals of a unique project. However, the final deliverables and a definite deadline are critical factors differentiating project management from standard management.

Therefore, a project manager must always follow the project management rule - 6P (Proper Planning Prevents Poor Project Performance).

Q2. How do you define an ideal project?

This is one of the most important interview questions of the project management, to know what type of project you would take up. By answering this question, you open up new opportunities to manage projects that help you ace.

Ensure that your answer includes multiple points, such as whether you're interested in working alone or as a team, the kind of timelines you prefer, and whether you're keen on creative projects.

Q3. What are the knowledge domains? State its relevancy in a project.

Knowledge domains are the central technical subject matter that is essential for the efficient management of a project. Knowledge domains are the main technical subject matter that is essential for the efficient management of a project:

• Project Integration Management
• Project Scope Management
• Project Schedule Management
• Project Cost Management
• Project Quality Management
• Project Resource Management
• Project Communications Management
• Project Risk Management
• Project Procurement Management
• Project Stakeholder Management

Q4. Imagine your project has gone off the rails, so, what will be steps you would consider to get back on the track?

Once you realize that the project is going as per the planned time, scope, goal, or budget, the following top priority is to get on the right track. The project manager should be proficient in taking vital steps to resolve the inconsistency between planned and actual progress.

Your answer to this question may include re-adjusting resource management, determining the exact cause of off-tracking, putting in extra effort, and more.

Q5. Mention the techniques you might leverage to define a project scope?

This question aims to understand your expertise in the concerned area. Here, you can explain various concepts involved in defining a project scope like Product Breakdown, System Analysis, Alternatives Analysis, Requirement Analysis, Value Engineering, System Engineering, and Value Analysis.

Q6. How to prioritize tasks in a project?

Task prioritization is crucial and especially when a project is challenging. It helps to ensure the successful and timely completion of the project. Follow the below-given points to state your task prioritization in the project:

• List responsibilities and tasks
• Differentiate between significant and urgent
• Assess the value of each task
• Order the tasks by measured efforts
• Stay flexible
• Known when to say 'No'

Q7. Explain your strategy to deal with internal conflicts among the team members?

Here, the recruiter is trying to understand your mediation skills and how unbiased you are during conflict resolution. You can state why it is vital to listen to both the parties and understand their viewpoints.

Your answer should also include how you convince either party to reach a conclusion that works best for the project and delivers a win-win scenario. Moreover, it would help if you communicate how, you ensure both parties aren't benefitting from the other's loss.

Q8. Explain the team forming process you follow in managing a project?

A project manager should know about the different phases a team goes through during a project; therefore, this is one of the most common questions seen in exams and project management interviews.

For example, for the formation of a team, there are five development phases - Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing, and Adjourning. While answering this question, you should explain each of these stages accurately.

Q9. When would you escalate an issue?

Consider escalating an issue if:

• The issue may cause a budget overrun or project delay.
• You have tried to reach an agreement and establish a common point with everyone worried
• You have previously strived and failed to solve the issue with numerous techniques
• You or other team members are forced to take on a massive amount of addition work because of the issue.

Q10. What's your leadership style?

There are numerous ways to lead, each with its pros and cons. Regarding project management, it's impossible to avoid bringing up a leadership manner. A project manager may have to select how they lead depending on the project, from top-down to servant leadership. Examine their understanding of leadership methods and apply them to project management.

This brings us to the end of today's article. We hope it helped in adding up to your knowledge. If you found these interview question articles helpful and relevant, check out the PMP training course by iCert Global, a PMI-approved training institute with services offered worldwide.

Got a question? Please mention it in the comment box below, and we'll get back to you.

PMP Vs MBA: Which Will You Choose in 2022?

A common interview questions we might have heard is ‘Where do you see yourself 5 years from now?’ Hence, it’s high time we start questioning ourselves where we would like to be 5- or 10-years’ from now.

A professional designation such as MBA or PMP accreditation is supposed to help us in gaining a competitive edge in our career; hence, it should satisfy the below-given criteria:

• Make you more worthy for the job market
• Must have short and long-term benefits
• Should aid you in earning more.

Any kind of designation you consider must be evaluated based on these points. Ultimately, the answer will depend on your personal career preference, though there are a few facts a professional must consider before making a decision.

An Ocean of MBA Graduates

There was a period when an MBA degree was random, a 2-year graduation degree that not many acquired. Moreover, there weren't many colleges that offered the degree course.

But as the demand for MBA courses sky-rocketed, several education providers started offering short executive MBA courses, making it seamless for a working person to get an accreditation and for those who could afford one.

At present, MBA courses are more surplus than ever before. This is because every college/university has leaped into the MBA drive. Adding to this, the online education choice looks like an ocean of MBA graduates and courses.

However, a question that still remains: Is the sector all set for the massive wave of professionals? Apparently not. Professionals realize that their careers are static even after investing thousands of dollars and time to gain an MBA credential.

On the contrary, PMP works according to the industry requirements. Therefore, you get trained in the sector of your choice to fulfill a specific need of the vertical. Indeed, a PMP accreditation helps professionals develop their skills while working in the industry.

Another fact to consider - PMP is relatively a new program, and there aren't many PMP professionals in the job market compared to MBAs.

Standardizing MBA Programs

MBA degrees are created to develop managers. Therefore, an MBA program can be standardized, hardly targeted on a certain vertical or functional field, which is its top-notch strength. Preferably, an MBA degree can find jobs in any industry vertical.

However, companies, especially technology giants, have recognized that they require more than just managers. They need professionals who understand and work with technologies.

So, what’s the solution that enterprises have come upon? Will they hire professionals with a solid technical background and lack leadership and management potential?

The answer to this is the PMP credential, where individuals attain technical knowledge and managerial skills. Professionals with the certification are immediately recognizable to recruiters as someone with actual skills. In addition, the PMP certification training offers specialized expertise that an MBA lacks and has a higher value in the job market.

MBAs Cost a Fortune

How much does an MBA program cost? Probably worth a king's ransom. A good grade MBA course can cost you around $100,000.

However, when we compare MBA and PMP costs of education, PMP certification turns out to be relatively budget-oriented, i.e., an average expense of PMP is $2,000.

Another factor to consider is that MBA takes more educational hours than a PMP certification. Moreover, the average salary of an MBA in the US is $105,684, while that of a PMP is around $112,000.

Once the professionals are done with their PMP training, the certification holders get more handsome remuneration than an MBA holder at 1/50th the price.

The State of the Economy

The last decade has been a white knuckle, and the organizations have been pressurized to evolve for survival. As a result, many have become leaner, meaner firms, while those who failed to make changes have fallen out.

That being the case, recruiters are looking for professionals suitable for their company's portfolio, individuals with hard-earned competency who can exhibit leadership in their selected areas. Hence, it's not surprising why organizations recruit PMP-certified project managers these days.

What is Your Choice: MBA, PMP, or Both?

Now that you've got an idea of why PMP is more advantageous than an MBA in an organization, the ultimate choice to decide is yours.

But there are few benefits to an MBA that a PMP certification can't match. For example, MBA programs teach business theories and practices that aren't covered in a PMP certification training. Moreover, if you acquire an MBA degree from a reputed college/university, you get access to good networking opportunities.

In contrast, obtaining a PMP credential prepares the candidate for what is known as the rapidly growing profession in the modern world. It needs a professional to have sound work experience, which the accreditation then builds upon. As a result, the certification makes you job-ready.

In the Erewhon world, you should aim for both the credentials, and this is the choice several individuals are making - MBAs are acquiring PMP accreditation and vice versa. Having both is sure to make you an all-rounder in any verticals.

About US

If you're looking for PMP certification training, explore iCert Global's training courses to aid you prepare for the PMP credential test. Our courses are conducted by certified lecturers and they are designed to help you pass the exam on the first attempt.

Gain an in-depth understanding of project management and learn how to manage challenging ones with our Project Management Training course now.

Stakeholders in Project Management and their Role You Should Know

Table of Content

Identify the project stakeholders

The Role of Stakeholders in Project Management

Importance of Stakeholder Management

Project management with global teams

How to communicate with project stakeholders

Conclusion

Identify the project stakeholders

Project stakeholders are those affected by or interested in a project. In other words, they are the ones who will be affected by your project's success or failure.

Stakeholders can be internal or external to your company and can include:

Project sponsors and stakeholders: These members of your management team support the project and are accountable for its success or failure. They are vested in seeing that the project meets its goals and objectives, as well as its budget and schedule.

Project clients are people who hire you to do a job for them, such as designing a new product or building a new facility. They pay for your services and expect you to deliver what they have requested within their time and budget constraints. (Note: You may also be considered a client if you hire someone else to complete work on your behalf.)

Project team members: These include everyone who is directly involved with carrying out the work of the project, including anyone with special skills needed to complete tasks such as programming or graphic design work.

The Role of Stakeholders in Project Management

Stakeholders are the people and organizations with a vested interest in the success of your project. They can be internal to your organization, such as other departments or teams, or external, such as customers who will be using the product or service you're developing.

Stakeholders play a vital role in project management because they are the individuals who will either benefit from or be impacted by the result of your project—because of this, engaging them early on in the process is essential, and keeping them informed throughout your project.

The stakeholders will also play an essential role in helping you define what success looks like for your project. This will help set clear goals and expectations for everyone involved with the project!

Importance of Stakeholder Management

The importance of stakeholders in project management is that they are the ones who can define the success or failure of a project. In addition, the stakeholders are the ones who will be affected by the project and its outcome. For this reason, it is essential to ensure that all stakeholders' needs and requirements are considered before starting any project.

Project management with global teams

Suppose you're working with a team located in different places. In that case, thinking about the best ways to communicate with that team is essential. You should consider this at the beginning of your project and share the details in advance in their language. In this way, you can manage a global team without any problems. By doing so, you will save time and energy on your project.

How to communicate with project stakeholders

A project manager should know the mode of communication and time of transmission of all the stakeholders on a project. A well-discussed format for reporting can reduce the problems caused by miscommunication. So a project manager should know how the stakeholders like to communicate so that he can choose the correct formats for reports that are easy to understand and distribute.

Conclusion

Stakeholders play a vital role in project management. However, as we have seen, stakeholders will have different functions. Some may only be interested in the outcome.

In contrast, others may be more active in seeing their vision become a reality. Either way, when you are chosen for a particular project, it is essential to get as much information as possible about all aspects of the project and treat each one with respect and attention. This will help improve your overall performance, inevitably leading to being picked for more significant projects or even promoted within your workplace.

What role you should play and who are the stakeholders with high importance in Project Management is something that you should be aware of and not just think for a one-time involvement in the project.

 You must understand your role, the importance, and how to relate and communicate with all of the key stakeholders in Project Management to complete the project successfully.

Top 10 Project Selection Methods for Project Managers

When you have various challenging and captivating projects to select from, identifying a project that suits your team's potential, competency level, and has the best success rate is the initial step in effective project management.

Project selection methods provide a set of time-tested practices related to deep logical reasoning to select a project and strain undesirable projects with a low likelihood of success.

These methods are significant for practicing project professionals and enthusiasts preparing for the PMP credential test. Therefore, this blog will see the top 10 project selection methods in detail.

What are the Project Selection Methods?

Imagine that a company you're working for has been given numerous project contracts. However, due to resource restrictions, the company cannot tackle all the projects at a time; hence they decide on the projects that maximize profitability.

This is where the project selection technique comes into action. There're two categories for this method:

• Constrained Optimization Methods
• Benefit Measurement Methods

Though time-consuming, employing these techniques is crucial for an effective business plan. There are different documented techniques for project selection; however, the basic thumb rule - for small projects (not complex), the benefits measurement model is beneficial; whereas for large ones, the constrained optimization method is better.

10 Best Project Selection Methods

1. Benefit Measurement Methods

This technique is based on the present value of estimated cash inflow and outflow. Cost benefits are calculated and compared to other projects to make a decision. The methods leveraged in Benefit Measurement are:

• Payback Period
• Scoring Model
• Opportunity Cost
• Economic Model
• Internal Rate of Return
• Discounted Cash Flow
• Benefit/Cost Ratio
• Net Present Value

2. Payback Period

The Payback Period is a primary project selection method, where the ratio of the total cash to the average per Period cash is calculated. Then, it's time significant to recover the expense invested in the project. 

How is the Payback period calculated?

Payback Period = Cost of the project / Avg annual cash inflows

When the Payback Period is leveraged as the project selection method, the project with the shortest Period is preferred as the company rapidly regains the original investment. 

However, there are a few restrictions to this approach:

• Doesn't consider the time value of money.
• Benefits accrued after the Period are not considered. It focuses more on liquidity while profitability is neglected.
• Risks involved in individual projects are ignored.

3. Scoring Model

This is an objective technique where the project selection committee lists relevant requirements, weighs them according to their relevance and priorities, then adds the weighted values. Once the scoring of the projects is completed, the project with the top score is selected.

4. Opportunity Cost

It is the cost that is given up when choosing another project. Therefore, the project with a lower opportunity cost is selected during the selection process.

5. Economic Model

Also known as Economic Value Added (EVA) is the performance metric that estimates the worth-creation of a company while defining the capital return. It's also described as the net profit after deducting taxes and capital expenditure.

If several projects are assigned to a project professional, the project with the highest EVA is chosen. It is expressed in numerical terms and not as a percentage.

6. Internal Rate of Return (IRR)

It's the interest rate at which the Net Present Value (NPV) is zero, i.e., when the present outflow value equals the current inflow value. The IRR is the annualized effective compounded return rate or the discount rate, where the NPV of all cash flows from a specific investment equals zero.

It is leveraged to choose the project with the best profitability; when selecting a project, the one with a higher IRR is selected.

When leveraging the IRR as the project selection requirement, companies should remember not to use this solely to judge a project's worth. For example, a project with a lower IRR might have a higher NPV, and, assuming there's no capital restriction, the project with the higher NPV should be chosen as this maximizes the shareholder's profit.

7. Discounted Cash Flow

It's a known fact that the future value of money won't be the same as today. For instance, $20K won't have the same worth a decade from now. Hence, during cost investment and ROI estimations, ensure that you consider the discounted cash flow concept.

8. Benefit/Cost Ratio

The benefit/cost ratio is the ratio between the present value of inflow or the cost invested in a project to the current value of outflow, which is the return value from the project. Projects with a higher benefit-cost ratio or lower cost-benefit ratio are generally selected over others.

9. Net Present Value (NPV)

NPV is the difference between the project's current cash inflow and cash outflow values. It must always be positive. When selecting a project, one with a higher NPV is preferred. The merit of considering the NPV over the Payback Period is that it considers the price's future value. 

However, there're restrictions on the NPV:

• There isn't any generally accepted method of deriving the discount value used for the present value estimation.
• The NPV doesn't offer any picture of the profit or loss that the company can make by embarking on a particular project.

10. Constrained Optimization Methods

It's also known as the Mathematical Model of Project Selection, leveraged for massive projects requiring comprehensive and complex mathematical calculations. The methods leveraged in constrained optimization methods are:

• Linear programming
• Multiple objective programming
• Non-linear programming
• Dynamic programming
• Inter programming

However, these topics aren't discussed in detail in the PMP accreditation. Therefore, for the credential test, all that is necessary to know is the list of mathematical model techniques that are leveraged in project selection.

Risk Register in Project Management

Table of Content

What does Risk Register in Project Management mean?

Why is it important?

When to use it?

How to use it?

What are the benefits of using a risk register in project management?

How do you create a risk register?

What does Risk Register in Project Management mean?

The risk register is a list of all the identified risks in a project, also called threats and opportunities. In addition, it contains risk analysis information such as probability, impact on the project, and recommended action.

The risk register helps the project manager to plan how to manage the identified risks on their projects.

It also helps identify high-risk areas that need special attention from the project manager.

Why is it important?

A risk register is a document that helps to manage project risks. It is a list of identified risks and their potential impact on project success. It also includes the risk mitigation strategy and the priority of managing them effectively.

The risk register is beneficial for project managers and project team members because it helps them identify the potential risks early in the project life cycle. This makes it possible for them to take proper measures before the problem arises.

The risk register provides an opportunity for learning from experience to avoid similar mistakes in future projects.

In addition, as a result of analyzing the risk register, decision-makers can make informed decisions about whether or not to accept a specific project or continue with it further based on their knowledge of its benefits and costs.

When to use it?

• Identify potential problems and areas where risk may occur (e.g., when deciding on the scope of a project)
• In Planning how you will manage risks in your project
• In the Monitoring phase, you can use it to:
• Monitoring for changes in risk (e.g., new threats, changes to existing risks)
• Review what happened with each risk during execution (e.g., did management action or contingency plans work?)

What are the benefits of using a risk register in project management?

• It provides an overview of all the risks in your project. You can easily see how many risks there are and the priorities for each.
• It helps you plan for worst-case scenarios. You can see what would happen if each risk occurred, and you can take steps to avoid these outcomes or minimize their impact if they do occur.
• It helps you prioritize your work effectively. You'll know which risks need immediate attention and which can wait until later in the project.
• It helps communicate between teams, stakeholders, and external parties such as customers or suppliers.

How do you create a risk register?

A risk register is a list of all of the risks for a project. It is usually created as part of the project planning process and can be modified throughout the project. A risk register's objective is to ensure that risks are identified and managed proactively rather than reactively.

A risk register should include:

• Risk identification. What are the risks? What are you going to do about them?
• The likelihood of each risk happening (using one of four scales: high, medium, low, very low). How much impact would it have if it did happen?
• The consequence if the risk did happen (using one of three scales: major, minor or negligible). How likely is it that this will happen?

Conclusion

Utilizing a risk register and documenting your risks can create action plans in case things go wrong. A risk plan allows you to anticipate problems before they happen and adjust the project accordingly, potentially saving time, money, resources, and even expensive mistakes.

A risk register is a list of all of the factors and events affecting a project. Keep in mind that risk registers are very flexible. The one you create may not look like other risk registers you've seen before, but be sure to include everything that might affect your project. If you don't, you'll want to do so later and work twice as hard. So determine what's necessary before each stage of your project!

The Difference Between General Operations Management and Project Management

When preparing for the PMP credential exam, there are various subjects to learn about. This blog will show the difference between general operations management and project management.

Before the comparison, let us first see what both terms mean.

What is General Operations Management?

A general operations manager has a broader responsibility than the project manager, and their role is permanent, while that of a project professional is temporary.

Operations management is a continuous function in a company that executes tasks that generate services/products. Some examples of ongoing operations include HR and accounting.

A company requires those roles no matter what objectives they are working on. There are three kinds of systems in production and operation management in both service and manufacturing sectors:

1. Non-repetitive Systems

Systems related to low demands differ from the other two; the systems put more stress on planning, monitoring, and controlling the tasks of services/products. The criteria of these systems result in the development of project management.

Product, process, or project-oriented management is hard to define. To leverage a simplified example, planning and designing a new car model is a project, whereas running a factory that creates the cars is a mass-production system. When it's time to transform the car model, it's time for a more flexible and adjustable process-oriented approach.

2. Mass Production System

Sectors with top-notch services/products and high investment leverage the product-based mass production system, which focuses on the practical procedures that help generate the product or execute the service.

Particular purpose devices, like automated conveyors, are leveraged to execute the activities required for the service/product, making it efficient in generating massive quantities.

3. Batch Production System

When various services/products are needed in the same industry, the batch production system acts as a good substitute, especially when the demand isn't high, the investment is low, and flexibility is utmost.

The system is adjusted when production transforms from one product to the next. Here the complexity of management increases over the batch production system, which is process-oriented, whereas a mass production system is product-oriented.

What is Project Management?

As said, the role of a project professional is short-term, i.e., a project team is a temporary association. However, in a fixed general operations management team, the members report directly to the manager who leads the team; those member roles are generally long-term.

The manager is responsible for developing good team working and setting the rules and behaviors of the group. In addition, they need to build trust and respect within the team, motivate sharing of information, opinions, and feelings for the team's benefit, and set goals to appraise the member's performance.

While a project team will be made of people from various company departments, the project professional's job is similar; sometimes, project teammates may report to the department manager and the existing manager. As the priority of other managers changes, the team's stability can vary.

It can be challenging to maintain teamwork as the members may change periodically to adjust the departments' priorities. In a changing team, the members who don't know each other may find it daunting to share opinions, feeling, and information openly. In addition, as the member often reports to more than one manager, evaluation of their work may pose an issue.

General Operations Management Vs Project Management

Performance Reporting in the Project Management

What is Performance Reporting?

Performance reporting is collecting and analyzing project performance data and then communicating it to project stakeholders.

Performance reporting can be an essential part of project management because it helps keep everyone involved in the project informed about how things are going.

Most project managers use software tools to track performance data, such as earned value management (EVM) or a project management information system (PMIS).

But even if you don't have access to any particular software tools, you can still create simple reports that will help you communicate with your team members and stakeholders.

How Is Performance Reporting Done?

Performance reporting typically involves creating tables or charts showing where time and money have been spent on a project.

These tables or charts are often referred to as burn-down charts or burn-up charts because they indicate how much has been burned through (burned down) of the total budget or how much has been burned up (used) by a specific point in time, respectively.

The idea behind these charts is that they allow you to see how much time and money is left before reaching certain milestones in your project plan.

Why Do You Need Performance Reporting?

Performance reporting is a way to keep your projects on track. It can help you identify issues early, making them more accessible and less expensive to fix later.

For example, suppose you see that your team members are struggling with a particular task. In that case, you can schedule time for them to receive additional training before moving on to the next project phase.

If you notice that one part of the project lags behind another, either by days or weeks, you know where you need to focus your efforts first.

You may also want to check whether any bottlenecks in the process need immediate attention from senior leadership or other departments within your organization.

Performance metrics can be used for internal reporting purposes and communicating with stakeholders outside your team — such as senior management or clients — about how well things are going.

What Are the Deliverables of Performance Reporting?

The deliverables from performance reporting will depend on what type of information you're looking for. For example, if you're evaluating a completed project, your deliverables could include:

• A summary of the project's goals.
• A list of all activities performed during the project.
• A summary statement that summarizes all the information above.
• Analysis shows how well each activity performed against its original expectations.

When Should You Perform Performance Reporting? Periodic Milestones

The best time to perform performance reporting is at frequent milestones, such as during the weekly status meeting or after each sprint.

These milestones are regular checkpoints where you can review the progress of your project in a high-level way, note any issues that have arisen since the last checkpoint and take action on them if needed.

Example of Performance Report

The following are some examples of performance reports:

Cost Report: The cost report shows how much money has been spent on the project so far and how much money is estimated to be paid in the future. This gives you an idea of whether or not you will have enough money left in your budget by the time the project is completed.

Resource Report: The resource report shows how many resources are used for each activity in your project plan. This helps you determine if certain activities require more resources than others, which may indicate that those activities need to be reorganized or rescheduled.

Schedule Status Report: The schedule status report shows how close your project's activities are to being completed at any given time. This information can help you determine any delays in your project schedule and what actions should be taken next to address those delays (such as moving activities up or down in priority).

Conclusion

iCert Global offers a variety of Project Management courses to help you pass your PMP exam. Our PMP training courses are designed by seasoned industry professionals with years of real-world experience in multiple Project Management training paths.

Classes are taught by certified, highly experienced professionals ready to help aspiring project managers get the education they need—not only for the PMP® certification exam but also for valuable real-world knowledge for any project management career.

Guide to Project Cycle Management: Everything You Need to Know

Project Cycle Management (PCM) is a technique based on years of development, focused on planning and organizing projects via basic principles and defined stages. This method encloses project inception to its planning and execution.

What are the benefits of the PCM method?

• Strategic risks
• Better efficiency leading to cost and time savings
• Effective rate of timely project execution and delivery
• Precise and quantifiable objectives
• Better likelihood of meeting expectations
• Efficient resource management

In this blog, we will discuss about PCM and why it adds value to the projects.

Working of Project Cycle Management

PCM enforces a project's lifecycle by focusing on an efficient system with proven outcomes. It's organized in phases aligned for precision, objective targets and expectations, and universal practice.

Each stage works similar to a book's chapters, to begin and complete before moving on to the next step. This ensures better quality results and fulfillment of agreed project expectations.

When a level is complete, the new one begins. As a project professional leads a team through each stage, they can shift their initial point ahead until the total project completion.

PCM leverages fundamental project management principles - prioritizing project structure, a defined stage, accurate targets, transparency, identifying risks, and other elements.

A significant positive result from leveraging this technique is budget-oriented and organized with quality outcomes on time.

Why Project Cycle Management?

Various experts have experienced the mind-blogging feeling that comes with a massive project. It sometimes seems paradoxical, especially if similar projects have faced significant challenges. Several factors can twist things when dealing with a team, a stringent deadline, several partners, and myriad financial risks.

PCM is a proven technique that helps eradicate that risk and build a more effective practice. In addition, this method allows experts to manage projects throughout the complete project lifecycle confidently.

There are three significant reasons why we leverage the PCM technique, and they're:

1. Transparency

When managing a project, it can be daunting to communicate along the path. The PCM leverages accurate techniques to define each stage and where teams are along the procedure.

This provides leaders to communicate with partners, stakeholders, and interested parties related to the project. A practical and transparent communicated project makes everyone delightful, and aids promote expectations and objectives.

2. Simplicity

The PCM technique simplifies the project. Simplicity is essential in a challenging situation with several elements working simultaneously. When leaders can streamline the procedure, this develops better outcomes that lead to optimum success. PCM leverages stages that break up the process.

3. Enhanced Productivity

Effective productivity means everything when it comes to saving time and expenses and enhancing quality. Teams can perform the project successfully when the PCM stages simplify the process.

Once a project upgrades from overwhelming to possible, employee morale and proficiency enhance. In addition, a more productive project develops a healthy and prosperous workspace.

Project Cycle Management Phases

The center of PCM is its five stages, where each phase ensures successful levels that add up to one complete project performance. This technique is an effective and accurate way to meet expectations on time and foresee challenges. The five phases of PCM are:

1. Initiation

Every project begins with a simple idea. The initiation stage promotes that idea and creates a big image, scope, and project goal. Next, project professionals will review the critical project controls required and domains for enhancement before starting a project and assess what it will take for project completion.

2. Planning and Design

Similar to any good project, planning is a vital step. It's where outcomes, preparedness for hurdles, and other crucial factors occur. A good plan makes a drastic difference, and PCM focuses on developing a robust blueprint to reduce risks.

3. Execution

The most prolonged phase of a project's lifecycle is execution, where all the hard work gets done. This is the literal plan execution, where a team works on a project to deliver quality products. The previous stage clearly defines each level of the way.

4. Monitoring and Controlling

Sometimes there are worst and best-case situations, and a good plan ensures professionals can expect both. The monitoring and controlling stage is the trial-and-error process that tracks progress to ensure issues are promptly solved and the deadlines are still aligned to fulfill their target.

This stage is about balance, as too much control can consume time, and insufficient control can exceed risks.

5. Closure

If a project isn't closed professionally, it can continue to drain resources and create unexpected issues. In this phase, a project professional will lead the formal steps with their client to end and deliver the final project. The closure is thus a significant step to gaining feedback and assessing the outcome.

Concluding Thoughts

PCM has proven to be an effective and developing technique to generate successful outcomes for projects worldwide and in several sectors. When project manager decides to learn about the process in-depth, they provide themselves with a successful result and a better leadership role.

Requirements Traceability Matrix (RTM): Templates, Types, and Tools for 2022

If you are searching for "Requirements Traceability Matrix" templates, this is the right place. This post will detail all kinds of templates, types, and tools that will help you use RTM to trace your requirements.

What is the Requirements Traceability Matrix (RTM)?

Requirements traceability is the process that tracks requirements as they move into design and development and where they go when they are checked in to the appropriate locations.

Having an RTM also allows you to monitor the amount of work taken up by the various groups and how much work remains. This helps you evaluate how efficiently your team is functioning.

The following requirements traceability matrix templates, types, and tools allow a more efficient and effective workflow for your company's requirements management.

Requirements Traceability Matrix (RTM) Essentials

Requirements traceability matrix (RTM) is a diagrammatic representation of functional requirements, showing how they relate to one another.

It helps trace each requirement back to its originator(s). In addition, it serves as a guide for identifying missing information or defects at any stage of the development process.

The matrixes can be used at different levels – from project level down to component level and even individual requirement level – depending on the number of stakeholders involved and their role in the project life cycle.

Why Requirements Traceability Matrix (RTM) Needed?

The main objective of RTM is to provide traceability between different elements of a project like projects, requirements, defects, test cases, etc. The below-mentioned points show why RTM is needed:

• It helps link all related documents together in one place to make it easy for anyone to access the required information at any time.
• It makes it easier for testers to understand how they can use this information while testing and what they should not do while trying.
• It helps testers identify gaps between documents such as requirements and test cases which may result in missing functionality during the testing phase.

Requirements Traceability Matrix (RTM) Types

Following are the types of RTM:

Forward traceability: Forwards traceability is proper when there are many revisions and a large backlog. It traces the product requirements from the definition phase to the testing phase.

Backward traceability: Backwards traceability works in the opposite direction as compared to Forwarding traceability. Backward traceability traces the validation of the product from testing to the requirement definition phase.

Bidirectional traceability: Bidirectional traceability supports both backward and forward tracing. It is often used in large projects with multiple development cycles. Bidirectional RTM covers all aspects of the development cycle, from the requirements gathering process to the testing cycle.

Benefits of RTM

The benefits of using a traceability matrix are numerous. It can help:

• Improve the quality of products and services.
• Reduce the time required to find information and resolve issues.
• Identify relationships between different parts of a product or service.
• Make it easier to identify problems and solve them more quickly.

Requirements Traceability Matrix (RTM) Tools

A Requirements Traceability Matrix (RTM) tool is software that automates the creation and maintenance of RTMs. It typically allows users to perform search queries on their RTMs, allowing them to see which documents contain which requirements or vice versa.

Modern Requirements4DevOps: Modern Requirements4DevOps integrates with Microsoft's Azure DevOps, TFS, and VSTS and provides project managers with traceability through every stage of the process

Visure Requirements:  Visure Requirements is a tool that tracks changes made during the development process, providing complete traceability.

ReQtest: ReQtest is cloud-based and customizable; it provides traceability from project start to finish.

Requirements Traceability Matrix (RTM) Template

Conclusion

This article has tried to cover all aspects of RTM tool development. However, there are times when you would need to have an urgent requirement change, or if you have to make a hotfix, you can make it with the help of RTM.

Nonetheless, RTM helps in preventing any dissociation between requirement and code. An RTM is a one-stop solution for the testers and the developers. Further, it determines the bugs that programmers need to fix as soon as possible to eliminate them.

Of course, you can also use the requirements traceability matrix as a standalone solution to identify a mapping between test cases and requirements.

Analytical Questions from Procurement Management Knowledge Area

In this blog, we will discuss few analytical questions from the Procurement Management knowledge domain in PMP exam, to make you understand the logic behind easy calculation.

Q1. A cost-plus-incentive-fee (CPIF) contract has an estimated cost of $150,000 with a predetermined fee of $15,000 and a share ratio of 80/20. The actual cost of the project is $130,000. How much profit does the seller make?

1. $31,000
2. $19,000
3. $15,000
4. none of the above

Ans:  Estimated Cost = $150,000

Predetermined fee = $15,000

Share Ratio = 80/20; where 80 is for the Buyer and 20 for Seller

Actual Cost = $130,000

Saving = Estimated Cost - Actual cost = $20,000 ($150,000 - $130,000)

Seller profit = Predetermined fee + (Share ratio of seller * Savings) = $15,000 + (20% * $20,000) = $19,000

Q2. A fixed-price-plus-incentive-fee (FPI) contract has a target cost of $130,000, a target profit of $15,000, a target price of $145,000, a ceiling price of $160,000, and a share ratio of 80/20. The actual cost of the project was $150,000. How much profit does the seller make?

1. $10,000
2. $15,000
3. $0
4. $5,000

Ans: Target Cost = $130,000

Target Fee = $15,000

Target Price = $145,000

Ceiling Price = $160,000

Share Ratio = 80/20

Actual Cost = $150,000

Here, the actual cost is less than the ceiling price and is more than the target cost.

Final Fee = ((Target cost - Actual Cost) * Seller ratio) + Target fee

      = (($130,000-$150,000) * 20%+$15,000

      = (-$20,000 * 20%) + $15,000

      = -$4,000 + $15,000

      = $11,000

Final Price = Actual cost + Final Fee

        = $150,000 + $11,000

        = $161,000.

But final price is more than the ceiling price which is $160,000.

So, the final price which the seller gets is $160,000.

Therefore, the profit that seller gets is $160,000 - $150,000 = $10,000

Q3. A cost-plus-percentage-cost (CPPC) contract has an estimated cost of $120,000 with an agreed profit of 10% of the costs. The actual cost of the project is $130,000. What is the total reimbursement to the seller?

1. $143,000
2. $142,000
3. $140,000
4. $132,000

Ans: Estimated Cost = $120,000

Actual Cost = $130,000

Agreed Profit = 10%

Reimbursement amount = Actual cost + % profit of actual cost = $130,000 + (10% of $130,000) = $143,000

Q4. A Cost-plus-incentive-fee (CPIF) contract has an estimated cost of $210,000, a fee of $25,000, and a share ratio of 80/20. The actual cost of the project was $200,000. Calculate the final fee and the final price.

Ans: Estimated Cost = $210,000

Predetermined fee = $25,000

Share Ratio = 80/20

Actual Cost = $200,000

Saving = Estimated Cost - Actual cost = $10,000 ($210,000 - $200,000)

Final Fee = (Saving * Seller Ratio) + Predetermined fee

                 = ($10,000 * 20%) + $25,000

                 = $2,000 + $25,000

                 = $27,000

Final Price = Actual cost + Final Fee = $200,000 + $27,000 = $227,000

Q5. A fixed-price-plus-incentive-fee (FPI) contract has a target cost of $150,000, a target profit of $30,000, a target price of $180,000, a ceiling price of $200,000, and a share ratio of 60/40. The actual cost of the project was $210,000. Calculate the final fee and the final price.

Ans: Target Cost = $150,000

Target Fee = $30,000

Target Price = $180,000

Ceiling Price = $200,000

Share Ratio = 60/40; where 60 is for the Buyer and 40 for the seller

Actual Cost = $210,000

Here actual cost is more than the target price and also higher than the ceiling price. So, the seller is in trouble.

Let’s see how much he gets?

Final Fee = ((Target cost - Actual Cost) * Seller ratio) + Target fee

     = (($150,000 - $210,000) * 40% + $30,000

     = (-$60,000 * 40%) + $30,000

     = -$24,000 + $30,000

     = $6,000

Final Price = Actual cost + Final Fee = $210,000 + $6,000 = $216,000.

But final price is more than the ceiling price.

Therefore, the final price is $200,000.

Q6. A fixed-price-plus-incentive-fee (FPI) contract has a target cost of $9,000,000, a target profit of $850,000, a ceiling price of $12,500,000, and a share ratio of 70/30. The actual cost of the project was $8,000,000. Calculate the final fee and the final price.

Ans: Target Cost = $9,000,000

Target Fee = $850,000

Target Price = $9,850,000

Ceiling Price = $12,500,000

Share Ratio = 70/30

Actual Cost = $8,000,000

Here actual cost is less than the target price and also lesser than the ceiling price.

Let us see how much the seller get?

Final Fee = ((Target cost - Actual Cost) * Seller ratio) + Target fee

     = (($9,000,000 - $8,000,000) * 30% + $850,000

     = ($1,000,000 * 30%) + $850,000

     = $300,000 + $850,000

     = $1,150,000

Final Price = Actual cost + Final Fee = $8,000,000 + $1,150,000 = $9,150,000.

PMP Study and the Types of Contracts

If you're a project professional, you're aware of the various types of contracts and the licit features of projects. For instance, if you've to outsource a product/process to third-party subcontractors or vendors in the middle of your project, then what sort of contract will you leverage for the service provider.

Scenarios like this are why project professionals require to have a sound knowledge of various contract types so they can tackle contract negotiations seamlessly.

In this blog, we will see the three fundamental contract types and give instances to aid you in understanding when you would leverage them.

Fixed Price Contracts

Fixed-price contracts are also called Lump Sum contracts. The buyer and seller make a deal on a fixed rate for the project. The seller often agrees on a high-level risk in this contract type. The buyer is on the minor risk list as the seller's accepted price is fixed. 

However, ensure this sort of contract has fully detailed properties, project scope statements, and checklists from the seller, which the buyer will leverage.

With this kind of contract, sellers may strive to cut the scope to deliver the projects within time and budget. If the project is completed on time with the required quality, the project is over for that contract. However, if the project gets delayed and there are expense overruns, the seller will take in all the extra expenses.

Here are a few types of fixed-price contracts:

Fixed Price Award Fee (FPAF): If the performance of the seller surpasses expectations, an extra cost, i.e., 10% of the total rate, has to be paid to the seller.

Fixed Price Economic Price Adjustment (FPEPA): The fixed price can be considered based on the market pricing rate.

Fixed Price Incentive Fee (FPIF): Though the price is fixed, the seller is given a performance-based bonus. The bonus can be dependent on one/more project metrics like time, performance, or cost.

Cost Reimbursable Contracts

What do you do when the work scope is vague? Since you're not sure what the project needs, a fixed-price contract is out of the book. Here is where you will need to leverage a cost-reimbursable contract.

What is a cost-reimbursable contract?

It's also called a cost disbursable contract, leveraged when the project is high-risk, or the scope isn't clear. The buyer pays all costs; hence the buyer endures all the risk. 

Under this type of contract, the seller works for a fixed time and raises the bill, indicating the contract's profit once the work is done. The price may be dependent on chosen project performance or other metrics.

A major downfall of a cost-reimbursable contract is that the seller can increase an unknown or unlimited rate the buyer is forced to pay. This is why this type of contract is rarely leveraged.

Here are a few types of cost-reimbursable contracts:

Cost Plus Fixed Fee (CPFF): The seller is paid a fixed rate that is accepted upon prior work start. The project cost incurred is reimbursed based on this, irrespective of project performance.

Cost Plus Award Fee (CPAF): The seller will receive an incentive including the actual project cost incurred; this contract is similar to a cost-plus incentive fee (CPIF) contract.

Cost-Plus Percentage of Costs (CPPC) or Cost-Plus Fee (CPF): The seller will receive the total amount they incurred amid the project in addition to a percentage of the fee over cost; this is always advantageous for the seller.

Cost Plus Incentive Fee (CPIF): A performance-based incentive fee will be paid to the seller over and above the expense they have incurred on the projects. With this contract type, the incentive is an encouraging aspect for the seller to fulfill or surpass the project's performance metrics.

Time and Material Contracts

It, also known as Unit Price Contracts, is a hybrid of fixed price and cost-reimbursable contracts. For instance, if the seller spends 1200 hours on a project at $100/hour, the seller will be paid $120K by the buyer. This type of contract is typical for freelancers, and the main benefit is that the seller makes money for every hour spent working on the project.

Concluding Thoughts

As a project professional, you must land the correct contracts with various service providers to minimize risk and deliver the project within time. You must always consider the appropriate contract to offer optimum value for money and time spent on the work while safeguarding it from risks.

Project Documentation and Its Importance in 2022

Project documentation is something that we usually ignore. But why? Project documentation plays a vital role in the success and failure of the project completion itself. It acts as a guideline to efficiently manage the project and gives precise estimates of its cost. It is also an asset to the project owners, vendors, and team members.

A web application or an IT project should be adequately documented with well-designed documentation to minimize the risk of failure and improve user knowledge.

In addition, having clear and comprehensive documentation helps in easy and accurate appraisals of the work performed. Unfortunately, however, many IT projects fail because of mismanagement.

One of the key reasons for such failures is improper documentation by the project managers. Therefore, any project manager must understand how vital quality documentation is for successful projects.

Why is Project Documentation necessary?

Project documentation is the backbone of any project. It helps stakeholders understand the purpose and goals of the project, how it will be executed, and what resources are needed.

It is an essential part of every project management process. Creating a document helps you manage your project by providing specific details about what needs to be done and when. The paper also acts as a roadmap to help you track what has been completed and what remains to be done.

Project documentation is often overlooked, but it should not be underestimated because it can help you save time and money.

 In addition, you can avoid mistakes by referring back to your documents if, at any point, you feel like something is not going according to plan or if there is a change in direction due to unforeseen circumstances or changes in requirements.

What are some examples of project documentation?

Project documentation is a set of documents describing a project's process and outcomes. The documentation may be in reports, memos, or other written documents.

Having proper documentation for all your projects is essential because it helps you track and manage your work better. It also allows you to determine what has been achieved and what remains to be done.

The following are some examples of project documentation:

Project Charter: This document describes the scope, purpose, and objectives of the project, along with the deliverables required from your team members. This document will help you to develop an overall vision for your project and set goals for your team members based on their performance.

Project Plan: This document contains all the activities required to complete each milestone successfully within its timeframe. It also includes specific details about how your team members will carry out each exercise and how long it will take them to complete each activity.

Project Proposal: A document gives a clear overview of a project's goals, requirements, and value proposition. It highlights the number of resources that will work on the project, the budget allocation, timelines, and the key deliverables.

Project Evaluation: It is essential to document how a project performed – what went well and what didn't meet your expectations. Your team can use this as a reference for their next project to avoid repeating mistakes and improve on successes.

Project Progress Report: To keep everyone on the same page, you will update the project's progress regularly. This report shows how far you've come since the start of the project. In addition, it identifies any obstacles that may have prevented you from moving forward as quickly as you'd hoped. It will also outline your next steps to keep things moving as smoothly as possible.

Benefits of Project Documentation

Project documentation is the process of recording and storing information about a project. The information gathered can be used for future reference and to communicate with other project stakeholders.

The benefits of project documentation include the following:

• It helps ensure the team can work together effectively and efficiently.
• It records what has been done and what remains to be completed.
• It serves as evidence that critical decisions were made and the reasoning behind those decisions.
• It provides an overview of what was done and what remains to be done at any given time during a project's lifecycle.
• Project documentation is also essential for ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements.

Documentation helps everyone stay on the same page.

Project documentation is essential as it helps keep everyone on the same page. It's also a way to ensure that everyone involved in a project is privy to any changes that happen during the project. So, what are some of how you can use project documentation?

Project Management Documentation: This type of documentation is used by project managers to track progress and keep track of all related tasks and issues.

The data collected through such documentation is then analyzed to see whether or not they have been completed successfully.

Suppose there are any issues with completing these tasks. In that case, this information can be shared with other team members to take appropriate action.

Communication Documentation: Communication documents are used for sharing information about projects with team members, clients, and stakeholders.

Communication documents should contain all relevant information about a project in an organized manner so that people can understand them easily without much effort.

These communication documents include minutes from meetings and emails exchanged between different parties involved in a project.

Financial Documentation: Financial documents are used for recording financial information related to a particular project, like the budget allocated for it and how much has been spent on various aspects of the project.

Conclusion

Writing good project documentation is a necessity in the field of project management and execution.

As per experts, a standard project documentation template or format includes all crucial details of the project along with its objectives, requirements, deliverables, risks, assumptions, etc.

 It also has a perfect platform for discussing between the client and project manager the changes in conditions, budget, etc.

 Comprehensive documentation helps everyone know the project's objective and how to accomplish it on time. Note all small details while working on the documentation to avoid miscommunication between stakeholders later.

Best Professional Benefits of the CAPM Certification 2022

The Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM) is a certification that recognizes professionals new to the project management domain. The Project Management Institute (PMI) certifies that aspirants have in-depth expertise in the techniques and principles defined by the PMBOK Guide and all the globally recognized project management methodologies.

CAPM is specially created for enthusiasts with minimum experience in the project management domain, thus, offering them a fundamental understanding of the topic. One of the benefits of a credential is that it gives the highest value to your resume and skills.

In today’s blog, we will discuss the following topics, exploring the advantages of CAPM accreditation.

What's in CAPM Certification?

With CAPM certification, professionals will learn to organize their work with the norms needed by project management teams. People with this credential get higher credibility among peers, PMP certified-holders, employers, and project managers.

Let's see few basic topics you must learn in CAPM credential.

• Project and organization lifecycle
• Project scope management
• Quality management
• Communications management
• Time and cost management
• Stakeholder management
• Project management processes
• Project risk management

Format of CAPM Certification Exam

The CAPM certification test comprises 150 MCQ-type questions, and you have three hours to complete them. The accreditations provided by PMI, including CAPM, are de facto standards and validate a person's skills in initiating, planning, managing, and running massive projects.

CAPM certification professionals can display competency, education, and learning experience to potential peers. In addition, achieving this credential opens up various opportunities for individuals.

CAPM Certification Eligibility Criteria

Like any other credential, there are eligibility requirements. CAPM aspirants must have:

• Secondary degree (high school diploma, associate's degree, or any global equivalent).
• Project experience: 1500 hours
• Project management training: 23 hours prior to CAPM certification exam.

Top Advantages of CAPM Certification

The CAPM credential is a popular requirement that aids recruiters find the professionals most suited to satisfy specific roles in their companies. The credential validates a person's knowledge and experience, followed by their skills to take on significant responsibilities.

Project professionals are required in almost every sector, such as IT, engineering, construction, and more. Therefore, achieving the CAPM credential opens up various choices, including:

Global Opportunities

Among the advantages of CAPM certification, global recognition is first on the benefits list. You will be able to work worldwide, bringing you the choice to travel across the globe to places with more projects. Even within organizations, management may be more willing to transfer a certified professional to international locations if they feel it's in their best interest.

Handsome Remuneration

Project management is one of the best-paying jobs on many professional surveys. Project managers can earn between $90K-$150K per year. CAPM salary for certified holders averages $92K. The top-paying IT sector often pays salaries above $100K.s

Career Incentives

In several scenarios, the CAPM accreditation is a requirement that will help land your career as you shift into new roles and increased responsibilities in a company. Employers trust this certification, and CAPM professionals have proven they can tackle increased responsibility.

Personal Development

Interviewees are often more confident than the competition in their learning while earning their CAPM credentials, making them knowledgeable of the best project management techniques and tools. It isn't just textbook material but a real-life experience that earns one the CAPM credential.

Job Profiles

CAPM for beginners is an entry-level course created for those with little experience in project management. It educates candidates on the basics of project management, including its methodologies, knowledge, and practical techniques.

CAPM professionals can look at job profiles are Sr. IT technical project manager, member relations administrator, PMO operational support analyst, business analyst consultants, and more.

CAPM: A Path to the PMP Certification

Attaining your CAPM certification can be a path to becoming a certified PMP. The PMP certification is a globally renowned and prestigious project management accreditation by PMI. Earning PMP certification can help you:

• Display that you've the experience, education and competency to direct and lead projects
• Improve your career choices by offering you a competitive edge amid job applications
• Increase your earnings potential by earning a handsome remuneration than non-certified peers.
• Enhance your credibility by holding a globally recognized project management certification.

Job Opportunities for CAPM Certification

You'll be qualified to work as a CAPM-certified holder in various project management roles. Some of the most common designations are project analyst, assistant project manager, project scheduler, project manager, and project coordinator.

With a CAPM accreditation, you'll have the significant skills and knowledge to manage projects irrespective of size and complexity efficiently. This credential opens up several doors for your career in this domain.

Besides, from the standard roles you land with a CAPM credential, a CAPM certification professional has a lot more options to select from, some of which are:

• Program Manager
• IT Project Manager
• Construction Project Manager
• Event Planner
• Human Resources Manager
• Recruitment Manager
• Training Manager
• Organizational Development Manager
• Business Process Analyst
• Quality Assurance Manager
• Sales Manager

Project management is a well-established domain. However, the recent developments in job technicalities and the increasing responsibilities make the position more demanding and highly flexible.

It makes CAPM accreditation a benchmark for recruiters seeking to hire suitable professionals. If you're looking for significant career development, CAPM is ideal.

Should You Get PRINCE2® or PMP Certification?

It's easy to be convinced that any PMP certification or PRINCE2® training will make you a better project manager. But unfortunately, you could spend a thousand dollars here or there without knowing what project management certification is proper for you.

At times like these, it's essential to keep things in perspective. Knowing the subtle differences between PMP certification and PRINCE2® training can help you pick the best program for your needs.

If you are a project manager, it would be great to get certified. However, the best choice is to go for PRINCE2® and PMP certifications to become a professional in the field.

What is a PMP certification?

The Project Management Professional (PMP) certification is the world's most widely recognized project management certification.

The PMP exam tests your ability to apply knowledge from the three bodies of knowledge defined by PMI: People, Processes, and Business Environment.

It also tests your ability to apply this knowledge in practice through two scenarios: one in which you're working with a team member and one where you're leading a project yourself.

What is a PRINCE2 certification?

The PRINCE2® certification is a globally recognized project management qualification PRINCE2 stands for PRojects IN Controlled Environments. It was developed to help organizations manage projects more effectively.

The PRINCE2® certification has been designed to reflect the latest project management standards, so it's an excellent choice if you want to gain an internationally recognized qualification that will help you progress in your career as a project manager or practitioner.

The certification helps candidates understand how to plan practical projects, ensure they're successful, and manage change effectively throughout all stages of the project lifecycle.

It also teaches candidates how to work effectively with stakeholders from different departments within their organization and with external suppliers and contractors on large multi-discipline projects.

What's the Key Difference?

PRINCE2 and PMP are two of the world's most widely-recognized and respected project management certifications. PRINCE2 and PMP provide you with a strong foundation in project management.

Completing one or both of these certifications will make you a better candidate by making it easy for hiring managers to see that you can be trusted with their projects. Certifications differ based on a variety of factors such as :

Framework

The Project Management Professional (PMP) certification uses a descriptive framework, giving you the freedom to interpret the material as you see fit.

The PRINCE2 certification focuses on best project management practices, which give you specific instructions on how to do things.

Level of certification

The Project Management Institute offers the Project Management Professional (PMP) certification as a stand-alone certification. However, suppose you are new to project management. In that case, you may want to earn the Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM) from the PMI first. This credential is just as valuable as the PMP credential but will not require as much time or effort for you to earn.

The PRINCE2 certification is available on two levels: PRINCE2 Foundation and PRINCE2 Practitioner. The Foundation level is geared toward people who will act as informed members of a project management team that uses PRINCE2 methodologies in a project environment supporting PRINCE2; the Practitioner level teaches PRINCE2 methods so that you can apply them while running and managing projects in a PRINCE2 environment.

Methodology

The Project Management Professional (PMP) certification focuses on project management techniques and skills to manage and deliver projects successfully.

The PRINCE2 training focuses on the frameworks and processes necessary for successful projects.

Exams

The Project Management Professional (PMP) exam has 180 multiple-choice questions split into the following areas: people, process, and business environment.

In addition, the PMP exam evaluates your experience with various skills, such as change management, materials management, and quality management. You have 230 mins to complete the exam.

The PRINCE2 exam consists of 75 multiple-choice questions you'll need to answer within 60 minutes. Five of these are trial questions; if answered incorrectly, they will not count against your final score.

The PRINCE2 Practitioner exam is an objective, scenario-based paper that tests candidates on nine questions using a time limit of 2.5 hours.

Pre-requisites of Exam

• A four-year degree.
• 4,500 hours leading and directing projects.
• 35 hours of project management education.

OR

• Secondary degree (high school diploma, associate's degree, or the global equivalent).
• 7,500 hours leading and directing projects.
• 35 hours of project management education.

There are no set requirements for taking the PRINCE2® exams. However, it's recommended that you have some project management experience and formal education in project management before you sit for the exam.

In addition, the Practitioner exam requires you to have passed the Foundation exam.

Conclusion

Ultimately, there's no way to tell you which certification is best for you because it depends on your goals. Are you looking to impact other people's lives, or are you after a project manager job? That will be the dominant factor in your decision.

We can tell you that both certifications will require much work, effort, and time. And in the end, one might make you happier than the other. So pick your goal wisely and go for it!

Creating and Maintaining a WBS Dictionary

In the project scope management knowledge domain, the scope baseline is said to be a union of the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), the WBS Dictionary, and the project scope management.

Besides the project scope statement and the WBS, there are a few questions on the WBS Dictionary in the PMP credential test. Sound knowledge of the Dictionary not only aids you in the accreditation exam but helps you manage projects with ease.

In today’s blog, we will discuss the following topics to have an in-depth understanding of the WBS Dictionary.

What is a WBS Dictionary?

It is a document that offers detailed data on each WBS element, including work packages and control accounts. In addition, for each WBS element, the WBS Dictionary may include an epigrammatic definition of work scope, defined deliverables, a list of achievements, and associated tasks.

WBS Dictionary includes responsible organization, start and finish dates, cost estimation, charge number, quality criteria, needed resources, contract information, and technical references to ease the work procedure. The WBS Dictionary is also a vital part of the scope baseline.

The Need of a WBS Dictionary

WBS being a graphic, there is a practical limitation on how much detailed data to be included in each element. However, we can solve this issue by leveraging a short title and a numbering system on the graphic and offering more details about these elements in the WBS Dictionary.

When stakeholders read these detailed interpretations in the WBS Dictionary, they get a much better understanding of the work scope due to their context within the WBS element hierarchy.

The resources will have a sound understanding of their work if they refer to the Dictionary. Lastly, linking document examples and templates from actual projects will significantly enhance compliance with company standards and improve quality.

A WBS Dictionary's advantage is ensuring we do the work right the first time by offering the team the information they require to provide quality deliverables, meeting the project criteria and company standards.

Principles in Creating and Maintaining a WBS Dictionary

Experts strongly suggest that we adopt a typical structure for giving descriptive data for each WBS element in the WBS Dictionary to ensure consistency. It will also act as a template for the reader and the author.

The details should be minimum for WBS elements higher in the hierarchy and maximum for lower-level elements.

Including the WBS and its Dictionary in the same document is an excellent technique. This way, the project team and shareholders won't be compelled to search for any information. If they're looking at the WBS, all the information that the WBS contains will be available to them in the Dictionary, inside the same document.

Because of the changing situations, the WBD Dictionary is under continuous revision. Hence, we should often review the contents of the WBS Dictionary to ensure proper project management.

Tools Needed to Create a WBS Dictionary

Most companies leverage Microsoft Word to create and maintain a WBS Dictionary, but you can also leverage its Project. It's one of the top effective methods as it offers context-relevant information, ensuring synchronization with the project WBS.

Let's see a sample WBS Dictionary:

As you can see, a WBS Dictionary offers detailed information on each WBS element. It provides the team with the data required to generate quality deliverables that fulfill project criteria and company standards.

What is an Issue Log in Project Management?

An issue log is a tool that keeps track of issues, defects, and bugs found during testing. It can be used to track the status of each case, who is working on it, and when the issue was closed.

It can be helpful for both project managers and testers. Project managers can use it to track testing progress and ensure nothing falls through the cracks. Testers can use it to see what they're working on at any given time and how many issues they've resolved so far.

Issue logs can be simple Word documents with one line per issue or spreadsheet documents with multiple columns for each piece of information (such as "status," "priority," "date reported," etc.).

Why Have an Issue Log?

The main reason why you would want to keep an issue log is so that you don't forget about any problems that came up during your project. If you don't write down every situation, then it's possible that some issues could slip through the cracks and never be addressed.

This is especially true if multiple people on your team are responsible for different aspects of the project.

The following are some of the most common uses for issue logs:

1. Identify trends and patterns in project management problems so you can address them more effectively in future projects.
2. Help teams improve their performance by showing them what areas need improvement.
3. Document problem resolution efforts, so stakeholders know when they were addressed and how they were resolved.

What Does an Issue Log Look Like?

An issue log is a list of all the issues that have been identified in a project. In addition, it is a record of things that need to be done, such as tasks, risks, problems, and changes in scope.

Project managers and other team members use the issue log as a reference point for the current status and what needs to be done next. It helps them see which problems are resolved and which still need attention.

A good issue log should include the following information:

Issue number: This can be any identifying number or name relevant to the issue, such as "Product defect #1". This will help you keep track of the order in which problems are resolved or closed out.

Type: The type of issue (task, risk, problem, etc.) will tell you how it should be handled. For example, suppose a case is flagged as a task. In that case, it means it's not yet complete but should be within the next week or two at most; whereas if it's flagged as an improvement suggestion, this means you'll need to take action on it at some point but don't necessarily have to do it now.

Rightsizing Issues

Project management is a complex task that requires a lot of time and effort. Because of this, project managers often have to deal with issues that are left unresolved or are not given enough attention.

An issue log is a tool project managers use to record issues' status and resolution. This log can be used by anyone in the organization who needs to know about a topic or wants to ensure a problem has been addressed.

To use an issue log effectively, these steps you need to follow:

1. create a template for your issue log so everyone knows what information needs to be included. You should also consider making templates for each type of issue so users will know which template they should use when reporting a problem.
2. Identify your team members responsible for creating new entries in the log, updating them, or closing them out (if they're resolved). Make sure they understand what needs to be included in each entry and how difficult it is for them to do their job if they don't have access to accurate information about open issues!

Goals of Managing Issues

An issue log is a list of issues that have been identified in the project. Common mistake project managers make is trying to solve every problem as soon as it's found. This can be very inefficient and often leads to wasted time and effort.

The goal of issue management is to resolve all identified issues efficiently so that they don't affect the schedule or budget of your project.

Some crucial goals for managing issues include:

1. Prioritizing issues based on their severity and impact - The severity refers to how much harm a subject can do to your project.

For example, suppose you have not yet selected a vendor for a critical product component, and two vendors could provide what you need. In that case, one may be more expensive or less dependable than the other. The impact refers to how much delay or overrun will occur if this issue remains unresolved.

2. Ensure all identified issues are fixed before moving on - If an issue is left unresolved, it may cause problems later in the project when something else also needs attention (e.g., testing). Therefore, fixing any known problem is essential before moving on with other tasks.

An issue log Tracks Problems in Projects

An issue log can be helpful for tracking problems in projects. It's an excellent way to keep track of what needs to be done and when and how it's being done.

Issues are usually tracked in an issue log or bug database. For example, if you're developing software, you might have a case log that contains bugs that users have reported. Or, if you're designing a website, you might have an issue log that includes the changes that need to be made to the site.

Because issues can be complex and involve several people working together, it's essential to keep track of when each problem was created, who created it, how long it has been open (i.e., not yet resolved), and what needs to be done about it and so on.

Conclusion

Issue logging is a function of issue tracking. It is also sometimes known as issue management. Still, both terms are synonymous with maintaining a list of issues that need to be resolved by the team. An issue log is essentially a repository of problems that have been identified but not yet put to rest.

 The purpose of issue logging is to bring attention to the problems facing a team or organization in the hopes that they can be resolved and the team can focus on the work at hand. This can sometimes prove difficult because so many items need attention, and it may require much time to resolve some of them.

However, this does not mean you should ignore an item if you think it will affect your work; every piece of information needs to be logged in case it develops into something more than just an annoyance.

Top 25 Productivity Tools to Maximize Your Time in 2022

Everyone is constantly trying to be more productive. We all strive hard to get more done at home and work while working less. However, staying effective can be a massive order in this reign of remote working, with diversions in the digital and personal space.

It can take more than a person's effort to remain effective. That is why it makes sense to take the aid of productivity techniques and tools.

Today's blog will highlight the top 25 productivity tools and how executing them can maximize your time in 2022.

Before jumping into our main topic, let us first see what are productivity tools and how increased productivity enhance our life?

What is a Productivity Tool?

Productivity is an estimation of how efficient you're at what you do. Productivity tools are software created to simplify tasks, streamline work procedures, and often include factors that let us access documents swiftly, design graphs and charts for project plan visualization, progress, and more.

How Increased Productivity Enhance our Life?

It isn't confidential that productivity is a necessity for career success and personal happiness. Productive individuals are prized assets in the professional environment, while productivity brings content and a sense of achievement to a person.

However, productivity is hard to accomplish factor. A primary reason is that our brain is wired to diversion, making our minds travel to dreamland easily, and our focus span is shorter than ever.

25 Best Productivity Tools you can Leverage

1. Infinity

Keep your team in sync and on the same page with Infinity which expands daily productivity. Few key benefits include efficient task management, better team collaboration, and time tracking with Clockify.

2. Shift

Shift is a desktop app that is build to streamline your accounts, workflows, and apps. Switching between multiple accounts has never been an easier task. Two of its best aspects are cross-platform support and unified search across multiple Google accounts.

3. Toggl

It's a time-saver app that easy to leverage and can merge various tools to increase functionality. Two of its top aspects are offline time tracking and the instant overview of team growth and time.

4. Microsoft OneNote

Microsoft OneNote is a digital note-taking application that is build to operate on any platform/device such as smartphones or laptops. This app can be used to write, type, and draw with a pen-to-paper sense. Handy for taking notes, it features audio/video recording and real-time collaboration.

5. Skype

One of the most famous apps for communication over video calls is Skype, that has merged tons of new aspects to aid you stay connected.

6. ProofHub

ProofHub is a comprehensive project and task management tool that helps maintain things organized, improves accountability, and facilitates efficient communication.

By leveraging the tool, you can assign activities to certain individual, organize work procedures by uploading file/documents, and check the time spent at each project stage.

7. Everhour

Everhour is an intuitive time-tracking app that enables teams to reach their targets swiftly. It aids in sticking to project estimates, ensuring that you're with your task all the time.

8. Box Notes

It's an online note-taking software which allows real-time collaboration so you can share views with colleagues or share notes with others without having to worry on security. The living edit aspect allows real-time collaboration.

9. nTask

It's complicated to remain productive while working on massive projects where you've to keep dot on every detail. With productivity tools such as nTask, you can stay on the top of every project feature without losing time and hampering productivity. This tool is great for team collaboration, creating to-do lists, and merging time-tracking tools with workforce worksheets, among other things.

10. Slack

It's a popular team collaboration app to join all team communications. Besides its much-appreciated chat and team communication aspects, Slack lets us track documents, share files and update, and set reminders for meetings and tasks. This app fits in which app such as Dropbox and Google Drive.

11. GoToMeeting

GoToMeeting is an online video conferencing app that allows meetings to be turned into conference calls, share screens, and schedule meetings.

12. Time Doctor

If you want to know where your team is spending their time, even when remotely working, then Time Doctor app is for you. This productivity and time-tracking tool is created specifically for remote teams.

13. Simplenote

This app simplifies note-taking, assisting you to maintain your notes specific, accessible, and accurate. There is no need to waste time while identifying files, just type your search item, and your list instantly updates, and the notes are backed up. You only require to leverage the version slider to switch between versions.

14. GanttPro

GanttPro is an online app that ensure you maintain a track of activity of all teammates. Its key aspects include deadline management, export and sharing files via public URLs, task management, and more.

15. Chanty

Chanty is an easy and fast team chat app that can help improve communication between teams. Its crucial aspects include the potential to make video/audio calls, voice messages within the app, and integrated task management.

16. Hubstaff

Hubstaff is a time-tracking software that can run on your mobile as an app or on your desktop. Once the time is tracked, people get options for paying workforces, invoicing clients, checking in-depth reporting, and more.

17. Calendar

The AI-enabled calendar focuses on your schedule and performs booking, event and meeting organization based on your calendar. The app merges with various digital calendars such as Outlook and Google Calendar. You can even share your calendar with others in your team.

18. Bit.ai

Bit.ai is a document management and collaboration tool that is top choice for collaborating with teams, sharing, tracking, and managing documents at a single place.

19. Harvest

Harvest is a time-tracking software that lets people to track their time on any given activity from the web, phone or any other application.

20. HubSpot's Marketing Hub

One of the top team collaboration tools, HubSpot's Marketing Hub is the finest software to release, manage and sustain your promotional campaigns and techniques. The key aspects of this software include easy contact management, a contact database, and the potential to sync data across sales teams, marketing, and customer service.

21. Paymo

A productivity tool that takes care of planning, scheduling, time-tracking, invoicing, and task management, Paymo is ideal for getting a synopsis of team performance.

22. Google Docs

Google Docs is a popular document storage and task management software that lets users to access, create, collaborate, and edit from anywhere, using their computer, phone, or tablet even when there's no connectivity.

23. Evernote

A note-making app helps you remember everything. Evernote is a perfect app to stay organized and get job done. Gather, organize and share notes from anywhere, so things are more accessible.

24. Zoom

It's a widely leveraged tool that offer cloud-based remote conferencing services, where over 500 people can participate in Zoom meetings.

25. Free

Free is a flexible messenger that can be merged with email and leveraged to share and store files seamlessly.

Top Project Management Metrics and Process Measurement Metrics

Project management metrics are valuable tools to get a handle on large projects. They help you visualize how you're doing and make course corrections as necessary.

We've organized a list of the top project management metrics you need to know and use.

Earned Value Management (EVM)

Earned Value Management (EVM) is the most common project management metric used in the construction industry. It is a performance measurement tool that allows you to understand where your project stands, how it performs, and whether it is on track to finish on time and within budget.

Estimate to Complete (ETC)

The ETC is calculated by multiplying the difference between your remaining work and actual work done by the average number of work hours per day.

For example: Let's say that you have 10 days left in your project, and so far, you've completed half of it. Multiply these two numbers together and divide by 2 (one full day). This will give you the estimated hours needed to complete the remaining tasks.

Cost Variance Ratio (CV%)

The cost variance ratio is calculated by taking the project's current cost and dividing it by the budgeted price of the project. The result is then multiplied by 100 to get a percentage value. This metric is typically used for IT organizations' tracking, control, and planning purposes.

Cost Variance = (Actual Cost to Date / Estimate at Completion) * 100%

Estimate at Completion (EAC)

EAC is used to help you understand how much longer your projects will take and how much money they will cost. This allows you to monitor them more closely and make adjustments if needed so that nothing slips past your deadline or budget.

Cost Performance Index (CPI)

Cost Performance Index measures the cost of work performed divided by the actual price. This metric is used to monitor the progress and performance of projects against budget. It is calculated as the ratio of actual costs incurred divided by budgeted costs.

This metric helps determine whether your project is on track or off track and how to fix it.

Schedule Variance Ratio (SV%)

The schedule variance ratio measures the difference between the planned and actual values of a schedule's critical path. It is calculated by dividing the total negative schedule variance by the entire planned duration of the project. The formula for the Schedule Variance Ratio is:

Schedule Variance Ratio = (Actual Duration – Planned Duration) / (Planned Duration)

Planned Value (PV)

Planned Value (PV) is a project management metric that tracks the estimated value of work completed during a given period. It shows how much of the plan has been implemented. It's calculated by dividing the budgeted cost of work scheduled for each task by the actual price of work performed on each job. PV helps measure performance against the planned budget and schedule and provides insight into areas where changes may be needed to meet target goals.

Cost Overrun Rate

Cost overrun is a measure of how much a project overran its budget. It's expressed as a percentage of the total cost that was planned. So, for example, if you had planned to spend £100,000 but spent £150,000, you could say that you were 50% over budget.

Actual Cost (AC)

The actual cost (AC) is what it costs to complete the project. This may not be the same as the original estimate (OE). For example, if you have a fixed price contract and work out what it will cost to do something, then do it and find out later that it was cheaper than expected, your OE will be lower than your AC.

Schedule Performance Index (SPI)

The schedule performance index measures the variance of the project's actual progress compared to the planned progress. An SPI above 1 indicates that the project is ahead of schedule. In contrast, an SPI below 1 indicates that the project is behind schedule.

Process Measurement Metrics

The best Process Measurement metrics should be simple, relevant, and something that a production team can easily use to improve.

These are the most important metrics to track when looking at the process involved in a business.

Six Sigma

Six Sigma is a process improvement method. It is a set of tools and techniques used to measure and improve the quality of a product or service.

Six Sigma uses data analysis to find and eliminate defects in products and services. Six Sigma aims to reduce process variability, thereby increasing customer satisfaction, reducing waste, and saving money.

Cost of poor quality (COPQ)

The cost of poor quality measures the cost incurred by defects in production. This includes repairing imperfections after they've been discovered and the cost associated with finding and correcting defects before products are shipped.

Quality Function Deployment (QFD)

Quality function deployment (QFD) is a structured method for mapping customer needs and wants into specific product requirements. QFD helps companies better understand how customers view their products and services to improve them over time. Use this metric to identify areas where customers have problems using your products or services. Then, use that information to enhance your offerings over time.

Balanced Scorecard

The balanced scorecard is one of the most popular processes measurement metrics. It is a method used to measure and manage organizational performance. The balanced scorecard was first introduced by Robert Kaplan and David Norton in 1992. The Balanced Scorecard has four main perspectives: financial, customer, internal business processes, learning, and growth.

Business Process Reengineering

Business process reengineering (BPR) is a systematic approach to improving the efficiency of an organization's processes. This process involves redesigning business processes for more effective operation using strategic planning and technology solutions. BPR is "a structured methodology of analyzing an existing business model to improve its efficiency."

Conclusion

Incorporating the right mix of metrics into your team's workflow dashboard is essential. These metrics should align with your core values and business goals and be used to create a feedback loop that lets you improve at an organizational level. You're likely already collecting a fair number of metrics, but if not, this list will help get you started on the right path. As always, don't hesitate to adjust these measurements to suit your organization's unique needs.

Risk Management Approaches in Project Management

A risk can either be an Opportunity, i.e., a risk that brings a positive impact on project goals, or it may be a Threat, i.e., a risk with an adverse effect on the project goals. Accordingly, there are various approaches to dealing with positive and negative risks regarding project management.

In this blog, we’ll discuss the different risk management strategies in the project management domain.

Negative Risk Management Approach

1. Avoid

Avoidance eradicates the risk by eliminating the cause. It may lead to not performing the activity or uniquely performing the same. The project professional may also modify or isolate the goal that faces an obstacle.

Some risks can be eliminated by early data collection, enhancing communication between stakeholders, or leveraging expertise.

This risk management strategy includes extending the scheduling or modifying the project activity scope. Another instance could be a dangerous risk that may lead to life loss and is eliminated by shutting down the project altogether.

2. Transfer

In the Risk Transfer strategy, the risk is transformed to a third party like an insurance firm or vendor - paid to accept or tackle the risk on your behalf; hence the ownership and risk impact is borne by that third party. This payment is known as a risk premium. Contracts are signed to transfer the risk liability to the third party.

Risk Transfer doesn't eradicate the risk, but it minimizes the direct effect of the risk on the project. Few Transference tools are performance bonds, guarantees, insurance policies, warranties, and more. This technique is most effective in covering financial risk exposure.

3. Mitigate

Mitigation minimizes the probability of risk occurrence or reduces the risk effect within acceptable limits. This technique is based on the basic principle that earlier, the action taken to minimize the risk effect is more effective than repairing the damages after the risk happens.