Assignment
Description
Primary Task Response: Within the Discussion Board area, write 400-600 words that respond to the following questions with your thoughts, ideas, and comments. This will be the foundation for future discussions by your classmates. Be substantive and clear, and use examples to reinforce your ideas.
• A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK Guide), Fifth Edition defines a process as a series of actions bringing about a result (2013). Processes will generally be project processes or product processes. Processes can also be either iterative or integrative. Last week, you defined what the project life cycle is. Based on your readings and discussions this week, discuss the following:
o How do project management processes overlap with and support success throughout the project phases?
o What is the difference between project processes and product processes?
• According to the PMBOK Guide, a statement of work (SOW) is a narrative description of products or services to be supplied by the project. In comparison, the project charter is the document that formally authorizes a project.
o Discuss the importance of these project documents, and why they should be produced.
o What 3 critical missions does the charter serve when it is published?
o Why should every project have a work breakdown structure (WBS)?
Responses to Other Students: Respond to at least 2 of your fellow classmates with at least a 100-word reply about their Primary Task Response regarding items you found to be compelling and enlightening. To help you with your discussion, please consider the following questions:
• What did you learn from your classmate's posting?
• What additional questions do you have after reading the posting?
• What clarification do you need regarding the posting?
• What differences or similarities do you see between your posting and other classmates' postings?
For assistance with your assignment, please use your text, Web resources, and all course materials.
Reference
Project Management Institute, A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide), Fifth Edition. Project Management Institute, Inc. 2013.
Other Information
Instructions:
CTU Model Answer:
Project Charter
• The project charter is the document that formally authorizes a project
• Provides project manager with authority to apply resources to project activities
• Formally assigns project manager to the project
• Signed by initiator or sponsor authorized to fund the project
Project Management Processes
• The result of a process is the change brought about by the deliverables from the project.
• Iterative means you can go through the process multiple times, in increasing detail each time.
• Integrative means components of a process are tied together, and a change in one component of a process usually affects another component.
• Project processes are processes that produce deliverables that are used to manage the project. These deliverables typically do not go to the end user (e.g., schedules, WBSs).
• Product processes are the processes that produce the products that bring about a change. The product processes' deliverables do go to the end user.
Processes Overlap Each Other Within a Phase
• There is a sequence in relation to time (different processes will be doing different things during any given point within a phase).
• The level of activity will vary with both the function being performed within a phase and the time it is being performed.
• This overlap must be considered when doing your resource planning.