Project scope management:

Project Scope Management refers to the set of processes that ensure a project’s
scope is accurately defined and mapped. Scope Management techniques enable
project managers and supervisors to allocate just the right amount of work
necessary to successfully complete a project—concerned primarily with controlling
what is and what is not part of the project’s scope.

Project lifecycle:

Initiation Phase
During the first of these phases, the initiation phase, the project objective or need is
identified; this can be a business problem or opportunity. An appropriate response to the
need is documented in a business case with recommended solution options. A feasibility
study is conducted to investigate whether each option addresses the project objective and
a final recommended solution is determined. Issues of feasibility (“can we do the
project?”) and justification (“should we do the project?”) are addressed. Once the
recommended solution is approved, a project is initiated to deliver the approved
solution and a project manager is appointed.

Planning Phase
The next phase, the planning phase, is where the project solution is further developed in
as much detail as possible and the steps necessary to meet the project’s objective are
planned. In this step, the team identifies all of the work to be done. The project’s tasks
and resource requirements are identified, along with the strategy for producing them.
This is also referred to as “scope management.” A project plan is created outlining the
activities, tasks, dependencies, and timeframes. The project manager coordinates the
preparation of a project budget by providing cost estimates for the labor, equipment, and
materials costs. The budget is used to monitor and control cost expenditures during
project implementation.

Implementation (Execution) Phase

During the third phase, the implementation phase, the project plan is put into motion and
the work of the project is performed. It is important to maintain control and communicate
as needed during implementation. Progress is continuously monitored and appropriate
adjustments are made and recorded as variances from the original plan. In any project, a
project manager spends most of the time in this step. During project implementation,
people are carrying out the tasks, and progress information is being reported through
regular team meetings. The project manager uses this information to maintain control
over the direction of the project by comparing the progress reports with the project plan
to measure the performance of the project activities and take corrective action as needed

Closing Phase
During the final closure, or completion phase, the emphasis is on releasing the final
deliverables to the customer, handing over project documentation to the business,
terminating supplier contracts, releasing project resources, and communicating the
closure of the project to all stakeholders. The last remaining step is to conduct lessons-
learned studies to examine what went well and what didn’t. Through this type of analysis,
the wisdom of experience is transferred back to the project organization, which will help
future project teams.

Managing by deliverables:
Management by deliverables is a project management principle that calls for all project planning and monitoring
to be achieved through production of visible work products. The principle is applied on a project by judging
progress by what is produced rather than by someone's subjective opinion of project status. This notion is the
core tenant behind the Earned Value Management Discipline which places a baseline value on
each deliverable at project commencement and credits the project with that value when the deliverable is
completed. Refer Earned Value Management metric: Project Percent Complete

Project scope management:

Project Scope Management refers to the set of processes that ensure a project’s scope is
accurately defined and mapped. Scope Management techniques enable project managers
and supervisors to allocate just the right amount of work necessary to successfully
complete a project—concerned primarily with controlling what is and what is not part of
the project’s scope.
Project scope is the work required to output a project’s deliverable. Change happens, and project scope
management includes the process to manage scope changes and make sure the project will still come in
on time and within budget. Scope is often defined by a work breakdown structure, and changes should
take place only through formal change control procedures.

What does knowledge area include?

1. Project Integration Management

Project Integration Management is the umbrella that covers all your
other project management knowledge areas. It joins together all your
individual processes and tasks into one project with defined goals and
deliverables.
3. Project Time Management
Nearly all projects rely on several different timelines and the schedules
of multiple people. Some team members may overestimate how much
time it will take to complete a project in order to leave a pillow and not
feel hurried. Others may underestimate their time. And, of course,
unexpected problems will throw off your timeline as well.

4. Project Cost Management

With or without a budget, your project will cost money. Keeping costs
low or at least at an expected or reasonable level is a fundamental part
of showing ROI on a project. After all, if you can’t definitively lay out how
much a project will cost, how will you be able to quantify if you’ve made
any money?

5. Project Quality Management

In project management, quality isn’t the same as perfection. It’s not
practical to spend the time and resources to take a project to perfection;
and in many cases, that’s not even attainable. The goal of project quality
management is to achieve consistency across your projects.

Scope processes:
Collect Requirements:
This is the first process group in scope management. It is the process of defining
and documenting stakeholders need to meet the project activities. The document
for collecting requirements is developed in the project planning phase.
Define Scope:
This is the process of developing a detailed description of the Project and product.
So, while Collecting requirement list, all the different requirements of the Project
and the resulting product or service are defined.
Create WBS:
Creating work breakdown structure is done using a technique called
decomposition. It is basically the process of subdividing project deliverables and
project work into smaller and more manageable components.
Verify Scope:
This is the process which is a part of project monitoring and control process group.
This process includes reviewing deliverables with the customer or sponsor to
ensure that they are completed satisfactorily and obtaining formal a cceptance of
deliverables by the customer or sponsor.
Control Scope:
Control Scope is the last process group of project scope management. It is again a
part of project monitoring and control process group. Control scope is the process
of monitoring the status of the project and Product scope and managing changes
to the scope baseline. This process ensures that all requested changes and
recommended corrective or preventive actions are processed through the
integrated change control process.

What Is Time Management?

Time Management is essentially the ability to organize and plan the time spent on activities in a day.
The result of good time management is increased effectiveness and productivity. It is a key aspect of
project management and involves skills such as planning, setting goals and prioritizing for a better
performance.

Project time management processes:

Activity Definition: Identifying & Defining all specific activities that is needed to produce
project deliverables (Planning Process Group)
Activity Sequencing: Identifying needs between project activities and documenting the
sequence in which they need to be executed to achieve the project output in time
(Planning Process Group)
Activity Resource Estimating: Resources are men, materials and machines that are
required to execute different project activities. Determining what different type of resource
required, in what quantity and when each resource will be available to perform the
activities is worked out in this process (Planning Process Group)
Activity Duration Estimating: In this process, estimation of required time is done to carry
out a defined activity based on the scope & resource availability. Accuracy of this process
leads to exact schedule development of whole project & cost estimation of resources
(Planning Process Group)
Schedule Development: Coming up with planned start and end dates for every activity &
also for the entire project happens in this process. This process uses activity sequences,
duration estimation, resource estimation & project schedule constraints to arrive the
project schedule. Few well established techniques are already available. Output of this
process is approved and used as schedule baseline against which project progress is
tracked (Planning Process Group)
Schedule Control: This process explains project status monitoring, finding changes in the
schedule (early you find lessen the impact!) and controlling schedule changes to meet
planned schedule. Communication is more important in this process (Monitoring &
Controlling Process Group)
Project Cost Management
With or without a budget, your project will cost money. Keeping costs
low or at least at an expected or reasonable level is a fundamental part
of showing ROI on a project. After all, if you can’t definitively lay out how
much a project will cost, how will you be able to quantify if you’ve made
any money?
Planning Cost Management:
One should know about cost and it relevant terms before going towards Cost
Management Plan. The first term is Cost. Cost is the measurement of resources that
must be expended in order to obtain an object or complete an activity. And project
Cost Management is a series of activities for planning, estimating, allocating, and
controlling costs within the project. Project Cost Management consists of following
processes.

1. Plan Costs

2. Estimate Costs

3. Determine Budget

4. Control Costs

MAIN ELEMENTS OF COST MANAGEMENT PLAN

In general, following are main elements of Project Cost Management Plan;

1. Units of measure: This part of management plan will cover all the units used for
measurement of resource quantities. These units be like length of wall will be measured
in feet, door thickness will be in inches, steel weight will be in kilograms, Height will
be expressed in meters, paint required will be quantified in terms of liters, volume of
concrete will be in cubic meters, Tiles will be measured in meters, and etc.….
2. Level of Precision: This will define how deeply activity cost estimates will be
rounded up or down. And this depth will be defined based on activities scope and
project magnitude. For Example: If amount of activity is 1025$ then it will be rounded
down to 1000$. And if activity cost is 975$ then it will be rounded up to 1000$.
3. Level of Accuracy: Accuracy will define the acceptable range in terms of
percentage. If a cost occurs against specific activity within defined range then it will
not be responded. If cost goes above that range then activity will be responded. For
Example: An activity cost is 100$ and accuracy level is +/- 5%. If cost during execution
occurs 104$ then it will be considered.
4. Organizational Procedural Links: Organizational procedural links will provide
the framework for cost management plan. This will define which resource will be
responsible for which specific part of work breakdown structure(WBS).
5. Control Threshold: This is variance thresholds for monitoring cost performance
against baseline plan. Actually, this defines the acceptable variation before some
action needs to be taken.

6. Reporting Formats: This part of cost management defines the formats of project
reporting and frequency of reporting. Either reports will be generated after every
week, month year or any other specified frequency.
7. Process Description: This part of cost management plan describes the various
processes of project cost management. A complete detail of each process will be
covered here.

Cost Baseline vs Budget

 Cost Baseline: Cost Baseline is the authorized time-phased spending plan for
the project on which the project cost performance is to be measured against.
As the Cost Baseline is baselined and managed under configuration
management, changes to the Cost Baseline must undergo proper change
management processes.
 The Cost Baseline includes all the project activities/resources costs and
the money set aside to respond to risks identified (i.e. known unknowns)
over time and it is usually represented as an S-curve
 Cost Baseline = Project Cost Estimates + Contingency Reserves
 Cost Budget: the allowable deviations requested based on customer
expectations
 The Cost Budget is the estimate of total amount of money required for
carrying out the Project, including money set aside for identified and
unidentified risks (i.e. unknown unknowns)
 The Cost Budget can be thought of as the Cost Baseline over time plus the
Management Reserves
 Cost Budget = Project Cost Estimates + Contingency Reserves +
Management Reserves
ESTIMATING COSTS TOOLS
EXPERT JUDGEMENT

Expert judgment uses the experience and knowledge of experts to estimate

the cost of the project. This technique can take into account unique factors
specific to the project. However, it can also be biased.
A N A L OG O U S E S T I M A T I N G

Analogous estimating uses historical data from similar projects as a basis

for the cost estimate. The estimate can be adjusted for known differences
between the projects. This type of estimate is usually used in the early
phases of a project and is less accurate than other methods.
P A RA M E T R IC E ST I M A T I N G

Parametric estimating uses statistical modeling to develop a cost estimate.

It uses historical data of key cost drivers to calculate an estimate for different
parameters such as cost and duration. For example, square footage is used
in some construction projects.
RESERVE ANALYSIS

Reserve analysis is used to determine how much contingency reserve, if

any, should be allocated to the project. This funding is used to account for
cost uncertainty.
COST OF QUALIT Y

Cost of Quality (COQ) includes money spent during the project to avoid
failures and money spent during and after the project due to failures. During
cost estimation, assumptions about the COQ can be included in the project
cost estimate.
What is 'Cost Control'
Cost control is the practice of identifying and reducing business expenses to increase
profits, and it starts with the budgeting process. A business owner compares actual
results to the budget expectations, and if actual costs are higher than planned,
management takes action. As an example, a company can obtain bids from other vendors
that provide the same product or service, which can lower costs.
What is Quality management?
Project quality management is all of the processes and activities needed
to determine and achieve project quality.

But what does "quality" really mean?

At its most basic level, quality means meeting the needs of

customers. This is also known as "fit for use."

I like this simple definition of quality because it places the focus where it
should be, on the customer. This basic definition also implies that the
requirements of the project have been met since the requirements sho uld
reflect the customer's needs if collected properly.

Impact of poor quality:

Delivery
Your output has been rejected by the quality control department. Now you must
reprocess your work to meet the quality standards. You will now have to do some
rework on that process, requiring more time, ultimately delaying delivery.
Organizations cannot afford a delay in deliveries as there may be a clause in the
contract with the customer regarding a penalty for delay in delivery. So, a project
manager must always try to avoid the schedule slippage and maintain optimum
quality.
Cost
If there is a problem with quality, then the project will be reopened, which in turn
means the cost for the project will now increase. The responsibility lies with the
project manager to prevent additional cost due to poor quality.
Trust
Once you have delivered your product, there may be quality issues that may come
up. This will become a major problem for the customer as well as the organization.
A trust issue will crop up, since the customer may not rely on you for any more
projects.
Competition
Poor quality control is a gift to competition. As word gets out about your quality
failings, through the press (from reviews or even recalls) or social media, blood is
in the water.
Quality Management tools and techniques:

1. Cause-and-effect diagram
Diagrams that define the inputs to a process or product to identify the potential causes of
defects are known as Cause and effect diagrams

This diagram is also referred to as Fish-bone analysis diagram. They are used to determine
what may have caused a defect. They are very helpful when we need to analyze the root
cause of a problem.

2. Control Charts
Control Charts are a way of visualizing how processes are doing overtime. Control Charts
measure the results of processes over time and display the result in graph form to show
whether the process variance is in control or out of control.

4. Histogram
A bar chart showing a distribution of variables over time, is called a Histogram. (Std. Def.)

Histograms give us a fair idea of how our data breaks down. It shows the distribution of data
over various streams ranging from resource allocation to budget distribution.

5. Pareto Chart
A bar chart ordered by the frequency of occurrence, that shows how many results were
generate by each identified. (Std. Def.)

Pareto charts help us to figure out which problems need our attention right away. They’re
based on the idea that a large number of problems are caused by a small number of causes
which is based on the Pareto Principle.

7. Scatter Diagrams
A scatter diagram, or scatter graph is a graphical representation of quantitative analysis on
mathematical statistics of two variables, using Cartesian coordinates.
Scatter diagrams show how two different types of data could relate to each other and show
the progress of work. Scatter diagrams use two variables, one called an ‘independent
variable’, which is an input and the other called the ‘dependent variable’, which is an output.

Strategic Management & Project Selection

A project is an allocation of capital and human resources to achieve time-specific objectives. Project
management is the procedure and techniques used to achieve project objectives, which includes
identifying, prioritizing and scheduling tasks to systematically effect rapid change. Many companies
are "managing organizations by projects," using projects as a way to achieve business goals and
strategic plans.

Project Integration Management

During the course of a project, a project manager may have to schedule tasks, purchase products,
address risks, replace project team members, re-schedule tasks, and accomplish many, many other
things necessary to ensure successful project completion. Keeping track of these tasks can be
overwhelming and knowing how to manage outcomes when different project processes overlap is
crucial. Project integration management helps a project manager coordinate differing project activities.

Initiation Process Group:

In Integration knowledge area, in initiation stage, you develop project charter. A
project charter is nothing but an important paper/document/authorization letter to
start the project, to plan the project. Let me explain you what could be the content
of the project charter:
Planning Process Group:
Based on the information available in the project charter; you do planning for your
project. Planning process group is nothing but an integration of the all the sub -
planning like scope management planning, cost management planning, schedule
management planning, quality management planning, human resource planning,
communication planning, risk planning, procurement planning, requirement
management planning, stakeholder management planning etc.
Execution Process Group:
Your planning for the project is finished and your team will work on the project as
your planning is approved and you have received the work authorization letter to
execute the project. Your team will start working on the project as you have planned
for. You will create the deliverables and if some change will be noticed you can
implement those aligning the baselines (scope baselines, cost performance
baselines and schedule baselines) after taking an approval of the change control
board or configuration management.
Monitoring & Controlling Process Group:
In this process group, you monitor your work performance to check the deviations
from the actual planning. Based on the work performance report you can
differentiate them with the actual baselines as decided in the planning. You may
notice some deviations/differences and think that you need to revisit some
processes, and finally for those revisits you seek project change.
Closing Process Group:
If customer has received the product or deliverables successfull y and he has
acknowledged it and given his/her signature; then the project could be treated as
successfully completed. After completion of the project, you need to close the
procurement agreement and release the resources involved in the project. You
need to perform the project archival process with the help of another stakeholder
as well to be used in future project.