Search Your Query..

Custom Search

What is Project Risk Response Audit in PMP?

A project risk response audit:

  • is an examination of the effectiveness of risk response plans and of the performance of the risk owner.
  • may be conducted by a third party, by the project's risk officer or by other qualified personnel.

The Auditor:
  • reviews the risk response plan and data concerning project work results.
  • evaluates the performance of the risk owner in implementing the response plan.
  • documents the results of the audit and makes recommendations for improvement in the project's risk response efforts.

PMP Study - Project Life Cycle and Organization

Project life cycle
Divide projects into phases to provide better management control with appropriate link to ongoing operations.

Project life cycle defines:
- What technical work to do in each phase
- What deliverables are to be generated in each phase and how they are reviewed, verified and validated
- Who is involved in each phase
- How to control and approve each phase
Common characteristics for life cycles:
- Phases are generally sequential
- Cost and staffing levels are low at the start, peak during intermediate phase and drop rapidly on closing phase.
- Highest level of uncertainty, greatest risk of failing to achieve the objectives at the start of project
- Highest influence of stakeholders on project's product and final cost at the start of project because the cost of change increase as project progressing.

Project Phases
The completion and approval of one or more deliverables characterize a project phase. For reason of size, complexity, level of risk, and cash flow constraints, project phases can be further subdivided into subphases aligned with one or more specific deliverables for monitoring and control. For each phase and subphase, the project management processes can be applied.

Project life cycle and product life cycle
Product life cycle starts with the business plan, through ideas to product, ongoing operations and product divestment.
The project life cycle goes through a series of phases to create the product.

Project Stakeholders
Individuals and organizations
- actively involve in the project
- whose interest may be affected by the project
- Influence the project objectives or outcomes

Key stakeholders include:
- Project Manager
- Customer/User
- Performing organization
- Project team members
- Project Management team
- Sponsor
- Influencers
- PMO

Organizational Influences
Organizational structure influences on projects:
functional, week matrix, balanced matrix, strong matrix, projectized.
little or none, functional manager, part time -- functional
limited, functional manager, part time -- weak matrix
low to moderate, mixed, full time PM -- balanced matrix
moderate to high, project manager, full time PM admin -- strong matrix
high to almost all, project manager, full time PM admin -- projectized

Project Management System
set of tools, techniques, methodologies, resources and procedures used to manage a project.
Project Management Plan describes how the project management system will be used.

Team-Building and Motivating Skills

Project managers will rely heavily on team-building and motivational skills. Teams are often formed with people from different parrs of the organization. These people might or might not have worked together before, so some component of team-building groundwork might involve the project manager. The project manager will set the tone for the project team and will help the team members work through the various stages of team development to become fully functional. Motivating the team, especially during long projects or when experiencing a lot of bumps along the way, is another important role the project manager fulfills during the course of the project.
An interesting caveat to the team-building role is that project managers many times are responsible for motivating team members who are not their direct reports. This has its own set of challenges and dilemmas. One way to help this situation is to ask the functional manager to allow you to participate in your project team members' performance reviews. Use the negotiation and influencing skills I talked about earUer to make sure you're part of this process.
Now that you've been properly introduced to some of the skills you need in your tool kit, you'll know to be prepared to communicate, solve problems, lead, and negotiate your way through your next project.

Project managers are an interesting bunch. They know a little bit about a lot of topics and are excellent communicators. Or, as one person said, they are a mile wide and an inch deep."
They have the ability to motivate people, even those who have no reason to be loyal to the project, and they can make the hard-line calls when necessary. Project managers can get caught in sticky situations that occasionally require making decisions that are good for the company (or the customer) but aren't good for certain stakeholders. These offended stake holders will then drag their feet, and the proj&ct manager has to play the heavy in order to motivate and gain their cooperation again. Some organizations hire contract project managers to run their large, company-altering projects, just because they don't want to burn out a key employee in this role. Fortunately, that doesn't happen often.

Negotiation and Influencing Skills

Effective problem solving requires negotiation and influencing skills. We all utilize negotiation skills in one form or another every day. For example, on a nightly basis I am asked, "Honey, what do you want for dinner?" Then the negotiations begin, and the fried chicken versus swordfish discussion commences. Simply put, negotiating is working with others to come to an agreement.
Negotiation on projects is necessary in almost every area of the project, from scope definition to budgets, contracts, resource assignments, and more. This might involve one-on-one negotiation or with teams of people, and it can occur many times throughout the project.
Influencingis convincing the other party that swordfish is a better choice than fried chicken, even if fried chicken is what they want. It's also the ability to get tilings done through others. Influencing requires an understanding of the formal and informal structure of all the organizations involved in the project.

Budgeting Skills for Project managers

Project managers establish and manage budgets and therefore need some knowledge of finance and accounting principles. Especially important in this skill area is the ability to perform cost estimates for project budgeting. Different methods are available to determine the project costs. They range from estimating individual activities and rolUng the estimates up to estimating the project's cost in one big chunk. I'll discuss these methods more fully in later chapters.
After a budget is determined, you can start spending. This sounds more exciting than it actually is. Reading and understanding vendor quotes, preparing or overseeing purchase orders, and reconcilinginvoices are budgeting skills that the project manager will use on most projects. These costs will be linked back to project activities and expense items in the project's budget.

Conflict Management Skills

Show me a project, and I'll show you problems. All projects have some problems, as does, in fact, much of everyday life. Isn't that what they say builds character? But I digress.
Conflict management involves solving problems. Problem solving is really a twofold process. First, you must define the problem by separating the causes from the symptoms. Often when defining problems, you end up just describing the symptoms instead of really getting to the heart of what's causing the problem. To avoid that, ask yourself questions Uke "Is it an internal or external problem?" and "Is it a technical problem?" and "Are there interpersonal problems between team members?" and "Is it managerial?" and "What are the potential impacts or consequences?" These kinds of questions will help you get to the cause of the problem.
Next, after you have defined the problem, you have some decisions to make. It will take a little time to examine and analyze the problem, the situation causing it, and the alternatives available. After this analysis, the project manager will determine the best course of action to take and implement the decision. The timing of the decision is often as important as the decision itself. If you make a good decision but implement it too late, it might turn into a bad decision.
Negotiation and Influencing Skills
Effective problem solving requires negotiation andinfluencingskills. We all utilize negotiation skills in one form or another every day. For example, on a nightly basis I am asked, "Honey, what do you want for dinner?" Then the negotiations begin, and the fried chicken versus swordfish discussion commences. Simply put, negotiating is working with others to come to an agreement.
Negotiation on projects is necessary in almost every area of the project, from scope definition to budgets, contracts, resource assignments, and more. This might involve one-on-one negotiation or with teams of people, and it can occur many times throughout the project.
Influencingis convincing the other party that swordfish is a better choice than fried chicken, even if fried chicken is what they want. It's also the ability to get things done through others. Influencing requires an understanding of the formal and informal structure of all the organizations involved in the project.

Defining Skills Every Good Project Manager Needs

Many times, organizations will knight their technical experts as project managers. The skill and expertise that made them stars in their technical fields are mistakenly thought to translate into project management skills. This is not necessarily so.
Project managers are generalists with many skills in their repertoires. They are also problem solvers who wear many hats. Project managers might indeed possess technical skills, but technical skills are not a prerequisite for sound project management skills. Your project team should include a few technical experts, and these are the people whom the project manager will rely on for technical details. Understanding and applying good project management techniques, along with a solid understanding of general management skills, are career builders for all aspiring project managers.
Project managers have been likened to small-business owners. They need to know a little bit about ever)' aspect of management. General management skills include every area of management, from accounting to strategic planning, supervision, personnel administration, and more. General management skills are called into play on every project. But some projects require specific skills in certain application areas. Application areas consist of categories of projects that have common elements. These elements, or application areas, can be defined several ways: by industry group (automotive, pharmaceutical), by department (accounting, marketing), and by technical (software development, engineering) or management (procurement, research and development) specialties. These application areas are usually concerned with disciplines, regulations, and the specific needs of the project, the customer, or the industry. For example, most governments have specific procurement rules that apply to their projects that wouldn't be applicable in the construction industry. The pharmaceutical industry is acutely interested in regulations set forth by the Food and Drug Administration, whereas the automotive industry has little or no concern for either of these types of regulations. Having experience in rhe application area you're working in will give you a leg up when it comes to project management. Although you can call in the experts who have application area knowledge, it doesn't hurt lor you to understand the specific aspects of the application areas of your project.
The general management skills listed in this section are the foundation of good project management practices. Your mastery of them (or lack thereof) will likely affect project outcomes. The various skills of a project manager can be broken out in a more or less declining scale of importance. We'll look at an overview of these skills now, and I'll discuss each in more detail in subsequent chapters.

What Is the Term Project Management?


You've determined rhat you indeed have a project. What now? The notes you scratched on the back of a napkin during your coffee break might get you started, but that's not exactly good project management practice.
We have all witnessed this scenario—an assignment is made, and the project team members (limp directly into the project, busying themselves with building the product, service, or result requested. Often, careful thought is not given to the project-planning process. I'm sure you've heard co-workers toss around statements like "That would be a waste of valuable time" or "Why plan when you can just start building?" Project progress is rarely measured against the customer requirements. In the end, the delivered product, service, or result doesn't meet the expectations of the customer! This is a frustrating experience for all those involved. Unfortunately, many projects follow this poorly constructed path.
Project management brings together a set of tools and techniques—performed by people— to describe, organize, andmonitor the work of project activities. Project managers are the people responsible for managing the project processes and applying the tools and techniques used to carry out the project activities. All projects are composed of processes, even if they employ a haphazard approach. There are many advantages to organizing projects and teams around the project management processes endorsed by PMI. We'll be examining those processes and their advantages in depth throughout the remainder of this book.
Project management involves applying knowledge, skills, and techniques during the course of the project to accomplish the project requirements. It is the responsibility of the project manager to ensure that project management techniques are applied and followed.

Projects versus Operations

Projects are temporary in nature and have definitive start dates and definitive end dates. The project is completed when its goals and objectives are accomplished Sometimes projects end when it's determined that the goals and objectives cannot be accomplished or when the product, service, or result of the project is no longer needed and the project is canceled. Projects exist to bring about a product, service, or result that didn't exist before. This might include tangible products, services such as consul ting or project management, and business functions that support the organization. Projects might also produce a result or an outcome, such as a document that details the findings of a research study. In this sense, a project is unique. However, don't get confused by the term unique. For example. Ford Motor Company is in the business of designing and assembling cars. Each model that Ford designs and produces can be considered a project. The models differ from each other in their features and are marketed to people with various needs. An SUV serves a different purpose and clientele than a luxury model. The design and marketing of these two models are unique projects. However, the actual assembly of the cars is considered an operation—a repetitive process that is followed for most makes and models.
Determining the characteristics and features of the different car models is carried out thro ugh what PMBOK Guide terms progressive elaboration. This means the characteristics of the product, service, or result of the project (the SUV, for example) are determined incrementally and are continually refined and worked out in detail as the project progresses. This concept goes along with the temporary and unique aspects of a project because when you first start the project, you don't know all the minute details of the end product. Product characteristics typically start out broad-based at the beginning of the project and are progressively elaborated into more and more detail over time until they are complete and finalized. Keep in mind that product characteristics are progressively elaborated, but the work of the project itself stays constant.
Operations are ongoing and repetitive. They involve work that is continuous without an ending date, and you often repeat the same processes and produce the same results. The purpose of operations is to keep the organization functioning, while the purpose of a project is to meet its goals and to conclude. Therefore, operations are ongoing, and projects are unique and temporary.

How to Become PMP Certified?

You need to fulfill several requirements in order to sit for the PMP exam. The PMI has detailed the certification process quite extensively at its website. Go to www.pmi.org , and click the Professional Development and Careers tab to reveal the Certifications selection and get the latest information on certification procedures and requirements. As of this writing, you are required to fill out an application to sit for the PMP exam. You can submit this application online at the PMI’s website. You also need to document 35 hours of formal project management education. This might include college classes, seminars, workshops, and training sessions. Be prepared to list the class titles, location, date, and content. In addition to filling out the application and documenting your formal project management training, there is one additional set of criteria you’ll need to meet to sit for the exam. These criteria fall into two categories. You need to meet the requirements for only one of these categories: Category 1 is for those who have a baccalaureate degree. You’ll need to provide proof, via transcripts, of your degree with your application. In addition, you’ll need to complete verification forms—found at the PMI website—that show 4,500 hours of project management experience that spans a minimum of three years and no more than six years. Category 2 is for those who do not have a baccalaureate degree but do hold a high school diploma or equivalent. You’ll need to complete verification forms documenting 7,500 hours of project management experience that spans a minimum of five years and no more than eight years. The exam fee at the time this book is being published is $405 for PMI members in good standing and $555 for non-PMI members. Testing is conducted at Thomson Prometric centers. You can find a center near you on the PMI website. You have six months from the time PMI receives and approves your completed application to take the exam. You’ll need to bring a form of identification such as a driver’s license with you to the Thomson Prometric center on the test day. You will not be allowed to take anything with you into the testing center. You will be given

a calculator, pencils, and scrap paper. You will turn in all scrap paper, including the notes and squiggles you’ve jotted during the test, to the center upon completion of the exam. The exam is scored immediately, so you will know whether you’ve passed at the conclusion of the test. You’re given four hours to complete the exam, which consists of 200 randomly generated questions. Only 175 of the 200 questions are scored. A passing score requires you to answer 141 of the 175 questions correctly. Twenty-five of the 200 questions are “pretest” questions that will appear randomly throughout the exam. These 25 questions are used by PMI to determine statistical information and to determine whether they can or should be used on future exams. The questions on the exam cover the following process groups and areas: Initiating Planning Executing Monitoring and Controlling Closing Professional Responsibility All unanswered questions are scored as wrong answers, so it benefits you to guess at an answer if you’re stumped on a question.

Acquiring the Project Team

The Acquire Project Team process involves attaining and assigning human resources to the project. Project staff may come from inside the company or from outside the company in the form of full-time employees hired specifically for the project or as contract help. In any case, it's your job as the project manager to ensure that resources arc available and skilled in the project activities they're assigned to. However, in practice you may find that you don't always have control over the selection of team members. Someone else, the big boss for example, may hand-pick the folks they want working on the project and it's up to you to assess their skills and decide where they best fit on the project.
The Acquire Project Team process inputs arc as follows: enterprise environmental factors, organizational process assets, roles and responsibilities, project organization charts, and staffing management plan.
Some project activities may require special skills or knowledge in order to be completed. The enterprise environmental factors input involves taking this information into account as well as considering personal interests, characteristics, and availability of potential team members before making assignments. For example, consider the previous experience of the staff member.

Executing the Project Plan

The purpose of the Direct and Manage Project Execution process is to carry out the project plan. This is where your project comes to life and the work of the project happens. The work is authorized to begin and activities arc performed. Resources arc committed and carry out their assigned activities to create the product or service of the project. Funds arc spent to accomplish project objectives. Performing project activities, training, selecting sellers, collecting project data, utilizing resources, and so on arc all integrated with or a part of this process.
Direct and Manage Project Execution is where the rubber meets the road. If you've done a good job planning the project, things should go relatively smoothly for you during this process.

Executing Inputs
Direct and Manage Project Execution has seven inputs:
Project management plan
Approved corrective actions
• Approved preventive actions
Approved change requests
Approved defect repair
• Validated defect repair
Administrative closure procedure

The project management plan documents the collection of outputs of the Planning processes and describes and defines how the project should be executed, monitored, controlled, and closed. We'll take a brief look at each of the other inputs next.
Approved Corrective Actions
In my organization, a corrective action means an employee has big trouble coming. Fortunately, this isn't what's meant here. Corrective actions arc taken to get the anticipated future project outcomes to align with the project plan. Maybe you've discovered that one of your programmers is adding an unplanned feature to the software project because he's friends with the user. You'll have to redirect him to the activities assigned to him originally to avoid schedule delays. Perhaps your vendor isn't able to deliver the laboratory equipment needed for the next project phase. You'll want to exercise your contract options (hopefully there's a clause in the contract that says they must provide rental equipment until they can deliver your order), put your contingency plan into place, and get the lab the equipment that's needed to keep the project on schedule.

Managing Cost Changes


The Cost Control process manages changes to project costs as outlined in the cost management plan. It's concerned with monitoring project costs to prevent unauthorized or incorrect costs from getting included in the cost baseline. This means you're also using Cost Control to assure that the project budget isn't exceeded (resulting in cost overruns) and that changes to the budget arc managed and agreed to, to assure that unapproved changes arc not made, to inform stakeholders of changes, and to actively manage expected cost overruns so they stay within acceptable limits.

Cost Control Inputs
The Cost Control process includes the following inputs:
Cost baseline
Project funding requirements
• Performance reports
• Work performance information
• Approved change requests
Project management plan

These inputs arc examined using the tools and techniques of this process to determine if revised cost estimates or budget updates arc required. We've covered each of these inputs in previous chapters.
Cost Control Tools and Techniques
The tools and techniques of the Cost Control process arc as follows:
Cost change control system
Performance measurement analysis
• Forecasting
• Project performance reviews
Project management software
• Variance management

The Integrated Change Control process

The Integrated Change Control process serves as an overseer, so to speak, of the Monitoring and Controlling processes. This is where the project's change control process is established. Changes, updates, and corrective actions arc common outputs across all the Monitoring and Controlling processes. (And don't forget that requested change requests arc also an output of the Direct and Manage Project Plan Execution process, which is an Executing process.) These outputs often generate change requests that arc managed through this process.
We Vc seen all of the inputs, tools and techniques, and outputs of this process before. There isn't any new information to add to these. However, there arc likely exam questions on several topics that involve change and the Integrated Change Control process. Configuration management, for example, isn't listed as a tool and technique of this process, but you really can't perform Integrated Change Control without it. We'll discuss this shortly. First, let's look at change, what it is, and how it comes about.

Changes come about on projects for many reasons. It's the project manager's responsibility to manage these changes and sec to it that organizational policies regarding changes arc implemented. Changes don't necessarily mean negative consequences. Changes can produce positive results as well. It's important that you manage this process carefully, because too many changes—even one significant change—will impact cost, schedule, scope, and/or quality. Once a change request has been submitted, you've got some decisions to make. Ask yourself questions such as, Should the change be implemented? If so, what's the cost to the project in terms of project constraints: cost, time, scope, and quality? Will the benefits gained by making the change increase or decrease the chances of project completion?
Just because a change is requested doesn't mean you have to implement it. You'll always want to discover the reasons for the change and determine if they're justifiable, and you'll want to know the cost of the change. Remember that cost can take the form of increased time. Let's say the change you're considering increases the schedule completion date. That means you'll need human resources longer than expected. If you've leased equipment or project resources for the team members to use during the course of the project, a later completion date means your team needs the leased equipment for a longer period of time. All this translates to increased costs. Time equals money, as the saying goes, so manage time changes wisely and dig deep to find the impacts that time changes might make on the budget.

Important To Know About Project Managment

We closed out the Monitoring and Controlling process group with this chapter by covering the Perform Quality Control, Scope Verification, and Scope Control processes.
Perform Quality Control monitors work results to sec if they fulfill the quality standards outlined in the quality management plan. Perform Quality Control should occur throughout the life of the project. It uses many tools and techniques. Inspection measures results to determine if the results conform to the quality standards. Attributes arc measurements that cither conform or do not conform. Control charts measure the results of processes over time, and Parcto charts arc histograms that rank-order the most important quality factors by their frequency over time. You should not adjust processes that arc in control; however, you can change these processes to realize improvements.
Scope Verification involves verifying and accepting work results, while Scope Control is concerned with controlling changes to project scope.
Project closure is the most often neglected process of all the project management processes. The two processes in the Closing process group arc Close Project and Contract Closure. The four most important tasks of closure arc as follows:
Checking the work for completeness and accuracy
• Documenting formal acceptance
Disseminating project closure information
• Archiving records and lessons learned
Close Project involves checking that the work of the project was completed correctly and to the satisfaction of the stakeholders. Documenting formal acceptance of the product of the project is an important aspect of project closure as well. This assures that the stakeholder or customer is satisfied with the work and that it meets their needs.
Projects come to an end in one of four ways: addition, starvation, integration, or extinction. Addition is when projects evolve into their own business unit. Starvation happens because the project is starved of its resources. Integration occurs when resources arc taken from the existing project and dispersed back into the organization or assigned to other projects. And extinction is the best end because the project was completed, accepted, and closed.
Close Project is performed at the end of each phase of the project as well as at the end of the project. Close Project involves documenting formal acceptance and disseminating notice of acceptance to the stakeholders, customer, and others. All documentation gathered during the project and collected during this process is archived and saved for reference purposes on future projects.
Contract Closure is performed after Close Project and is concerned with settling the contract and completing the contract according to its terms. Its primary outputs include the contract file and formal acceptance and closure (both arc components of the organizational process assets update).

Releasing Project Team Members


Releasing project team members is not an official process. However, it should be noted that at the conclusion of the project, you will release your project team members, and they will go back to their functional managers or get assigned to a new project if you're working in a matrix type organization.
You will want to keep the functional managers or other project managers informed as you get closer to project completion so that they have time to adequately plan for the return of their employees. Start letting them know a few months ahead of time what the schedule looks like and how soon they can plan on using their employees on new projects. This gives the other managers the ability to start planning activities and scheduling activity dates.

Celebrate!
I think it's a good idea to hold a celebration at the conclusion of a successfully completed project. The project team should celebrate their accomplishment, and you should officially recognize their efforts and thank them for their participation. Any number of ideas come to mind here—a party, a trip to a ball game, pizza and sodas at lunch time, and so on. This shouldn't be the only time you've recognized your team, as discussed during the Team Development process, but now is the time to officially close the project and thank your team members.
A celebration helps team members formally recognize the project end and brings closure to the work they've done. It also encourages them to remember what they've learned and to start thinking about how their experiences will benefit them and the organization during the next project.

Formulating Project Closeout

All good projects must come to an end, as the saying goes. Hopefully, you've practiced all the things we've talked about that have led up to this point, and you've delivered a successful project to the stakeholders and customers. You've also put some of the vital tools of project management into play—planning, executing, controlling, and communicating—to help you reach that goal.
But how do you know when a project has ended successfully? Delivering the product or service of the project doesn't mean it's been completed satisfactorily. Remember back in the opening chapters that I said a project is completed successfully when it meets or exceeds stakeholders* expectations and satisfies the goals of the project. During the Closing processes— Close Project and Contract Closure—you'll document acceptance of the product of the project with a formal sign-off and file it with the project records for future reference. The formal sign-off is how the stakeholders will indicate that the goals have been met and that the project meets or exceeds their expectations so that the project ends.

There arc a few characteristics common to all projects during the Closing processes. One is that the probability of completing the project is highest during this process and risk is lowest. You Vc already completed the majority of the work of the project—if not all of the work—so the probability of not finishing the project is very low.
Stakeholders have the least amount of influence during the Closing processes, while project managers have the greatest amount of influence. Costs arc significantly lower during this process because the majority of the project work and spending has already occurred. Remember those cost S curves we talked about in the Cost Budgeting process? This is where they taper off as project spending comes to an end.
One last common characteristic of projects during closing is that weak matrix organizations tend to experience the least amount of stress during the Closing processes.
All projects do eventually come to an end. Let's examine a few of the reasons for project endings before getting into the Close Project and Contract Closure processes.

Controlling Scope Changes

The Scope Management Knowledge Area includes Scope Planning, Scope Definition, Create WBS, Scope Verification, and Scope Control. You'll recall that project scope describes the work required to produce the product or service of the project. This includes the requirements of the product, which describe the features and functionality of the product or service. Product scope, on the other hand, is the description of the product features. The product description is the document that defines the characteristics of the product or service of the project.
You can conclude from this that the Scope Control process involves changes to the project scope. Any modification to the agreed-upon WBS is considered a scope change. (It's been cons ago that we looked at this so remember that the WBS, or work breakdown structure, is a deliverables-oriented hierarchy that defines the total work of the project.) This means that the addition or deletion of activities or modifications to the existing activities on the WBS constitute a project scope change.
Changes in product scope will require changes to the project scope as well. Let's say one of your project deliverables is the design of a piece of specialized equipment that's integrated into your final product. Now let's say that due to engineering setbacks and some miscalculations, the specialized equipment requires design modifications. The redesign of this equipment impacts the end product, or product scope. Since changes to the product scope impact the project requirements, which arc detailed in the scope document, changes to project scope arc also required.

Verifying Project Scope

Managing and reporting on project progress is the primary focus of the Monitoring and Controlling processes. One of the Monitoring and Controlling processes that helps manage and control project progress is the Scope Verification process.
The inputs of the Scope Verification arc the project scope statement, WBS dictionary, project scope management plan, and deliverables. This process involves evaluating these inputs to determine if the work is complete and if it satisfies the project objectives. Evaluation is performed using inspection, which is the only tool and technique of this process. You should perform Scope Verification—even if the project is canceled—to document the degree to which the project was completed. This serves as historical information, and if the project is ever started up again, you've got documentation that tells you what was completed and how far the project progressed.

Scope Control Outputs
The outputs of the Scope Control process arc as follows:
• Project scope statement updates
■ WBS updates
• WBS dictionary updates
■ Scope baseline updates
• Requested changes
• Recommended corrective action
■ Organizational process assets update
■ Project management plan updates
Let's take a look at project scope statement changes and scope baseline updates. The remaining outputs have all been discussed previously.
Changes to scope will likely require that you run back through the project Planning processes and make any needed adjustments. This also means you'll need to update the project scope statement so it accurately reflects the project work after the change.
Scope changes include any changes to the project scope as defined by the agreed-upon WBS. This in turn may require changes or updates to project objectives, costs, quality measures or controls, or time in the form of schedule revisions. Scope changes always require schedule revisions.

Understanding the Project Environment

Virtually all projects are planned and implemented in a social, economic, and environmental context, and have intended and unintended positive and/or negative impacts. The project team should consider the project in its cultural, social, international, political, and physical environmental contexts.

• Cultural and social environment. The team needs to understand how the project affects people and how people affect the project. This may require an understanding of aspects of the economic, demographic, educational, ethical, ethnic, religious, and other characteristics of the people whom the project affects or who may have an interest in the project. The project manager should also examine the organizational culture and determine whether project management is recognized as a valid role with accountability and authority for managing the project.

• International and political environment. Some team members may need to be familiar with applicable international, national, regional, and local laws and customs, as well as the political climate that could affect the project. Other international factors to consider are time-zone differences, national and regional holidays, travel requirements for face-to-face meetings, and the logistics of teleconferencing.

• Physical environment. If the project will affect its physical surroundings.
some team members should be knowledgeable about the local ecology and physical geography that could affect the project or be affected by the project.

What is Exactly Project Management?

Project management is the application of knowledge, skills, tools and techniques to project activities to meet project requirements. Project management is accomplished through the application and integration of the project management processes of initiating, planning, executing, monitoring and controlling, and closing. The project manager is the person responsible for accomplishing the project objectives.
Managing a project includes:
• Identifying requirements
• Establishing clear and achievable objectives
• Balancing the competing demands for quality, scope, time and cost
• Adapting the specifications, plans, and approach to the different concerns and expectations of the various stakeholders.
Project managers often talk of a "triple constraint"—project scope, time and cost—in managing competing project requirements. Project quality is affected by balancing these three factors . High quality projects deliver the required product, service or result within scope, on time, and within budget. The relationship among these factors is such that if any one of the three factors changes. at least one other factor is likely to be affected. Project managers also manage projects in response to uncertainty. Project risk is an uncertain event or condition that, if it occurs, has a positive or negative effect on at least one project objective.
The project management team has a professional responsibility to its stakeholders including customers, the performing organization, and the public. PMI members adhere to a "Code of Ethics" and those with the Project Management Professional certification adhere to a "Code of Professional Conduct." Project team members who are PMI members and/or PMPs are obligated to adhere to the current versions of these codes.
It is important to note that many of the processes within project management are iterative because of the existence of. and necessity for. progressive elaboration in a project throughout the project's life cycle. That is. as a project management team learns more about a project, the team can then manage to a greater level of detail.
The term "project management" is sometimes used to describe an organizational or managerial approach to the management of projects and some ongoing operations, which can be redefined as projects, that is also referred to as "management by projects." An organization that adopts this approach defines its activities as projects in a way that is consistent with the definition of a project provided. There has been a tendency in recent years to manage more activities in more application areas using project management. More organizations are using "management by project." This is not to say that all operations can or should be organized into projects. The adoption of "management by project" is also related to the adoption of an organizational culture that is close to the project management culture described . Although, an understanding of project management is critical to an organization that is using "management by projects," a detailed discussion of the approach itself is outside the scope of this standard.

Projects and Strategic Planning

Projects are a means 01 organizing activities that cannot be addressed within the organization's normal operational limits. Projects are. therefore, often utilized as a means of achieving an organization's strategic plan, whether the project team is employed by the organization or is a contracted sender provider.
Projects are typically authorized as a result of one or more of the following strategic considerations:
• A market demand (e.g.. an oil company authorizes a project to build a new refinery in response to chronic gasoline shortages)
• An organizational need (e.g.. a training company authorizes a project to create a new course in order to increase its revenues)
• A customer request (e.g.. an electric utility authorizes a project to build a new substation to serve a new industrial park)
• A technological advance (e.g.. a software firm authorizes a new project to develop a new generation of video games after the introduction of new game-playing equipment by electronics firms)
• A legal requirement (e.g.. a paint manufacturer authorizes a project to establish guidelines for the handling of a new toxic material).

What is a Project?

Temporary Temporary means that every project has a definite beginning and a definite end. The end is reached when the project’s objectives have been achieved, or it becomes clear that the project objectives will not or cannot be met, or the need for the project no longer exists and the project is terminated. Temporary does not necessarily mean short in duration; many projects last for several years. In every case, however, theduration of a project is finite. Projects are not ongoing efforts. In addition, temporary does not generally apply to the product, service or resultcreated by the project. Most projects are undertaken to create a lasting outcome. For example, a project to erect a national monument will create a result expected to last centuries. Projects also may often have intended and unintended social, economicand environmental impacts that far outlast the projects themselves. The temporary nature of projects may apply to other aspects of the endeavor aswell:
• The opportunity or market window is usually temporary—some projects have a limited time frame in which to produce their product or service.
• The project team, as a working unit, seldom outlives the project—a teamcreated for the sole purpose of performing the project will perform that project ,and then the team is disbanded and the team members reassigned when the project ends. .
2. Unique Products, Services, or Results A project creates unique deliverables, which are products, services, or results. Projects can create:
• A product or artifact that is produced, is quantifiable, and can be either an enditem in itself or a component item
• A capability to perform a service, such as business functions supporting production or distribution
• A result, such as outcomes or documents. For example, a research projectdevelops knowledge that can be used to determine whether or not a trend ispresent or a new process will benefit society. Uniqueness is an important characteristic of project deliverables. For example, many thousands of office buildings have been developed, but each individual facility is unique—different owner, different design, different location, different contractors,and so on. The presence of repetitive elements does not change the fundamental uniqueness of the project work. .
3. Progressive Elaboration Progressive elaboration is a characteristic of projects that accompanies the concepts of temporary and unique. Progressive elaboration means developing in steps, andcontinuing by increments1. For example, the project scope will be broadly describe dearly in the project and made more explicit and detailed as the project team developsa better and more complete understanding of the objectives and deliverables. Progressive elaboration should not be confused with scope creep .
Progressive elaboration of a project’s specifications needs to be carefully coordinated with proper project scope definition, particularly if the project isperformed under contract. When properly defined, the scope of the project—the work to be done—should be controlled as the project and product specifications areprogressively elaborated. The relationship between product scope and project scopeis discussed further in the Chapter 5 introductory material. The following examples illustrate progressive elaboration in two different application areas:
• Development of a chemical processing plant begins with process enginee ringto define the characteristics of the process. These characteristics are used to design the major processing units. This information becomes the basis for engineering design, which defines both the detailed plant layout and the mechanical characteristics of the process units and ancillary facilities. All of this results in design drawings that are elaborated to produce fabrication and construction drawings. During construction, interpretations and adaptations are made as needed and are subject to proper approval. This further elaboration ofthe deliverables is captured in as-built drawings, and final operating adjustments are made during testing and turnover.
• The product of an economic development project may initially be defined as: “Improve the quality of life of the lowest income residents of community X.”As the project proceeds, the products may be described more specifically as, for example: “Provide access to food and water to 500 low-income residents in community X.” The next round of progressive elaboration might focus exclusively on increasing agriculture production and marketing, with provision of water deemed to be a secondary priority to be initiated once the agricultural component is well under way.