Project Management All-in-One For Dummies

Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
Introduction
About This Book
Foolish Assumptions
Icons Used in This Book
Beyond the Book
Where to Go from Here
Book 1 In the Beginning: Project Management Basics
Chapter 1 Achieving Results with Project Management
Determining What Makes a Project a Project
Understanding the three main components that define a project
Recognizing the diversity of projects
Describing the four phases of a project life cycle
Defining Project Management
Starting with the initiating processes
Outlining the planning processes
Examining the executing processes
Surveying the monitoring and controlling processes
Ending with the closing processes
Knowing the Project Manager’s Role
Looking at the project manager’s tasks
Staving off excuses for not following a structured project-management approach
Avoiding shortcuts
Staying aware of other potential challenges
Chapter 2 Involving the Right People
Understanding Your Project’s Stakeholders
Developing a Stakeholder Register
Starting your stakeholder register
Ensuring your stakeholder register is complete and up to date
Using a stakeholder register template
Determining Whether Stakeholders Are Drivers, Supporters, or Observers
Distinguishing the different groups
Deciding when to involve your stakeholders
Using different methods to involve your stakeholders
Making the most of your stakeholders’ involvement
Displaying Your Stakeholder Register
Confirming Your Stakeholders’ Authority
Assessing Your Stakeholders’ Power and Interest
Chapter 3 Developing Your Game Plan
Divide and Conquer: Breaking Your Project into Manageable Chunks
Thinking in detail
Identifying necessary project work with a work breakdown structure
Dealing with special situations
Creating and Displaying Your Work Breakdown Structure
Considering different schemes to create your WBS hierarchy
Using one of two approaches to develop your WBS
Categorizing your project’s work
Labeling your WBS entries
Displaying your WBS in different formats
Improving the quality of your WBS
Using templates
Identifying Risks While Detailing Your Work
Documenting What You Need to Know about Your Planned Project Work
Book 2 Steering the Ship: Planning and Managing a Project
Chapter 1 You Want This Project Done When?
Picture This: Illustrating a Work Plan with a Network Diagram
Defining a network diagram’s elements
Drawing a network diagram
Analyzing a Network Diagram
Reading a network diagram
Interpreting a network diagram
Working with Your Project’s Network Diagram
Determining precedence
Using a network diagram to analyze a simple example
Developing Your Project’s Schedule
Taking the first steps
Avoiding the pitfall of backing in to your schedule
Meeting an established time constraint
Applying different strategies to arrive at your destination in less time
Estimating Activity Duration
Determining the underlying factors
Considering resource characteristics
Finding sources of supporting information
Improving activity duration estimates
Displaying Your Project’s Schedule
Chapter 2 Starting Your Project Team Off on the Right Foot
Finalizing Your Project’s Participants
Are you in? Confirming your team members’ participation
Assuring that others are on board
Filling in the blanks
Developing Your Team
Reviewing the approved project plan
Developing team and individual goals
Specifying team-member roles
Defining your team’s operating processes
Supporting the development of team-member relationships
Resolving conflicts
All together now: Helping your team become a smooth-functioning unit
Laying the Groundwork for Controlling Your Project
Selecting and preparing your tracking systems
Establishing schedules for reports and meetings
Setting your project’s baseline
Hear Ye, Hear Ye! Announcing Your Project
Setting the Stage for Your Post-Project Evaluation
Chapter 3 Monitoring Progress and Maintaining Control
Holding the Reins: Project Control
Establishing Project Management Information Systems
The clock’s ticking: Monitoring schedule performance
All in a day’s work: Monitoring work effort
Follow the money: Monitoring expenditures
Putting Your Control Process into Action
Heading off problems before they occur
Formalizing your control process
Identifying possible causes of delays and variances
Identifying possible corrective actions
Getting back on track: Rebaselining
Reacting Responsibly When Changes Are Requested
Responding to change requests
Creeping away from scope creep
Chapter 4 Bringing Your Project to Closure
Staying the Course to Completion
Planning ahead for your project’s closure
Updating your initial closure plans when you’re ready to wind down the project
Charging up your team for the sprint to the finish line
Handling Administrative Issues
Providing a Smooth Transition for Team Members
Surveying the Results: The Post-Project Evaluation
Preparing for the evaluation throughout the project
Setting the stage for the evaluation meeting
Conducting the evaluation meeting
Following up on the evaluation
Book 3 Helping Out: Using Tools on a Project
Chapter 1 Considering Checklists and Templates
Using Checklists Properly
Understanding Checklist Types
Trying Templates
Reviewing Project Structure
Kicking off the project
Doing the planning
Delivering project products
Closing the project
Evaluating the project
Chapter 2 The Key Documents for Managing a Project
Kicking Off
Project Planning
The major planning documents
The logs
Control checklists
Controlling a Project
Thinking About What You Need
Chapter 3 Working with Microsoft Project 2019
Connecting Project 2019 to Project Management
Defining “project manager”
Identifying what a project manager does
Introducing Project 2019
Getting to Know You
Opening Project 2019
Navigating Ribbon tabs and the Ribbon
Displaying more tools
An Updated Feature: Tell Me What You Want to Do
Chapter 4 Surveying Cool Shortcuts in Project 2019
Task Information
Resource Information
Frequently Used Functions
Subtasks
Quick Selections
Fill Down
Navigation
Hours to Years
Timeline Shortcuts
Quick Undo and Repeat
Book 4 A New Method: Agile Project Management
Chapter 1 Applying the Agile Manifesto and Principles
Understanding the Agile Manifesto
Outlining the Four Values of the Agile Manifesto
Value 1: Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
Value 2: Working software over comprehensive documentation
Value 3: Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
Value 4: Responding to change over following a plan
Defining the 12 Agile Principles
Agile principles of customer satisfaction
Agile principles of quality
Agile principles of teamwork
Agile principles of product development
Adding the Platinum Principles
Resisting formality
Thinking and acting as a team
Visualizing rather than writing
Seeing Changes as a Result of Agile Values
Taking the Agile Litmus Test
Chapter 2 Defining the Product Vision and Product Roadmap
Agile Planning
Progressive elaboration
Inspect and adapt
Defining the Product Vision
Step 1: Developing the product objective
Step 2: Creating a draft vision statement
Step 3: Validating and revising the vision statement
Step 4: Finalizing the vision statement
Creating a Product Roadmap
Step 1: Identifying product stakeholders
Step 2: Establishing product requirements
Step 3: Arranging product features
Step 4: Estimating efforts and ordering requirements
Step 5: Determining high-level time frames
Saving your work
Completing the Product Backlog
Chapter 3 Planning Releases and Sprints
Refining Requirements and Estimates
What is a user story?
Steps to create a user story
Breaking down requirements
Estimation poker
Affinity estimating
Release Planning
Preparing for Release
Preparing the product for deployment
Prepare for operational support
Preparing the organization
Preparing the marketplace
Sprint Planning
The sprint backlog
The sprint planning meeting
Chapter 4 Working throughout the Day
Planning Your Day: The Daily Scrum
Covering important topics
Ensuring an effective meeting
Tracking Progress
The sprint backlog
The task board
Understanding Agile Roles in the Sprint
Keys for daily product owner success
Keys for daily development team member success
Keys for daily scrum master success
Keys for daily stakeholder success
Keys for daily agile mentor success
Creating Shippable Functionality
Elaborating
Developing
Verifying
Identifying roadblocks
Implementing Information Radiators
Wrapping Up at the End of the Day
Chapter 5 Showcasing Work, Inspecting, and Adapting
The Sprint Review
Preparing to demonstrate
The sprint review meeting
Collecting feedback in the sprint review meeting
The Sprint Retrospective
Planning for retrospectives
The retrospective meeting
Inspecting and adapting
Book 5 A Popular Agile Approach: Running a Scrum Project
Chapter 1 The First Steps of Scrum
Getting Your Scrum On
Show me the money
I want it now
I’m not sure what I want
Is that bug a problem?
Your company’s culture
The Power in the Product Owner
Why Product Owners Love Scrum
The Company Goal and Strategy: Stage 1
Structuring your vision
Finding the crosshair
The Scrum Master
Scrum master traits
Scrum master as servant leader
Why scrum masters love scrum
Common Roles Outside Scrum
Stakeholders
Scrum mentors
Chapter 2 Planning Your Project
The Product Roadmap: Stage 2
Take the long view
Use simple tools
Create your product roadmap
Set your time frame
Breaking Down Requirements
Prioritization of requirements
Levels of decomposition
Seven steps of requirement building
Your Product Backlog
The dynamic to-do list
Product backlog refinement
Other possible backlog items
Product Backlog Common Practices
User stories
Further refinement
Chapter 3 The Talent and the Timing
The Development Team
The uniqueness of scrum development teams
Dedicated teams and cross-functionality
Self-organizing and self-managing
Co-locating or the nearest thing
Getting the Edge on Backlog Estimation
Your Definition of Done
Common Practices for Estimating
Fibonacci numbers and story points
Velocity
Chapter 4 Release and Sprint Planning
Release Plan Basics: Stage 3
Prioritize, prioritize, prioritize
Release goals
Release sprints
Release plan in practice
Sprinting to Your Goals
Defining sprints
Planning sprint length
Following the sprint life cycle
Planning Your Sprints: Stage 4
Sprint goals
Phase I
Phase II
Your Sprint Backlog
The burndown chart benefit
Setting backlog capacity
Working the sprint backlog
Prioritizing sprints
Chapter 5 Getting the Most Out of Sprints
The Daily Scrum: Stage 5
Defining the daily scrum
Scheduling a daily scrum
Conducting a daily scrum
Making daily scrums more effective
The Team Task Board
Swarming
Dealing with rejection
Handling unfinished requirements
The Sprint Review: Stage 6
The sprint review process
Stakeholder feedback
Product increments
The Sprint Retrospective: Stage 7
The sprint retrospective process
The Derby and Larsen process
Inspection and adaptation
Chapter 6 Inspect and Adapt: How to Correct Your Course
The Need for Certainty
The Feedback Loop
Transparency
Antipatterns
External Forces
In-Flight Course Correction
Testing in the Feedback Loop
A Culture of Innovation
Book 6 The Next Level: Enterprise Agility
Chapter 1 Taking It All In: The Big Picture
Defining Agile and Enterprise Agility
Understanding agile product delivery
Defining “enterprise agility”
Checking out popular enterprise agile frameworks
Practicing as much agile as your organization can tolerate
Achieving Enterprise Agility in Three Not-So-Easy Steps
Step 1: Review the top enterprise agile frameworks
Step 2: Identify your organization’s existing culture
Step 3: Create a strategy for making big changes
Chapter 2 Sizing Up Your Organization
Committing to Radical Change
Understanding What Culture Is and Why It’s So Difficult to Change
Figuring out why culture is so entrenched
Avoiding the common mistake of trying to make agile fit your organization
Identifying Your Organization’s Culture Type
Running with the wolf pack in a control culture
Rising with your ability in a competence culture
Nurturing your interns in a cultivation culture
Working it out together in a collaboration culture
Laying the Groundwork for a Successful Transformation
Appreciating the value of an agile organization
Clarifying your vision
Planning for your transformation
Chapter 3 Driving Organizational Change
Choosing an Approach: Top-Down or Bottom-Up
Driving Change from Top to Bottom with the Kotter Approach
Step 1: Create a sense of urgency around a Big Opportunity
Step 2: Build and evolve a guiding coalition
Step 3: Form a change vision and strategic initiatives
Step 4: Enlist a volunteer army
Step 5: Enable action by removing barriers
Step 6: Generate (and celebrate) short-term wins
Step 7: Sustain acceleration
Step 8: Institute change
Improving your odds of success
Driving a Grassroots Change: A Fearless Approach
Recruiting a change evangelist
Changing without top-down authority
Making change a self-fulfilling prophecy
Looking for change patterns
Recruiting innovators and early adopters
Tailoring your message
Steering clear of change myths
Overcoming Obstacles Related to Your Organization’s Culture
Seeing how culture can sink agile
Acknowledging the challenge
Prioritizing the challenge
Gaining insight into motivation
Chapter 4 Putting It All Together: Taking Steps toward an Agile Enterprise
Step 1: Identifying Your Organization’s Culture
Step 2: Listing the Strengths and Challenges with Changing Your Culture
Step 3: Selecting the Best Approach to Organizational Change Management
Step 4: Training Managers on Lean Thinking
Step 5: Starting a Lean-Agile Center of Excellence (LACE)
Step 6: Choosing a High-Level Value Stream
Step 7: Assigning a Budget to the Value Stream
Step 8: Selecting an Enterprise Agile Framework
Step 9: Shifting from Detailed Plans to Epics
Step 10: Respecting and Trusting Your People
Book 7 Making It Official: PMP Certification
Chapter 1 Introducing the PMP Exam
Going Over the PMP Exam Blueprint
Knowledge and skills
Code of ethics and professional conduct
Exam scoring
Digging into the Exam Domains
Initiating the project
Planning the project
Executing the project
Monitoring and controlling the project
Closing the project
Applying for and Scheduling the Exam
Surveying the application process
Scheduling your exam
Taking the Exam
Arriving on exam day
Looking at types of questions
Trying some exam-taking tips
Getting your results
Preparing for the Exam
Chapter 2 It’s All about the Process
Managing Your Project Is a Process
Understanding Project Management Process Groups
Before the Project Begins
Initiating processes
Planning processes
Executing processes
Monitoring and Controlling processes
Closing processes
The Ten Knowledge Areas
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
Mapping the Processes
Chapter 3 Reviewing the PMI Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct
Beginning with the Basics of the Code
Responsibility
Responsibility aspirational standards
Responsibility mandatory standards
Respect
Respect aspirational standards
Respect mandatory standards
Fairness
Fairness aspirational standards
Fairness mandatory standards
Honesty
Honesty aspirational standards
Honesty mandatory standards
Keeping Key Terms in Mind
Index
EULA