PROJECT MANAGEMENT : FOUNDATIONS

1. INTRODUCTION
Deliver successful projects
- How do projects get started? When someone has a problem to solve or an opportunity to pursue. We all
want our projects to be successful. Organizations want to enjoy the benefits that those projects produce, and
as project managers we look forward to our next project with opportunities to learn about new industries or
manage projects around the world. Your job as project manager is an ongoing balancing act between project
scope and the time, resources, and budget you've been given. In this LinkedIn Learning course, we'll use a
case study to explore how to manage projects successfully. We'll look at how to start a project the right way
and then put together a comprehensive plan for running it. I'll guide you through keeping your project on
track from start to finish. You'll get a chance to practice what you learned with the exercises at the end of
almost every movie and with end of chapter challenges. I'm Bonnie Biafore. I'm a project manager,
consultant, and trainer, and I've been helping people manage projects for years. If you're ready to find out
how satisfying it is to deliver projects successfully, join me in my Project Management Foundations course
at LinkedIn Learning.

What you should know

- You don't need to know anything about project management before you start this course. It works either as
an introduction to project management for beginners, or a refresher if you've been managing projects for a
while. This course is only an introduction to project management. We'll go through the basics, so you'll get
to know what's involved in managing a project. Here's what to expect as you work through the course. We
start at the very beginning, what is the project? What is project management? We'll look at two examples of
methodologies, Waterfall and Agile. When you're ready to learn more you can explore the rest of the project
management courses in the LinkedIn learning library. Second, we jump into how to get a Waterfall project
started. Basically, what you do to get the project approved to proceed. The next two chapters are about
building a project plan and schedule with the Waterfall approach. Then we take a short detour to look at how
to manage Agile projects. After that, we'll look at what happens while a Waterfall project is running,
including communication, running meetings, and working with Teams. Next, we examine how to keep an
eye on project performance in a Waterfall project and what to do to keep a project on plan or get it back on
track. The chapter on closing talks about what you do to close out a Waterfall project. The last chapter is
devoted to a brief description of the changes you'll find in the 7th Edition of PMI's Project Management
Body of Knowledge. In this course, we're going to follow a project through the project management life
cycle. So for the next few hours, you're going to be a project manager for the Breslin Regional Hospital. The
hospital is adding a new cancer wing and improving its facilities, thanks to government grants and generous
donations from several donors. You'll be managing a project to replace the system and processes for
scheduling patients into rooms throughout the hospital. The goal is to improve the hospital's scheduling
capability and maximize the use of facilities. A more complete description of the case study is available in
the exercise files.

2. GET TO KNOW PROJECT MANAGEMENT

What is a project?
- Before we talk about how to manage projects, let's make sure we're all on the same page about what a
project is. Here's a formal definition. A project is a temporary endeavor that has a unique goal and usually a
budget. That's a start, but what does it really mean? Let's begin with temporary endeavor. Unlike day to day
operations, a project has a definite beginning and end. If a project is implementing a new system, the project
is done when you successfully hand it over to operations. What if a project seems to go on forever? It could
be that you haven't clearly defined what you're trying to accomplish. That brings us to the project goal. A
project produces a unique result which could be product, service, or other outcome. In the case study we're
using for this course, the hospital is implementing a new scheduling system. Lots of organizations
implement scheduling systems but each one has its own set of objectives, constraints and issues. Maybe the
hospital struggles with staff shortages or perhaps a big pain point is scheduling equipment along with the
skilled staff and rooms needed to operate it. You could be upgrading the scheduling system to improve
results and level of care. Finally, most projects have budgets. Most of the time you think money when you
hear the word budget. In projects, you'll probably face other constraints as well like how many resources are
available. A project isn't the same as operations which represents work that's the same day after day,
producing the same results. Admitting patients into the hospital represents operational work. Patients may
show up with different medical issues but the people at the front desk follow the same procedures and use
the same forms to admit them. Introducing a new scheduling system into the hospital on the other hand, is a
project. It will have a specific beginning. It ends when the system is up and running, scheduling hospital
resources. It has a unique goal to solve the hospital scheduling issues and it has a budget both in money and
resource's time. Over your lifetime, you've probably worked on lots of projects both at work and at home. A
project is a temporary endeavor with a unique goal and usually a budget. Using those characteristics, think
about what you've done over the past several months. Identify the projects you've worked on during that
time by identifying the project's timeframe, what made the project unique and its budget. In the exercise
files, you'll find a list of the work I've done recently tagged either as projects or operations.

What is project management?

- Lots of project managers get their start because they're good at making things happen. But project
management is more than showing off your organizational skills and supervising others. It means applying
knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to achieve your project's objectives. Project management can be
summed up as answering a few crucial questions. The first question you have to answer is, what problem are
you solving? Clearly defining what the project is supposed to accomplish is a big step toward making it a
success. Legendary baseball manager Yogi Berra's off kilter take on it is, "You've got to be very careful if
you don't know where you're going because you might not get there." The second question is, how are you
going to solve this problem? Whether you're solving a problem or pursuing an opportunity, you might have
to choose from several possible strategies. Once you've picked your approach, it's time to flesh out your
solution. Gathering requirements, identifying deliverables, and defining project scope. The next question is,
what's your plan? A big part of project management is planning your project. You have to identify the work
to be done in detail, how long it might take, the resources you need, and how much they cost. With that info
in hand, you can build a schedule of when work should occur. While you're at it, you also need to spell out
how you want things to happen in your project, like communication, managing changes, and so on. Some
projects seem to go on forever but eventually someone will pull the plug if it doesn't finish. That's why you
also have to answer the question, how will you know when you're done? Clearly defined objectives,
requirements, and deliverables help answer that question, but you can eliminate uncertainty by defining
success criteria: quantifiable, measurable results that show that the project is complete. Like a certificate of
occupancy for construction, or increased productivity measurements after a system is implemented. When
you get to the end of the project, you're ready to answer the last question: how well did the project go? This
important step is often skipped because everyone is so ready to move on to the next deal. You really need to
take time to review the project. What worked well, what didn't? Why? How could we have done better?
Project management boils down to answering several questions about your project. What problem are you
solving? How are you going to solve it? What's your plan for getting the project done? How can you tell
when you're done? And how well did the project go?

What it takes to be a project manager

- Most people see project managers as really organized and good at getting things done. But project
managers also use a wide variety of skills and knowledge to complete projects successfully. First, there are
technical skills specific to project management, like what goes into a project plan? Building and fine tuning
a project schedule, reading a Gantt chart, using the critical path, and measuring performance. Then there's
business expertise. It's up to you to make sure your project delivers value. You need to understand your
organization's business. What it does and what it considers important. That way you can see how your
project fits in and you can make good decisions to ensure that your project is successful. Problem solving is
another important skill. Projects never, and I mean never, go according to plan. Your job is to figure out how
to achieve project objectives and meet the schedule and budget, while working around the problems that
arise. One of the most important things in a project manager's toolbox, is interpersonal skills. Projects may
use people from different groups, departments, and even different companies. You are the leader of this
group so it's your job to help everyone work as a team to get the project done and done well. The most
important characteristic of a great project manager is strong leadership. You want to inspire your people,
help them become a true team. Guide them to do the right things, hold them accountable, and motivate them
to give their best. Does project management sound like something you want to do? This course will help you
figure out what you need to know so you can build a plan for developing your skills.

The waterfall project management lifecycle

- [Instructor] The traditional, also called Waterfall project management life cycle, can be broken into five
stages or phases that help guide a project successfully from beginning to end. Initiating is all about getting
the commitment to start a project. You start by defining the project. What's the project supposed to
accomplish? What's the scope? What's a rough estimate of the resources needed and the cost? You also
identify the project stakeholders, and make sure they agree on what the project is. From there, you ask for
approval to proceed. Planning is where you work with a small team of expert team members to figure out
how you're going to perform the project. In essence, planning answers the questions, What are we going to
do? How are we going to do it? And how will we know when we're done? When the plan is complete, it's
time to get approval to launch the project. The next two areas involve putting your plan into action.
Executing starts with launching a project. You bring your full team of resources on board, get them settled in
and explain the rules you're using to run the project. After that, everyone jumps in to put the plan into action.
Monitoring and controlling a project means checking what's going on in the project and how that compares
to what you planned. If the project is sliding off track, you take action to get it back on track. Managing and
controlling occurs throughout most of the project life cycle, starting during initiation, and wrapping up when
you close the project. Which brings us to closing the project, this part is short but important. You get the
client to approve the project, that is, officially accept that the project is complete. You document the project
performance, gather lessons learned, close contracts, and help resources move on to their next assignments.
Waterfall project management works well when the project goal and solution are clearly defined, and the
scope and deliverables are clear cut, such as in building construction. Because you understand what needs to
be done, you step through each stage once from start to finish. The more you know about the project, the
better the Waterfall approach works. Straightforward projects with very little uncertainty are great
candidates, because you know what needs to be done and how to handle issues that arise. If teams have
worked on similar projects in the past, they can be more productive because they understand the work and
know how to prevent or resolve common problems. That's a quick overview of the Traditional or Waterfall
approach and when you might choose it to manage a project.
The agile project management lifecycle
- [Narrator] With many projects today you don't know what the solution looks like, or how to build it, so you
have to figure it out as you go. This type of project requires a different approach. With Agile projects, the
team works on Sprints to deliver a partial set of features that are production quality at regular intervals. With
this approach the customer gets value from the project sooner. In addition, the customer's feedback on what's
been delivered so far can help improve the overall solution. The customer has to be more involved than in
traditional projects. Project teams need to be smaller and more experienced, because they work without
much supervision. The Agile life cycle described here is based on Jim Highsmith's "Agile Project
Management." It begins with envisioning, which is similar to Waterfall's initiation. You define the product
vision and an initial set of goals. Because the solution isn't clear, those goals are likely to change over the
course of the project. The speculate process is a type of planning. You create, revise, and prioritize your
feature list based on their technical and business considerations. Also, you estimate effort and identify risks.
For example, when you start the next Sprint, you don't drag the first few features from the backlog. Instead,
you review the entire backlog and decide which features to include in the Sprint. During the explore process,
the team builds and delivers the features for the Sprint. Small, independent teams of highly skilled people
make it easier to get the work done. Adapt is the part of the Sprint where you review the results delivered
and lessons learned. This review is often called a retrospective. Based on feedback, you may change your
process, or rework a feature that isn't quite right. You cycle through, speculate, explore, and adapt for each
Sprint in the project. When the final Sprint is accepted you close the project and document lessons learned.
That's a quick overview of the Agile approach to projects, when you figure out the solution as you go.
How organizational structure affects projects
Organizations can be structured in several ways from the classic functional hierarchy where each person
reports to only one supervisor, to a matrix where people report to both functional managers and project
managers. To a projectized organization where most of the people work on projects. Each of these structures
affects how projects are performed. In a functional hierarchy, projects aren't the priority making it difficult
for projects to succeed. Project managers have almost no authority. A functional manager is typically in
charge of things like the project budget. Resources are hard to come by because they report to functional
managers, not the project manager. Even the project manager and other project management staff have to
split their attention between the project and their regular work. The second type, matrix organizations are
still functional hierarchies, but they support projects more than pure hierarchies do. They can be weak,
balanced, or strong depending on how much emphasis they put on projects. In a matrix, project managers
have some authority to make decisions. Resources assigned to projects report to two managers, their
functional manager and the project manager. In a strong matrix, the project manager and project admin staff
work full time on projects. Projectized organizations are all about projects. This third type makes it easier
for project managers to produce results. Project managers have almost complete authority over their
projects, including the budget. Resources are dedicated to project work and report to the project manager.
Project managers and project admin staff also work full time on project work. Organizational structure has a
big influence on how projects are performed, how much a project manager can do, and how easy it is to
make projects successful. Using these characteristics, determine which structure your organization uses.

How organizational culture affects projects

- Organizational culture is a set of factors that guide people's behaviors and decisions within an organization.
Things like shared values, beliefs, assumptions, habits, and language. Let's talk about how organizational
culture affects projects. The organization's mission and vision shape the organization's culture. Projects that
support the company mission are likely to get more attention and resources. When you're faced with a tricky
decision, you can use the mission to determine the best thing to do. Leadership and authority are also a big
part of organizational culture. If management defines clear goals and then delegates responsibility to
employees, that approach will also work in your projects. On the other hand, if authority isn't handed out
often, you need to work with management to get things done and build their trust in you at the same time.
Another aspect of culture is the organization's work environment. With a positive environment, people are
motivated to get things done, and gathering lessons learned is relatively easy because employees are used to
providing input and striving to improve. In a negative environment, you're probably going to have to spend a
lot of time managing your team. Some cultures believe in following the rules no matter what, other cultures
nurture innovation, expecting employees to try new approaches, question what's been done before, and come
up with better methods. You don't have to follow the rules in a rules-based culture but if you're thinking
about breaking rules, it's important to know which ones you can break, and also think about what you'll do if
your nonstandard approach doesn't work. Does your organization put results ahead of procedures or vice
versa? That is, is it better to follow the rules even if you don't achieve the objective, or can you do whatever
it takes as long as you deliver the desired results? A project's goal is always to achieve its objectives but it's
important to know where the boundaries are in making things happen. Change management can be affected
by organizational culture. If the organization is risk averse, change management might include multiple
rounds of review and require approval from several people. On the other hand, if change is viewed simply as
life in the project management world, change management might be a lot simpler. With people working in
locations around the country or the world, you also need to consider the cultures of your team members.
People may react differently to situations or communicate differently based on the norms of their cultures.
For example, in some cultures, people are taught not to show weakness and that behavior could be
interpreted as arrogance by people from other cultures. Culture has a strong influence on how things happen
within projects and how decisions are made. To increase your success, you need to manage your projects,
taking cultural factors into account.

Project management software options

- [Instructor] Software tools can make your job as a project manager a little easier. Let's talk about types of
software and how you can put it to use managing projects. Scheduling software comes in a variety of shapes
and sizes. For most projects, you'll want scheduling software to help you build and manage your project
schedule. There are lots of tools out there, such as Microsoft Project, Oracle Primavera, LiquidPlanner, Jira,
Smartsheet, Wrike, Asana, and more. Some scheduling tools work better for Waterfall or Agile. Microsoft
Project and Oracle Primavera support Agile, but it isn't their strength. Jira is primarily for Agile, but can be
used for Waterfall. With online tools, make sure that they support the project management approaches that
your organization uses. Most scheduling tools these days work in the cloud to make collaboration easier.
When you think about all the project management documents you produce, it's no wonder that a word
processing program is essential. Because project documents are laid out similarly from project to project,
you can build document templates. That way, you don't have to start from scratch every time. A spreadsheet
program is another must have for calculations and analysis. Besides being handy for budgets and other
financial calculations, a spreadsheet can help analyze project risks and prioritize which ones you should
keep an eye on. A presentation program like PowerPoint or Prezi is useful for communicating project
information at a high level, or when you want to include information from other types of documents.
Because a team of people work on a project, you need some kind of tool for collaborating with others.
Basecamp, Asana, and Microsoft SharePoint are a few cloud-based collaboration tools you can use to share
files with others, keep track of issues, or even manage a workflow. If you work in an organization that runs
many large projects at the same time, you should consider enterprise project management software.
Enterprise-level software provides tools that allow you to find resources with the skills you need and see
which resources are available when you need them. It helps you track risks, issues, and other information,
and even build document libraries so team members can easily find information they need. We've briefly
touched on some of the software options available. If you're researching software to use, consider the
following in your decisions: Your organization's culture and work environment, software budget, the
organization's project management methodologies, the number of projects you manage, and their
complexity.

3. FIRST THING FIRST

Initiate a project
- Initiating a project is about getting commitment to move forward. In other words, the customer or sponsor
says yes to the project and gives the go-ahead to start planning. Typically, the first step in project initiation
is to assign the project manager who guides the project through the rest of the initiation process. Sometimes
the project manager is assigned after the project's been approved. If you find yourself in this situation, be
sure to review what was done during initiation and complete any activities that were skipped or left
unfinished. The customer or sponsor should make an informed decision whether to approve the project.
That's why initiation boils down to defining the project. You identify the problem the project is supposed to
solve and gather information about the project, objectives, requirements, deliverables, and more. Once you
have an initial project definition, it's time to prepare the project charter. This document formally authorizes
the project and describes the authority of the project manager. Throughout this chapter, I'll describe the key
elements of a project definition and what goes into a project charter.

Identify project stakeholders

- As project manager, you need to know who has a stake in the outcome of your project. They're called
stakeholders. They include the customer, project sponsor, departments involved with the project, and people
who work on project tasks. You need to know what they expect from the project and how they contribute to
it. It's vital to understand stakeholders importance, influence and interest in the project. That way, you can
build relationships with influential stakeholders and make sure they're satisfied with project results. Let's
start by identifying major stakeholder roles. The project customer is the person or group with a problem to
solve. For the hospital scheduling project, the COO oversees scheduling, so she is the customer. The project
customer brings three crucial things to a project. First, the customer funds the project. In the hospital, the
CEO oversees the overall budget for the new cancer wing and operational improvements, but the hospital
COO is in-charge of the budget for the scheduling project. Second, the customer has a lot to say about what
the project will do. Third, the customer approves deliverables from start to finish. The next stakeholder role
is project sponsor. The sponsor is someone who wants to see the project succeed and has enough formal
authority to help make that happen. Like an executive, who believes in the project. For the scheduling
project, the COO is also the project sponsor. She wants to see it succeed because she believes effective
scheduling not only improves patient care and medical results, but also produces better financial results. Her
position gives her enough authority to champion the project. A sponsor can help prioritize objectives, talk to
stakeholders who aren't being supportive, and suggest improvements to the project plan. The third type of
stakeholder is a functional or aligned manager. Functional managers run departments and are accountable
for achieving their department's goals. They also manage the people in their departments who are the ones
you need to staff your project. Team members are also stakeholders. While they're assigned to your project,
their jobs depend on their assignments and may depend on how well they perform. Finally, there are
departments or people who affect the project, and there are departments or people who are affected by it.
Both of these groups are project stakeholders. For example, the project will affect how hospital facilities are
scheduled so the facilities department is a stakeholder in the scheduling project. As a project manager, you
need to know a lot about stakeholders in order to keep them happy. The first step is knowing who they are.