Hi there, welcome. This course is all about initiating a project successfully.

If you haven't
gone through our foundational course yet, we recommend checking it out. It covers the
foundations of project management and contains lots of helpful information for anyone
wanting to start a career in this field. There are lots of people around the world like you
who are hoping to learn the skills to get a project management role. Maybe you prefer to
take a specialized certification rather than a four-year degree. Maybe you're looking for an
affordable way to stand out among competition. Maybe you are interested in changing
your career. Whatever your reason for being here, we're glad you've joined us. This
program is rooted in the belief that a strong foundation in project management can help
anyone start a great career as a project manager.

Play video starting at ::54 and follow transcript0:54

Before we begin this course, let me introduce myself. My name is JuAnne, and I'll be your
instructor for this course. As a Senior Program Manager at Google for the past eight years, I
have worked on cross-functional projects involving product managers, software
engineers, user experience designers, network operations, customer support, and more to
build software used at Google and used by Google Cloud customers. I began my career
working as a liaison between customers and engineers, documenting requirements on
software development projects. As I became involved in larger projects, I started to
manage the timelines of the projects and coordinate the work of the different teams that
had to get involved to finish the project. Before I knew it, I was the de facto project
manager. I have accumulated my knowledge through formal and informal training, finding
practical application in finance, insurance, and tech companies. I'm super excited to be
sharing with you more about the project management discipline. During this course, you'll
learn all the steps for kicking off a project. We'll start with an overview of initiation, which
is the phase that allows ideas to come together and form the beginnings of a plan for a
project. You identify the individual components of initiation like the project scope, goals,
and deliverables. You'll also learn how to measure the success of a project. This is a super
important piece of the puzzle. After all, you want to be able to meet or exceed all of the
requirements for a successful project, right? Later, we'll talk about how to identify
stakeholders. Stakeholders have a direct interest in the project's completion and success.
We'll teach you about some really helpful tools you can use to define project roles and
responsibilities and more tools and resources you typically need to complete the work of a
project. Finally, we'll introduce documentation that can help your team prepare for
project kickoff. Exciting, right? The skills you learn in this course will help you start
projects of your own. We can't wait to get into these topics with you. So let's get started.
Meet me in the next video.
This course will teach you how to set the stage for a successful project. You will learn
about stakeholders, their level of influence, and how to mobilize and manage them, as
well as tackle tasks to identify project scope, goals, deliverables, and success criteria. You
will learn how to use tools like RACI (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed)
charts, stakeholder analysis, and project charters to help you set project expectations. You
will also familiarize yourself with setting SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable,
Relevant, and Time-bound) goals to help you see the full scope of a project, determine its
feasibility, and clearly define what project success will look like in concrete terms. Current
Google project managers will continue to instruct and provide you with hands-on
approaches for accomplishing these tasks, while implementing the right tools and
resources for the job.

In this reading, you will learn about the Project Management Certificate program structure
and course functionality. If you already read this in the last course and don't need a
refresher, feel free to skip it. If you’re new to the program, welcome! We’ve specifically
designed the program you’re about to explore to help every type of learner successfully
finish the certificate and get ready for a role in project management. No previous
experience is required.

Become job-ready

In this Google Project Management Certificate program, you will learn the foundations of
traditional project management and gain insight into Agile project management.
According to the Project Management Institute, the project management labor force in
seven project-oriented sectors is expected to grow by 33 percent, or nearly 22 million new
jobs, by 2027*. We are excited to join you on this journey as you learn the skills to begin a
career in one of today’s most in-demand professions.

Course 2 covers four weeks of material. Each week includes a series of lessons with many
types of learning opportunities, such as:

 Videos with a Google employee as your instructor. 

 Readings to introduce new ideas and case studies and to build on the concepts
from the videos. 
  Discussion forums to explore course topics for better understanding and chat with
peers in the program. 
 In-video questions that will pop up from time to time. They’re designed for you to
check your learning as you go! 
 Practice quizzes to check your understanding and give you valuable feedback.
Practice activities will provide you with a hands-on opportunity to apply skills you
are working to master. You will assess your work by answering quiz questions
about it or by comparing it to an exemplar built by our course team. Note: these
activities will not count towards your final course grade, but you are strongly
encouraged to complete them as they will help prepare you for the graded quizzes
and peer reviews.
 Graded quizzes on video and reading content to measure your progress. 
 Ungraded peer-review activities on video and reading content  that provide you
the opportunity to practice applying skills you are working to master. Other
learners in your course will see the work you submit and give you feedback based
on a rubric. 
 Graded peer-review activities on video and reading content that assess your
ability to apply skills you are working to master. Other learners in your course will
grade your work and give you feedback based on a rubric.
Everyone learns differently, so we designed this program to let you work at your own
pace. Although your personalized deadlines start when you enroll, they’re just a guide.
Feel free to move through the program however it works best for you. Keep in mind, you
can always reset your deadlines by clicking the blue reset my deadlines button. There’s
no penalty for late assignments. To earn your certificate, all you have to do is complete all
of the work.

Tips

 We strongly recommend you take all six courses—and complete the items in each
lesson—in the order they appear, as new information and concepts build on
previous ones. 
 Make the most of the readings and additional resources throughout the program.
They’re designed to support your learning. 
 If something is confusing, don’t hesitate to rewatch a video, go through a reading
again, or ask your classmates for advice in the discussion forum. 
 Take part in all learning opportunities to gain as much knowledge and experience
possible. 
Congratulations on choosing to take this first step toward becoming a part of the
wonderful world of project management. Enjoy the journey!

Helpful resources to get started

The Google Project Management Certificate will provide you with new lessons every week.
As you’ve learned, each lesson includes a series of videos, readings, activities, in-video
questions, practice quizzes, and graded quizzes. In this reading, you’ll learn about
providing feedback on course content, obtaining the Google Project Management
Certificate, and acquiring helpful habits for successfully completing this certificate
program. 

Providing feedback on course content

Please remember to give feedback on videos, readings, and materials. Just open the
resource and look for the thumbs-up and thumbs-down symbols. 

 Click thumbs-up for materials that are helpful. 

 Click thumbs-down for materials that are not helpful.
If you want to flag a specific issue with the item, click the flag icon, select a category, and
then optionally type an explanation in the text box.

This feedback goes to the course developers, not other learners, and helps create even
better programs in the future. 

For technical help, visit the Learner Help Center. 

Obtaining the Google Project Management Certificate

You can review videos, readings, discussion forums, in-video questions, and practice
quizzes in the program for free. However, to access graded assignments and be eligible to
receive your official Google Project Management Certificate, you must:

 Pay the Course Certificate fee, or apply and be approved for a scholarship.
AND

 Pass all graded assignments in all six courses or meet the course-passing
threshold. Each graded assignment is part of a cumulative graded score for the
course, and the passing grade for each course is 80%. 

Helpful habits to successfully complete the certificate

As a learner, you’re bringing all of your past experiences and best learning practices to this
program. The designers of this course have also put together a list of helpful habits that
they believe will help you to be successful: 

1. Plan your time: Setting regular study times and sticking with them each week can
help you make learning a part of your routine. Use a calendar or timetable to
create a schedule, and list what you plan to do each day in order to break your
work down into achievable goals. Create a quiet place to watch the videos, review
the readings, and complete the activities so you can really focus on the material.
2. Be curious: If you find an idea that gets you excited, act on it! Ask questions,
search for more details online, check out the links that interest you, and take notes
on your discoveries. The little things you do to support your learning along the way
 will take your knowledge even further, open more doors in this high-growth field,
and help you qualify for jobs. 
3. Take notes: Notes are useful-to-remember information that you think might be
important in the future, especially as you’re preparing to enter a new job field. In
addition, taking notes is an effective way to make connections between topics and
gain a better understanding of those topics.
4. Chat (responsibly) with other learners: If you have a question, chances are,
you’re not alone. Reach out in the discussion forum to ask for help from other
learners taking this program. You can also visit Coursera’s Global Online
Community. Other important things to know while you’re making friends can be
found in the Coursera Honor Code and Code of Conduct.
5. Update your profile: Consider updating your profile on Coursera. This link appears
in the menu when you click on your name at the top-right corner of this screen.
When classmates find you in the discussion forums, they can click on your name to
view your profile and get to know you more.

Finding more information

Throughout this course, you will learn the basics of project management. We will provide
a lot of information through videos and readings. But sometimes, you may need to look
things up on your own for additional learning. Things change fast in this growing field, so
it is critical to do your own research so you can stay up-to-date on what is new. 

Here are some helpful project management resources available online:

 The Project Management Institute is the leading association for those in project,
program, or portfolio management professions. Their website provides guides,
industry standards, articles, templates, job boards, certifications, and more to help
support professionals in these careers.
 The Scrum Guide defines Scrum, a technique used in Agile project management.
You’ll learn about this framework later in the program. This guide describes
Scrum’s roles, events, artifacts, and the rules that bind them together. You can also
find hundreds of free resources to learn more about Scrum at Scrum.org
Resources.

Digital documents, spreadsheets, and presentations 

You will complete activities using a variety of digital documents, spreadsheets, and
presentation templates. These templates align with the document types that project
managers often use to create, edit, and collaborate with their team and organization.
Digital documents make it easy to collaborate in real time and stay organized.

If you’re not familiar with these types of tools, check out the course Resources. 
Glossary

This course will cover a lot of terms and concepts, some of which you may already know
and some of which will be new. To remind yourself about what a term means, refer to this
Glossary.

Accessibility guidelines

When you create written or visual content or plan a meeting or event, follow these
Accessibility Tips to make it more accessible to everyone, including people with
disabilities.

Welcome back! In the last course, you learned that initiation is the first phase within the
project life cycle, followed by planning, executing, and closing. Makes sense, right?
Regardless of your chosen methodology, all projects have to start somewhere. Let's talk
more about initiation and why it's important for the success of a project.

Play video starting at ::24 and follow transcript0:24

Because initiation is the first phase of the project, it's really important to get it right. A
well-planned initiation results in a strong foundation for your project, and sets it up for
success.

Play video starting at ::38 and follow transcript0:38

Initiation begins after a problem or opportunity has been identified within an

organization.

Play video starting at ::44 and follow transcript0:44

Often, stakeholders like senior leaders at a company will initiate a project to address a
specific need for the business. For example, perhaps the company would like to roll out a
new product, improve employee well being, or reduce costs in a certain department.

Play video starting at :1:2 and follow transcript1:02

It's your responsibility as the project manager to help identify the project goals, resources,
and other details based on initial discussions with the project stakeholders. Even though
someone else might come up with an idea for the project, it's still your job to figure out all
the important pieces that need to come together in order to get the work done.

Play video starting at :1:25 and follow transcript1:25

The initiation phase is a crucial time for asking stakeholders the right questions,
performing research, determining resources, and clearly documenting the key
components of a project. Doing this will help you solidify the scope, or the boundary, of
the project. If this seems a bit overwhelming, don't worry. We'll talk more about project
scope later on in this course. If the project isn't initiated properly, things can go wrong
pretty fast. For example, without sufficient understanding of the project's goals, you might
underestimate what resources you need or how long the project might take. Or, without
agreeing with stakeholders on what success looks like, you might think the project was
completed successfully, while the stakeholders might think it didn't accomplish their
goals. Getting on the same page and gaining clarity during the initiation phase can save a
lot of time and extra work for everyone throughout the project. Proper initiation also helps
ensure that the benefits of the project outcomes will outweigh the costs of the project. To
determine this, you'll do what's called a cost benefit analysis, which is the process of
adding up the expected value of a project (the benefits) and comparing them to the dollar
costs. To do this, you will work with stakeholders to consider a few questions. To
determine the benefits of a project, those questions might include: What value will this
project create? How much money could this project save our organization? How much
money will it bring in from existing customers? How much time will be saved? How will the
user experience be improved? And to determine the costs of the project, those questions
might include: How much time will people have to spend on this project? What will be the
one-time costs? Are there any ongoing costs? What about long-term costs? The benefits of
a project should always outweigh the costs, so it's really important that you consider
these questions early on. Coming up, we'll talk more about the initiation phase and
explore the key components of initiating a project.

What are some of the project manager’s responsibilities during the initiation phase? Select
all that apply.

Determine the criteria for project success with stakeholders

Make the project plan

Identify project goals

Identify project resources

Hello and welcome back. You just learned about the initiation phase of the project life
cycle and why it's so important to get it right. Next, I'll teach you about the key
components that make up initiation, and how these pieces lead to the planning phase of a
project. There are several key components of initiation that you need to consider in order
for your project to be successful: goals, scope, deliverables, success criteria, stakeholders
and resources.

First you need to consider the goals of the project, the goal is what you've been asked
to do and what you're trying to achieve. All projects should have clear goals and often
those will be determined by senior company leaders, with your help.

From there, you will begin to consider the project scope. This is the process to define
the work that needs to happen to complete the project.

You also need to think about project deliverables. They're the products and services that
you will create for your customer, client or project sponsor. Deliverables can be anything
from product features and functionalities to documentation, processes and more,
anything that enables the goal of your project to be achieved. Deliverables are submitted
to help you reach your project goals. Also, it's important to keep in mind that the
deliverables can be tangible or intangible. An example of a tangible deliverable might be
submitting a chapter of a manuscript. If the goal is to publish a textbook. Or if your project
goal is to finish implementation of a new point of sale software at a retail store, scheduling
staff training sessions could be an intangible deliverable.

Once the goals, scope and deliverables are determined, you need to consider success
criteria. Success criteria are the standards by which you measure how successful a
project was in reaching its goals.
 Another important consideration is your stakeholders. Stakeholders are key to making
informed decisions at every step of the project, including the initiation phase. They're the
people who both have an interest in and are affected by the completion and success of a
project. As a result, they're often instrumental in determining the goals, objectives,
deliverables and success criteria of the project, from coming up with the idea to outlining
the expectations of its results. As you move through the initiation phase, it's your job to
ensure that you understand the needs of the project stakeholders early on. It's also your
role to ensure that all stakeholders are in agreement on the goals and overall mission of
the project before moving on to the next phase.

Now, let's talk about resources, resources generally refer to the budget, people,
materials, and other items that you will have at your disposal. It's super important to
think carefully about these pieces early on. No one wants to get started on a project, only
to realize halfway through that they don't have enough money or enough people to
complete the work. That would be a mess. Finally, once you've established your goals,
scope, deliverables, success criteria, stakeholders, and resources,

it's time to create a project charter. A project charter is a document that contains all the
details of the project. Project charters clearly define the project and its goals and outline
what is needed to accomplish them. A project charter allows you to get organized, set up a
framework for what needs to be done and communicate those details to others. Once
you've drafted the charter, you would then review the document with key stakeholders to
get their approval to move into the planning stage. Coming up, you learn more about
project charters and even get the chance to create one yourself. Hopefully you're starting
to see how the key components of initiation help lay the foundation of a solid project. To
quickly recap, you gather information about your goals, scope, deliverables, success
criteria, stakeholders, and resources, and you document that information in the project
charter. During the rest of this course, we'll talk more about each of the components
outlined so far. You've come so far and learned so much, keep up the great work.
Reflection: Project initiation and key components
Total points 7
1.
Question 1

In this exercise, you will read a scenario and identify the six key components of project
initiation:

 Goals
 Scope
 Project deliverables
 Success criteria
 Stakeholders
 Resources
Start by reading the scenario:

Imagine you are a project manager at an educational software company. You’re assigned a
new project to develop a digital grading platform for a local high school. Before beginning
the project, you meet with teachers, school administrators, the school IT department, and
the district superintendent to discuss the project and get their input. 

During these meetings, you organized your thoughts by writing down project key
components that the stakeholders have requested. Your notes on the key components
are:

 $150,000 maximum budget  

 Team: can add one member from the school IT department  
 Platform should allow teachers to enter grades and allow students/parents to view
grades  
 Need full teacher buy-in at high school: 100% adoption within next nine months   
 Project should focus only on the digital grading platform and NOT impact other
digital platforms (ex. attendance, school lunch payments)  
 Overall, the school is seeking a platform for digital grading 
The next step in the project is to organize the key components into a project charter. You
will then present the charter to the individuals involved with the project. The

ensures everyone is aligned before planning and then executing the project.

-----

Have you read the scenario?

1 point

I have!
2.
Question 2

Which of the key components is the project’s goal? Write one sentence.

1 point

Your answer cannot be more than 10000 characters.

3.
Question 3

Which key component outlines the project’s scope? Write one sentence.

1 point

Your answer cannot be more than 10000 characters.

4.
Question 4

Which key component is the project deliverable? Write one sentence.

1 point

Your answer cannot be more than 10000 characters.

5.
Question 5

Which key component outlines the project’s success criteria? Write one sentence.

1 point

Your answer cannot be more than 10000 characters.

6.
Question 6

Who are the project stakeholders? Write one sentence.

1 point

Your answer cannot be more than 10000 characters.

7.
Question 7

Which key components outline the resources you will have at your disposal for the
project?

1 point

Your answer cannot be more than 10000 characters.

Hi, my name is Afsheen. I'm the Director of Core Capacity at Google, where we support
some of our key products such as Google Maps, Google Photos, Google Search, and many
more. Ultimately, what we're doing is we're managing the supply and demand for our
products in the resource space, so specifically: compute, storage, machine learning, and
networking resources. Ultimately, our goal is to provide the fuel for these products so we
can support our billions of users. I often look at establishing the project goals, and tied to
the goals is discussing the criteria.
What's a successful project? What are the measurables involved in the project space? And
lastly, I always want to look at the stakeholders that are involved—maybe our clients, our
key stakeholders, and so on—and make sure that they're thought of during the formation
of the project.
I'm meeting with the stakeholders, I'm trying to understand what they're trying to
achieve, what we're trying to achieve, and the goal, if you will, is a critical aspect of setting
the scope.
When I'm trying to set the goals of a project, I apply very in depth, active listening. I'm
doing a lot of socializing with other stakeholders. I'm meeting a lot of players to
understand what's the landscape like. It's an active listening experience. I have a recent
example of a project that in my view did not do the proper initiation phase. Last week, in
fact, a group approached me with a process or a feature that they were going to launch. I
reviewed it and immediately realized that they were so far off. They had not discussed the
topic with any of my team members or myself, and they were day minus one from
launching the feature. It was a total miss. It really illustrates the point about when you
initiate a project, you can't invest enough time in meeting with stakeholders, meeting with
your colleagues, listening to them—actively listening. Someone taught me recently the
value of building that "listening to learn" muscle. And in the project initiation phase, to
me, that is such a valuable talent, there are those that have it, there are those that have
learned it, and there those who will never do it. And I believe it's a trainable skill, but it
requires you to really slow down and look at the landscape in front of you.
Establish project goals
The theme for this year’s event is “community,” so that Formation’s teams can come
together and develop stronger collaborative skills. Vinh talks to senior leadership and
they agree that the event will span three days and accommodate participatory
workshops for the company’s 200 global employees.

Create the scope

The stakeholders told Vinh that they would like to hold small-group discussions, team
training sessions, and a karaoke cocktail party—and provide transportation to/from all
events. Vinh researches venues, vendors, and technology providers to ensure he has a
sense of costs and logistical needs so he can define the scope.

Provide deliverables
From the project plan, which itself was an early deliverable, Vinh has a clear set of
deliverables he needs to provide throughout the conference, including event
registration, a full schedule of events, and meal service.

Define success criteria

The goal of the conference is to connect employees. To measure that, Vinh wants to
know how many participants learned something or made a new connection. He plans
to send a satisfaction survey to gather direct employee feedback. He also arranges to
promote the survey on posters at the event and in post-conference emails.

Performing a cost-benefit analysis

Previously, you learned that a cost-benefit analysis is the process of adding up the
expected value of a project—the benefits—and comparing them to the dollar costs. In this
reading, we will discuss the benefits of conducting a cost-benefit analysis, guiding
questions to help you and your stakeholders conduct one, and how to calculate return on
investment (ROI).

The benefits of a cost-benefit analysis

A cost-benefit analysis can minimize risks and maximize gains for projects and
organizations. It can help you communicate clearly with stakeholders and executives and
keep your project on track. Because this type of analysis uses objective data, it can help
reduce biases and keep stakeholder self-interest from influencing decisions. 

Comparing a project’s benefits to its costs can help you make a strong business case to
stakeholders and leadership and ensure your organization pursues the most profitable or
useful projects. Organizations use cost-benefit analyses to reduce waste and invest their
resources responsibly.

Guiding questions for a cost-benefit analysis

When you’re pursuing a project, the benefits should outweigh the costs. It’s important for
you and your stakeholders to consider questions like the ones that follow early on, while
you prepare the proposal.

To determine the benefits of a project, you might ask:

 What value will this project create? 

 How much money could this project save our organization? 
 How much money will it bring in from existing customers?
 How much time will it save? 
 How will it improve the customer experience?
And to determine the costs of a project, consider questions such as:

 How much time will people have to spend on this project?

 What are the one-time costs?
 Are there any ongoing costs?
 What about long-term costs? 
You might also consider questions about intangible benefits. These are gains that are not
quantifiable, such as:

 Customer satisfaction. Will the project increase customer retention, causing them
to spend more on the company’s products or services? 
 Employee satisfaction. Is the project likely to improve employee morale, reducing
turnover? 
 Employee productivity. Will the project reduce employee’s overtime hours,
saving the company money?
 Brand perception. Is the project likely to improve the company’s brand perception
and recognition, attracting more customers or providing a competitive advantage?
You can also flip these questions to consider intangible costs. These are costs that are not
quantifiable. For example, might the project put customer retention, employee
satisfaction, or brand perception at risk?

When assigning values to tangible or intangible costs and benefits, you can reference
similar past projects, conduct industry research, or consult with experts.

Calculating costs and benefits

The process of calculating costs and benefits is also called calculating return on
investment, or ROI. There are many ways to determine a project’s ROI, but the easiest
way is to compare the upfront and ongoing costs to its benefits over time.
One common ROI formula is:

In this formula, G represents the financial gains you expect from the project, and C
represents the upfront and ongoing costs of your investment in the project.

For example, imagine your project costs $6,000 up front plus $25 per month for 12
months. This equals $300 per year, but you estimate that the project will bring in $10,000
in revenue over the course of that year. Using the formula above, you calculate the ROI as:
($10,000 - $6,300) ÷ $6,300 = 0.58 = 58%

The ROI comes to 0.58, or 58%. You consider this to be a strong ROI, so you decide to
pursue the project.

Key takeaway

Performing a cost-benefit analysis can help you and your stakeholders determine if it
makes sense to take on a new project by evaluating if its benefits outweigh its costs. When
conducting cost-benefit analyses for your prospective projects, you can use the guiding
questions and ROI formula provided in this reading as a reference. 

To learn more about performing a cost-benefit analysis, check out these articles:

 Cost Benefit Analysis for Projects – A Step-by-Step Guide

 Cost Benefit or Benefit Cost Analysis

Think back on a project you completed recently. It could be a work project (like adopting a
new software) or a personal one (like moving to a new city). Consider the challenges you
faced while carrying out the project. Then, select up to three issues that impacted your
project from the list below. After you submit your response, you will be able to see results
from you and your peers.

The project went over time.

19.59%
Project communication was lacking and some questions went unanswered.
14.90%
The project went over budget.

14.54%
Key stakeholders had different expectations and they did not agree on the project goals.

11.47%
The project went out-of-scope.

10.79%
The project benefits were less than expected.

10.50%
Project documentation was difficult to manage.

9.72%
Key stakeholders did not complete their tasks.

8.45%
192,104 responses
SkipContinue

overarching framework Weekly Challenge 1

Latest Submission Grade 68.75%

1.
Question 1

Why is it important to initiate a project? Select all that apply.

1 / 1 point

Determine if the project’s benefits outweigh the costs

Correct

Solidify the scope of a project

Correct

Help the project manager establish a good reputation

Provide a strong foundation and set the stage for success

Correct

2.
Question 2

What two questions can a project manager ask to determine a project’s costs?

0.75 / 1 point

What value will the project create?

This should not be selected

Try reviewing the video on the importance of initiating.

How much time will people have to spend on the project?

Correct

What are the ongoing project costs?

Correct

How will the user experience be improved?

3.
Question 3

Which of the following are key components of project initiation? Select all that apply.

1 / 1 point

Deliverables

Correct
Resources

Correct

Documentation

Success criteria

Correct

Scope

Correct

Goals

Correct

Project charter

Planning

4.
Question 4

Imagine you’re the project manager of a new grocery delivery service. You meet with
stakeholders to set an overarching framework of what is and is not included in the project
statement of work and deliverables. Which project initiation component are you trying to
determine?

0 / 1 point

Scope
Project charter

Success criteria

Resources

Incorrect

Try reviewing the video on key components of initiation.

5.
Question 5

Imagine that a university hires a construction company to build a new library. Before
starting, the project manager outlines the building materials the project needs. They also
outline the roles and amount of workers to hire. Which key component of project initiation
does this scenario concern?

0 / 1 point

Success criteria

Scope

Deliverables

Resources

Incorrect

Try reviewing the video on key components of initiation.

6.
Question 6
A project charter adds value to projects in what three ways? 

0.75 / 1 point

Allows project managers to get organized

Correct

Sets up a framework for what project work the team needs to do

Correct

Helps project managers communicate project details to others

Correct

Includes a plan to mitigate potential risks

This should not be selected

Try reviewing the video on key components of initiation.

7.
Question 7

When calculating a cost-benefit analysis for a project, what do you call gains that are not
quantifiable?

1 / 1 point

Quarterly income

Yearly profits

Intangible benefits
Ongoing costs

Correct

8.
Question 8

You expect that a project will bring in $12,000 USD in revenue per year. You estimate it will
cost $5,000 up front. You also estimate costs of $50 per month for the first 12 months,
which equals $600 per year. Using the formula (G-C) ÷ C = ROI, how would you calculate
the project’s return on investment (ROI) after the first 12 months?

1 / 1 point

(12,000 - 5,600) ÷ 5,000 = 128%

(5,600 - 5,000) ÷ 12,000 = 5%

(12,000 - 5,600) ÷ 5,600 = 114%

(12,000 - 5,000) ÷ 5,000 = 140%

Correct

Congratulations! You passed!

Grade received 100%

To pass 80% or higher

Go to next item

Weekly Challenge 1
Latest Submission Grade 100%

1.
Question 1

Why is it important to initiate a project? Select all that apply.

1 / 1 point

Determine if the project’s benefits outweigh the costs

Correct

Help the project manager establish a good reputation

Provide a strong foundation and set the stage for success

Correct

Solidify the scope of a project

Correct

2.
Question 2

Why is it important to perform a cost-benefit analysis during the initiation phase? Select
all that apply.

1 / 1 point

To add up the expected value, or benefits, of a project

Correct

To compare the project benefits to the costs

Correct

To set up a framework for what project work the team needs to do

To outline project goals and how to accomplish them

3.
Question 3

Fill in the blank: _____ are the first thing a project manager needs to consider during the
initiation phase.

1 / 1 point

Goals

Resources

Planning

Success criteria

Correct

4.
Question 4

Imagine you’re the project manager of a new grocery delivery service. You meet with
stakeholders to decide how to measure project success. Which project initiation
component are you trying to determine?

1 / 1 point

Resources

Goals

Success criteria
Scope

Correct

5.
Question 5

What term refers to the budget, people, materials, and other items necessary to complete
a project?

1 / 1 point

Resources

Success criteria

Scope

Deliverables

Correct

6.
Question 6

A project charter adds value to projects in what three ways? 

1 / 1 point

Helps project managers communicate project details to others

Correct

Sets up a framework for what project work the team needs to do

Correct

Allows project managers to get organized

Correct

Includes a plan to mitigate potential risks

7.
Question 7

Fill in the blank: _____ are gains that are not quantifiable.

1 / 1 point

Yearly profits

Ongoing costs

Intangible benefits

Quarterly income

Correct

8.
Question 8

You expect that a project will bring in $12,000 USD in revenue per year. You estimate it will
cost $5,000 up front. You also estimate costs of $50 per month for the first 12 months,
which equals $600 per year. Using the formula (G-C) ÷ C = ROI, how would you calculate
the project’s return on investment (ROI) after the first 12 months?

1 / 1 point
(12,000 - 5,600) ÷ 5,600 = 114%

(12,000 - 5,600) ÷ 5,000 = 128%

(5,600 - 5,000) ÷ 12,000 = 5%

(12,000 - 5,000) ÷ 5,000 = 140%

Correct

Welcome back. By now you should have a better sense of how the different parts of the
initiation come together to form the beginnings of a project. So far, you've outlined the
key components of project initiation and, most importantly, you've learned that a lack of
preparation during this stage can lead to problems later on. We're going to continue
honing your project preparation skills. Once we're done here, you'll be able to define and
create project goals and deliverables, the guiding stars of your project. You'll also be able
to define project scope, the boundaries of your project, that state what is and is not part of
your project. You'll be able to identify what's in-scope and out-of-scope for a project and
you'll be able to recognize scope creep, something you'll need to keep a close eye on to
help you reach your project goal. Finally, you'll be able to explain different ways of
defining and measuring your project's success criteria. Before we get started, I'd like to
talk through an example that we'll follow for the rest of this course.

Imagine that you're the lead project manager at Office Green, a commercial landscaping
company that specializes in plant decor for offices and other businesses. The Director of
Product at Office Green has an idea for a new service called Plant Pals to offer high-
volume customers small, low-maintenance plants, like little cacti and leafy ferns, for their
desks. As the project manager, you've been tasked with managing the roll out of this new
service. As we go through this course, we'll return to your role as the project manager at
Office Green, to help teach you about project goals, deliverables, and success criteria.
You'll also see the role your team and stakeholders play in creating and following these
three important components. At the end, you'll compile everything you've learned into a
shared document that you can use as a portfolio to share with future employers. After this
course, you'll move on to the next phases of the project life cycle, and so will your Office
Green project. Enjoy.

Today we will discuss cost-benefit analysis in project management. This technique is also
known as benefit-cost analysis, cost-benefit ratio, project cost analysis, etc.
It is rare for an organization to have unlimited resources, so they routinely must choose
the best option from all the opportunities available. One of the ways organizations make
these decisions is by using cost-benefit analysis.

This technique is also very helpful when deciding on a new course of action.

Cost-benefit analysis has a vast scope and explaining it in one blog post is not easy, so I
will provide a preliminary outline of this project cost analysis technique.

Cost-Benefit Analysis
Cost-benefit analysis is a benefit measurement method usually performed by top
management. 

This technique is useful during the feasibility study to determine if the project is worth
taking.

Also, during the project selection analysis, cost-benefit analysis helps management select
the right project from multiple options. They gather data and analyze all the projects, and
then try to discover which project is more profitable.

Cost-benefit analysis provides valuable information, such as:

 Expected Profit
 Time value of the profit
 The basis for comparing the projects

Expected Profit
The cost-benefit analysis finds and converts the benefits into monetary values. Then, the
investment costs are subtracted from the benefits to get the result.

You can proceed if the result is positive; if not, abandon the idea.

For instance, suppose your company is involved with manual bookbinding, and you
propose that management buy equipment to improve efficiency.

Before submitting the proposal, you will perform the cost-benefit analysis. You will list the
costs of the investment.

For example:

 Machine cost
 Maintenance cost
 Cost of electricity used by these machines

Then you will identify the benefits, such as

  Profit from improved production
 Cost of reduced workforce
 Cost of the better-quality product

You will figure out the investment cost and the monetary value of benefits. You will then
perform the cost-benefit analysis by subtracting the cost of investment from the benefits.
Use this figure with management to justify your proposal.

Time Value of the Profit

In cost-benefit analysis, you calculate the expenditure and the expected profit. Remember
that profit earned after several years will not have the same value as today, so consider
inflation while analyzing the cost. Inflation erodes the value of money, so your profits
won’t go as far

For example, assume a 5% inflation yearly. What you can buy for 100 USD today will cost
105 USD after one year.

Calculating the Current Worth

Assume that you invest 100,000 USD in a project. You expect to earn a 10,000 USD profit
after one year.

Considering yearly inflation of 5%, what will the current value be?

The formula to find the Current Value is

FV = CV(1+r/100)^n

Here,

FV = Future Value

CV = Current Value

r = Inflation

n = time

Given values,

FV = 10,000 USD

r=5

n =1

Putting these values in the formula,

10,000 = CV(1+0.05)^1

CV = 10,000/1.05

CV = 9,523.80

Therefore, the current value of your profit is 9,523.80 USD.

There is no specific cost-benefit analysis formula; however, simple equations can provide
you with accurate information.

The Basis to Compare the Projects

Cost-benefit analysis helps you select the best project when faced with many options.
Here you compare the profit earned from each project in current values, and then choose
the one with the highest profit.

If it is a multi-year project, you will not realize a profit in today’s value. You may hope you
will profit from it; however, a Net Present Value (NPV) analysis could be eye-opening and
worth doing.

The Advantages of Cost-Benefit Analysis

Cost-benefit analysis has many advantages. It helps organizations conduct feasibility
studies and select prudently from many choices. It is also useful when an organization
takes a new course of action. This analysis has several basic advantages:

1. It justifies selecting a project.

2. It helps to compare the cost invested and benefits.
3. It provides a baseline for comparing available options.
4. It compares the future earnings with today’s dollar value.
5. It helps select the most profitable project.

Limitations of Cost-Benefit Analysis

The benefit-cost analysis has a few limitations.

It is useful for small projects with shorter durations. As the duration increases, this

technique gets more complex and unwieldy. Bigger projects are more difficult; converting
intangible costs is not easy, so this technique is no longer useful.

As the project grows more complex, intangible costs and benefits rise. Converting these
costs and benefits into monetary form is not an easy task. Inflation plays an important
role in longer projects. Also, the greater the project duration, the greater the risks.
Summary
The cost-benefit technique is a systematic approach to calculate the investment cost and
received benefits. It is a simple technique that lets you know if you should proceed with
the project or which project you should select among many. 

Welcome back. In this video, I'll define project goals and deliverables and explain why
they're important. Then I'll teach you how to determine whether a goal or deliverable has
been well-defined, which means it's got enough detail and information to guide you
towards success. First things first, to set up a project for success, and to make your job
easier, you want to figure out what needs to be done before you actually get started. You
need to define exactly what your goals and deliverables are, so that you'll be able to tell
your team members what to do. You need a clear picture of what you're trying to
accomplish, how you're going to accomplish it, and how you know when it has been
accomplished. Let's define project goals so that you can start to figure out what your
project team needs to reach it. The project goal is the desired outcome of the project. It's
what you've been asked to do and what you're trying to achieve. For example, your goal
could be to improve the response time to customer inquiries via email by 20 percent. The
goal of your Office Green project might be to increase revenue by five percent through a
new service called Plant Pals that offers desk plants to top customers by the end of the
year. Goals are important because they give you a roadmap to your destination. Without a
clear goal in mind, how can you know where to go or how to get there? Now, one of the
biggest differences between what makes a good goal and a not-so-good goal is how well
it's defined. Meaning: how clear and specific is the goal. If the goal is your destination, are
you confident you'll know when you've arrived? The examples I mentioned before, to
improve the response time to customer increase via email by 20 percent, and to increase
the Office Green revenue by five percent are two well-defined goals because they tell you
what you're trying to achieve. But wait, there's more. These goals also tell you how to do
what you've been asked to do. In this case, it's via email and through a new service
offering, and that's not all. These goals clarify the goal even further by saying "to improve
by 20 percent and increase by five percent." Now we know where we're going. Well-
defined goals are both specific and measurable. They give you a clear sense of what you
are trying to accomplish. Really great goals have even more detail, but I'll get to that soon.
When you start a project, take time to review your goals and make sure they're well-
defined. To do this, you might need to get more information from your stakeholders. Talk
to them about their vision for the project. Ask how this aligns to the company's larger
goals and mission. By the end of that conversation, you and your stakeholders should
agree to support the project goals in order to avoid running into issues later on. Here's an
example from my own experience as a project manager. Our team had finished a new
product feature. Our stated goal was to deliver an early version of this feature and collect
user feedback. When we delivered the feature to one of our key customers for user
feedback, the customer didn't have anyone available to try it out. Our team debated
whether or not we had met the goal if we hadn't collected user feedback. Some felt that
we hadn't achieved the stated goal while others thought we did. The customer was
satisfied with our team's ability to deliver a feature in the timeline stated. But our internal
team, wasted valuable time going back and forth about it. That said, make sure that
before you start your project, you, your stakeholders, and your team are all clear on the
project goals so that you know you're making the right kind of progress. I'll teach you a
process for how to do this coming up. Once you have the goals nailed down,

it's time to examine the project deliverables. Project deliverables are the products or
services that are created for the customer, client, or project sponsor. In other words, a
deliverable is what gets produced or presented at the end of a task, event, or process.
Take the goal to improve customer response time. the deliverable for that goal could be
the creation of email templates for responding to typical questions. Your Office Green
project goal to increase revenues could have these two deliverables: launching the
plant service and a finished website that highlights the new kinds of plants being
offered. These are considered deliverables because they describe tangible outputs that
show stakeholders how additional revenues will be generated. There are all sorts of
project deliverable examples. A pretty common one is a report. When a goal is reached,
you can visibly see the results documented in the chart, graph, or presentation.
Deliverables help us quantify and realize the impact of the project. Just like needing well-
defined goals, you need well-defined deliverables for pretty much the same reasons.
Deliverables are usually decided upfront with the stakeholders or clients involved in the
project. They hold everyone accountable and are typically a big part of achieving the goal.
Make sure to ask questions about what the deliverable should be and have everyone share
their vision and expectations of the deliverables so that you're all on the same page.
Coming up, you'll practice the art of defining your goals even further following the SMART
method. Enjoy.

What’s a project goal?

A report that team members can present to stakeholders

A desired outcome of a project that is clear and specific

A vague, yet inspiring outcome of a project

Correct
A project goal should tell the team what the end of the project will look like. The goal should also be
clear and specific.
What’s a project deliverable?

A tangible outcome produced at the end of a task

A roadmap to completing the project

A team brainstorming session

Correct
Project deliverables can be an item or report that teammates present to stakeholders, such as a
presentation, chart, or graph.
Refine goals with stakeholders
First, you will meet with the Director of Product (the project sponsor) to discuss their aims for the
project. To clarify these goals and keep the project on track, you’ll turn them into SMART goals.

Assess stakeholder power and influence

Next, you’ll get to know some of your stakeholders and find out how they fit into the project. A
stakeholder analysis and power grid will help you decide how best—and how often—to
communicate with team members, investors, and more.

Assign roles and responsibilities to promote the service

To promote Plant Pals, you’ll assemble teams to plan the marketing and sales strategy and
redesign the website. You’ll use RACI charts to determine who should be responsible, accountable,
consulted, and informed about various project tasks.

Create a charter for the next stage of the project

As you wrap up the initiation phase, your focus will shift to internal operations. You’ll create a
project charter to guide your team as they plan training, fulfillment, and delivery procedures for
Plant Pals.

How to set SMART goals

Welcome back, by now you know that goals are important to the success of your project,
and you know that they need to be well-defined in order to help keep your project on
track. Since your deliverables depend on your goals, it's in your best interest to get those
goals as well- defined as possible. Lucky for you, I've got an easy method for doing just
that: setting SMART goals. I already mentioned that goals should be specific and
measurable. The SMART method to evaluate goals add three more considerations for
success.

Be attainable, be relevant, and be time-bound. Put them all together, and what do you
have? SMART goals. As an entry-level project manager, you may or may not be setting the
project's main goals, but you will need to be able to identify and clarify them as needed,
and that's where the SMART method can be a valuable tool. Let's take a closer look at
each term. As I've already mentioned, if your goal is not specific, you'll have trouble
figuring out how long it should take to complete and whether or not you've accomplished
it.
For example, if the goal is simply to improve customer service response time, that's not
very specific. It does tell you what you want to achieve in general, but it doesn't say
anything else. If you improve response time by one percent, is that enough? If after five
years response time finally goes up, is that enough? How about if only half of your staff
improves their response times, but the other half stays the same. Specific goals should
answer at least two of the questions I'm about to ask.

What do I want to accomplish? Why is this a goal? Does it have a specific reason, purpose,
or benefit? Who is involved? Who is the recipient? Employees, customers, the community
at large? Where should the goal be delivered? Finally, to what degree? In other words,
what are the requirements and constraints? Next, we want to set goals that are
measurable, meaning we can determine that they were objectively met.

Measuring is not only a way for people to track progress, but also a tool to help people
stay motivated. You can tell the goal is measurable by asking how much, how many, and
how will I know when it's accomplished? Sometimes the success of a goal can be
measured with a simple yes or no. Did you learn to play the guitar, yes or no? You will need
to measure most of the goals you have with metrics. Metrics, what you use to measure
something like numbers or figures. For example, if your goal was to run a five kilometer
race, then distance in kilometers is your metric.

At Office Green, the project goal is to increase revenue by five percent. In this case,
revenue is the metric. Lastly, consider benchmarks or points of reference to make sure
you're choosing accurate metrics. For instance, if your overall goal is to increase
revenue, you can look at last year's data as a benchmark for deciding how much to
increase revenue this year. If last year's revenue increased by three percent, then an
increase by five percent in a booming economy would be a reasonable goal for this year.

Ok, so the goal is specific and measurable, but is it attainable? Can it reasonably be
reached based on the metrics? Typically, you want goals that are a little challenging to
encourage growth, otherwise, what's the point of the goal if nothing's going to change?
However, you don't want it to be too extreme or you'll never reach it. You'll have failed
before you even started. Aim to find a balance between the two extremes. For example,
let's take the goal to run a 5K. Say you regularly run 2.5 kilometers, three times a week. An
attainable goal will be to go from running 2.5 kilometers to running five kilometers within
four weeks. An unattainable goal might be earning first-place in the 5K. I mean, it could
happen, but it's not likely, especially if you've never run a race before. But how can you
know if a goal is attainable, if it's unfamiliar? A clue to helping you figure out if your goal is
attainable, is to ask: how can it be accomplished? Break down the goal into smaller parts
and see if it makes sense. Going from 2.5 kilometers to five kilometers over four weeks
means increasing your distance by a little over half a kilometer each week. That's not so
bad, use the same process on your Office Green project goal. Businesses usually conduct
quarterly reviews. So let's assume that increase is expected to occur over the course of a
year or four quarters. In order to meet the goal, you need to see an increase of at least 1.25
percent each quarter, seems pretty reasonable to me. What wouldn't be reasonable is
setting a goal of increasing revenues by 50 percent or 100 percent, unless your research
showed that business was improving that quickly.

Your goal is specific, measurable, and attainable. Now let's see if it's relevant. In other
words, does it make sense to try and reach this goal? Think about how the goal lines up
with other goals, priorities and values. Ask whether the goal seems worthwhile. Does the
effort involved balance out the benefits? Does it match your organizations' other needs
and priorities? Everyone, from the client, the project team, and the people who will
ultimately use the product, need to feel like the goal is worth supporting. Also, consider
the timing.

Both the amount of time the project will take, as well as the larger economic and social
contexts can have big impacts. There might be a budget to complete the project now, but
will the company be able to sustain the project over time? Is there an audience that will
continue to use the product or service once it's delivered? Once you've got the answers to
these questions, you should have a clear goal to help steer the project. If you still don't
feel confident about the project's goals, keep digging. It's okay to ask questions if you
have doubts. Communicate your concerns with the project senior stakeholders and your
direct supervisor if you have one. They should be able to address some of your concerns
so that you can feel confident about moving forward. If you're feeling good about the
project being relevant and attainable, and you've made sure it's measurable,

and has the specifics to keep you and your team focused the final item on the checklist is
to make sure it's time-bound. Time-bound means your goal has a deadline. Deadlines give
you a way to track your progress, otherwise, you may never reach your goal or never even
get started. Time and metrics often go hand in hand, because time can also be used as a
metric. Making your goal time-bound gives you a way to break down how much needs to
be accomplished over time. For example, if you need to increase revenues by the end of
the year, you can break down how much you need to increase each quarter, month, and
week, and there you have it. Specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound: a
nearly foolproof method to create an evaluate project goals. You know what they say,
work smarter, not harder. As we continue in this module, you'll learn about project scope
and see how having clear goals supports all other decisions that come up during a project.

What can help create a measurable goal? Select all that apply.

Metrics

Correct
It’s important for project managers to set well-defined goals. That’s why SMART goals are specific,
measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. Metrics, such as figures or numbers, make goals
measurable. The accuracy of metrics are confirmed with points of reference, called benchmarks.
Benchmarks

Correct
SMART goals are well-defined goals that help keep projects on track. They’re specific, measurable,
attainable, relevant, and time-bound. SMART goals are measured with figures or numbers known as
metrics. Benchmarks are used to help confirm the accuracy of metrics.

Contracts

Deadlines

SMART goals: Making goals meaningful

In this lesson you are learning to define and create measurable project goals and
deliverables. Now, let's focus on SMART goals.

Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound (SMART) goals are very
helpful for ensuring project success. As you start your career in project management, you
may not directly set the project goals, but you should be able to clarify and understand
them. SMART goals help you see the full scope of a goal, determine its feasibility, and
clearly define project success in concrete terms. 

Let’s recap what we discussed in the previous video by taking a look at a breakdown of the
criteria for SMART goals below: 
  Specific: The objective has no ambiguity for the project team to misinterpret. 
 Measurable: Metrics help the project team determine when the objective is met.
 Attainable: The project team agrees the objective is realistic.
 Relevant: The goal fits the organization’s strategic plan and supports the project
charter.
 Time-bound: The project team documents a date to achieve the goal.
You may see variations on what each letter in the “SMART” acronym stands for. (For
example, you may see “actionable” or “achievable” instead of “attainable” or “realistic”
instead of “relevant.”) However, the general intent of each of these terms—to make sure
the goal is within reach—is always similar.

Focusing on the "M" in SMART

Let’s take a moment to zoom in on the M in SMART, which stands for measurable. Having
measurable goals allows you to assess the success of your project based on quantifiable
or tangible metrics, such as dollar amounts, number of outputs, quantities, etc.
Measurable goals are important because they leave little room for confusion around
expectations from stakeholders. 

Not every metric will have value, so you will have to determine which metrics make sense
for the project. For example, measuring how many meetings the software engineers on
your project attend on a weekly basis may not be the most valuable metric for a
productivity goal. Alternatively, you might measure other aspects of the engineers’
productivity, such as a particular number of features created per engineer or a specific
number of issues flagged per day.
Defining a SMART goal

Let’s explore an example related to making a personal goal measurable. Imagine you are
looking to make a career change, and you set a goal to complete a Google Career
Certificate. You can measure the success of this goal because after completing the entire
program, you will receive a certificate—a tangible outcome.

Now, let’s determine how to make the remaining elements of this goal SMART. In this
example, your specific goal is to attain a Google Career Certificate. You can make this goal
attainable by deciding that you will complete one course per month. This goal is relevant
because it supports your desire to make a career change. Finally, you can make this goal
time-bound by deciding that you will complete the program within six months.

After defining each of these components, your SMART goal then becomes: Obtain a Google
Career Certificate by taking one course per month within the next six months.

Key takeaway

Determining metrics can be extremely helpful in capturing statuses, successes, delays,

and more in a project. As a project manager, identifying meaningful metrics can help
move the project toward its goal. Additionally, by defining each element of a project goal
to make it SMART, you can determine what success means for that goal and how to
achieve it. 

Hello again. Throughout the program, you have the chance to practice project
management skills in a few different ways. In addition to multiple choice and short answer
quizzes, you complete hands on activities to apply what you've learned. You'll solve
common project problems in real world situations and create the kinds of artifacts project
managers use every day. Completing these hands on activities is really important to your
success in this program. They'll give you practical experience that can help you describe
your skills in interviews or use them to manage projects more effectively in your personal
or professional life. To help you prepare, I'll introduce you to two different types of hands
on activities that we prepared for you. I'll also share some tips and tricks that will let you
get the most out of them. And one type of activity, you review a project management
scenario and follow step by step instructions to move the project forward. Your job could
be to learn about stakeholders, assigned task owners or organized documents, so they're
easy to find. You can recognize these exercises as quizzes with activity in the title. When
you finish an activity, we'll take you through an exemplar of the completed assignment
that you can compare to your own work. Be sure to review these exemplars carefully, so
you know what you did well and how you can improve next time. Keep in mind that some
activities can have more than one right answer, just like real problems can have more than
one solution. The exemplars for these activities explain one way of doing things, but they
also point out where you could do things differently. This helps you check your approach
to an assignment, not just your answers. Certain activities also include quiz questions that
help you check your work. These quizzes can be graded or ungraded and give you another
way to measure your progress and expand your knowledge. Another type of hands on
activity is the peer review or peer graded assignment. These activities follow a similar
format to the first, you will review of project management scenario and complete a set of
step by step instructions. But there's one major difference, your classmates will grade
your assignment and you'll grade theirs. For each peer review, you need to grade at least
two submissions, but you can grade more if you want. This peer grading process is a key
part of the learning experience for this program. That's because it gives you objective
feedback on your work and let you know how others are approaching the same
challenges. Peer grading gives you the chance to learn not just from us, the instructors but
from each other as well. To grade each other's work, you will use what's known as a
rubric, a rubric as a checklist of items your assignment must include, with each item worth
a certain number of points. You typically need to score at least 80% correct to pass a peer
graded assignment. So for example if a rubric has 10 points, you need a minimum of 8
points to pass. In addition to using these rubrics to grade your peers, you can review them
before you submit your own assignments, so you understand how you'll be graded. Peer
grading is also important because it lets you give and receive qualitative feedback. For
example, if a peer does well, you could tell them they did a great job refining a goal or that
you like their creative solution to a problem. Positive feedback helps you and your peers
learn about your strength and motivates you to do your best work. On the other hand, it's
just as important if not more so to learn from your mistakes. If a peer get something
wrong, be sure to leave thoughtful, constructive feedback, so they understand why they
didn't get full credit. That way, they'll know what to review and how to improve, so they
can become better project managers. And don't worry, we'll give you some tips on how to
leave constructive feedback for each activity. Peer review is a valuable tool, but unlike
other assessments in the program, it may take some time to receive your grades.
Remember that real people aren't as fast as computers, so we can take up to 10 days for
grades to appear. Additionally, it can take some time before their assignments available
for you to grade. Be patient, your peers may be working through the course at a different
pace and remember you can always move on to other items in the course and come back
if you need to. If for any reason you aren't able to access a peer submission or if a
submission is incomplete, you can skip it and go to a different one. To learn how to do
this, continue onto the optional reading. This reading will also tell you more about the
peer review process and link you to helpful resources on topics like where to find your
feedback and how to change your sharing settings and google docs. So be sure to check it
out. Great. Now that you know more about some of the hands on activities to find
throughout the program, you're ready to get started.

How should you use the rubric in peer-review assignments? Select all that apply.

To grade your classmates’ work

To understand how your assignment will be graded

Correct
The rubric is a checklist of items your assignment must include. Each item is worth a certain number of
points. You can review a rubric to understand how your assignment will be graded and to grade others'
work.

To submit more than one assignment

You didn’t select all the correct answers

SkipRetry

How should you use the rubric in peer-review assignments? Select all that apply.

To grade your classmates’ work

Correct
For the peer-grading process, you will follow a rubric to grade your classmates’ work. Since the rubric
outlines what each assignment needs to include and how many points each item is worth, it also helps
you understand how your assignment will be graded.

To understand how your assignment will be graded

Correct
The rubric is a checklist of items your assignment must include. Each item is worth a certain number of
points. You can review a rubric to understand how your assignment will be graded and to grade others'
work.

To submit more than one assignment

This should not be selected

The rubric is a checklist of items your assignment must include, and each item is worth a set number of
points. You can use the rubric to understand how your assignment will be graded and to grade others'
work, not to submit more than one assignment.
SkipRetry

Hi there. So far you've been learning to define and create measurable project goals and
deliverables. As you broaden your understanding of project management and the
different tools available to help you succeed, I want to teach you about a popular tool
used in many organizations and here at Google: objectives and Key results, or OKRs. In this
video, I'll discuss what OKRs are, how they are used by organizations, and how they help
focus a team's time and effort on activities that drive success. You've just learned about,
and practiced, the SMART method for defining project goals. Like the SMART method,
OKRs help establish and clarify goals or objectives for an organization, department,
project or person. OKRs take SMART goals a step further by combining a goal and more
detailed metrics to determine a measurable outcome. They not only state clearly what the
goal is, they provide specific details that allow you to measure the success of the goal. One
way to think about OKRs is that they separate the different components of SMART goals
and clarify them even further, rather than grouping everything into one statement. Let's
break this down. The O stands for objective, and defines what needs to be achieved. It
describes the desired result or outcome, such as an increase in customer retention, or an
improvement on the employee onboarding process. KR stands for key results. These are
the measurable outcomes that define when the objective has been met. For example, if
your objective is to improve customer retention, then the key result might be to have 90
percent customer satisfaction rating by the end of the first quarter. Recall that one of the
SMART criteria is attainability, which means it's practical to achieve the goal. Key results,
however, should be a little more ambitious. Here at Google, we actually use OKRs to set
stretch goals as a way to challenge ourselves to do something we haven't accomplished
before. If we actually accomplish all of our key results, we may have made our OKRs a bit
too easy. Let's review quickly. Objectives define what needs to be achieved and describe a
desired outcome. Key results define how you'll know whether or not you've met your
objective. How do OKRs work in practice? How do you use them to manage a project?
Organizations often set OKRs at different levels, such as the company level, department or
team level, and project level. Company-level OKRs are commonly shared across an
organization so that everyone is clear on the company's goals. They are usually updated
on an annual basis to help drive the organization in the direction it wants to go. These
high-level OKRs support the mission of the organization. Project-level OKRs should
support and be aligned with company-level OKRs. An example of a company-level
objective at Office Green increase customer retention by adapting to the changing
workplace environment. This is a big, aspirational goal that applies to the entire company
and all of its endeavors. In order to focus their efforts to reach this objective, Office Green
might develop key results that include 95 percent of phone, chat, and email customer
support tickets are resolved during the first contact. Top three most requested new
offerings for distributed office environments are in pilot by the end of the second quarter,
and sales and support channels are available 24/7 by the end of the year. Some of these
company-level key results could become the basis for projects. For example, the key
result, "top three most requested new offerings for distributed office environments that
are in pilot by the end of the second quarter," could become the Plant Pals project. Team
or department-level OKRs, support the company's broader OKRs and help drive team
performance. Departments may develop OKRs that are more specific to their job function
as well. For example, the company-level key result "sales and support channels are
available 24/7 by the end of the year," could lead to a related sales department objective
like: increase the sales team presence nationwide. And the key result: new sales offices are
open in 10 cities by the end of the year. Project-level OKRs are set during the initiation
phase to help define measurable project goals. There're tracked throughout the planning
and execution stages to measure project success. Project-level OKRs need to align with
and support both company and department-level OKRs. For example, in order to align
with Office Green's company-wide objective to increase customer retention by adapting
to the changing workplace environment, a project objective for Plant Pals might be to
enroll existing customers in the Plant Pals service. A key result for this objective might be
25 percent of existing customers sign up for the Plant Pals pilot. Let's recap. OKR stands
for objectives and key results. They combine a goal and a metric to determine a
measurable outcome. Objectives define what needs to be achieved and describe a desired
outcome. Key results define how you will measure the outcome of your objective.
Company-level OKRs are shared across an organization so that everyone can align and
focus their efforts to help the company reach its goals. Project-level OKRs help define
measurable project goals. They need to align with and support both company and
departmental-level OKRs. Great. Now that you have a better idea of what OKRs are and
how they function, you can practice creating OKRs on your own.

OKR Process and Methodology

The OKR process is also called the OKR methodology. The OKR process sets goals and
aligns efforts throughout a company. The process encourages a focus on meaningful
change. Regular progress reviews keep OKRs a priority each workday. 

Although the OKR process is straightforward, following certain steps guarantees a more
productive experience. 

 Understand the Hierarchy of OKRs: You can decide which OKRs to pick when you
understand the hierarchy: the company mission inspires overarching objectives and key
results. Teams use that information to create OKRs that contribute to company goals and
set initiatives to complete key results. 
 Understand Cadence: Cadence is the period for working on OKRs. Company objectives
are in yearly cycles. Teams and departments usually have quarterly OKRs.
 Create OKRs: Come together as a team to develop OKRs. See our article on how to write
OKRs for details about selecting objectives and key results, aligning goals throughout the
company, and more.  
 Agree on a Scoring Method: A key part of creating OKRs is setting a scoring scale for
determining success. Our OKR scoring guide offers more details on how to put this into
practice.  
 Communicate OKRs to Everyone: Transparency is a strength of the OKR method. Publish
team and even individual OKRs. Use your intranet, a dedicated OKR tracking tool, or even
a flip chart or whiteboard for a small team. However, OKRs that concern personnel or
strategic moves should be kept confidential from competitors.
 Review and Update Progress: As people work on OKRs, they should update their status.
Regular reviews and interim scoring not only keep goals on the front burner; they also alert
managers and coworkers to potential blockers and struggles. 
 Don’t Despair for Low Grades: View low grades as data to help refine OKRs for the next
quarter. This advice is especially true for aspirational goals. 
 Consider the Google Scoring Approach: In the Google OKR scoring method, an OKR is
good when it receives a score of 70-75 percent. A score of 100 percent is excellent.
OKR Best Practices
OKRs help companies, teams, and individuals set goals and measure progress. OKRs focus
attention on priorities. Frequent review and grading sessions keep goals top-of-mind and
help every employee understand how their efforts contribute to company growth. 

These best practices help promote OKR adoption and engagement so that they become
an effective tool for cultural change. 

 Expect Opposition: Some people receive new improvement and management systems

with cynicism. Often they’ve observed previous efforts that were ill supported or fruitless,
or they view such initiatives as more work. Be patient with staff when implementing OKRs. 
 OKRs Shouldn’t Hurt:

According to Christina Wodtke, speaker and author of the OKR-based book Radical

Focus and her recent title, The Team that Managed Itself, OKRs shouldn’t cause pain from
overexertion. “They should be like a yoga stretch, where you go a little further each time.”

 Do What Feels Right: Don’t feel you have to copy the approach that other companies use.
Run an OKR effort in a way that works best for your organization. 
 Start Small: Don’t roll out OKRs to the whole company simultaneously. As in the practice
of the Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycle and continuous improvement, start in one
department and fine-tune the process. Read our article on continuous improvement for
ideas on making small changes and adding initiatives incrementally to achieve a cultural
transformation. 
 Use Tools in Your Comfort Zone: Track your OKRs using a spreadsheet, a document, or a
white board. Don’t spend a bundle on a software package before you try the OKR
framework. 
 Create Only Three to Five Objectives, with Only Three to Five Key Results: Pick a few
objectives that can transform your business in a quarter. Similarly, add only the essential
key results. Too many of both could cause an organization to potentially spend more time
tracking goals than working on projects.
  Consider Measurable Key Results: Select key results that are measurable because they
reveal how you will achieve an objective. However, some practitioners believe that
qualitative key results are okay. 
 Assign Key Result Owners: Designate one person to track and report on the progress of
key results.
 Be Ambitious: Aspirational OKRs encourage people to take risks without fear that it will
affect their performance bonus if they fail. If you’re certain you can meet a key result,
extend expectations a little further. OKRs should feel slightly scary. 
 Align Team OKRs with Company Strategy: Team OKRs provide vehicles to communicate
strategy and goals throughout the company.

“Company and team goals both must be in alignment on what's important, and when
there's no alignment, focus, or communication, it's going to lead to bad decisions,”
stresses Darrel Whiteley, a Master Black Belt, Lean Master, and Kaizen expert with Firefly
Consulting. “It sounds obvious, but you must communicate priorities. There can be no
doubt about what's important to the company between the chief executive officer and the
guy on the line that's opening a valve to fill up a tank.”

 Put the Customer First: A business can grow by offering a unique value proposition to
customers. Write OKRs that answer customer questions and needs. 
 Review OKRs Regularly: Be flexible. If your company, team, or personal goals change, feel
free to change the OKRs. No process should be more important than common sense and
everyday business. Especially in volatile industries and companies, priorities change fast.
Make sure your goals reflect new priorities. 
 Keep Key Results Positive: Instead of saying, “Reduce support calls by 15 percent,”
present it as “85 percent of customers have a positive experience.”
 OKRs Are Not the Be-All and End-All: Wodtke cautions that OKRs are not the whole story.
They are one tool in your box. “You still have to do the messy work of managing people
and having difficult conversations.”

Creating OKRs for your project

In this lesson, you are learning to define and create measurable project goals and
deliverables. This reading will focus on creating effective objectives and key results (OKRs)
and how to implement them into your project.

What are OKRs?

OKR stands for objectives and key results. They combine a goal and a metric to determine
a measurable outcome.

Objectives: Defines what needs to be achieved; describes a desired outcome. Key results: The
measurable outcomes that objectively define when the objective has been met

Company-wide OKRs are used to set an ultimate goal for an entire organization, while
team, department, and project-level OKRs describe the focused results each group will
need to achieve in order to support the organization.

OKRs and project management

As a project manager, OKRs can help you expand upon project goals and further clarify the
deliverables you’ll need from the project to accomplish those goals. Project-level OKRs
help establish the appropriate scope for your team so that you can say “no” to requests
that may get in the way of them meeting their objectives. You can also create and use
project-level OKRs to help motivate your team since OKRs are intended to challenge you
to push past what’s easily achievable. 

Creating OKRs for your project

Set your objectives

Project objectives should be aspirational, aligned with organizational goals, action-

oriented, concrete, and significant. Consider the vision you and your stakeholders have for
your project and determine what you want the project team to accomplish in 3–6 months.

Examples:

 Build the most secure data security software 

 Continuously improve web analytics and conversions
 Provide a top-performing service
 Make a universally-available app
 Increase market reach
 Achieve top sales among competitors in the region
Strong objectives meet the following criteria. They are:

 Aspirational
 Aligned with organizational goals
 Action-oriented
 Concrete
 Significant
To help shape each objective, ask yourself and your team:

 Does the objective help in achieving the project’s overall goals?

 Does the objective align with company and departmental OKRs?
 Is the objective inspiring and motivational?
 Will achieving the objective make a significant impact?

Develop key results

Next, add 2–3 key results for each objective. Key results should be time-bound. They can
be used to indicate the amount of progress to achieve within a shorter period or to define
whether you’ve met your objective at the end of the project. They should also challenge
you and your team to stretch yourselves to achieve more.

Examples:

 X% new signups within first quarter post launch

 Increase advertiser spend by X%
 New feature adoption is at least X% 
 Maximum 2 critical bugs are reported by customers per Sprint
 Maintain newsletter unsubscribe rate at X%
Strong key results meet the following criteria:

 Results-oriented—not a task
 Measurable and verifiable
 Specific and time-bound
 Aggressive yet realistic
To help shape your key results, ask yourself and your team the following:

 What does success mean?

 What metrics would prove that we’ve successfully achieved the objective?

OKR development best practices

Here are some best practices to keep in mind when writing OKRs:

 Think of your objectives as being motivational and inspiring and your key results as
being tactical and specific. The objective describes what you want to do and the
key results describe how you’ll know you did it. 
  As a general rule, try to develop around 2–-3  key results for each objective.
 Be sure to document your OKRs and link to them in your project plan.

OKRs versus SMART goals

Earlier in this lesson, you learned how to craft SMART goals for your project. While SMART
goals and OKRs have some similarities, there are key differences, as well. The following
article describes how SMART goals and OKRs are similar, how they differ, and when you
might want to use one or the other:  Understanding the Unique Utility of OKRs vs. SMART
Goals

To learn more how OKRs work to help project managers define and create measurable
project goals and deliverables, check out the following resources:

 Google’s OKR playbook

 Planning company goals
 OKRs and SMART goals: What's the difference?
 OKRs and KPIs: What They Are and How They Work Together
 How OKR and project management work together
 OKR Examples
 OKR TED Talk video (John Doerr, the founder of OKRs, explains why the secret to
success is setting the right goals.)
Sample OKRs by Department
The following comprehensive list provides OKR goal-setting examples that you can use or
adapt to your team or department.
Administrative/Operations Sample OKR
OKRs for admin and ops often focus on improving efficiency and saving money. 

Objective: Improve IT infrastructure.

 KR: Reduce system downtime in Q2 by 30 percent.

 KR: Train 50 percent of team on new cloud backup.

Objective: Reduce operations costs by 20 percent.

 KR: Purchase coffee pots and a coffee machine, and cancel coffee service.
 KR: Change carpet cleaning contract to quarterly instead of monthly.
 KR: Open only one box of sticky notes at a time to discourage people from loading up
when they don’t need new ones.

Analyst Relations Example OKRs

OKRs for analyst relations offer a range of key results, from creating documents and
researching backgrounds to meeting with media and research company representatives.

Objective: Raise awareness of the brand.

  KR: Create six white papers by the end of the quarter.
 KR: Have 20 meetings with media outlets by the end of Q1.
 KR: Recruit four influencers to use the product and display brand art.

Objective: Build relationships with leading market research organizations.

 KR: Reach out to three major research firms.

 KR: Host two analyst webinars by the end of May.

Objective: Develop a stellar briefing and presentation package.

 KR: Research, prepare, and rehearse answers to 100 potential questions.

 KR: Develop 12 briefing docs by the end of March.
 KR: Hire a designer to design and lay out all collateral.

Example Design Team OKRs

Design OKRs can cover such matters as training and employee engagement, as well as
design goals.

Objective: Deliver a design for the drawing wizard.

 KR: Complete initial user testing with candidates from the user group by the first month of
Q2.
 KR: Deliver wireframes.
 KR: Confirm the final two options for color palettes.

Objective: Increase product usability.

 KR: Finalize workflow wizard.

 KR: Raise system usability rating from 7 to 8.5 (out of a possible 10) based on 500
responses to the most recent survey.
 KR: Reduce support calls by 20 percent.

Objective: Assist directors with new business collateral.

 KR: Design and adapt the layout for presentation decks.

 KR: Develop 10 infographics. 
 KR: Create customer SharePoint site.

Finance/Accounting Sample OKRs

The OKRs shown here for finance and accounting consider not just costs, but also process
improvement. 

Objective: Optimize the annual budgeting process.

  KR: Reduce costs for the budget meeting by 50 percent through in-house printing of
packets.
 KR: Finalize new budgets by August 30.

Objective: Strengthen the auditing process.

 KR: Audit 70 percent or more of identified risks.

 KR: Conduct an internal audit before the end of Q2.
 KR: Issue an internal audit report within 30 days of completion.

Sample Human Resources OKRs

The following examples of human resources OKRs highlight personal development,
manager development, and employee engagement aspirations.

Objective: Attain highest-ever employee satisfaction score.

 KR: Ensure every manager starts ongoing, two-way feedback loops.

 KR: Survey employees weekly.
 KR: Double employee engagement activities.
 KR: Raise the employee satisfaction score to 8 or above.

Objective: Complete employee reviews efficiently and on time.

 KR: Distribute goal tracking templates to all employees.

 KR: Survey staff to gauge how they like the new performance process.
 KR: Collect all performance review notes from managers a week before the deadline.

Objective: Nurture an increase in manager skills.

 KR: Establish bi-weekly management training brown-bag sessions. 

 KR: Schedule regular 1:1 meetings for all managers with their reports.
 KR: Conduct monthly anonymous employee surveys to get feedback on managerial
effectiveness.

Objective: Increase personal output and efficiency.

 KR: Reduce personal social media time to 30 minutes each workday.

 KR: Increase weekly word count from 4,000 to 6,000 words.
 KR: Eliminate spelling and grammar errors by using an online grammar checker.
 KR: Use an online transcription service to convert long interviews to text.

Objective: Improve employee retention at the team level.

 KR: Review the ongoing performance management process.

 KR: Develop a portfolio of online and other training opportunities to help employees stay
fully credentialed.
 KR: Compare salaries and benefits to competitive market offerings.
Objective: Delight company employees.

 KR: Launch two employee motivational events each month.

 KR: Get gym passes for all employees.
 KR: Recognize "small wins" every week.
 KR: Create an employee lounge space.

Sample OKRs for a Legal Team

The following OKR for a law office describes goals to help promote and build the business. 

Objective: Grow awareness of the firm.

 KR: Add at least two firms as referral partners by the end of April.

 KR: Create a TV commercial for the local market.
 KR: Start a blog on our company website.

Logistics Team Sample OKRs

Logistics OKRs can focus on your processes or your tools. 

Objective: Automate order management.

 KR: Triple the throughput of orders.

 KR: Reduce order changes to five per week.

Objective: Improve the returned goods experience.

 KR: Implement pre-printed return shipping labels.

 KR: Review local regulations to extend the return period beyond 30 days.

Objective: Expedite shipping process.

 KR: Reposition A and B movers to reduce quick picks to less than five minutes.
 KR: Ensure all packing materials are within five to ten feet of fast movers.
 KR: Invest in three handheld label printers for each shift in order to print 80 percent of
labels on the spot.

Marketing Sample OKRs

Marketing OKRs often center on increasing views, impressions, leads, or signups, and on
creating new content.

Objective: Produce widely read and quoted original content.

 KR: Increase LTV to 4:1.

  KR: Reoptimize Q2 articles to gain 15 backlinks. 
 KR: Rewrite content headlines to include more than one eye-grabbing detail, such as a
number, statistic, how-to, ultimate guide, etc.  

Objective: Increase understanding of consumer behavior.

 KR: Conduct personal interviews with the top 10 percent of returning customers.

 KR: Recommend three new customer loyalty plans by the end of Q2.

Objective: Update marketing process to reflect the revamped product offering.

 KR: Determine two to four key performance metrics by the end of Q1.

 KR: Create and approve the brand playbook.
 KR: Implement an efficient connection between web signup analytics and CRM.

Objective: Double the number of monthly signups.

 KR: Create three targeted online campaigns to add 1,200 leads.

 KR: Optimize SEO for articles to generate 800 new signups.
 KR: Add two subscriber calls to action (CTAs) on the landing page for new visitors.

Objective: Create a partners and resellers site.

 KR: Ensure partner access to complete a set of six user assistance sites.

 KR: Publish four partner-focused white papers by April 30.
 KR: Implement a partner forum on the site using Disqus.

Objective: Create a monumental launch for the new product.

 KR: Present two pre-launch webinars to customers and partners.

 KR: Write and distribute five product datasheets.
 KR: Earn 12,000 page impressions.

Objective: Maximize email marketing campaign.

 KR: Increase signups for weekly emails by 20 percent.

 KR: Raise e-book downloads by 25 percent from email click-throughs.
 KR: Reduce the unsubscribe rate to less than 6 percent.

Objective: Increase mailing list subscribers.

 KR: Create two targeted email offers by the end of Q3.

 KR: Implement two QR codes for signup.
 KR: Sketch out requirements for three-plus email options (daily, weekly, digests) by the
end of the first month of Q3.
Sales OKR Examples
The sales OKRs shown below emphasize attaining a target dollar amount in revenue or
making a certain number of contacts that could lead to sales. 

Objective: Increase sales through our channel partners.

 KR: Engage 10 new channel partners in the eastern provinces.

 KR: Retain 95 percent of current partners for Q2.
 KR: Conduct partner training events in four main regional cities.

Objective: Revitalize the sales lead process.

 KR: Establish a lead-nurturing procedure by the end of March.

 KR: Map the sales funnel to our content plan by the end of March.

Objective: Reach a monthly recurring revenue (MRR) of $75,000.

 KR: Add two targeted promotions each month.

 KR: Raise the average monthly subscription size from $29 to $56.
 KR: Reach 25 percent usage from a new coupon program. Investigate and join a coupon
program.

Objective: Review the sales analytics process.

 KR: Interview customers with less than $10,000 in annual purchases to find out why they
don't buy more.
 KR: Compare the time spent with customers versus win/loss for Q2.
 KR: Provide the team with a weekly pipeline metrics summary.

Objective: Reach quarterly revenue of $1 million.

 KR: Achieve a first-month income of $300,000 for a new product.

 KR: Decrease the sales cycle from two months to 21 days.
 KR: Upsell the product to 40 percent of existing customers.

Objective: Grow sales among art students.

 KR: Develop relationships with 100 new prospective stores.

 KR: Contact all 13 public and private art schools in the state.
 KR: Award bonus of $500 to anyone who brings in two new community art center
accounts.

Sample Product Management OKRs

Product management OKRs often involve improving a product or generating interest in a
product.

Objective: Identify pain points in the drawing wizard.

  KR: Reduce lag time in tasks to less than 90 seconds.
 KR: Verify button fixes 35 percent of simple drawing errors.
 KR: Conduct a QA test for 90 percent of artifacts and errors.

Objective: Improve the user onboarding process.

 KR: Analyze onboarding flow to include timely messages to reduce churn by 20 percent.

 KR: Increase rate of users who complete onboarding from 70 percent to 80 percent.
 KR: Develop five context-sensitive pop-up tutorials.

Objective: Grow product referrals.

 KR: Investigate five potential touchpoints for requesting referrals.

 KR: Build a referral email list of over 4,500 addresses.
 KR: Grow referrals by 10 percent through a referral reward program.

Public Relations Sample OKRs

With public relations OKRs, the goal is to increase exposure of the product or service.

Objective: Raise professional artist awareness of the new masking product.

 KR: Create 50,000 impressions through ads in major artists' magazines by the end of Q1.
 KR: Schedule two-day demo tables in top-selling stores in New York, Seattle, Los Angeles,
Portland, and Taos by the end of Q1.
 KR: Arrange booths at five major craft shows. 

Objective: Gain 15 percent more conversions from new e-book.

 KR: Write a new e-book by the end of February.

 KR: Garner guest blog post in two top related sites.
 KR: Implement email outreach with existing lists.

Objective: Increase the popularity of company product (yogurt).

 KR: Place two ads in the top three high-end lifestyle magazines.

 KR: Develop interactive experience for city food fairs in Seattle, Los Angeles, San
Francisco, New York, and Boston.
 KR: Establish sponsorship of one East Coast and one West Coast Shakespeare festival.

Support/Customer Service Sample OKRs

OKRs for support and customer service frequently aim to speed customers on their way to
using the product or service, and to win high satisfaction ratings from customers.

Objective: Delight customers.
  KR: Reduce customer onboarding process time to three days.
 KR: Reduce churn rate by 10 percent per month.

Objective: Expand support opportunities.

 KR: Reduce tickets by 10 percent with a self-help section in the ticketing system.

 KR: Reduce text ticket response time to one hour or less.
 KR: Hire Vietnamese- and Russian-speaking staff for both shifts.

Objective: Refine the tier support system.

 KR: Review issue complexity and response time to improve escalation rules.

 KR: Train support agents in the new escalation criteria.
 KR: Identify third-tier problem solvers and let them know they are on call for
troubleshooting.

Objective: Provide exceptional customer support.

 KR: Bring customer satisfaction score to above 6.0.

 KR: Reduce customer onboarding process time to three days.

Objective: Improve the support experience.

 KR: Increase daily tickets resolved by 30 percent.

 KR: Reduce time spent on 80 percent of bugs to 40 minutes. 
 KR: Reduce escalation requests by 10 percent.

Example OKRs for Technology/Engineering/R&D

Technology OKRs can cover the gamut from improving product speed and development
speed to creating case study content and conducting user tests. 

Objective: Speed up development time in Q2.    

 KR: Reduce the average number of bugs per new feature from 2 to 1.5.
 KR: Reduce lead time by 20 percent.
 KR: Increase sprint velocity by 2 percent. 

Objective: Raise the efficiency of the release build process.

 KR: Automate the inclusion of online help packages for each language.

 KR: Document and vet release procedures.
 KR: Create and staff a dedicated branching role.

Objective: Improve overall security.

 KR: Complete an S2Score risk assessment by the end of Q3.

  KR: Earn a grade of B or better in security compliance self-audit. Prepare for an annual
security compliance audit.
 KR: Implement 2FA for all company systems.

Objective: Improve product performance.

 KR: Reduce the number of critical bugs by 10 percent. 

 KR: Reduce the average response time on the app to less than 500ms.
 KR: Reduce run time warnings by 5 percent.

Objective: Gain real-time insight into business IT operations.

 KR: Instrument all revenue-generating flows by the end of the quarter.

 KR: Create a real-time deployment dashboard with the top four business ops metrics by
the end of the Q3.
 KR: Create a gauge of spikes in credit card transactions by the end of September.

Objective: Design and develop a new product.

 KR: Create input mechanisms to gather ideas from sales, marketing, and customer
support.
 KR: Establish UX team to conduct tests in-house with 20 users.
 KR: Recruit five SaaS developers.
 KR: Test product mockups with five people from the user-test pool.

Objective: Improve the test process.

 KR: Assess current test tools by the end of March.

 KR: Reduce the number of bugs closed as "Not a Bug."
 KR: Log no critical bugs in the final week of testing.

Objective: Successfully launch a beta version of the product.

 KR: Collect feedback from the first 50 percent of the customers.

 KR: Create six beta case studies.
 KR: Ensure a minimum of 50 percent new signups.

Examples of Training/Education OKRs

Both individuals and groups can create education and training OKRs. 

Objective: Get into an MBA program.

 KR: Maintain a 3.7 GPA through undergrad years.

 KR: Get four letters of recommendation.
 KR: Complete the application by the deadline.

Objective: Develop an onboarding workshop for board members.

  KR: Interview retiring board members to determine essential knowledge for roles.
 KR: Detail board member key duties and responsibilities with our management company
rep.
 KR: Highlight important information in foundation documents.

Objective: Improve fourth- to sixth-grade math scores.

 KR: Conduct a math in-service session for math and science teachers during the first two
weeks of the first semester.
 KR: Ensure 30 percent of students earn a grade of B or higher by the end of the first
semester.
 KR: Raise letter grade of 80 percent of students currently earning a D grade.

Example OKRs for Top Management/Leadership

Leadership OKRs may vary depending on the size of the company. These examples focus
on garnering more attention for the business and, thereby, more revenue. 

Objective: Grow the business.

 KR: Grow revenue to $3 million.

 KR: Generate 20 percent more new leads.
 KR: Develop 12 beta case studies by the end of Q1.

Objective: Publicize the brand community to customers under 30.

 KR: Send a gift card for one scarf to anyone who shares a picture of themselves wearing
one of our outfits on Instagram.
 KR: Increase monthly page visits above 5,000 in Q2.
 KR: Publish 91 posts in Q2.

After you've chosen your objectives and key results, you can track your progress in
achieving those objectives. See OKR Scoring to learn more.

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What is the difference between OKRs

and SMART goals?
There are 3 distinct differences that set these goal setting approaches apart.

1. Depending on how a team or an individual chooses to define SMART

goals, they can present fundamental differences from OKRs.
SMART goals often have different interpretations depending on the
individual or team using the approach. For example, “measurement” can
be replaced by “motivation” or as noted previously, “assignable” for
“attainable” or “realistic” as a substitution for “relevant.” And while OKRs
are quite malleable and can be used for different types of environments
and settings, the acronym will always mean “objectives and key results.”
The quantifiable element of OKRs is the core aspect of the framework.
With measurement as an aspect of SMART, on a surface-level, the
concepts appear quite similar. However, if the “M” for example, were to
be replaced with “mission” or “motivation,” the two approaches begin to
contrast fundamentally given OKRs focus on measurement.
2. SMART goals solely craft the objective.
OKRs connect key results to objectives for a more
strategic appropriation of resources and time with key results at the
forefront. SMART goals, however, are a list of principles to guide crafting
an objective alone - with no particular focus on key results or tactics.
SMART goals provoke the question “what is the goal?” Yet OKRs ask “what
is the goal and how do we get there? Objectives and key results should
connect like puzzle pieces, with the intent being that if the objective were
to be reached, the key results must also be achieved. Therefore, there is
an added layer of accountability for reaching the objective.
3. SMART goals are not a framework, they are a guideline.
Similar to frameworks, SMART goals offer a structure by defining criteria
which is used to inform the process of defining goals. However, while
 many may herald SMART goals as a framework - they are simply an
approach or guiding set of principles for setting and building your goals.

One of the most common questions we get asked at Perdoo is how OKR and
Project Management work together. OKR is a great framework for focusing on
achieving results rather than completing tasks, but this doesn’t mean there’s no
place for day-to-day tasks in OKR. They work together.

If you’re already familiar with the OKR framework, you’ll know an Objective sets
your focus. An Objective describes a point in the future you want to get to which is
different from the status quo. Your Key Results are things you measure, that have
a target, and indicate whether or not you’ve reached your Objective.

Putting your plan into action

You’ve decided where you’re going, and how you’ll know if you’re on the right
track. Now it’s time to put your OKRs into action and plan the work you’ll need to
do. This is the work you’ll focus on that will influence your Key Results and
eventually lead you to your Objective. This is where OKR and Project Management
combine.

Many companies, teams, and individuals already use tools like task managers or
to-do lists to manage the work they do. With larger teams or more complex work
dedicated project management tools often come into play. These tools break
down activities into Projects containing individual tasks with roles,
responsibilities, and due dates.

If you’re using a project management tool, you’re probably wondering by this

point if OKR is just another layer of complexity; extra work you need to do that can
already be managed within your current processes. In fact, Project management is
simply a way of organizing things that need to be done, while OKR takes care of
motivation, direction, and measurement. In Perdoo, we call projects “Initiatives”.

Here’s an example:
A Games company decides it’s identified a huge opportunity for a new mobile
game in an untapped market.

The Marketing team creates a Q1 OKR with a 3-month timeframe.

To achieve these ambitious OKRs the Marketing team will need to put together an
action plan covering all the Projects they need to get done to reach their goals.

How OKR and Project Management

connect
With these OKRs in place, the role of Project Management now comes into play
and the Marketing team can spend time planning the exact steps, tasks, and
activities they’ll need to do for their Objective to be a success.

One Project could be:

Create a multi-channel marketing campaign to encourage people to leave App

Store reviews

Tasks could include:

 Create a campaign plan

 Run kick off meeting
 Brief creative team
 Review campaign creative
 Create in-app messages
 Create campaign emails
 Add campaign messaging to website
 Set up campaign reporting
  Create press release
 Connect with journalists
 Launch campaign
 Review campaign

In the example above, OKR and Project Management work together. Projects and
Tasks become the “output” of the OKR and the Key Results the “outcome”.

It’s important to note here that a common mistake many people make when
setting Key Results is to confuse them with actions, tasks or projects, or use Key
Results as a kind of to-do list. The reason why this is a bad idea is that Key Results
should always contain a metric and they should not be within your direct sphere
of influence. “Running a project kickoff meeting” has no relationship to whether or
not you’ve actually “Grown your game from launch to leader”. It’s something you
do, but also something you could do 100 times with no effect on the intended
Objective.

If you achieve “>4 stars on over 85% of all your reviews”, however, that’s a pretty
good indicator you’re on your way to “growing your game from launch to leader”.

Conclusion
OKR is a fantastic framework for setting goals, and Project Management systems
are fantastic tools for getting work done. When they’re combined you have a
complete system for managing and measuring all the work you do, from strategy
to execution to success.

Optional Activity: Create OKRs for your project

Total points 1

1.
Question 1

This practice activity is an opportunity for you to apply the concepts that you learned throughout the
course. We provide a completed example activity so you can compare and contrast your work and grow
as a project manager.

To pass this optional activity, you must receive 100%, or 1 out of 1 point, by reviewing or completing
the activity below. You can learn more about the graded and practice items in the Course Overview.
Activity Overview

In this activity, you will practice creating OKRs (objectives and key results) for a project. OKRs combine
a goal and a metric to determine a measurable outcome. Objectives define what needs to be achieved
and describe a desired outcome, while key results define how you will measure that outcome.

As a project manager, creating OKRs can help you clarify both your overall project goals and the
deliverables you’ll need to accomplish those goals. You can also create project-level OKRs to help
motivate your team.

When you finish the activity, we'll take you through an exemplar of the completed assignment that you
can compare to your own work. You will not be able to access the exemplar until you have completed
this activity. Be sure to review these exemplars carefully, so you know what you did well and how you
can improve next time. Keep in mind that some activities can have more than one right answer, just
like real problems can have more than one solution. The exemplars for these activities explain one way
of doing things, but they also point out where you could do things differently. This helps you check
your approach to an assignment, not just your answers

Scenario

Review the scenario below. Then complete the step-by-step instructions.

Wonder City is a mid-sized city where increasing growth and traffic are impacting quality of life.
According to a recent market assessment, the region’s population is expected to double in the next five
years. Job growth is also expected to increase by 48%. This growth will impact street networks, parking
and mobility.

Wonder City has several city-wide objectives related to reducing traffic congestion and improving the
city’s infrastructure. In order to support these city-wide objectives, the Wonder City Transportation
Authority (WCTA) will be launching five new bus lines. This initiative has been nicknamed Project Move
It.

You have been hired as the project manager for this initiative. As the project manager, you will set OKRs
to help clarify the project goals and define what needs to be done in order to deliver a successful
project.

Here is some additional information about the project:

 The project needs to be completed within two years.

 Community member buy-in and support for the locations of the new bus lines will be required.
 The project must adhere to all government regulations.
 Stops along the new bus lines must connect neighboring suburbs to downtown and public
resource facilities.
 Bus lines must service at least 50% of the most densely-populated areas of Wonder City.
 The project is intended to help improve wait times and increase ridership.
 The plan includes a marketing campaign to promote the new lines.
Step-By-Step Instructions

Step 1: Access the template

To use the template for this course item, click the link below and select “Use Template.”

Link to template: Project Move It OKRs

OR

If you don’t have a Google account, download the template directly from the attachment below.

Activity Template_ Project Move It OKRs

DOCX File

Step 2: Draft your first objective

A list of objectives for Project Move It have been provided for you below. Select one and add it next to
“O1” on the first line of the OKR card. 

Potential objectives for Project Move It:

 Actively and meaningfully engage the public to generate buy-in and project support.
 Make it easy to get around the greater Wonder City area via public transportation.
 Promote public transportation as a convenient alternative to driving.
 Provide a reliable and consistent public transportation service. 
Or, if you prefer, you may draft your own objective based on the scenario.

Remember that effective objectives are:

 Aspirational: Is the objective challenging and inspiring?

 Aligned with company goals: Does the objective support company and/or departmental
OKRs?
 Action-oriented: Does the objective motivate the team to take initiative?
 Concrete: Can the project team easily grasp the objective?
 Significant: Will achieving the objective make a meaningful impact or change from where you
are currently?
For example, if the objective of an educational technology company was to provide products that
consistently meet new educational standards, a project objective might be: “Successfully launch version
2.0 of our early learning app in time for the national curriculum conference.”

Step 3: Add key results

Next, write at least three key results for your objective next to “KR1,” “KR2,” and “KR3.” (You may add
up to five key results for each objective, but only three are required for this activity.)

Each key result should address the following questions:

 Does the key result help define success for your team?
 Can it be measured to prove that you’ve achieved your objective?
 Is it specific and time-bound?
 Is it ambitious yet realistic?
Your key results should build on the scenario and additional project information, but it’s up to you to
determine your success criteria. As an example, let’s return to the objective, “Successfully launch
version 2.0 of our early learning app.” If you knew that a successful launch meant getting new users to
download the app, you could create any of the following key results for the objective: 

 15,000 new downloads within first quarter post launch

 75,000 new downloads within first year post launch
 25% of monthly downloads from new customers
Remember: OKRs are never set in stone--they can and should be revised as you make progress, so it’s
okay if you need to adjust your key results later on.

Step 4: Write 1-3 more OKRs

Repeat steps 2 and 3 for a second, third and fourth objective to fill up the template.

Pro Tip: Save the template

Finally, be sure to save a blank copy of the OKR template you used to complete this activity. You can
use it for further practice or in your own personal or professional projects. These templates will be
useful as you put together a portfolio of project management artifacts. You can use them to work
through your thought processes as you demonstrate your experience to potential employers.

What to Include in Your Response

Be sure to address the following criteria in your completed OKR card:

 The objective defines what needs to be achieved and describes a desired outcome
 The key results are ambitious, specific, measurable, and define success for the objective
Test your knowledge: Identifying project goals
Total points 6

1.
Question 1

Which three questions should you ask yourself to make a goal specific?
1 / 1 point

Can it be reasonably reached?

Where should it be delivered?
Correct

When writing a goal, you may want to include where exactly the goal will be delivered.

Who is involved?
Correct

When creating your goal, you’ll want to state who the goal involves.

What do I want to accomplish?

Correct

When crafting a goal, you want to explain what will be done.

2.
Question 2

Which of the following is an example of a measurable goal? Select all that apply. 
1 / 1 point

Achieve a 20% improvement in customer satisfaction ratings based on post-support survey results
Correct

Measurable goals allow you to assess the success of your project based on quantifiable or tangible
metrics, such as dollar amounts, percentages, number of outputs, and quantities.

Increase market reach

Reduce employee turnover

Increase product revenue by 5%

Correct

Measurable goals generally include metrics, like figures and numbers, that help the project team
determine when the objective is met.
3.
Question 3

What’s a strategy to determine if a goal is attainable?

1 / 1 point

Break down the goal into smaller parts

Post the goal on a project management forum for feedback

Ask the stakeholders

Hire a goal-setting coach

Correct

Taking a complicated goal and breaking it down into smaller, achievable steps can help you determine
if it seems reasonable for your team to accomplish.
4.
Question 4

What can you do to determine if a goal is relevant?

1 / 1 point

Ask a project manager on another team.

Compare it to the project goals of the organization’s three closest competitors.

Consider if the goal matches the organization’s other needs and priorities.

Compare it to goals the organization set in previous years. 

Correct

The goal needs to align with the organization’s other goals, priorities, and values. Everyone involved
should feel like the goal is worth supporting.
5.
Question 5

Which of the following are examples of key results? Select all that apply.
1 / 1 point

Launch a website redesign

Increase the number of website visitors by 25%

Correct

A key result details how to tangibly measure the success of the objective. This is an example of a key
result for the objective: launch a new website.

Successfully process 50 online orders

Correct
A key result details how to tangibly measure the success of the objective. This is an example of a key
result for the objective: implement online ordering.

Implement online ordering

6.
Question 6

Which of the following are objectives and key results (OKRs) development best practices? Select all that
apply.
1 / 1 point

Objectives should be motivational and inspiring.

Correct

Project objectives should be aspirational, aligned with organizational goals, action-oriented, concrete,
and significant.

Key results should be tactical and specific.

Correct

Key results should challenge the project manager and the team to stretch their abilities and achieve
more.

OKRs are a resource that should be linked to the project plan.

Correct

The project manager should document all OKRs and link to them in the project plan for visibility.

Each key result should have 2-3 objectives

At what time during a project should defining project scope happen?

When stakeholders start to make requests for additional changes

After receiving feedback from the first few deliverables

During the initial project planning phase

Correct
Defining scope before a project starts helps mitigate the risk of big changes later on.

Gathering information to define scope

In this lesson, you are learning to define project scope status and differentiate in-scope,
out-of-scope, and scope creep factors that affect reaching the project goal. Let’s focus
here on how to identify vital elements of a project’s scope and examine the right
questions to ask in order to define it. 

Asking scope-defining questions

Imagine that while working in a restaurant management group, your manager calls and
asks you to “update the dining space,” then quickly hangs up the phone without providing
further instruction. In this initial handoff from the manager, you are missing a lot of
information. How do you even know what to ask?

Let’s quickly recap the concept of scope. The scope provides the boundaries for your
project. You define the scope to help identify necessary resources, resource costs, and a
schedule for the project. 

In the situation we just described, here are some questions you might ask your manager in
order to get the information you need to define the scope of the project:

Key takeaway

Taking the time to ask questions and ensure that you understand the scope of the project
will help reduce expenses, rework, frustration, and confusion. Make sure you understand
the who, what, when, where, why, and how as it applies to the scope. If you are missing any
of that information, focus your questions on those elements. The initiation phase of the
project sets the foundation for the project, so ensuring that you understand the scope and
expectations during this stage is essential. 
Hi there. As you now know, an important part of project management is keeping an eye on
your project scope and knowing which tasks are truly part of the plan and which aren't.
Tasks that are included in the project and contribute to the project's overall goal are
considered to be in-scope. Tasks that aren't included are called out-of-scope. It's your job
as a project manager to set and maintain firm boundaries for your project so that your
team can stay on track. For example, if the copywriters or designers of the Plant Pals
catalog, came up with the idea to expand the type of plants being offered to top
customers, you would have to point out that their suggestion is out-of-scope and would
take extra time and add to your budget costs. As you progress through the project life
cycle, you're going to encounter unexpected challenges or have new details or ideas
brought to your attention that could impact your project's success. Changes, growth, and
uncontrolled factors that affect a project scope at any point after the project begins are
referred to as "scope creep." Scope creep is a common problem, and it's not always easy
to control. It's one that we struggle with on every single project. It can happen on any
project, in any industry. Imagine you're working in a tech company and your project
involves working with designers and engineers to update the language icons' design on a
mobile keyboard app for a smartphone. While the team is making the update, they realize
that the search icon and the voice input icon also need a design refresh. These are very
small features, and while technically not in-scope, the team feels it would take minimal
effort and provide lots of value. So they go ahead and make the updates. During a
stakeholder review, it's pointed out that there is a keyboard in English, but no keyboards
for other languages, and the suggestion is made to design additional keyboards. At this
point, the project's scope is in danger of expanding from a fairly simple icon update to a
complex rollout of multiple keyboard layouts. Adding the keyboards would impact the
team's timelines, causing the project to take longer to finish. It would also impact
resourcing, because you would need to hire more people or existing team members would
have to work overtime. And it would increase the budget, since the team did not
anticipate costs for extra working hours or keyboard translations. This is just one example
of scope creep. Sometimes it's subtle ("Just design one or two more icons!") or more
obvious ("Hey, can you tack on designing keyboards for other languages?") By identifying
scope creep and being proactive, you protect your project and your project team. To help
you combat scope creep, it's good to know that there are two major sources from which it
comes: external and internal. External sources of scope creep are easier to recognize. For
example, if you're working on a project with one main customer, the customer might
request changes, or the business environment around you might shift, or the underlying
technology you're using might change. While you can't control everything that happens,
there are some useful tips to keep in mind. First, make sure the stakeholders have visibility
into the project. You want them to know the details of what's going to be produced, what
resources are required, how much it will cost, and how much time it'll take. Also, get
clarity on the requirements and ask for constructive criticism of the initial product
proposal. It's important to get this information before any contracts are signed. Be sure to
Weekly Challenge 2
Latest Submission Grade 93.18%

1.
Question 1

As a project manager, you’re using the SMART criteria to craft goals for your team. During the process,
you create goals that are a little challenging, but also encourage growth. In this instance, which SMART
criteria are you using?
1 / 1 point

Time-bound

Attainable

Specific

Measurable

Relevant
Correct

2.
Question 2

Which of the following scenarios best represents a project that is going out-of-scope?
1 / 1 point

The manufacturer of one of the project deliverables just lost power after a large storm. They don’t
expect to be in production for one week, delaying the project timeline.

The deliverable to present your project's pre-launch event at a three-day, in-person conference is now
an online conference. The switch reduces the costs associated with event space, travel, and people
resource time.

During the project weekly meeting, the project manager learns the main vendor will increase the cost
of raw materials by 20% due to an international shortage.

During the project weekly meeting, the project sponsor adds a new deliverable requirement that costs
$10,000 USD. This addition surpasses the budget by $5,000 USD.
Correct
3.
Question 3

Consider this Office Green scenario: A member of the marketing team suggests allowing customers to
choose from an additional three plant colors.

What can help prevent project scope creep in this scenario? Select all that apply.
0.75 / 1 point

Create a plan for dealing with out-of-scope requests.

Correct

Make project plans visible.

Correct

Go along with the member’s suggestion.

This should not be selected

Please review the video on monitoring project scope.

Get clarity on project requirements.

Correct

4.
Question 4

Fill in the blank: The difference between a goal and a deliverable is that the goal is the desired outcome
of the project and the deliverable is a _____ of the project.
1 / 1 point

success criteria

progress

SMART method

tangible outcome
Correct

5.
Question 5
Which of the following scenarios best represents project launch?
1 / 1 point

The project manager works with stakeholders to develop project goals and deliverables.

The website development team researches a specific audience through sales data analysis.

The client agrees to the initial timeline and budget.

The project team releases a new product.

Correct

6.
Question 6

Consider the following scenario: The Director of Product requests the project manager to add a new
product feature. However, they also state that the team cannot push back the project delivery date.

Using the triple constraint model, what trade-off could the project manager use to meet the Director of
Product’s request?
1 / 1 point

Change the timeline

Change the team

Change the project goal

Change the budget

Correct

7.
Question 7

Which two of the following are examples of success criteria?

1 / 1 point

Implement a training service to meet company objectives.

Meet company-wide objective of $50M in revenues.

Correct

Create a new product feature that will satisfy customers.

Deliver training to all appropriate teams to ensure at least 98% of the teams are using the new tool.
Correct

8.
Question 8

Which of the following is an engagement metric?

1 / 1 point

A 20% increase of participation time within an app.

A 35% increase of first-time customers.

Double the amount of initial orders.

Number of new customer sign-ups for a subscription.

Correct

9.
Question 9

A project manager launches a project to streamline a local city's school bus route schedule to reduce
the amount of time students are on the bus by 30%. What scenario below demonstrates that the
project manager landed at the intended goal?
1 / 1 point

The project manager reviews the data in 3 months to determine if they reduced the amount of time
students spend on the bus by at least 30%.

The project manager hands over the project to the client with all of the plans and documents and
considers the project a success.

The project manager surveys the team members to ask how they feel about the project success; their
feedback is reviewed and determines the next team.
The project manager completes the research and development required for the plan and adds another
county to compare success rates for the project.
Correct

10.
Question 10

Suppose that you’re starting as a project manager for a new client. What three strategies can you use to
decrease the likelihood of scope creep and make the project a success?
0.5 / 1 point

Ask for constructive criticism on the initial product proposal.

Correct

Show the client the details of what you’re going to create and how much it will cost.
Correct

Set ground rules and expectations for client involvement once the project begins.

Keep complicated documents from the client because you don’t want to confuse them.
This should not be selected

Review the video on scope creep.

11.
Question 11

The objective for a car company is to launch a new series of cars. Which three of the following could be
examples of key results?
1 / 1 point

Distribute 98% of the product on time to dealerships.

Correct

Meet production deadlines 95% of the time.

Correct

Improve the customer satisfaction survey score by 15%.

Correct

Create a best-in-class midsize sedan.

 and expectations for stakeholder involvement once the project gets started. Come to an
agreement on each of your roles and responsibilities during execution and status reviews.
Once you're clear on the project scope, come up with a plan for how to deal with out-of-
scope requests. Agree on who can make formal change requests and how those requests
will be evaluated, accepted, and performed. And finally, be sure to get these agreements
in writing. This way, you'll always have documentation to point if you, a stakeholder, or
the customer have a disagreement down the line. One of the leading causes of external
scope creep is not being clear on the requirements before defining the scope and getting
formal approval to move forward with the project. This is where those specific and
measurable goals and deliverables come into play. If the requirements aren't specific and
if you haven't agreed on the project's processes, deliverables, and milestones, then you're
almost guaranteed to be dealing with scope creep once the project begins. Internal
sources of scope creep are trickier to spot and harder to control. This kind of creep comes
from members of the project team who suggest or even insist on process or product
changes or improvements. It's possible that a product developer will justify a decision on
the grounds of making the product better, even though it's going to cost more, or a team
lead might decide that a certain process is more efficient without realizing the impact the
change in process will have on other team members tasked with different parts of the
project. What you need to make clear to your team is that any change outside of the
project scope comes off the bottom line, threatens the schedule, and increases risk. There
are no small impacts to project scope. Any time a team member takes on an unplanned
task, more is lost than just the time spent working on that task. It's your responsibility as
the project manager to maintain the limits of the project. The best defense is to know the
details of your project in and out so you're always prepared with the most appropriate
response to a new idea or request. Let's recap. Monitor your project's scope and protect it
at all costs. Even the most minor change can mean major risk to your project's success.
Coming up, I'll tell you about the triple constraint model and how you can use it to help
determine how your project changes affect scope. Stay tuned.

What is scope creep?

Plans, proposals, and ideas from project stakeholders about how to change a project’s
boundaries before the project begins

Disruptions in the supply chain that impact the distribution of project deliverables after
the project ends

Changes, growth, and uncontrolled factors that affect a project scope at any point after
the project begins
Suggestions from team members or stakeholders about how to improve a project’s
workflow to increase efficiency
Correct
Scope creep includes changes, growth, and uncontrolled factors that affect a project
scope at any point after the project begins. Scope creep is a common problem, and it's not
always easy to control.

Strategies for controlling scope creep

In this lesson, we have discussed the importance of defining and documenting a project’s
scope and how to identify scope creep factors that can affect reaching a project’s goal. In
this reading, we will focus on how to control scope creep.

Scope management best practices

The scope of a project can get out of control quickly—so quickly that you may not even
notice it. Scope creep is when a project’s work starts to grow beyond what was originally
agreed upon during the initiation phase. Scope creep can put stress on you, your team,
and your organization, and it can put your project at risk. The effects of scope creep can
hinder every aspect of the project, from the schedule to the budget to the resources, and
ultimately, its overall success. 

Here are some best practices for scope management and controlling scope creep: 

 Define your project’s requirements. Communicate with your stakeholders or

customers to find out exactly what they want from the project and document those
requirements during the initiation phase. 
 Set a clear project schedule. Time and task management are essential for sticking
to your project’s scope. Your schedule should outline all of your project’s
requirements and the tasks that are necessary to achieve them.
 Determine what is out of scope. Make sure your stakeholders, customers, and
project team understand when proposed changes are out of scope. Come to a clear
agreement about the potential impacts to the project and document your
agreement. 
 Provide alternatives. Suggest alternative solutions to your customer or
stakeholder. You can also help them consider how their proposed changes might
create additional risks. Perform a cost-benefit analysis, if necessary.
 Set up a change control process. During the course of your project, some changes
are inevitable. Determine the process for how each change will be defined,
reviewed, and approved (or rejected) before you add it to your project plan. Make
sure your project team is aware of this process.
 Learn how to say no. Sometimes you will have to say no to proposed changes.
Saying no to a key stakeholder or customer can be uncomfortable, but it can be
necessary to protect your project’s scope and its overall quality. If you are asked to
take on additional tasks, explain how they will interfere with the budget, timeline,
and/or resources defined in your initial project requirements. 
  Collect costs for out-of-scope work. If out-of-scope work is required, be sure to
document all costs incurred. That includes costs for work indirectly impacted by
the increased scope. Be sure to indicate what the charges are for. 

Key takeaway

You can only avoid scope creep if everyone involved in the project understands and agrees
on responsibilities, boundaries, and timelines. Avoiding scope creep also requires clear
communication, expectation management, and a well-defined path to your desired
outcome. Following the strategies discussed here can help you proactively manage scope
creep before it creeps into your project! 

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Test your knowledge: Defining project scope

Total points 4

1.
Question 1

Which of the following best describes the difference between in-scope and out-of-scope?
1 / 1 point

Tasks you believe your team should complete first and tasks the team believes they should complete
first

Goals you believe your team needs to meet and goals the stakeholders believe the team needs to meet

Problems the project manager can easily recognize and problems the project managers cannot
recognize

Items within the project boundaries that are contributing to the project’s overall goal and items that
are not
Correct

It’s your job as a project manager to set firm boundaries for the project so the team can stay on track.
2.
Question 2

Which of the following best describes scope creep?

1 / 1 point
Changing a project before it begins

Changing a project after it begins

Cancelling a project after it has begun

Adding members to a project team

Correct

Scope creep refers to changes, growth, and uncontrolled factors that affect a project scope at any point
after the project begins.
3.
Question 3

What are some tactics to handle external scope creep? Select all that apply.
1 / 1 point

Suggest alternative solutions to your customer's or stakeholder's proposed changes.

Correct

Providing alternative solutions to your customer or stakeholder might result in their deciding against
their proposed changes. You can also help them consider how their proposed changes might create
additional risks, and perform a cost-benefit analysis, if necessary.

Define the project’s requirements.

Correct

To ensure the project team agrees on the  project’s goal, ask stakeholders for feedback on what the
project will produce, what resources are necessary, what costs are involved, and how long the project
will take. Then, document these requirements.

Tell team members to ignore outside requests that will add project tasks.

Limit communication outside the team once the project begins

4.
Question 4

A designer on your project team suggests making changes to the product’s logo just prior to launch.
What’s a strategy that could help avoid this internal scope creep? 
1 / 1 point
Remind the designer about the project’s scope and the effects of internal scope creep.

Have the designer begin to implement the logo design changes immediately.

Assign some of the designer’s tasks to someone else so they can begin working on the logo changes.

Push back the product’s launch date to allow time for the design to implement changes to the logo.
Correct

Any changes to the product or processes can affect the bottom line or schedule and risk successfully
completing the project.

Hi, I'm Torie, and I'm an education program manager at Google. Specifically, I work on our
digital literacy curriculum, called Applied Digital Skills, that helps learners of all ages learn
the practical digital skills needed for the jobs of today and tomorrow. So scope is
important because if you have a well-defined scope at the beginning of a project, it'll help
make sure that your team members, your stakeholders are all aligned and on the same
page right from the start, and you can avoid any issues down the line that may come up
that you might not have been aware of. Some challenges of staying within scope could be
what we like to call "scope creep," and these things can happen if, for example, you have
some stakeholders that have some certain needs, desires, or requests that may actually
end up changing the scope. Scope creep is when the scope changes after you've already
started the project. And this can be really challenging to manage if you don't keep an eye
on it from the beginning. I was recently working on a project where we were hoping to
actually reach underserved communities with our digital literacy curriculum, and the
initial project scope started off focusing on middle and high school students. But at some
point down the line after the project started, there were some stakeholders who actually
wanted to expand the audience to adult learners. And so we had some trouble trying to
figure out how we were going to manage that. Were we going to change the scope? Were
we going to keep it the same? And ultimately, we decided to keep the scope the same and
referenced back to our original goal in the beginning. Because if you think about it,
changing the audience would make the project goals and our strategies for reaching those
audiences drastically different. So ultimately, we ended up keeping the scope and
communicating that to our stakeholders. Some best practices for managing scope is just
make sure you document everything in the beginning and share it with all of your
stakeholders and team members, and make sure everybody's in agreement on that scope.
There are times where the scope may need to change, and that's okay. But you have to be
able to make sure that you can also change and potentially change your timeline, your
resources, or even the budget to accommodate that scope change.

Optional: Reviewing the Triple Constraint

 As you’ve just learned, project managers may refer to the triple constraint model to
manage scope and control scope creep. It can serve as a valuable tool to help you
negotiate priorities and consider trade-offs.

For further reading on utilizing the triple constraint model in real-life scenarios as a
project manager and how the triple constraint model has evolved over time, we
recommend checking out this article: A Project Management Triple Constraint Example &
Guide.

What are the three primary variables (or triple constraints) in any project?

If you’ve ever taken a project management course , you’ve probably got a knee-jerk
response to this question:
1. Scope
2. Time
3. Cost
For over fifty years, the Triple Constraint Theory has been the standard within project
management circles. In recent times, however, there’s wider recognition of more than
just three constraints.

Here, we explore both the conventional concept and new perspectives that have
surfaced. We take a look at both the practice and the theory of the “Iron Triangle”
project management professionals have come to know over the years. Lastly, we discuss
practical methods showing how you can use the Triple Constraints to manage
competing priorities in real life.

Why Does The Project Management Triple Constraint Matter?

Why does the triple constraint (or any project constraint) matter? Why are we talking
about it?
Keeping the three elements of the Triple Constraint in mind as you manage a project will
help you adapt to changing conditions while still delivering projects on time, within
budget, and within scope. Change is a given in project management, and being
adequately prepared ensures that changes don’t jeopardize the entire project and the
relationships involved. This is why we must understand and effectively manage the
project management Triple Constraint.

What Is The Project Management Triple Constraint?

Also referred to as the “Project Management Triangle” or the “Iron Triangle”, the Triple
Constraint represents the relationship between a project’s scope, time, and cost.
They’re usually represented like this:

Let’s dive into each side of the triple constraint triangle to explain this further:

Scope
Project Scope refers to the extent range, breadth, reach, confines, dimension, realm,
gamut, spectrum, or spread of the work that’s to be done on a project. It encompasses
the sum of all the products and services to be provided, describing what’s being done
and how much of it. You can learn more about Scope of Work in our complete SoW
guide.
Time
Simply put, the amount of time you need to complete the project or tasks within the
project.

Cost
Project cost refers to the resources—financial and otherwise—required for the project. It
might include labor costs, hardware, software, and other charges.

How Does The Triple Constraint Work?

The Triple Constraint doesn’t exist to merely help us remember to list out our project’s
scope, time, and cost. The whole premise of the Triple Constraints of project
management is that the three factors of scope, time, and cost are inextricably linked.

There’s a give-and-take relationship between scope, time, and cost. Therefore, the
Triple Constraint concept dictates that if you make any changes to any one side of the
triangle, it will have effects on the other sides of the triangle. Takes you straight back to
geometry class.

The most common model places “quality” in the center of the triangle. This is simply to
illustrate that the quality of a project depends on the project’s scope, budget, and time
spent on the project. The idea is that, if you are to maintain a consistent level of quality
(or, in geometry class, the consistent area within the triangle), when making changes to
one side of the triangle, the other sides must adjust.
 All math aside, this idea is intuitive. If you’re going to ask for something to be delivered
faster (time), you have to pay more (cost). If you’re trying to save some money (cost),
sometimes you can do this by choosing a simpler version (scope).

The Triple Constraint is especially helpful in conversations with clients, both when
initially determining the scope of a project and when handling Change Requests along
the way. Digital agencies live in a competitive environment, and it’s common to feel
pressure to deliver something comprehensive as cheaply as possible (and quickly!).
While that is possible in some scenarios, the Iron Triangle reminds us that most of the
time, projects cannot be cheap, comprehensive, and fast all at once. We have to know
our priorities in order to decide “what’s gotta give”.

A Triple Constraint Example

Let’s take an e-commerce website built with a budget of $500,000 and a timeline of 6
months.

 Scope: E-commerce website

 Time: 6 months
 Cost: $500,000
Let’s use a familiar scenario. Say the client originally thought that they’d be able to
supply content from their team, including SEO-friendly product descriptions. They’ve
recently found out that their team doesn’t have any available cycles to produce the
content, and they’ve gotten in touch to ask you about having your project team do it.  
With the Iron Triangle in mind, when you get this request from the client you remember
that you can’t increase the scope without factoring in its relationship with time and cost.

Naturally, the client would prefer to change the scope without the time or cost of the
project changing (this is a whole issue in and of itself—see our post on managing scope
creep). However, a savvy project manager understands the dynamic between scope,
time, and cost—and you know that trade-offs are inevitable. To successfully manage the
project, the PM must help key stakeholders understand this dynamic, too.
The Project Management Triple Constraint Is Not A Triangle Anymore
There have always been mixed opinions as to the accuracy and usefulness of the Iron
Triangle. Some think that the Triple Constraint model is inaccurate and impractical.
Some theories have stuck with the triangle concept but changed the types of constraints
on each side. Regardless of the varying perspectives, one thing that every PM intuitively
knows is that there are many more constraints to a project than just scope, time, and
cost. In reality, managing a project is more complex than the Iron Triangle  variables
suggest.
In recognition of the limitation of the model, the Project Management Institute (PMI) has
extended the number of constraints. In its latest version of the Project Management
Body of Knowledge (PMBOK), the PMI does away with the project triangle in recognition
of the fact that project managers usually deal with more than three project constraints.
The PMBOK Guide now includes the following  in their list of project constraints:
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1. Scope
2. Quality
3. Schedule
4. Budget
5. Benefit
6. Risk
We’ve already looked at Scope, Schedule (Time), and Budget (Cost). Let’s look at the
PMBOK’s additional three constraints:

Quality
The Quality constraint is similar to Scope—except that Quality focuses on the
characteristics of a deliverable.

Benefit
Benefits represent the value the project is expected to deliver to the organization; for
example, increasing sales or improving customer service.

Risk
Risk refers to the probability that an event that affects the project will occur and its
potential impact. This constraint has to do with the level of risk the project stakeholders
or team are willing to tolerate.

These additional variables are legitimate project management constraints, but the
simple model of the Triple Constraint is still great for conceptualizing the relationship
between the high-level dynamics involved in project management.

The Project Management Triangle In Real Life

Understanding the theoretical relationship between project constraints is important.
However, it doesn’t do us much good if we don’t know how to manage them in all the
grittiness and grey areas of real life.

The following section summarizes some best practice info for applying the Triple
Constraint model to projects in real life.

Best Practice For Effectively Managing The Triple Constraints

Although admittedly simplistic, the project management Triangle is often a useful way
to represent expectations in a project. Here’s how to use it in real life to figure out your
clients’ priorities and, in turn, establish parameters that make the most sense.

Deciding on priorities is only the first step. Moving forward, you have to ensure you’re
monitoring the right metrics so you can keep tabs on your scope, time, and cost.  I’ve
included some useful tools in the sections below.  Additionally, you can scan our list of
 the best project management tools , most of which include a bundle of features for
tracking time, scheduling resources, and creating process documentation.
Is Cost The Biggest Priority?
If you absolutely have to stay within a fixed budget, then the client may need to be more
flexible on time frame and scope. With cost as the biggest priority, it’s likely that only the
most business-critical change requests will be approved.

So, when changes come up, you’ll probably look to these measures:

 adjust the project deadlines

 scale back the scope of the project
 agree upon reduced quality of certain project deliverables
To help you communicate the costs and cost estimates of the project to your clients,
use resource management software , where you can draw up reports on your team’s
capacity, resource utilization , and performance for projects, clients, and individuals.
You’ll also want to use a Gantt chart to create a detailed work breakdown structure—
here’s a review of project management software for creating Gantt Charts .
Is Time The Biggest Priority?
In cases where the deadline matters most, then more flexibility will be required with
respect to the cost and/or scope.

Expediting the project to satisfy the time constraint might mean:

 putting more resources on the line, increasing cost

 cutting back the scope and/or quality of the end product
Especially when precise time estimates and deadlines are a priority, you should take a
moment to set yourself up with the right time-tracking tools: use past project reports to
make accurate time estimates and track team hours to make sure you’re staying on
schedule.
Is Scope The Biggest Priority?
If scope matters most, it might be important for the client to be able to add features
throughout the project as they discover more about their customers. If what matters
most is having exactly the features that they put in scope, then they have to remain open
to:

 flexible timing as the team accommodates scope changes

 increased cost for deliverables added to the scope
No matter your project, you need a detailed, specific Statement of Work document that
defines overarching project information as well as details on deliverables, standards,
criteria, and requirements for each phase. Here’s a complete guide to creating a Scope
of Work.
Conclusion
However simple, the Iron Triangle is still a valuable tool for thinking about project
priorities and trade-offs between those priorities on a high level.
 Project constraints will always exist. You can prepare to deal with constraints by
weighing changes against the impacts on other parts of the Iron Triangle. In turn, it’s up
to you as the project manager to communicate this give-and-take relationship with your
clients so they understand: if one constraint changes, the other constraints are likely to
be affected.

We all need to be careful about dealing with increasing or changing scope in

order to avoid nasty surprises. In this article, I’m going to discuss:

1. What Is Scope Creep?

2. How It Can Hurt Your Projects?
3. How To Mitigate It When It Happens?
I’ll be delving into real-world examples of scope creep in agile projects—where there
isn’t even a fixed scope to begin with. Also important, I’ll talk about the positive aspects
of a changing scope and arm you with a sound approach to embrace it. Because scope
change can be good!
What Is Scope Creep?
So what is scope creep, exactly? Simply put, it occurs when the scope, deliverables, or
features on a project expand from what was originally set—without being accounted for
in additional time or budget. It can affect any fixed scope project. It’s a very common
thing, as it can happen both intentionally and unintentionally, stemming from any
number of the people involved in a project.
Unfortunately, scope creep can lead to project failure: maybe you don’t hit the deadline,
you burn through the entire budget (and more), and all without delivering the right
thing. And who wants that?!
How Does Scope Creep Undermine A Project?
Has it happened to me? Yes, plenty of times! Here’s a quick scope creep case study from
my experience to illustrate how easily it happens—and how it doesn’t always come from
a direct client request:

Case Study: My Experience With Scope Creep

I inherited a project with a more classic Waterfall setup: there were wireframes and a
design phase, which then moved into the project development stage. I picked it up as it
was entering development. It was straightforward enough: we were building the
frontend on top of a white-labelled backend from another agency. We had signed off
wireframes and designs and had run through everything with the client and agency…
what could possibly go wrong?

Well! It turns out that the other agency was iterating on their backend build and
frequently releasing new code. Funnily enough, they didn’t account for us building on
top of the old code, so our code broke with every release… *deep sigh*.
This meant we had to go back through our code, updating it to work with the continuous
changes from the other agency. This was unaccounted for—but it was work we had to
do. At first, we did the odd, small fix on an ad hoc basis, but more and more problems
started to occur. Although we raised this with client, we tried to fold the extra work into
our project rather than flagging to the client that we needed to determine a solution
together before proceeding with the build.

Oh, the benefit of hindsight! What happened? We fell deeper and deeper into
redeveloping the existing code—timelines got extended, we missed our deadline, and
we came under a lot of pressure towards the end of the project. The team was
demotivated, the client wasn’t happy, and none of this was actually our fault! In the end,
the project was delayed by two months, a huge amount of time, unaccounted for. In the
end, all we wanted was to wash our hands of it and forget it ever happened.

So, what could we have done?

The People Involved: Who Actually Causes Scope Creep

It’s useful to take a look at your project and identify who could be causing scope creep.
This can help you to identify it early and determine your approach to solving the issue.
Hint: it’s not always the client causing these issues, as you can see in my example above.

Team Member
Scope creep can come from people in your internal project team for a number of
reasons:

1. The project team member is unclear on what the scope of the project is.
Ensure that at the beginning of the project, any requirements or deliverables are already
outlined in a scope statement or project plan, and that everyone working in the team is
fully aware of these. If scope is being set, make sure conversations involve the team that
will be working on the project as much as you can. If that’s not possible, at the very
least run a kick-off meeting  with the team and make sure everyone is fully aware of what
has been agreed upon. Then, during the project, make sure you hold regular team
check-ins to keep everyone on the same page.
2. The team member wants to develop what they want to develop, and not what’s in scope.
People have much more understanding when they are involved—when they feel like
they own it. Involving your team in setting the scope is really useful in getting their buy-
in for what they’ll design and build. Make sure everyone is working as a team. If someone
goes away to produce something out of scope because they want to, others on the
project won’t be as invested in what is happening, causing friction and differing ideas on
what the scope is.
3. The team member makes decisions in a vacuum.
Sometimes, team member chooses a way to solve a problem that has an impact on
scope, often without realizing. Even adding a half day of extra work to do something
slightly different could impact the rest of your project. For example, if a designer or UX
person decides to include some functionality on a site without discussing with the
developer, who knows what this could do to your overall scope, without any
investigation?

Make sure you set your team up from the beginning of a project to work together and
understand each others’ decisions. When someone raises a query or issue with you
directly, share it with everyone if there’s a bigger decision to be made. Get people
working together to define and find solutions to problems. Make sure everyone is in
contact (whether face-to-face or remote) regularly. Most successful projects are enabled
by teams that work well together.

Internal Stakeholders
Your project scope can be influenced internally in your organisation from key
stakeholders. They might have a vision for the organisation that involves delivering
more for your project, or they might want to push a different agenda. For example,
sometimes a client relationship is more important to an organisation than staying within
scope in your particular project.
Make sure your internal stakeholders understand what you are trying to deliver and by
when. If something would have a knock-on effect on your project, clearly lay out what
impact this will have—whether it’s financial, perception-based, or otherwise.

Users
User testing should (hopefully) be part of your project or product set up. User feedback
on a product can influence a course of events that ultimately increases scope. What
happens if you get feedback from your users showing that something that you can’t
ignore? Even if it might increase your scope, it needs to be addressed.

When you’ve collated results from testing, review with your team to identify the
necessary changes to implement. Prioritize so you understand which changes would
have the greatest impact to the users’ experience. Then, work out what level of changes
you can comfortably incorporate without affecting scope. If any of the necessary
changes would mean increased scope, speak to your client or stakeholder about it. Also
important is to make sure you have an understanding of what impact not implementing
the change would have.
3rd parties
As we saw in my personal case study, dependencies coming from other parties can affect
your feed. Whether that’s an external company, third-party APIs, content providers—if
you are relying on anyone else externally to complete the project, you need to be aware
of the impact they can have.

Make sure you identify your project dependencies  when you kick-off the project. Try to
think about what impact they could have on your project, and how they could affect
your scope. For example, what if your content provider sent you content that wasn’t in
the format that was easiest to implement or upload within the website. Could this add
extra time your side? Obviously, you’ll never cover every eventuality—but having this
risk-planning frame of mind at the beginning means that you can raise these
dependencies at the beginning of your project with the client or stakeholder and ensure
they understand the potential impact.
You
The biggest issue when it comes to you, the project manager, causing scope creep stems
from the temptation to try and make things work within your existing budget and
timeline, without flagging to your client or stakeholder. Yes, it can be a difficult
conversation when you have to say you can’t do something unless you raise a change
request and go through the official change control process—but this conversation is a lot
easier to have earlier on, rather than down the line when you’re over time and budget.

Make sure you’re raising issues as soon as they happen , rather than waiting. If you or
your team identify an issue, work through possible scenarios for different solutions, and
present them to the client or stakeholder. For example, if extra work is necessary, see
what can be descoped instead—is there anything you are doing in your project that isn’t
needed for the first release?
Client
And yes, we can’t conclude this section without mentioning the obvious: the client. This
one is in fact easier to spot, as most PMs are already primed to do so! Be aware of clients
adding in small requests that gradually build up, changing their mind on what was
agreed, or suggesting new ways to do things that can affect the amount of effort needed.
Make sure you’re honest and upfront with them if they are asking for something that will
cause scope creep. Also, frame your responses so that you aren’t just saying “no” all the
time. Try to phrase it so that you are suggesting an alternative, for example:

“This new request is going to have this specific impact on time/budget. We’ve taken a

look at the priorities—how about replacing this with that instead? It achieves a similar
outcome because…”
10 Common Causes Of Scope Creep (And How To Eliminate Them)

1. 1. Not having a clear scope

Clarity is extremely important on any project. If you don’t clearly define your scope at
the beginning, it can cause big problems down the line.

How to eliminate it: make sure the scope is clear to everyone working on the project.
Involve your team in setting the scope so that they are bought into what they are
delivering.
2. Not having client agreement
If the client isn’t bought into the scope, they are likely to change their mind—and the
deliverables—later on.

How to eliminate it: ensure the client understands what is—and isn’t—in scope. Don’t
just send a document outlining the deliverables—speak to them and walk them through
it properly. Be transparent: ask questions such as, “Are you clear on what this
deliverable is and what you’ll get?”

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3. Not involving the client throughout
Gone are the days where you do a month or two of work and then send the final results
of this period to your client for feedback. This results in surprises, with finalized work
having to be redone, and impacts the project timeline and budget.

How to eliminate it: collaborate closely with your client. Show them the work in
progress, iterate, and proactively involve them throughout the journey.
4. Not raising issues proactively
Hiding behind issues and not being transparent with the client or stakeholder seems
easier at first, but you’ll come to regret it later on.

How to eliminate it: raise issues right away, when they happen (just make sure you’ve
had time to work through some solutions first!).
5. QA needing more time than estimated
Ah, the age-old issue of QA estimation. How can you accurately estimate how many bugs
will be raised, how long they will take to fix, and what impact this will have?

How to eliminate it: estimate a percentage of the development work based on the

complexity of build, then add contingency. Don’t just throw a percentage at this—speak
to the QA Analyst and get them to review. Additionally, pre-define the browsers and
devices you’ll test against, along with the types of issues. This will help you refine your
QA estimate. Also, consider using automated testing to save time—the articles Pros and
Cons of Manual and Automated Testing  and Best Automation Tools provide background
on automated testing.
6. Not prioritizing among features
In a Waterfall-style project, your product will likely be built step-by-step until you reach
the whole, shiny, new thing. This could lead to thinking everything is a priority. If you
don’t have clear priorities among features, it’s hard to understand what can be
descoped when adjustments to requirements begin to surface.

Side note: this is not a Waterfall vs Agile debate—that can be saved for a rainy day! Or see
my article here on it.
How to eliminate it: prioritize features by identifying what’s necessary for releasing a
usable product. Consider a more Agile approach where you build the minimum for
release as quickly as possible: identify which features are absolutely necessary for users,
and build a working product that can be tested and used by a customer at each stage.
I love this diagram by Henrik Kniberg and the accompanying article to highlight the
approach above.

7. Not agreeing on how to handle change

If you haven’t agreed on how to handle change at the beginning of a project, it only
makes sense that it’s going to be difficult to work through changes in scope at a later
date.

How to eliminate it: outline in your Statement of Work  (or similar document) how you’ll
handle change. If you’ll use Change Requests, ensure you detail what’s in scope, what’s
out of scope, and how to raise a Change Request.
 8. Estimating poorly
Estimation is very difficult to get right. It’s a challenge to be accurate at the beginning of
a project when there are many unknowns. Certain things may not get accounted for, and
you end up tied to this extra scope to be able to deliver your overall project.
How to eliminate it: involve your whole team in estimation. Don’t work in a silo and
make guesses. Ensure you’ve explored and determined client and business
requirements against user requirements before estimating. Instead of estimating based
on deliverables, look at the following:
 Estimate for a discovery period to determine what you’ll be building—at the end of this you can
provide a more accurate estimate for the rest of the project.
 Consider using a Time and Materials pricing model rather than Fixed Price. Since you are billing
actual hours on the project, it can be much more flexible. This handy article here which discusses
benefits and uses of each.
 Don’t specify exactly what features are being built and how within the scope—allow room for
change.
9. Not interrogating new requests
It’s easy to take on new requests or ideas from clients or team members, believing that
they are the right path forward (Well, they do know what they’re doing, right?). If you
don’t interrogate these requests properly you could end up accepting new scope,
duplicating work or building unnecessary features without noticing.
How to eliminate it: review all new requests with the full team. Create a clear
understanding of what the request is, the impact of incorporating it, and its outcome for
the user. Then, prioritize the new request and cross check to make sure it’s not already
being delivered elsewhere.
10. Not involving users early enough
I’ve seen many a project go to the final stages (and even past that) before actually
putting it in front of real users. It’s tempting to fool ourselves thinking that we (the
clients, the business, the team) know the users well enough to avoid interacting with
them. If you’re not incorporating user feedback early on, you can go far down a route
that doesn’t test well with users. At that point, your scope can suddenly spiral.

How to eliminate it: get users using the product or service as early as possible. If the
client or budget holder doesn’t want to pay for this, work through the benefits and also
the negative impact it could have by not performing this early user validation. Have a
plan to address user feedback wherever it comes within the project.
How To Manage Scope Creep In Agile
Scope creep generally applies to projects with a fixed scope. What if I’m using an Agile
methodology? Well, Agile embraces change—and frankly, so should you, if you’re
working within different processes or methodologies. Change should not be seen as
the enemy.
As one of the core principles of Agile  states:
“Welcome changing requirements, even late in
development. Agile processes harness change for
the customer’s competitive advantage.”
If you’re working to Scrum methodology for example, when a new requirement comes
in, pull it into the Sprint planning meeting  and get it in the backlog. Prioritize it with the
Product Owner and team, and if it does go into the Sprint, something else will be
deprioritized instead. Because details aren’t determined at the beginning of the project,
change can be incorporated. Stories can be swapped quite easily for other stories if they
require the same effort.
The very point of Agile is to iterate, which means designing, building, testing, learning
and then repeating the cycle. Change is what leads to the best possible product in the
time you have.
So what actually counts as scope creep in an Agile project? Since you should have the
ability to change scope quite easily without throwing the whole project to the lions,
scope creep in Agile doesn’t really affect you until later down the line.

Scope creep could come into play if your Product Owner doesn’t deprioritize features or
tasks when pulling something in—i.e. if they want to add something into the current
cycle without removing something else. Also, they might not weigh the effort needed
between the new task and the deprioritized one, which could results in trying to cram
extra effort into an already planned, too-tight cycle.

Make sure that, for any new features entering the backlog, you’re breaking these down
into stories effectively and understanding effort against them to prioritize accordingly. If
you have a Product Owner who understands this process, scope creep will be much less
of a threat. In general, it’s a lot easier to mitigate scope creep in an Agile project,
precisely because change is encouraged and factored into the structure of the
methodology itself.
 Five Core Best Practices For Managing Scope Creep

1. Be proactive. Determine and agree upon a change management process upfront.

2. Prioritize. Look at what can be descoped to accommodate new requests.
3. Be transparent. As soon as scope creep appears, bring it up with clients and project stakeholders.
4. Analyze impacts. Work out the impacts (both positive and negative) of changes, and present
solutions to your client or stakeholder in order to move forward.
5. Embrace it. Work out what’s necessary for a testable, usable product—if that means changing
scope, look at ways to incorporate the changes.
See Scope Creep As A Positive!
In my opinion, it’s time to change the way we look at scope creep. Rather than seeing it
as the sneaky enemy, we need to think of it differently. It’s not scope creep—it’s change.
How you manage that change  is what affects the project—not the request to change it.
You just need to be careful that you spot it when it happens, especially when it’s not
obvious, and raise it before it progresses without any form of replanning.
Change can actually be hugely beneficial to the product you’re making. After all, we are
all here to build the best products and services we can, and if that means requirements
must change, then we, as project managers, need to lead the way for adapting to this.

Question 1
In this quiz, you will practice applying the Triple Constraint (budget, time, scope) to the following
project scenario: 
Imagine you are a User Experience (UX) Program Manager at a small design agency. You are asked to
manage an 8-week project for $800,000 USD. The project includes conducting field research and
synthesizing results. As the final deliverable, your agency will create a research report and facilitate a 3-
day workshop. You need to align with the client’s Vice President (VP) of Design, Ria. Luckily, you have a
team of five teammates to work on this project together!

For the three situations below, describe how you would apply the Triple Constraint model. Provide
examples to help illustrate your explanations. Are you ready?

1 point

I’m ready!

2.
Question 2
Situation 1

During the scoping of this project, Ria says her budget maxes out at $650,000 USD—she can’t afford the
$800,000 USD that this project will cost. What are some proposals you can provide to Ria to reduce the
budget? Think of the Triple Constraint and remember that one constraint will always have the priority.
So if the budget is a constraint, what areas might Ria adjust to reduce project costs? Write 2-3
sentences.

As a program manager, I can give few proposals to Ria

1. To reduce area of filed research by select the users from specific region so if no of visits for filed
research will reduce then project cost can be adjust.

2. Rather than to do many visits in filed to reach all users we can first meet to community leaders and
can take valuable inputs from community leaders

3. To reduce the resources and extend some time as no of visits can varies. we can also hire resources
from community leader who can help to reach all users from his area which can reduce the cost.

1 point
As a program manager, I can gi
1. To reduce area of filed resea
2. Rather than to do many visits

Your answer cannot be more than 10000 characters.

3.
Question 3
Situation 2

Recruiting for field research will take a week longer than expected. However, Ria told you that the
project end date is a hard deadline. What can you do? Think of the triple constraint and remember that
one of them will always have the priority. So if time is a constraint, what areas might Ria adjust to
reduce the time in the project? Write 2-3 sentences.

As a program manager, I can give few proposals to Ria

 1. We can quickly interview first some community and society leaders who can easily
address to users. Definitely to hire quickly all these resources can add some extra cost
to project.
2. Then interview for 3 days conducts to hire some professionals who will meet to these
communities and society leaders to make understand out project scope.
3. We can add some policies under this project who can paid off to resource (professional
as well as community and society leaders) to put extra hours and efforts.

1 point

Your answer cannot be more than 10000 characters.

4.
Question 4
Situation 3

After the stakeholders agree on the project scope, Ria finds out that her CEO wants more information in
the research report. She asks you to include details on the market opportunities for new product ideas,
technical constraints, and design considerations. How do you manage this additional scope? Write 2-3
sentences.

As a program manager, I can give few proposals to Ria

1. As scope changes, times and cost both will increase to fulfill all resources requirement
to include more information so I ask to Ria give additional time to first inform with my
team and all stake holders to about this scope creep.
2. Then I will discuss with team to analyze and to make them understand and also to take
their inputs to prepare a presentation on scope in and out with how much cost and
time include new details.
3. Need to organize a meeting with all stakeholders, clients and project team members
to let them aware about this and take approval for this change.

1 point

Your answer cannot be more than 10000 characters.

5.
Question 5
As a reminder, if there are changes in time, budget, and scope, remember to notify your project
sponsor and key stakeholder and make sure they’re aligned. In this specific example, you should notify
the internal stakeholders, so that they can make decisions about what to do about the changes in the
project, while considering the Triple Constraint.

1 point
Alright!

Coursera Honor Code  Learn more

What is the project management term for delivering the final result of your project to the
client or user?

Launch

Kickoff

Landing

Correct
The launch is when you finish building or creating your project and you’re ready to present
it to the client.

What is the project management term for meeting the success criteria you establish at the
beginning of the project?

Kickoff

Feedback

Landing

Correct
While the launch is when you complete your project, the landing is once you determine it
works and you satisfy your success criteria.

Welcome back. 
At this point, you've learned a bit about setting SMART goals, 
along with defining and managing the scope. 
It may be tempting to think that you're ready to kick off this project with 
these two important pieces, 
but there is one common element that ensures you'll achieve 
these goals within scope. 
And that key element is knowing when your project is delivered and 
you can call it a success. 
Many people think the time to decide if a project is successful 
is when you've produced the final outcome and presented it to the client. 
That's getting close. 
Delivering the final result of your project to the client or 
user is what's called a project launch.
Play video starting at ::42 and follow transcript0:42
You finish building or creating a project, the tasks are completed, and 
the deliverables are done. 
You've hit your goal. 
The project is successful and considered complete in that sense, but 
does it work well? 
Did it achieve your desired outcome? 
The real deciding factor of project success is when you put the final 
outcome to the test. 
Landing is when you actually measure the success of your project 
using the success criteria established at the outset of the project.
Play video starting at :1:13 and follow transcript1:13
This is a crucial part of goal setting that is often overlooked 
in the initiation phase. 
For example, think about taking a trip on an airplane. 
It's not enough for the pilot to be able to get the plane off the ground. 
To arrive safely at your destination, they've got to know how to land.
Play video starting at :1:34 and follow transcript1:34
Your success has to continue beyond the point of delivering the final project. 
You need to be able to measure whether the project functions as intended 
once it's put into practice.
Play video starting at :1:47 and follow transcript1:47
Let's take the example of your project Plant Pals. 
You've managed to launch the new service with success, the website has launched, 
the catalogs have been printed and 
delivered, orders have been received, and revenue is starting to go up. 
It would be easy to call this a win and move on. 
But what happens if the customers are unhappy once the plants are delivered? 
What if the plants start to wilt and discolor after a couple of weeks? 
Just because launching the project and getting it out the door looks like success 
on paper, that doesn't mean the project has managed to land. 
For most projects, a launch itself isn't a meaningful measure of success. 
It's what comes after the launch that really counts. 
Launches are only a means to an end, and looking beyond the launch is important 
to ensure the launch achieves your overall goals.
Play video starting at :2:43 and follow transcript2:43
If you start off looking beyond the launch to the landing, 
you're more likely to get where you're trying to go. 
Since landing is a concept and not a finite definition, it's important 
to define what a successful landing looks like for a particular project. 
Luckily, we have a way to measure and help you ensure the success of your project. 
It's called success criteria, and if you can manage to follow it 
through the life cycle of your project, you'll ultimately have a smooth landing.
Play video starting at :3:16 and follow transcript3:16
The success criteria includes all the specific details of your goals and 
deliverables, and it can be a guide so 
you know whether you've accomplished what you set out to do.
Play video starting at :3:27 and follow transcript3:27
Success criteria will set standards for how your project will be judged.
Play video starting at :3:33 and follow transcript3:33
In the next video, I'll outline what you need to know 
about defining success criteria and communicating project success.
Play video starting at :3:41 and follow transcript3:41
See you in a bit.

Hello again. We've learned about the differences between launching and landing, and
we've also learned about the differences between delivering your project and finding
out if the outcome performs as expected. But how exactly do you know that your project
is a success? How do you know if you've actually landed? At the beginning of the project,
you defined goals and deliverables that are measurable—meaning that you can
determine if they were met. Similarly, you need to define success criteria that can also
be measured so you'll know whether they were met. The success criteria will tell you
whether or not the project as a whole was successful. They are the specific details of
your goals and deliverables that tell you whether you've accomplished what you set out
to do. They are the standards by which the project will be judged once it's been
delivered to stakeholders and customers. Defining success criteria also clarifies for your
team what they're trying to accomplish beyond just launching something to users. Is it
to increase customer satisfaction with the service so they can continue to purchase
more products? Enhance an existing feature to retain customers? Depending on the
project, the answers will be different. But, it's important that a team is aligned and
working towards a shared goal. Sometimes forcing the conversation and clarifying what
the end result looks like can bring to light questions and areas of disagreement.

Play video starting at :1:32 and follow transcript1:32

There isn't a set process for determining success criteria, but I'll break down a couple of
key points to consider.

Play video starting at :1:40 and follow transcript1:40

Remember the measurable part of your SMART goals? One of the questions to ask when
making your goals measurable is: How will I know when it is accomplished? The same
question applies to your project: How will you know when it's done? Only in this case,
you want to ask: How will I know when it's successfully accomplished? You can measure
to determine your project success in a similar way to measuring a goal. So go through
your project goals and deliverables, review the scope, and identify the measurable
aspects of your project. These are going to be any of the metrics used in the goals and
deliverables, along with your budget and schedule details. Another thing you'll need to
do is get clarity from stakeholders on the project requirements and expectations. This is
key! There are lots of people involved with any project, and that means lots of ideas
about what success looks like to each person. You'll want to ask questions, such as: Who
ultimately says whether or not the project is successful? What criteria will be measured
to determine success? What's the success of this project based on? Once you've
collected clarifying information, document and share all of it so that you, your team, and
your stakeholders can refer to it later. Let's try creating success criteria with the Office
Green project. For example, the goal is to increase revenue by 5% by the end of the year.
One of the deliverables is a website with a gallery of the different plant selections that
are offered. It's not enough just to make a list of criteria; you need a process for
measuring success from start to finish throughout the entire project life cycle. This way,
you can make adjustments and ensure success by the time you're ready to land. There
are many metrics you can use, and for some products, it will make sense to use more
than one. The metrics you choose should be as closely aligned to your project's goal as
possible. For example, "happiness metrics" measure user attitudes and satisfaction, or
perceived ease of use, and you can measure these through surveys. For the Plant Pals
project, we may consider a customer satisfaction rate of 85% within the first three
months of launching as a way to measure success. You can also consider customer
adoption and engagement metrics, along with more business-oriented metrics that
track things like sales and growth. Adoption refers to how the customer uses and adopts
a product or service without any issues. Engagement refers to how often or meaningful
customer interaction and participation is over time.

Play video starting at :4:37 and follow transcript4:37

Adoption metrics might include launching a new product to a group of users and having
a high amount of them use or adopt it. Engagement metrics might include increasing the
daily usage of a design feature or increasing orders and customer interactions. Using the
Office Green example, tracking how many customers initially sign up for and use to Plant
Pals service is an adoption metric. Tracking how many customers renew their Plant Pals
service, post about it, or share feedback are engagement metrics.

Play video starting at :5:15 and follow transcript5:15

Once you've defined the metrics that you'll be measuring, think about how you track
these metrics. Evaluate which tools can help you collect the data you need to ensure
you're staying on track. For example, if you're measuring business metrics like revenue,
consider tracking that in a spreadsheet or dashboard, where you can easily spot gaps
and trends. If you're measuring customer satisfaction, you can think of a way to
incentivize customers to participate in regular email surveys and create a system to
measure their responses when they participate. You can also utilize your project
management tools to check on efficiency metrics, like what percent of tasks are
completed or whether the project is progressing alongside the planned timelines.

Play video starting at :6:5 and follow transcript6:05

It's smart to measure success with your team as a project or product is in progress. For
example, you can hold a project review once a month, have team members complete
task checklists by certain deadlines, or hold live feedback sessions with your users or
customers.

Play video starting at :6:25 and follow transcript6:25

There are many different ways to measure success. The key is to pick the methods that
work best for your success criteria. It's a good idea that, along with each success criteria
on your list, to also include the methods for how success will be measured, how often
it's measured, and who's responsible for measuring it. Share your success criteria
document with your stakeholders and ask if they agree with how the project's success
will be determined. It's also a good idea to have the appropriate stakeholders sign off on
the success criteria. This way, everyone will be clear on who is responsible for which
tasks, and you'll all thoroughly understand what the path to success entails. Keep this
documentation visible throughout the duration of the project and clearly communicate
it with your team every step of the way. They're the ones who will be attempting to meet
all the different requirements, so don't keep them in the dark about what they're
supposed to do or how they're supposed to do it. If done correctly, defining your success
criteria should create greater alignment within the team and give everybody better
visibility into how to achieve success. Clarity around success metrics also helps teams
prioritize which efforts are most impactful to their users.

Play video starting at :7:51 and follow transcript7:51

Defining project success is a complex but crucial part of project management. With more
and more practice, this process will come more naturally to you in the planning stages
and throughout your project. We'll continue exploring and talking more about these
concepts throughout the course. Nice job! You're almost done with Module 2. I'll see you
in a bit to review what we've covered.

Which two terms are customer-related metrics to consider for success criteria?

Adoption and engagement

Product defects and delays

Production and output

Correct
Adoption refers to how the customer uses the product without any issues. Engagement
refers to how often customer interaction happens over time.

Who will ultimately judge if the project meets its goals, deliverables, requirements, and
other success criteria?

Stakeholders and customers

Correct
The success criteria should be clearly agreed upon at the beginning of the project. The
stakeholders and customers ultimately judge if the team meets the success criteria. 

Project sponsor

Production team

Using OKRs to evaluate progress

In this lesson, you are learning to define a project’s success criteria, the measurable
attributes project managers use to determine whether or not a project was successful as a
whole. This reading will focus on using OKRs to evaluate a project’s progress.

Objectives and Key Results (OKRs)

You have learned that OKRs—Objectives and Key Results--combine a goal and a metric to
determine a measurable outcome. Setting OKRs is a technique that can help project
teams define, communicate, and measure shared success criteria.
Objectives: Defines what needs to be achieved; describes a desired outcome. Key results: The
measurable outcomes that objectively define when the objective has been me

Communicating and tracking OKRs

Conducting regular check-ins and actively tracking progress with your team can help
ensure that objectives are being met and that any issues are resolved as soon as possible.

Share your OKRs with your team. Once you’ve created OKRs for your project, it’s
important to communicate them to your team so that everyone knows how to focus and
align their efforts. You can do this by sharing a digital document, presenting them in a
meeting, or adding them to an internal website. OKRs can help your project team stick to
its goals, monitor which are falling short, and be continuously motivated to meet project
objectives. 

Assign owners. Assign an owner to every key result so that everybody knows who’s
responsible for what. This helps add clarity and increases accountability.

Measuring progress

Measuring your OKRs is an important part of tracking and sharing your progress. One
shortcut to determining the status of a project is to score or grade your OKRs. While scores
or grades don’t provide a complete assessment of a project’s success, they’re helpful tools
for determining how close you came to achieving your objectives. You can then share your
OKR scores with project stakeholders and team members as part of your overall project
updates.

Determine how you will score your OKRs. OKRs can be scored in different ways. You can
score based on a percentage of the objective completed, the completion of certain
milestones, or a scale of 1 to 10, for example. You can also use a “traffic light” scoring
approach, where red means you didn’t make any progress, yellow means you made some
progress, and green means you completed your objective. The simplest approach to
scoring OKRs is the “yes/no” method, with “yes” meaning you achieved your objective and
“no” meaning you didn’t. Using this approach, a key result such as “Launch a new widget
marketing campaign” might be graded a 1 or 0 depending on whether it was launched (1)
or not (0). A more advanced scoring approach is to grade your key results on a scale. With
this method, if a key result was to “Launch six new features” and only three new features
were launched, the OKR might be graded 0.5. Generally, if the KR helped you achieve the
objective, your OKR should receive a higher score; if it didn't, your OKR should receive a
lower score. At Google, OKRs are usually graded on a scale of 0.0 to 1.0, with 1.0 meaning
the objective was fully achieved. Each individual key result is graded and then the grades
are averaged to determine the score for that OKR. Set your scoring expectations. With
Google’s 0.0–1.0 scale, the expectation is to set ambitious OKRs and aim to achieve an
average of at least 0.6 to 0.7 across all OKRs. For OKRs graded according to percentage
achieved, the sweet spot is somewhere in the 60–70% range. Scoring lower may mean the
 team is not achieving what it could be. Scoring higher may mean the aspirational goals are
not being set high enough.

Schedule checkpoints. It’s important to regularly communicate the status of project

OKRs with your team and senior managers. For example, it can be helpful to have monthly
check-ins on the progress of OKRs to give both individuals and your team a sense of where
they are. Typically, at the end of the quarter, you’ll grade each of your OKRs to evaluate
how well the team did to achieve its goals.

Key takeaway

OKRs can help you define and measure your project’s success criteria. In order for OKRs to
be used to effectively meet your project’s success criteria, it’s important to share them
with your team, assign owners to each key result to ensure accountability, measure your
OKRs’ progress by scoring them, and track your OKRs’ progress by scheduling regular
check-ins with your team.

To help you get started practicing writing your own OKRs, check out the templates below.
To use the templates, click the links below and select “Use Template.”

 OKR Scorecard Template Doc

 OKR Scorecard Template Sheet

Introduction: Working effectively with

stakeholders
Welcome back. In this module, we'll learn all about stakeholders and their importance
to a project. In the last set of videos, you learned the ins and outs of project scope. While
exploring how a project can be in-scope or out-of-scope, you learned about setting
SMART goals. We also discussed launching a project (getting it started) versus landing a
project (whether or not it was successful). And there are a lot more exciting topics to
come! In this module you'll learn more about stakeholders. Remember that
stakeholders play a pivotal role. They are people who are interested in and affected by
the project's completion and success. You'll see that each person involved has a set role
and set responsibilities to help bring the project to a landing. Those roles include project
sponsors, customers, team members, and of course, you, the project manager. You will
also find out about things like stakeholder mapping and analysis and RACI charts. These
are tools that help clarify roles and responsibilities and prevent confusion on who takes
ownership of which tasks. Throughout this module, you'll have plenty of hands-on
activities, discussion prompts, and readings to really help you master how to start a
project. As we go through each new skill, imagine checking off a to-do list. There's
almost nothing more satisfying than crossing off a to-do!

Hello, nice to meet you. My name is Holly and I will be your accessibility instructor for
this course. Accessibility should be incorporated into every role at a company, whether a
product designer, communicator, developer or yes, project manager. In my role of
accessibility education program manager at Google, I help ensure all Googlers are
educated on accessibility, from building accessible products for the entire world, to
communicating accessibility with you throughout this course. I'm deaf myself, so I am
able to share my experiences as a person with a disability too and help others
understand that having a disability isn't a barrier in itself. It's the world around us that
we must strive to make it accessible for everyone. Accessibility can be defined in a
number of different ways. To me, it means actively removing any barriers that might
prevent persons with disabilities from being able to access technology, information, or
experiences, and leveling in the playing field so everyone has an equal chance of
enjoying life and being successful. A disability is often defined as a physical or mental
condition that substantially limits a major life activity, such as walking, talking, seeing,
hearing, or learning. Over one billion people in the world have a disability, 1 billion.
That's more than the population of the United States, Canada, France, Italy, Japan,
Mexico, and Brazil combined. Disability is diverse and intersectional. Someone can be
born with a condition or acquire it later in life. Disability can affect us all in some way,
whether directly or indirectly, and at any time, from permanent, like deafness, to
temporary, like a broken leg, to situational, like trying to operate a TV remote control in
the dark. When you create solutions for persons with disabilities, you are not only
serving the critical audience of people with permanent disabilities, you are also
unlocking secondary benefits for everyone who may move in and out of disability over
time. As you progress through this course, it's also important to keep in mind your fellow
classmates. Setting the expectation that you'll be interacting with others that learn and
work differently is a key strength of working with accessibility in mind. Asking others
what they need from you to learn and communicate and also sharing what you need if
you have a disability yourself is important to working well together as a team. In project
management, you, yourself, people on your project team, or people highly invested in
your project may have a disability, whether visible or invisible. As a project manager, you
are responsible for making sure a group of people can come together to achieve a
common goal using shared tools and systems. In order to be successful, you need to
make sure the infrastructure and culture you set up works for everyone. Knowing this is
a key element of project management. I'll teach you how to make your work and content
accessible. I'll also help you become a better project manager by considering
accessibility in your future projects. I'll offer tips and best practices throughout the
program, starting with this one. Did you know that many technologies that we all enjoy
started out as an accessibility feature? Think about the Google Assistant, which allows
you to control your home with your voice, or close captioning, which makes it possible
to watch the TV above a crowded, noisy bar. By considering accessibility, you can impact
everyone's lives for the better. I'm excited to share more with you throughout the
program where you'll learn more about project management and prepare for a career in
this field. See you later.

Choosing a project team

In this video, I'll take you through the process of choosing roles and responsibilities of all
the people on your project team. In order to decide who does what on a project, we have
to consider and outline our needs. Choosing the right people for a team is a big task, and
one every project manager should take seriously. After all, these are the people who do
the work on the project, so we want to make sure we have the right people lined up.
When identifying people resources, we need to carefully consider the project needs and
use that info to guide our decision-making. First, a project manager will make a list of
roles that they'll need on their team to complete each task. In the same way that a
project manager is accountable for the overall initiation, planning, execution, and
completion of a project, the person in each role is accountable for specific tasks within
the project life cycle. For example, a home construction project team might include roles
on their lists like an architect, a site manager, and multiple construction workers. Once
the tasks are clearly laid out, the project manager decides how many people they'll need
on their team. This can vary greatly depending on the project size. For small projects, a
team may only need three or four people to complete the deliverables on time, and for
larger projects, a team might include dozens. At Google, we sometimes have hundreds
of Googlers working on the same project. Getting the team size right is important for a
bunch of reasons. For example, when there's a lot of people on a project,
communication sometimes becomes difficult. That makes it more likely for someone to
miss important details. But if your team is too small, there might not be enough people
to finish all the tasks. Once you know how many people you need on your team, you
have to think about who does what. To decide on the right person for each role, a
project manager needs to think carefully about skills. Makes sense, right? If you're
managing the construction of a house, you want to note that the construction workers
who are building the frame or installing the drywall have the skills needed to do it
properly. It's on the project manager to ensure that everyone on the team has the right
skills to do the job, but it's also important to remember that skills can be taught. If
someone doesn't have a certain skill initially, they might still be a great fit for the team.
Maybe this person brings a positive attitude and attention to detail— perfectly good
reasons to have them on your team. Just keep in mind that if a teammate doesn't have
the necessary skills, it's important that they are trained in time so as not to cause project
delays. When choosing teammates, a project manager also has to factor in each person's
availability and whether they'll feel motivated to complete their assigned tasks. For
example, you might know a fantastic site manager who would make a great asset to the
team, but if they're already staffed on another big project, they might not have the time
to commit to yours. Or even if they do have the time, they may not feel like this project
will give them the visibility they need for a promotion. Motivation is a key ingredient to
great work. It's a good idea to pick people who are excited to get involved, but of course,
we don't always get to choose our resources. Sometimes another manager or team lead
might just assign people to roles. When this happens, it's the project manager's
challenge to deliver the best work with what we're given. Let's check in on our project at
Office Green, where we're rolling out a new service. As a project manager, it's up to you
to decide who you need on your team. You have to ask yourself questions on things like
staff experience, availability, the workspace, team member workload on other projects,
and more. For example, who on the team has office landscaping experience? Who's local
to the city where the launch will happen? Who can be fully dedicated to this project for
the next eight weeks? There's no exact formula for putting together the right team,
which makes it a little tricky. Every situation is different and calls for a different set of
skills, experience, and perspectives. It can be helpful to look deeper into each task on
the project. Always ask yourself these key questions: how many people do I need on my
team each step of the way? Which team members do I need and when? Are those experts
already busy on other projects? Who makes the final decisions on project resources? So
there's a lot to think about when putting together your dream team. Up next, we'll learn
more about all the different roles on a project. See you there!

When choosing a project team, a project manager considers required roles, team size, and
which three additional factors?

Availability
Correct
Everyone on the team needs to be available to join the project. This means they are not
staffed on another big project and have the time to contribute. Beyond availability, team
members also need to have key skills and be motivated to complete their tasks.

Motivation
Correct
Everyone on the team needs to feel motivated to complete their assigned tasks.
Motivation is a key ingredient for great work, so it’s important to pick people who are
excited to get involved. Beyond motivation, team members also need to be available and
have key skills.

Necessary skills
Correct
Everyone on the team needs to have the right skills to do the job. If they don’t have the
necessary skills, the project manager should ensure that they receive timely training to
avoid project delays. Beyond key skills, team members also need to be available and
motivated.

Stakeholder preferences

Review: The building blocks of a project

dream team
In the previous video, we explored some considerations for choosing your project team
and assigning their roles and responsibilities. Let’s recap what you learned and expand
upon what to think about when building your project team. 

Too big, too small, or just right?

Once you lay the foundation for your project by outlining your goals and expectations, it is
time to build your dream team! Though before we can build our dream team, we need to
figure out how many people we need. This number will largely depend on the size of the
project itself. Complex projects with large divisions of work will usually require larger
project teams. Simple projects with straightforward expectations may only require a few
people on the project team. As a project manager, it is your job to help find the right
balance based on what is needed.
The right skills and abilities to fill the role

Multiple roles exist in every project. On smaller teams, multiple roles may be filled by one
person. To meet the needs of more specialized projects, project managers might require
people who have the necessary technical skills. Technical skills are the skills specific to
the task that needs to be performed. For example, on the Office Green project, necessary
technical skills may include indoor landscaping design for the layout of the plants within
the offices and floral design of plant arranging.  

Technical skills are highly valued, but they are not the only skills that are important for
high functioning teams. Interpersonal skills, also known as people skills or soft skills, such
as patience and conflict mediation, can help team members. This allows the team to
blend their technical expertise with collaborative skills in order to get the job done. When
a team applies their interpersonal skills, they can minimize team-related issues. 

Problem-solving skills are a must for all team members, especially when it comes to
large, complex projects. As a project manager, you will not be able to solve every problem
for your team. At some point, they will need to use their own judgment to problem-solve
and get the work done. 

An underrated skill set for project team members are leadership skills. Strong leadership
skills help team members navigate organizational boundaries and effectively
communicate with stakeholders to generate buy-in. 

Who is available?

In projects, the availability of your team is always a big concern. This is especially true in
Matrix organizations, where team members have multiple bosses. It is not uncommon to
pull a team member onto another project before your project is complete. In a perfect
world, you only pick those who can stay on the project for its entire life cycle. You may find
that you don’t get to pick certain members of your team at all, which is called a pre-
assignment. In these cases, the sponsor assigns team members to your project.

Keep in mind that you need to value diversity early on when building your team. On
diverse teams, everyone is able to use their unique professional and personal experiences
to contribute to a more successful project. Diversity is best leveraged when it is
acknowledged and highlighted as an asset. Many people avoid discussing their
differences, but if you encourage those conversations, you will find a richer understanding
and greater creativity that comes from people working together across identity
differences. To do this effectively, it is important to dedicate time early on in the team
building process to develop trust between team members. Team members who
understand one another are more likely to trust each other and feel safe sharing different
points of view or offer a competing perspective. This will also allow them to more easily
offer constructive feedback or be supportive if the team dynamics face challenges at any
point.
What motivates them?

Be sure to take note of the motivation level of your team members and the impact it may
have on your project. Just because a person is pre-assigned to a project, doesn’t
necessarily mean they have low interest in it, but a person who proactively volunteered
for it may have additional motivation to do the work.

As a project manager, it is your responsibility to engage your team and keep them
motivated. This is where your influence as a leader is required to keep the team engaged
and ready to overcome any obstacles that may appear. Engaging in a respectful manner
and maintaining a positive outlook with your team during times of adversity are simple
ways to keep your team motivated.  

Key takeaway 

In summary, team size, skills, availability, and motivation are the building blocks to
creating your very own dream team. Always keep in mind that a project manager does not
just select dream teams, they create dream teams through collaboration under great
leadership. This is the leadership that you will provide as a project manager. 

Congratulations! You passed!

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Weekly Challenge 2
Latest Submission Grade 81.81%

1.
Question 1

As a project manager, you’re using the SMART criteria to craft goals for your team. During the process,
you ask yourself if your team can misinterpret a goal. Which SMART criteria does this question
represent?
1 / 1 point

Time-bound

Relevant

Measurable
Attainable

Specific
Correct

2.
Question 2

As project manager, you approve a team member’s request to change the order of their tasks because
they think it will be more efficient. However, this change disrupts another team member’s work
process: they need to do two additional tasks not related to the project’s goal. What is happening on
this project?
1 / 1 point

The project is becoming more efficient.

The project is going out-of-scope.

The project is staying in-scope.

The project is iterating.

Correct

3.
Question 3

Consider the following scenario:

The Janco Car Company is about to deliver new cars to its affiliate dealerships. Right before shipping,
several dealerships say they cannot receive the cars because of showroom schedules. Janco had not
planned for the various dealerships’ showroom schedules. The dealerships ask for Janco to reorganize
the car shipping schedule, costing Janco hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Which of the following steps could Janco have taken to help prevent scope creep?
1 / 1 point

Move the cars via airlines to keep the timelines in place.

Send the shipping schedule to all of the dealerships after it’s finalized.

Include product delivery scheduling in the project scope.

Use legal avenues to make the dealerships alter showroom schedules.
Correct

4.
Question 4

Fill in the blank: The goal of a project helps to determine the _____.
1 / 1 point

presentation

deliverables

culture

stakeholders
Correct

5.
Question 5

Which of the following scenarios best represents project launch?

0 / 1 point

The website development team researches a specific audience through sales data analysis.

The client agrees to the initial timeline and budget.

The project team releases a new product.

The project manager works with stakeholders to develop project goals and deliverables.
Incorrect

Please review the video about project launch.

6.
Question 6

Consider the following scenario: The Director of Product requests the project manager to add a new
product feature. However, they also state that the team cannot push back the project delivery date.

Using the triple constraint model, what trade-off could the project manager use to meet the Director of
Product’s request?
1 / 1 point

Change the team

Change the budget

Change the project goal

Change the timeline

Correct

7.
Question 7

Which of the following indicate whether a project manager accomplishes what they set out to do?
1 / 1 point

Launch standard

Deviation criteria

Accuracy standard

Success criteria
Correct

8.
Question 8

Which of the following is an adoption metric?

1 / 1 point

A 20% increase in the amount of tasks completed.

An increase in customer satisfaction score.

A 35% increase in first-time customers.

Double the amount of time participating within an app.
Correct

9.
Question 9

Which scenario demonstrates project landing?

0 / 1 point

The project manager considers positive feedback from the project sponsor as enough evidence to
assume success and reports the project complete.

The project manager checks back on the project in five years to see if the training program produces a
20% increase in the county’s recycling rate.

The car company Janco launches a new car series called the Cruiser ST. The launch is successful and all
the dealerships request more models.

The Director of Product requests to reduce the budget by 25% but the final outcome still needs to look
and function as originally agreed.
Incorrect

Please review the reading about successfully landing a project.

10.
Question 10

Suppose as a project manager you’re receiving requests from stakeholders to add new features to the
product you’re developing. How would you deal with this external scope creep?
1 / 1 point

Ignore the requests because the project is already underway.

Take a team vote to decide if the team should add the new feature to the product.

Implement the initial stakeholders requests and then ban all future requests.

Agree on who can make formal requests and how your team will evaluate and act on those requests.
Correct

11.
Question 11

Which of the following is true about Objectives and Key Results (OKRs)?
1 / 1 point
There are typically 2–3 objectives for every key result.

Adoption and engagement are often used as metrics to measure results.

OKRs are mainly for team-based metrics and not for individuals.

OKRs are rarely used to determine a project’s success criteria.

Correct

Congratulations! You passed!

Grade received 88.63%

To pass 80% or higher

Go to next item

Weekly Challenge 2
Latest Submission Grade 88.63%

1.
Question 1

As a project manager, you’re using the SMART criteria to craft goals for your team. During the process,
you ask yourself if a goal is aligned to the organization or the company’s goals. Which SMART criteria
does this question represent?
0 / 1 point

Time-bound

Attainable

Relevant

Measurable

Specific
Incorrect

Review the video on crafting SMART goals.

2.
Question 2

As project manager, you approve a team member’s request to change the order of their tasks because
they think it will be more efficient. However, this change disrupts another team member’s work
process: they need to do two additional tasks not related to the project’s goal. What is happening on
this project?
1 / 1 point

The project is iterating.

The project is staying in-scope.

The project is going out-of-scope.

The project is becoming more efficient.

Correct

3.
Question 3

Consider the following scenario:

The Janco Car Company is about to deliver new cars to its affiliate dealerships. Right before shipping,
several dealerships say they cannot receive the cars because of showroom schedules. Janco had not
planned for the various dealerships’ showroom schedules. The dealerships ask for Janco to reorganize
the car shipping schedule, costing Janco hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Which of the following steps could Janco have taken to help prevent scope creep?
1 / 1 point

Include product delivery scheduling in the project scope.

Move the cars via airlines to keep the timelines in place.

Use legal avenues to make the dealerships alter showroom schedules.

Send the shipping schedule to all of the dealerships after it’s finalized.
Correct

4.
Question 4
Fill in the blank: The difference between a goal and a deliverable is that the goal is the desired outcome
of the project and the deliverable is a _____ of the project.
1 / 1 point

tangible outcome

progress

SMART method

success criteria
Correct

5.
Question 5

Which of the following scenarios best represents project launch?

1 / 1 point

The project manager works with stakeholders to develop project goals and deliverables.

The client agrees to the initial timeline and budget.

The website development team researches a specific audience through sales data analysis.

The project team releases a new product.

Correct

6.
Question 6

Consider the following scenario: The Director of Product requests a project cost reduction of 25%.
However, they also state that the product’s final result needs to look and function as originally agreed
with no additions to project workload.

Using the triple constraint model, what trade-off could the project manager use to meet the Director of
Product’s request?
1 / 1 point

Change the timeline

Change the team

Change the project goal

Change the project scope

Correct

7.
Question 7

Which two of the following are examples of success criteria?

0.75 / 1 point

Meet company-wide objective of $50M in revenues.

Correct

Deliver training to all appropriate teams to ensure at least 98% of the teams are using the new tool.
Correct

Create a new product feature that will satisfy customers.

Implement a training service to meet company objectives.

This should not be selected

Please review the video about defining success criteria. 

8.
Question 8

Which of the following is an engagement metric?

1 / 1 point

Number of new customer sign-ups for a subscription.

Double the amount of initial orders.

A 35% increase of first-time customers.

A 20% increase of participation time within an app.

Correct
9.
Question 9

A project manager launches a project to streamline a local city's school bus route schedule to reduce
the amount of time students are on the bus by 30%. What scenario below demonstrates that the
project manager landed at the intended goal?
1 / 1 point

The project manager surveys the team members to ask how they feel about the project success; their
feedback is reviewed and determines the next team.

The project manager reviews the data in 3 months to determine if they reduced the amount of time
students spend on the bus by at least 30%.

The project manager hands over the project to the client with all of the plans and documents and
considers the project a success.

The project manager completes the research and development required for the plan and adds another
county to compare success rates for the project.
Correct

10.
Question 10

Suppose as a project manager you receive a request from a team member to change a process they
believe will make their work more efficient. However, you know that the change may increase the
workload for other team members and extend the project’s completion date. How do you best address
this potential internal scope creep?
1 / 1 point

Ask the team member who requested the change to take on the additional work from affected team
members.

Try it out as a test because the team member making the request has seniority.

Remind the team that any process changes will change project scope and may create unknown risks
for the project.

Request from stakeholders an additional team member to take on the additional work.
Correct

11.
Question 11
Which of the following is true about Objectives and Key Results (OKRs)?
1 / 1 point

OKRs are mainly for team-based metrics and not for individuals.

OKRs are rarely used to determine a project’s success criteria.

There are typically 2–3 objectives for every key result.

Adoption and engagement are often used as metrics to measure results.

Correct

Question 1

As a project manager, you’re using the SMART criteria to craft goals for your team. During the process,
you create goals that are a little challenging, but also encourage growth. In this instance, which SMART
criteria are you using?
1 / 1 point

Time-bound

Attainable

Specific

Measurable

Relevant
Correct

2.
Question 2

Which of the following scenarios best represents a project that is going out-of-scope?
1 / 1 point
The manufacturer of one of the project deliverables just lost power after a large storm. They don’t
expect to be in production for one week, delaying the project timeline.

The deliverable to present your project's pre-launch event at a three-day, in-person conference is now
an online conference. The switch reduces the costs associated with event space, travel, and people
resource time.

During the project weekly meeting, the project manager learns the main vendor will increase the cost
of raw materials by 20% due to an international shortage.

During the project weekly meeting, the project sponsor adds a new deliverable requirement that costs
$10,000 USD. This addition surpasses the budget by $5,000 USD.
Correct

3.
Question 3

Consider this Office Green scenario: A member of the marketing team suggests allowing customers to
choose from an additional three plant colors.

What can help prevent project scope creep in this scenario? Select all that apply.
0.75 / 1 point

Create a plan for dealing with out-of-scope requests.

Correct

Make project plans visible.

Correct

Go along with the member’s suggestion.

This should not be selected

Please review the video on monitoring project scope.

Get clarity on project requirements.

Correct

4.
Question 4

Fill in the blank: The difference between a goal and a deliverable is that the goal is the desired outcome
of the project and the deliverable is a _____ of the project.
1 / 1 point
success criteria

progress

SMART method

tangible outcome
Correct

5.
Question 5

Which of the following scenarios best represents project launch?

1 / 1 point

The project manager works with stakeholders to develop project goals and deliverables.

The website development team researches a specific audience through sales data analysis.

The client agrees to the initial timeline and budget.

The project team releases a new product.

Correct

6.
Question 6

Consider the following scenario: The Director of Product requests the project manager to add a new
product feature. However, they also state that the team cannot push back the project delivery date.

Using the triple constraint model, what trade-off could the project manager use to meet the Director of
Product’s request?
1 / 1 point

Change the timeline

Change the team

Change the project goal

Change the budget
Correct

7.
Question 7

Which two of the following are examples of success criteria?

1 / 1 point

Implement a training service to meet company objectives.

Meet company-wide objective of $50M in revenues.

Correct

Create a new product feature that will satisfy customers.

Deliver training to all appropriate teams to ensure at least 98% of the teams are using the new tool.
Correct

8.
Question 8

Which of the following is an engagement metric?

1 / 1 point

A 20% increase of participation time within an app.

A 35% increase of first-time customers.

Double the amount of initial orders.

Number of new customer sign-ups for a subscription.

Correct

9.
Question 9

A project manager launches a project to streamline a local city's school bus route schedule to reduce
the amount of time students are on the bus by 30%. What scenario below demonstrates that the
project manager landed at the intended goal?
1 / 1 point
The project manager reviews the data in 3 months to determine if they reduced the amount of time
students spend on the bus by at least 30%.

The project manager hands over the project to the client with all of the plans and documents and
considers the project a success.

The project manager surveys the team members to ask how they feel about the project success; their
feedback is reviewed and determines the next team.

The project manager completes the research and development required for the plan and adds another
county to compare success rates for the project.
Correct

10.
Question 10

Suppose that you’re starting as a project manager for a new client. What three strategies can you use to
decrease the likelihood of scope creep and make the project a success?
0.5 / 1 point

Ask for constructive criticism on the initial product proposal.

Correct

Show the client the details of what you’re going to create and how much it will cost.
Correct

Set ground rules and expectations for client involvement once the project begins.

Keep complicated documents from the client because you don’t want to confuse them.
This should not be selected

Review the video on scope creep.

11.
Question 11

The objective for a car company is to launch a new series of cars. Which three of the following could be
examples of key results?
1 / 1 point

Distribute 98% of the product on time to dealerships.

Correct

Meet production deadlines 95% of the time.

Correct

Improve the customer satisfaction survey score by 15%.

Correct

Create a best-in-class midsize sedan.

Who is the project sponsor?

The person who will use the product produced by a project

The person who is accountable for the project and ensures the project delivers the agreed-
upon value to a business

The person who plans, organizes, and oversees the project

The person involved in the project who has a vested interest in the project's success
Correct

A project sponsor is the person who is

accountable for the project. They ensure
the project delivers the agreed-upon value
to the business. Essential project roles
In this lesson, you are learning to define project roles and responsibilities. Let’s now build
on what you have learned about building your project team and focus on how to further
identify the core roles and responsibilities that are critical to any project.   

The project manager

Although all team members are responsible for their individual parts of the project, the
project manager is responsible for the overall success of the team, and ultimately, the
project as a whole. A project manager understands that paying close attention to team
dynamics is essential to successfully completing a project, and they use team-building
techniques, motivation, influencing, decision-making, and coaching skills, to keep their
teams strong. 

Project managers integrate all project work by developing the project management plan,
directing the work, documenting reports, controlling change, and monitoring quality. 

In addition, project managers are responsible for balancing the scope, schedule, and cost
of a project by managing engagement with stakeholders. When managing engagement
with stakeholders, project managers rely on strong communication skills, political and
cultural awareness, negotiation, trust-building, and conflict management skills.

Stakeholders

Have you ever heard the phrase “the stakes are high"? When we talk about “stakes,” we
are referring to the important parts of a business, situation, or project that might be at risk
if something goes wrong. To hold stake in a business, situation, or project means you are
invested in its success. There will often be several parties that will hold stake in the
outcome of a project. Each group’s level of investment will differ based on how the
outcome of the project may impact them. Stakeholders are often divided into two groups:
primary stakeholders, also known as key stakeholders, and secondary stakeholders. A
primary stakeholder is directly affected by the outcome of the project, while a secondary
stakeholder is indirectly affected by the outcome of the project. 

Primary stakeholders usually include team members, senior leaders, and customers. For
example, imagine that you are a project manager for a construction company that is
commissioned to build out a new event space for a local catering company. On this
project, the owners of the catering company would be primary stakeholders since they are
paying for the project.
Another primary stakeholder could be the CEO of your construction company. If the CEO
likes to be directly involved with projects for local businesses like the catering company,
that would make them a primary stakeholder. 

An example of a secondary stakeholder might be the project’s point of contact in legal.

While the project outcome might not affect them directly, the project itself would impact
their work when they process the contract. Each project will have a different set of
stakeholders, which is why it’s important for the project manager to know who they are,
what they need, and how to communicate with them.

Project team members 

Every successful team needs strong leadership and membership, and project
management is no exception! Project team members are also considered primary
stakeholders, since they play a crucial role in getting the job done. Your team members
will vary depending on the type, complexity, and size of the project. It’s important to
consider these variables as you select your project team and begin to work with them.
Remember that choosing teammates with the right technical skills and interpersonal skills
will be valuable as you work to meet your project goals. If you are not able to select your
project team, be sure to champion diversity and build trust to create harmony within the
team. 

Sponsor

The project sponsor is another primary stakeholder. A sponsor initiates the project and is
responsible for presenting a business case for its existence, signing the project charter,
and releasing resources to the project manager. The sponsor is very important to the
project, so it’s critical to communicate with them frequently throughout all project
phases. In our construction company example, the CEO could also be the project sponsor.

Key takeaway 

Although the roles involved in each project will vary, all projects will include a project
manager and primary stakeholders who are directly impacted by the project’s outcome,
such as team members, senior leaders, the customer, and the project sponsor. Secondary
stakeholders, whose work less directly impacts the project, may also play a role. Keep
these roles in mind as we take a closer look at the importance of stakeholders.

My name is John Fyle, and I'm a technical program manager for Google in the Chicago
office. I've worked a couple different companies. I've worked at startups, I've worked at
grocery companies, and I've worked at Google. And what I've found is at some
companies, what you find is that there's engineers that come in and what they're
looking for is direction. They want to be told what to do; they want to be handed the
task and just execute on it. At Google, people are really invested in their product. We call
Google a bottom-up kind of culture. You know, a lot of companies, you have this
directive from the top saying "This is what we're gonna do," but at Google, people are so
passionate about the industry and what they're working on, that the ideas really come
up and bubble up from the bottom. What I always tell folks is that the technical and hard
skills of program management, you can pick up in a book. You can learn about Agile, and
you can learn about Extreme Programming. You can learn about all these things:
planning, retrospectives, all these great terms and tools and stuff like that. At the end of
the day, that's all they are, though. They're just a tool, and you can't use a hammer for a
screw. It's the same thing with program management; you can't use the same tools for
every project. You have to learn what's going on in a given team, in a given project, and a
given group of people. And so at the end of the day, really the challenge is
understanding the dynamics of the people that you work with. I like to say that the key
about program management is people and contexts. You have to understand the people
that you're working with, you have to understand the context, and only then can you
apply the skills that you learned. You won't always have the opportunity to pick and
choose what people you want to work on a project, and that's okay, because you can
just use those tools that you've gained in the past to understand the backgrounds and
the style and the personalities of the people that you're working with. The most
important part about program management is understanding the personalities of the
people you work with so that you can tailor your approach to make sure that you're
working effectively with them. Think about it this way. You might be working with an
introverted person. That person needs different types of attention that an extroverted
person. An extroverted person wants to talk about their ideas and their product plans in
a meeting. An introverted person, you might want to get their feedback offline or to have
an async kind of forum opportunity for them to voice their opinion. It's really not going
to be cut and dry every time you work on a project, and that's why it's really, really
important that you're flexible in your approach. You want to have people that are
challenging the choices that we make. But at the end of the day, we all need to agree on
a common goal and a common vision so that we can move forward. We don't want
distractions because that's the thing that the one thing that can slow things down. At
the end of the day, technical problems aren't that hard. People problems are really hard.
And making sure that your team is sold and bought in on a vision and the project is
super, super important. It's your goal and your job role as a program manager to
motivate the team and make sure that everyone's on the same page.

Completing a stakeholder analysis

We just saw how important stakeholders are to the project and how both primary and
secondary stakeholders help project managers define project goals and outcomes. As a
quick refresher, primary stakeholders are people who will benefit directly from the
project's success, while secondary stakeholders are indirectly impacted by the project's
success. Having all these different people involved on a project can get confusing, and
that's where a stakeholder analysis comes in handy. This is a visual representation of all
the stakeholders. It helps you avoid surprises, build necessary partnerships, and ensure
you're involving the right people at the right time. When done well, your stakeholder
analysis helps you see all the opportunities for success and the potential risks, it
illustrates which stakeholders are taking on which responsibilities, and it can help you
include the right people in important conversations, which is key to getting the support
you need throughout the project. There are three key steps to kicking off a stakeholder
analysis. First, make a list of all the stakeholders that the project impacts. Then determine
the level of interest and influence for each stakeholder. And finally, assess their ability to
participate, and find ways to involve them. In the second step, we talk about influence and
interests. What do those terms mean here? Influence measures how much power a
stakeholder has and how much the stakeholder's actions affect the project outcome. In
our Office Green example, the Director of Product, who first initiated the project and
oversees new products and services, has a huge amount of influence, while the vendor
providing the greenery has less influence. Interest is pretty much what it sounds like: How
much are the needs of the stakeholder affected by the project operations and outcomes?
For example, Office Green's human resources department may not have as much interest
in the product launch as a sales department does. The power grid is a super useful two-by-
two grid used for conducting a stakeholder analysis. We use the power grid to assign each
stakeholder's level of importance to the project, measuring their interest and influence.
The position of the stakeholder on the grid usually determines their active role in the
project. The higher the interest and influence, the more important the stakeholder is to
the project's success. Without their support, it's unlikely that the project will successfully
land. These people are our key stakeholders. Now that you have a better idea of each
stakeholder's position on the team, you can plan how to best manage everyone. There are
four different techniques you can use for managing stakeholders. The first group of
stakeholders are the key players, or key stakeholders. You'll find these people in the top
right corner of the grid. To best manage key stakeholders, you'll want to closely partner
with them to reach the desired outcomes. Of course, not everyone's a key stakeholder, but
each role, even the non-key stakeholder, gets a spot on the grid. You'll find stakeholders
with higher influence but lower interest in the top left corner of the grid. To manage these
stakeholders, you'll want to consult with them and meet their needs. Their opinions and
input are important to the project. The Director of Product has high influence, but may not
be vested into day-to-day activities, and therefore will have a lower interest. Stakeholders
with lower influence but high interest are in the right bottom corner of the grid. For these
stakeholders, you'll want to show consideration for them by keeping them up-to-date on
the project. It's unlikely they'll need a say in what's going on, but keeping them informed
is important. For example, the customer success team may have lower influence but high
interest since they'll work directly with clients on the new product. Last up, we have
stakeholders with low influence and low interest. You'll find these in the bottom left
corner. They're the least important of the stakeholders, but this doesn't mean that they
don't matter. It might just be that for this particular project, they aren't as integral. So for
this project, you mainly want to monitor them, keeping them in the know. Creating a grid
like this is an effective way to track who should be communicated with and when. This
grid here is an example of how that might play out, depending on the project and the
stakeholders. You may also want to create a steering committee made up of a high
influence and high interest stakeholders. These people will be the most senior decision-
making body on any project. They have the authority to make changes to budget and
approve updates to timeline or scope. The project manager isn't a member of the
committee, but they're responsible for bringing the right project information to the
steering committee so that decisions can be quickly made. How you engage your
stakeholders from this point on depends on your particular situation. There are different
ways to involve each stakeholder, and you have to be strategic to get helpful and relevant
input from the right people at the right time. You'll want to meet with some stakeholders
every single day, and others you'll just send periodic updates to. Stakeholder buy-in is the
process of involving these people in decision-making to hopefully reach a broader
consensus on the organization's future. To get stakeholders to buy in on the project, you'll
have to pay particular attention to your high-impact stakeholders and make sure they feel
looped in. You'll want to explain to them how the project will help them achieve their
goals, and you want to have their support later on if any issues come up. Here are some
important things to keep in mind when communicating with stakeholders: If you have one
main stakeholder, that stakeholder is likely to be highly influential and needs constant
communication. But if you're on a larger project with numerous stakeholders, they won't
be quite as involved in the day-to-day tasks. For stakeholders who need time to make
decisions about the project, over-communicate early on. For example, hold frequent
meetings and send daily end-of-day progress emails. This way, they have enough time to
weigh the options and make decisions. Think about the level of project details each
stakeholder needs. You don't want to spend time diving deep with stakeholders that just
need a project summary. For example, the facilities team that delivers the product doesn't
need daily updates on vendor pricing or website issues. On the flip side, do spend time
updating key members that need frequent updates. The sales team will need to know
pricing and availability changes, so a weekly check-in might make sense here. Great work.
You just completed your own stakeholder analysis. Up next, we'll check out another tool,
RACI charting. See you there.

Prioritizing stakeholders and generating their

buy-in
In this lesson, you are learning to complete a stakeholder analysis and explain its
significance. Let’s focus here on how to prioritize the various types of stakeholders that
can exist on a project, generate stakeholder buy-in, and manage their expectations. 
Conducting a stakeholder analysis 

Stakeholders are an essential part of any project. A project manager’s ability to balance
stakeholder requirements, get their buy-in, and understand when and how to involve
them is key to successfully fulfilling a project.  

It is key to keep stakeholders organized in order to understand when and how to involve
them at the right time. In an earlier video, we introduced the stakeholder analysis, a
useful tool that project managers use to understand stakeholders’ needs and help
minimize hiccups during your project life cycle. 

Let’s review the key steps in the stakeholder analysis:

1. Make a list of all the stakeholders the project impacts. When generating this list,
ask yourself: Who is invested in the project? Who is impacted by this project? Who
contributes to this project? 
2. Determine the level of interest and influence for each stakeholder—this step helps
you determine who your key stakeholders are. The higher the level of interest and
influence, the more important it will be to prioritize their needs throughout the
project. 
3. Assess stakeholders’ ability to participate and then find ways to involve them.
Various types of projects will yield various types of stakeholders—some will be
active stakeholders with more opinions and touchpoints and others will be passive
stakeholders, preferring only high-level updates and not involved in the day-to-
day. That said, just because a stakeholder does not participate as often as others
does not mean they are not important. There are lots of factors that will play a role
in determining a stakeholder’s ability to participate in a project, like physical
distance from the project and their existing workload.
Pro tip: You might want to form a steering committee during some projects. A steering
committee is a collection of key stakeholders who have a high level of power and interest
in a project. A steering committee can influence multiple departments within the
organization, which means that they have the potential to release a greater number of
resources to the project manager.  

Visualizing your analysis

A power grid shows stakeholder interest in the project versus their influence over the
project. This four-quadrant tool helps project managers evaluate how to manage their
stakeholders. It is used to determine the appropriate level of engagement required by the
project team needed to gain the stakeholders’ trust and buy-in.

Take the time at the start of the project to establish your stakeholder approach. List the
stakeholders and then place them into the appropriate places on the grid. Being able to
visualize their placement will help you manage communications and expectations. Having
a quick reference tool to drive your communication actions will also allow you to have the
ability to spend more time doing other tasks on your project. 

Pro tip: While these tools help organize information, they do not necessarily make the
difference between successful and unsuccessful stakeholder engagement. What will make
for successful stakeholder engagement is the project manager’s ability to know their
stakeholders’ motivations and inspirations. This takes time, interpersonal skills, and
insight into the organization’s internal political workings. Remember, each project is
different, and your project may need tweaks along the way as you grow as a project
manager. Making necessary changes means you are doing something right. Just make
sure to check in and ensure that you are well on track, engaging your stakeholders
successfully, and delivering on your project!

Generating stakeholder buy-in 

Once you organize and assess your stakeholders, it is time to start making some decisions
on whose buy-in is absolutely necessary for success, whose requirements deserve the
most attention, and what level of communication each stakeholder will require.

Gaining key stakeholder buy-in is essential to ensuring that your project is not
deprioritized or deprived of resources. 

Tips for gaining key stakeholder buy-in include: 

 Clearly mapping the work of the project to the goals of the stakeholder.
 Describing how the project aligns with the goals of the stakeholder's department
or team.
 Listening to feedback from the stakeholder and finding ways to incorporate their
feedback into the project's charter where appropriate.
Manage your stakeholders’ expectations by presenting a realistic view of your team’s
abilities. Do not over-promise and under-deliver! 

Optional reading

This article, titled Roll Call: We Asked the Project Management Community: What Steps Do
You Take To Identify and Prioritize All Stakeholders at the Start of a Project?, describes
additional strategies for identifying stakeholders to further increase your understanding.

What are your expectations for the project?

Director of Product: I’m busy with too many projects to be involved day-to-day. But beyond
our main project goals, I hope it sets us up to expand to more cities and helps fund new
initiatives.

And where do you think I’ll get support? Meet resistance?

Director of Product: We have some excited customers—they’ve been asking for this for a
while. Our investors are supportive, but more cautious. You should meet with our Landscape
Designer. I know they’re on your team, but they might have some concerns.
What can I clarify for you? Do you have concerns?
Landscape/Web Designer: I understand how Plant Pals supports our overall business goals,
but I worry how my role might change if Office Green shifts from general landscaping to
potted plants.

What does project success mean to you?

Landscape/Web Designer: Ideally, Plant Pals will help us expand our business without
neglecting our core offerings. I’ve been at Office Green since the start; I want it to succeed,
but I also want to keep doing the work I love.

How would you like to be involved in this project?

Receptionist: I know you don’t need me for day-to-day planning, but I am really interested in
this new part of the business. Plus, I’m sure our customers will have a lot of questions, so I
want to understand how Plant Pals works.

Can you share any insights from your experience with customers?
Receptionist: I know a lot of our customers are enthusiastic about the new service, but they
don’t always respond well to change. Make sure you communicate well, and be ready to
support them after launch. I can help with that.

Suggested questions for stakeholders

What are your most important priorities/goals?

How will this initiative/project support you and your most important priorities?

What role would you like to play within this initiative/project?

Here’s how I plan to keep people informed; does that work for you?

What can I clarify for you?

What are your expectations? What would you like for the project to accomplish?

What would success look like for you?

Who else do you recommend I reach out to about this initiative?

What information or insights do you have that might be challenging for me to find?

Where do you see me getting support for this initiative? Facing resistance?

What additional thoughts/questions do you have?

Activity: Complete a stakeholder analysis and power grid

Total points 1

1.
Question 1
To pass this practice quiz, you must receive 100%, or 1 out of 1 point, by completing the activity below.
You can learn more about the graded and practice items in the Course Overview.

Activity Overview

In this activity you will complete a stakeholder analysis and power grid.

As a project manager, it’s important to understand how each stakeholder relates to your project.
Completing a stakeholder analysis and power grid allows you to determine each stakeholder’s
influence and potential impact on a project, which is crucial to managing communications and
expectations.

Be sure to complete this activity before moving on. The next course item will provide you with a
completed exemplar to compare to your own work. You will not be able to access the exemplar until
you have completed this activity.

Test your knowledge: Evaluating stakeholders

Total points 4

1.
Question 1

Imagine you are a project manager for a healthcare company. When building a team for a new research
project, you create a power grid to help you figure out which stakeholders to prioritize. Which box in
the grid represents the stakeholders who are the key players on your team?

Stakeholder Analysis grid with Power and Interest on each axis. Box A in upper left (high power, low
interest); Box B in the upper right (high power, high interest); Box C in the lower left (low power, low
interest); Box D in the lower right (low power, high interest)

1 / 1 point

Box B (high influence, high interest)

Box A (high influence, low interest)

Box C (low influence, low interest)

Box D (low influence, high interest)

Correct

As a project manager, you should prioritize the stakeholders with higher interest and influence on your
team. You should closely partner with key stakeholders to reach the desired outcomes.
2.
Question 2

What is the correct order of tasks in a stakeholder analysis?

0 / 1 point

Find ways to involve each stakeholder, list all the stakeholders the project impacts, and determine
their level of interest and influence.

List all the stakeholders the project impacts, find ways to involve them, and determine their level of
interest and influence. 

List all the stakeholders the project impacts, determine their level of interest and influence, and find
ways to involve them.

Determine each stakeholder’s level of interest and influence, list all the stakeholders the project
impacts, and find ways to involve them.
Incorrect

Project managers need to understand stakeholders’ level of interest and influence before finding ways
to involve them in a project. The order of tasks in a stakeholder analysis should be: List all the
stakeholders the project impacts, determine their level of interest and influence, and find ways to
involve them.
3.
Question 3

What does stakeholder analysis enable project managers to do? Select all that apply.
0.25 / 1 point
Avoid potential risks down the road
Correct

Stakeholder analysis can help you know what to expect as the project unfolds. It can also help you
build partnerships and include the right people in important conversations.

Build necessary partnerships

Accurately predict project outcomes

This should not be selected

Stakeholder analysis does not help you predict project outcomes, but it can help you identify
opportunities for success and potential risks. It can also illustrate stakeholder responsibilities and help
you determine which people to include in important conversations.

Select more impactful projects

This should not be selected

Stakeholder analysis does not help with project selection. It can, however, help you avoid surprises,
build necessary partnerships, and ensure you're involving the right people at the right time.
4.
Question 4

What is it called when a project manager involves stakeholders in decision-making to reach a broader
consensus?
1 / 1 point

Stakeholder identification

Stakeholder buy-in

Stakeholder analysis

Stakeholder mapping
Correct

Stakeholder buy-in helps stakeholders feel invested in the outcome of a project by involving them in
decision-making.  

Elements of a RACI chart

In the last video, we saw how a stakeholder analysis shows us how to best work with stakeholders and
when to communicate with all the different people involved in the project. In this video, we're going to
check out another handy tool called a RACI chart. A RACI chart helps to define roles and responsibilities
for individuals or teams to ensure work gets done efficiently. It creates clear roles and gives direction
for each team member. There are four types of participation included in a RACI chart. These are:
responsible, accountable, consulted, and informed. Let's take a look at each. Responsible refers to
those doing the work to complete the task. Accountable refers to those making sure the work gets
done. Consulted includes those giving feedback, like subject matter experts or decision-makers. And
lastly, we have informed, which includes those just needing to know the final decisions or that a task is
complete. Here's an image of how this breaks down in a chart form. When creating your RACI chart, you
need to write down each task or deliverable for your project, and then assign it the appropriate role for
each stakeholder. To do this, first think about who's involved in the project. Write the roles or people's
names in a row across the top of your chart. Pro-tip: use roles rather than names if some people might
take on more than one role. Next, write down the tasks or deliverables in a column on the left. Try not
to get too specific here. You want the chart to be simple and easy to read. After that, go through each
task and deliverable and ask: Who's responsible for doing this? Who's accountable if it doesn't get
done? Who will have strong opinions to add, and therefore, should be consulted about how this gets
done? And who needs to be informed of the progress or decisions made about this? Assign the letters R,
A, C, and I based on your answers. For example, as a project manager on Office Green's new service
launch, one of your tasks is to create different price points for different packages and delivery
frequencies. The Head of Finance will be accountable because the project needs to stay in budget and
make money, but it's the Financial Analyst who's responsible, as they're the person doing the work in
determining optimal pricing. The Director of Product will be consulted on the matter as they oversee
the product offerings. And finally, team members, like those on the sales team, need to be informed of
the final pricing. It's possible there are several roles that fall into the "informed" and "consulted"
categories. One thing that will always remain constant is there will never be more than one person
designated as "accountable." This prevents confusion, because having one person accountable clearly
defines ownership. However, the same person that is "accountable" may also be "responsible." There
are several other factors that can cause role confusion. For example, there might be unbalanced
workloads, which means some people might be doing more work or less work than others on the team.
Or there could be an unclear hierarchy when people aren't sure who to seek help from if a task doesn't
get done or unclear ownership of decisions where people aren't sure who makes the final call on a
project. Another issue could be overlapping work. This is when teams or individuals feel that they're
responsible for the same work. When this happens, things can get confusing fast. And the same goes for
excessive communication. While communication is usually a good thing, too much communication can
actually make things more complicated. It can cause information overload where people don't know
what to pay attention to, and so they miss something important. Wow, there's a lot of things that might
cause confusion, but all these issues can be resolved or even prevented with a RACI analysis. Be
proactive and do this work upfront, and you'll help ensure the success of your project.

Question
In a RACI chart, which type of participation refers to people who need to know about final
decisions or that a task is complete?

Consulted

Accountable

Responsible

Informed
Correct
There are four types of participation described in a RACI chart: responsible, accountable,
consulted, and informed. Those who are informed need to know about final decisions or
that a task is complete.

Building out a RACI chart

A RACI chart can be an extremely effective way to define project roles, give direction to
each team member and stakeholder, and ensure work gets done efficiently. Having a RACI
chart available throughout the duration of your project as a quick visual can be invaluable.
In this reading, we will cover the function of a RACI chart and its components and explore
how project managers use RACI charts to define and document project roles and
responsibilities. 

Elements of a RACI chart

A RACI chart creates clear roles and gives direction to each team member and stakeholder.
Over your career, you may hear a RACI chart referred to as a Responsibility Assignment
Matrix (RAM), RACI diagram, or RACI matrix. The ultimate goal of this chart is to clarify
each person’s role on your project. 

First, let’s break down each of the roles people can be assigned:

R: Responsible: who gets the work done

A: Accountable: who makes sure the work is done

C: Consulted: who gives input or feedback on work

I: Informed: who needs to know the outcome

Note that RACI charts can be organized in different ways,  depending on personal
preference, number of tasks being assigned, and number of people involved. In the
previous video, we showed you one RACI chart format. The template below shows another
way a typical RACI chart might be organized.
Let’s further examine each of the roles and how to determine which team member should
be assigned to which role.

Responsible

Individuals who are assigned the “responsible” role for a task are the ones who are
actually doing the work to complete the task. Every task needs at least one responsible
party. It’s a best practice to try to limit the number of team members assigned to a task’s 
responsible role, but in some cases, you may have more than one. 

A couple of questions to ask yourself when determining which person or people should be
placed in the responsible role for a given task are:

 What department does the work fall under?

 Who will perform the work?
It is helpful to evaluate the people on your team to determine the role that suits them.
Remember that you may need to list roles rather than names, if some people take on more
than one role. 

Let’s dig deeper into our example with Office Green. Our task is to develop price points for
the project, and the Financial Analyst will complete the work for this task. Therefore, we
will list “Financial Analyst” in the responsible role for this task in the RACI chart.
Accountable

The “accountable” person is responsible for making sure the task gets done. It is
important to have only one individual accountable for each task. This helps clarify
ownership of the task. The accountable person ultimately has the authority to approve
the deliverable of the responsible party. 

In order to determine who should be tagged as the accountable team member, consider:

 Who will delegate the task to be completed?

 Who will review the work to determine if the task is complete?
You may encounter a situation where the responsible party is also accountable, but where
possible, it is helpful to separate these roles. Ensuring that accountability is not shared
ensures that there is no confusion on who the ownership belongs to.

Continuing with our Office Green example, you have assigned the “accountable” role to
the Head of Finance. The Head of Finance has to make sure the project stays in budget
and makes a profit, so they have the ultimate authority over the price points for the
product. Therefore, they will need to approve the Financial Analyst’s work on the task. 

Consulted

Team members or stakeholders who are placed in the “consulted” role have useful
information to help complete the task. There is no maximum or minimum number of
people who can be assigned a “consulted” role, but it’s important that each person has a
reason for being there.

Here are a few ways you can help identify who is appropriate for the role:

 Who will the task impact?

 Who will have input or feedback for the responsible person to help the work be
completed?
 Who are the subject matter experts (SMEs) for the task?
The consulted people will be in frequent, two-way communication with the responsible
party, so it is key to make sure that the right people are in this role to help accomplish the
task efficiently and correctly.

Back to the project at Office Green, we’ve got a “responsible” Financial Analyst and an
“accountable” Head of Finance. Who else would need to provide input on the product’s
price points? Whose decisions and feedback will directly affect the task? The Director of
Product will need to be consulted on the matter, as they oversee all product offerings.
This person will have information about potential changes to the product and how these
changes might affect price points.

Informed

Individuals who are identified as needing to be “informed” need to know the final
decisions that were made and when a task is completed. It is common to have many
people assigned to this category and for some team members to be informed on most
tasks. Team members or stakeholders here will not be asked for feedback, so it is key to
make sure people who are in this group only require status updates and do not need to
provide any direct feedback for the completion of the effort. 

Key questions to ask yourself in order to ensure that you have appropriately captured
individuals in the “informed” role are:

 Who cares about this task’s completion?

 Who will be affected by the outcome?
Now that you’ve determined who is responsible, accountable, and consulted on the Office
Green project task, it is time to determine who needs to be informed about the task. Your
Financial Analyst has set the price points with input from the Director of Product, and the
Head of Finance has approved. You will now need to inform the Sales Team about the final
price points, as they will need this information to sell the product. 

Pro tip: You could end up with a large number of team members and stakeholders who
are placed in the “informed” role. If so, make sure that you have a plan to keep them
informed that is not labor-intensive. Something as easy as view-only access to your
project plan or meeting notes could prevent you from having to create separate
communications along the way.  

Key takeaway

The RACI chart is a valuable tool. It can help you define and document project roles and
responsibilities, give direction to each team member and stakeholder, and ensure work
gets done efficiently. A RACI chart can also help you analyze and balance the workload of
your team. While it may take many revisions to make sure that your team members and
stakeholders are being placed into the right roles in your RACI chart, doing this work up
front helps save time and prevent miscommunications later on. 

Activity: Set project roles and responsibilities in a RACI chart

Total points 1

1.
Question 1

To pass this practice quiz, you must receive 100%, or 1 out of 1 point, by completing the activity below.
You can learn more about the graded and practice items in the Course Overview.

Activity Overview

In this activity, you will use a RACI chart to assign roles and responsibilities to project stakeholders. You
will analyze a scenario and determine each stakeholder’s relationship to project tasks and deliverables.

As a reminder, RACI charts help you determine who is:

 Responsible
 Accountable
 Consulted
 Informed
Be sure to complete this activity before moving on. The next course item will provide you with a
completed exemplar to compare to your own work. You will not be able to access the exemplar until
you have completed this activity.

Scenario

Review the scenario below. Then complete the step-by-step instructions.

As the project manager for Plant Pals, you must assemble a team that can develop and execute the
marketing and sales strategy to prepare for the launch. You must also assign roles and responsibilities
for each of the project tasks and identify stakeholders impacted by the project. You’ve determined that
the following people will be involved:

 Director of Product: Oversees the product offerings, and serves as a resource for marketing
and sales questions. Their knowledge of customer needs is vital to the project. 
 Marketing Manager: Makes key decisions about the service launch and monitors task
completion. They oversee all marketing efforts, including concept development, and sign off
on the service launch plan. 
 Marketing Coordinator: Creates the marketing strategy, including all marketing assets. They
work closely with the Copywriter and report to the Marketing Manager. 
 Copywriter: Produces all Plant Pals ad content, writes product descriptions, and creates
promotional copy. They work with the Marketing Coordinator on all aspects of the marketing
strategy and report to the Marketing Manager.
  Head of Sales: Sets Office Green’s overall sales strategy and tracks the company’s progress
towards its sales goals. Their knowledge of customers’ buying behaviors can help the
marketing team develop their campaign. The Head of Sales oversees the Sales Manager.
 Sales Manager: Responsible for customer outreach and relationship management strategies,
so that Office Green meets its sales goals. They need to understand the final marketing
strategy and product offerings and convey that information to the Sales team. The Sales
Manager reports to the Head of Sales.
To develop and execute the marketing strategy and sales, your team must complete the following
tasks:

1. Create a marketing plan for the new service

2. Write promotional copy 
3. Design marketing assets (e.g., flyers, brochures, and online advertisements)
4. Create a customer outreach and onboarding plan

Step-By-Step Instructions

Step 1: Access the template

To use the template for this course item, click the link below and select “Use Template.”

Link to template: RACI Chart

OR

If you don’t have a Google account, you can download the template directly from the attachment
below.

Activity Template_ RACI chart - Phase 1

XLSX File

Step 2: Add tasks to the RACI chart

Add the four tasks from the scenario to your RACI chart template under the Task/Deliverable heading.
Replace “Task/Deliverable” with the name of each task.

Step 3: Add team members to the RACI chart

Add your team members to the template. Replace “Role A” with “Director of Product,” and so on.

Step 4: Assign letters in the RACI chart

For each task, assign the letters R, A, C, and I to the team members involved. Consult the descriptions
below to determine how your team members relate to the tasks:
Responsible: Who is responsible for completing this task? Consider these questions when determining
who is responsible:

 Which department manages the work?

 Who should perform the work?
Accountable: Who is accountable if the task isn’t completed? Remember that only one person should
be accountable for each task or deliverable. When deciding who is accountable, ask yourself: 

 Who might delegate the task to another team member?

 Who makes final decisions about the task?
 Who should review the work to confirm it is complete?
Consulted: Who should be consulted for their insights, expertise, or strong opinions on the task? Here
are a few questions to help identify whether someone should be consulted:

 Who can give feedback to responsible individuals to help them complete tasks? 
 Who are the subject matter experts (SMEs) for the task?
Informed: Who should be kept informed about task progress or project decisions? Key questions to ask
yourself include: 

 Who is invested in task completion but not directly involved in the work? 
 Who is affected by the project outcome?
Note: The number of stakeholders you keep informed about each task can vary depending on your
situation. In some cases, you might choose to inform all stakeholders who aren't responsible,
accountable, or consulted. In others, you could leave some cells in your RACI chart blank for certain tasks.
Both approaches are fine for this activity.

Pro Tip: Save the template

Finally, be sure to save a blank copy of the RACI chart template you used to complete this activity. You
can use it for further practice or in your own personal or professional projects. These templates will be
useful as you put together a portfolio of project management artifacts. You can use them to work
through your thought processes as you demonstrate your experience to potential employers.

What to Include in Your Response

Be sure to address the following elements in your completed RACI chart:

 The RACI chart includes all of the project roles from the scenario.
 The RACI chart includes all the deliverables/tasks from the scenario. 
 The appropriate individuals are Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed.
 Only one individual is accountable for each task or deliverable.
 At least one individual is responsible for each task. (Note: Some tasks may not need Consulted
or Informed individuals.)

Exemplar: Set project roles and

responsibilities in a RACI chart
Here is a completed exemplar along with an explanation of how the exemplar fulfills the
expectations for the activity. 
Completed Exemplar

To view the exemplar for this course item, click the link below and select “Use Template.”

Link to exemplar: RACI chart

OR

If you don’t have a Google account, you can download the exemplar directly from the
attachment below.

Activity Exemplar_ RACI chart - Phase 1

XLSX File

Assessment of Exemplar

Compare the exemplar to your completed RACI chart. Review your work using each of the
criteria in the exemplar. What did you do well? Where can you improve? Use your answers
to these questions to guide you as you continue to progress through the course. 

Note: Your answers may vary (particularly for Consulted and Informed individuals),
depending how you interpreted each stakeholder’s responsibilities.

In the exemplar for the Plant Pals service, each role has a RACI designation for each task or
deliverable. Let’s review each of the tasks:

Create a marketing plan for the new service.

 The Marketing Coordinator reports to the Marketing Manager and is responsible for
creating the marketing plan.
 The Marketing Manager is accountable for marketing efforts, including the
marketing concept. They have the final say in launching and advertising the Plant
Pals service. 
 The Copywriter writes and edits the promotional copy, therefore they are
consulted on the marketing plan.
 The Director of Product and Head of Sales are consulted on marketing campaigns
since they understand customer needs and buying behaviors. 
  The Sales Manager can be kept informed of marketing efforts since they need to
convey that information to the Sales Team. 
Write promotional copy.

 The Copywriter is responsible for drafting and editing promotional copy.

 The Marketing Manager is accountable for the Copywriter’s work. 
 The Marketing Coordinator is consulted on the promotional and sales copy as they
create the marketing plan. 
 All other members of the team can be kept informed about the status of the
promotional copy. 
Design marketing assets.

 The Marketing Manager delegates tasks to the Marketing Coordinator, who is

responsible for producing assets.
 The Marketing Manager is accountable for marketing efforts because they make the
final decisions.
 The Copywriter is consulted about the marketing assets by the Marketing
Coordinator. 
 All other team members can be kept informed about marketing design matters.
Create a customer outreach and onboarding plan

 The Sales Manager is responsible for customer outreach and onboarding plan. 
 The Head of Sales oversees the Sales Manager, so they are accountable for the
customer outreach and onboarding plan.
 The Director of Product is consulted on questions about customer needs, while the
Marketing Manager is consulted about the marketing plan.
 All other team members can be kept informed about customer outreach.

Certificate completers: Staying motivated in

the program
0:00

[MUSIC] If something is stumping you or you feel stuck at a certain aspect, there's always someone else
who's going through the same thing.

Play video starting at ::11 and follow transcript0:11

Anytime I started to feel overwhelmed by information or like I just wasn't getting it. I wasted so much
time being unsure of myself that I should have just listened to my friends and family when they said
just do it, you can do it.

Play video starting at ::25 and follow transcript0:25

One of the greatest things that help me to get back motivated is the accessibility of the course on my
phone. I was just able to go into the app and listen to a few videos, because I can learn a lot on the go.
Play video starting at ::38 and follow transcript0:38

Having a network of people that motivates you—it's so fundamental. Even if it's a friend or if it's a
family member that you can get from the beginning, and he can be there for you on your corner like a
coach.

Play video starting at ::55 and follow transcript0:55

And don't be afraid to ask for help, whether it be from your peers, from your coaches, friends, family.
There's always someone who knows more, and you can learn from them. [MUSIC]

Getting the most out of a RACI chart

In the previous video, you learned how critical a RACI chart is for creating clear roles and giving
direction to each team member on a project. In this reading, we will further explore the function and
components of RACI charts and how to use them to communicate responsibilities to project teams. 

Definition and structure

Determining who is Responsible, Accountable, Consulted and Informed on your projects allows you
to keep control of the stakeholders roles on your project. 

Workload balance 

Are there too many tasks assigned to one stakeholder? When you complete your chart, it is a good idea
to go back through and tally the number of Rs assigned to each stakeholder. This can help you identify
potentially overloading one team member with work. Using a RACI chart to determine responsibility for
tasks can help mitigate single points of failure (known as creating silos, where the knowledge and
responsibility for a task falls on one person) and allow you, as the project manager, to delegate tasks
and avoid burnout. Maintaining workload balance is a critical part of project management. It is easy to
fall into the pattern of relying on your top performers to keep the project moving forward. But this isn’t
always healthy for the project or your team. If you find that you don’t have the right people to assign
responsibilities to, take a step back and evaluate your team. 
Put your RACI into practice

Once you have created your RACI chart, it is time to put it into practice. You will first need to share your
RACI chart with your sponsors and stakeholders to get buy-in and sign-off. When you get stakeholder
buy-in, you will be able to set clear expectations for your team and ensure that everyone is aligned on
their responsibilities. 

You can document your team and stakeholders’ acknowledgment of these expectations through the
project charter, meeting notes, and in the RACI chart itself. Think back to a time when you were
expected to do something you did not agree with, or weren’t clear on. That disagreement or lack of
clarity made it difficult to do your best work, right? Getting buy-in and continually checking in with your
stakeholders and your team is the way to avoid this potential pitfall! 

As you take the time to ensure that each task has an owner identified with the appropriate level of
engagement, you are streamlining your communication and decision-making process over the life
cycle of your project. 

When should you use a RACI chart?

If you are wondering if you should use a RACI chart on your project, it is a good idea to evaluate the
complexity of the effort. For example, if you have a very small project team with a small amount of
stakeholders, clearly defined roles, and a short timeline, introducing a RACI chart could possibly slow
down the project. However, larger projects, or even projects that involve a large number of
stakeholders, could greatly benefit from a RACI chart. It is always a good idea to work through the
creation of a RACI chart and evaluate the outcome. Even if you do not end up using the RACI chart, you
will have a better understanding of the project, and your effort will contribute to your project
management experience overall.

Activity: Assign project roles and responsibilities in a RACI chart

Total points 5

1.
Question 1

To pass this practice quiz, you must receive at least 80%, or 4 out of 5 points, by completing the activity
and answering corresponding quiz questions. You can learn more about the graded and practice items
in the Course Overview.

Activity Overview

In this activity, you will apply your knowledge of RACI charts to a new phase of project planning. You
will analyze a scenario about the execution phase of the Plant Pals project. Then you will use a RACI
chart to determine each stakeholder’s relationship to project tasks.

As a reminder, RACI charts help you determine who is:

 Responsible
 Accountable
 Consulted
 Informed
Be sure to complete this activity before moving on. The next course item will provide you with a
completed exemplar to compare to your own work. You will not be able to access the exemplar until
you have completed this activity.

Scenario

Review the scenario below. Then complete the step-by-step instructions.

As the lead project manager for the Plant Pals project, you’re managing the launch of this new service.
Previously, you worked with your project team as they developed a marketing plan, wrote promotional
copy, designed marketing assets, and created a sales plan for customer outreach.

Now you are gathering a new team to design and develop the Plant Pals landing page. When potential
customers click on Plant Pals advertisements, the landing page is the first part of the Office Green
website they will see. The team members you need to build the landing page include:

 Web Manager: Makes final decisions about new site features and content changes. They sign
off on the landing page design and launch plans. They also coordinate maintenance and
management tasks to keep the page operating smoothly. 
 Graphic Designer: Creates and chooses images and typefaces for the landing page and
submits them to the Web Designer for approval. They also provide feedback on the landing
page design and mockup. 
 Web Developer: Supports the product team by writing the code that powers the site. They give
feedback to the Web Designer on the landing page mockup. The Web Developer also helps set
quality standards for the project.
 Quality Assurance Tester: Reviews system specifications and runs quality tests for the new
landing page. They run test scripts and review results, create reports, and document technical
issues. These tests identify problems that the team can then resolve before launch. 
 Content Writer: Creates the written content that explains how Plant Pals works and helps
potential customers sign up for the service. They give feedback to the Web Designer on the
landing page mockup.
 Web Designer: Creates the landing page design, determining how the page looks and how
customers interact with it. The Web Designer connects the creative and technical elements of
the project, ensuring that the website is both attractive and functional. They report to the Web
Manager, who makes final decisions on new site features.
To build and launch a landing page for Plant Pals, the team needs to accomplish the following tasks:

1. Design a landing page 

2. Create a landing page mockup
3. Design image assets
4. Write content
5. Code the landing page
6. Test the landing page

Step-by-step instructions:

Step 1: Access the template

To use the template for this course item, click the link below and select “Use Template.”

Link to template: RACI Chart

OR

If you don’t have a Google account, you can download the template directly from the attachment
below.

Activity Template_ RACI Chart - Phase 2

XLSX File

Step 2: Add tasks to the RACI chart

Add the six tasks from the scenario to your RACI chart template under the Task/Deliverable heading.
Replace “Task/Deliverable” with the name of each task.

Step 3: Assign roles to the RACI chart

Update the Role headers with each team member role from the scenario. Replace “Role A” with “Web
Manager,” and so on.

Step 4: Assign letters in the RACI chart

For each task, assign the letters R, A, C, and I to the team members involved. Consult the descriptions
below to determine how your team members relate to the tasks:

Responsible: Who is responsible for completing this task? Consider these questions when determining
who is responsible:

 Which department manages the work?

 Who should perform the work?
Accountable: Who is accountable if the task isn’t completed? Remember that only one person should
be accountable for each task or deliverable. When deciding who is accountable, ask yourself: 

 Who might delegate the task to another team member?

 Who makes final decisions about the task?
 Who should review the work to confirm it is complete?
Consulted: Who should be consulted for their insights, expertise, or strong opinions on the task? Here
are a few questions to help identify whether someone should be consulted:

 Who can give feedback to responsible individuals to help them complete tasks? 
 Who are the subject matter experts (SMEs) for the task?
Informed: Who should be kept informed about task progress or project decisions? Key questions to ask
yourself include: 

 Who is invested in task completion but not directly involved in the work? 
  Who is affected by the project outcome?
Note: The number of stakeholders you keep informed about each task can vary depending on your
situation. In some cases, you might choose to inform all stakeholders who aren't responsible,
accountable, or consulted. In others, you could leave some cells in your RACI chart blank for certain tasks.
Both approaches are fine for this activity.

Pro Tip: Save the Template

Finally, be sure to save a blank copy of the RACI chart template you used to complete this activity. You
can use it for further practice or in your own personal or professional projects. Templates like this one
will be useful as you put together a portfolio of project management artifacts. You can use them to talk
through your thought processes as you demonstrate your experience to potential employers.

What to Include in Your Response

Be sure to address the following elements in your completed RACI chart: 

 The RACI chart includes all of the project roles.

 The RACI chart includes all the tasks. 
 The appropriate individuals are listed as Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed.
 Only one individual is accountable for each deliverable/task.
 At least one individual is responsible for each task. (Note that some tasks may not need
Consulted or Informed individuals.)

Did you complete this activity?

1 point

Yes

No
2.
Question 2

In the RACI model, which role completes the work for a task or deliverable?
1 point

Responsible

Accountable

Consulted
Informed
3.
Question 3

What key questions should you consider when deciding who should be informed about a task? Select
all that apply.
1 point

Who is affected by the outcome?

Who are the subject matter experts (SMEs) for the task?

Who is invested in task completion, but not directly involved in the work?

Which department manages the work?

4.
Question 4

In your completed RACI chart, how many stakeholders are accountable for the “design the landing
page” task?
1 point

2 or more
5.
Question 5

In your completed RACI chart, who is responsible for testing the landing page?
1 point

The Web Designer

The Web Manager

The Quality Assurance Tester

The Web Developer

Coursera Honor Code  Learn more

Activity: Assign project roles and responsibilities in a RACI chart

Latest Submission Grade 100%

1.
Question 1

To pass this practice quiz, you must receive at least 80%, or 4 out of 5 points, by completing the activity
and answering corresponding quiz questions. You can learn more about the graded and practice items
in the Course Overview.

Activity Overview

In this activity, you will apply your knowledge of RACI charts to a new phase of project planning. You
will analyze a scenario about the execution phase of the Plant Pals project. Then you will use a RACI
chart to determine each stakeholder’s relationship to project tasks.

As a reminder, RACI charts help you determine who is:

 Responsible
 Accountable
 Consulted
 Informed
Be sure to complete this activity before moving on. The next course item will provide you with a
completed exemplar to compare to your own work. You will not be able to access the exemplar until
you have completed this activity.

Scenario

Review the scenario below. Then complete the step-by-step instructions.

As the lead project manager for the Plant Pals project, you’re managing the launch of this new service.
Previously, you worked with your project team as they developed a marketing plan, wrote promotional
copy, designed marketing assets, and created a sales plan for customer outreach.

Now you are gathering a new team to design and develop the Plant Pals landing page. When potential
customers click on Plant Pals advertisements, the landing page is the first part of the Office Green
website they will see. The team members you need to build the landing page include:

 Web Manager: Makes final decisions about new site features and content changes. They sign
off on the landing page design and launch plans. They also coordinate maintenance and
management tasks to keep the page operating smoothly. 
 Graphic Designer: Creates and chooses images and typefaces for the landing page and
submits them to the Web Designer for approval. They also provide feedback on the landing
page design and mockup. 
 Web Developer: Supports the product team by writing the code that powers the site. They give
feedback to the Web Designer on the landing page mockup. The Web Developer also helps set
quality standards for the project.
  Quality Assurance Tester: Reviews system specifications and runs quality tests for the new
landing page. They run test scripts and review results, create reports, and document technical
issues. These tests identify problems that the team can then resolve before launch. 
 Content Writer: Creates the written content that explains how Plant Pals works and helps
potential customers sign up for the service. They give feedback to the Web Designer on the
landing page mockup.
 Web Designer: Creates the landing page design, determining how the page looks and how
customers interact with it. The Web Designer connects the creative and technical elements of
the project, ensuring that the website is both attractive and functional. They report to the Web
Manager, who makes final decisions on new site features.
To build and launch a landing page for Plant Pals, the team needs to accomplish the following tasks:

1. Design a landing page 

2. Create a landing page mockup
3. Design image assets
4. Write content
5. Code the landing page
6. Test the landing page

Step-by-step instructions:

Step 1: Access the template

To use the template for this course item, click the link below and select “Use Template.”

Link to template: RACI Chart

OR

If you don’t have a Google account, you can download the template directly from the attachment
below.

Activity Template_ RACI Chart - Phase 2

XLSX File

Step 2: Add tasks to the RACI chart

Add the six tasks from the scenario to your RACI chart template under the Task/Deliverable heading.
Replace “Task/Deliverable” with the name of each task.

Step 3: Assign roles to the RACI chart

Update the Role headers with each team member role from the scenario. Replace “Role A” with “Web
Manager,” and so on.

Step 4: Assign letters in the RACI chart

For each task, assign the letters R, A, C, and I to the team members involved. Consult the descriptions
below to determine how your team members relate to the tasks:

Responsible: Who is responsible for completing this task? Consider these questions when determining
who is responsible:

 Which department manages the work?

 Who should perform the work?
Accountable: Who is accountable if the task isn’t completed? Remember that only one person should
be accountable for each task or deliverable. When deciding who is accountable, ask yourself: 

 Who might delegate the task to another team member?

 Who makes final decisions about the task?
 Who should review the work to confirm it is complete?
Consulted: Who should be consulted for their insights, expertise, or strong opinions on the task? Here
are a few questions to help identify whether someone should be consulted:

 Who can give feedback to responsible individuals to help them complete tasks? 
 Who are the subject matter experts (SMEs) for the task?
Informed: Who should be kept informed about task progress or project decisions? Key questions to ask
yourself include: 

 Who is invested in task completion but not directly involved in the work? 
 Who is affected by the project outcome?
Note: The number of stakeholders you keep informed about each task can vary depending on your
situation. In some cases, you might choose to inform all stakeholders who aren't responsible,
accountable, or consulted. In others, you could leave some cells in your RACI chart blank for certain tasks.
Both approaches are fine for this activity.

Pro Tip: Save the Template

Finally, be sure to save a blank copy of the RACI chart template you used to complete this activity. You
can use it for further practice or in your own personal or professional projects. Templates like this one
will be useful as you put together a portfolio of project management artifacts. You can use them to talk
through your thought processes as you demonstrate your experience to potential employers.

What to Include in Your Response

Be sure to address the following elements in your completed RACI chart: 

 The RACI chart includes all of the project roles.

 The RACI chart includes all the tasks. 
 The appropriate individuals are listed as Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed.
 Only one individual is accountable for each deliverable/task.
 At least one individual is responsible for each task. (Note that some tasks may not need
Consulted or Informed individuals.)
Did you complete this activity?
1 / 1 point

Yes

No
Correct

Thank you for completing this activity! RACI charts help ensure that everyone understands their roles
and responsibilities for each phase of a project. Review the quiz feedback below to find out how you
did. Then go to the next course item to compare your work to a completed exemplar.
2.
Question 2

In the RACI model, which role completes the work for a task or deliverable?
1 / 1 point

Responsible

Accountable

Consulted

Informed
Correct

Stakeholders who are responsible do the work to complete project tasks.

3.
Question 3

What key questions should you consider when deciding who should be consulted about a task? Select
all that apply.
1 / 1 point

Who might delegate the work to another team member?

Who are the subject matter experts (SMEs) for the task?
Correct

Finding out who has expert knowledge in certain areas helps you determine who should be consulted.

Which department manages the work?

Who can give feedback to responsible individuals to help them complete tasks?
Correct

Finding out who can give feedback on task completion helps you determine who should be consulted.
4.
Question 4

In your completed RACI chart, how many stakeholders are accountable for the “code the landing page”
task?
1 / 1 point

2 or more
Correct

Only one stakeholder should be accountable for a given task. In this case, it’s the Web Manager.
5.
Question 5

In your completed RACI chart, who is responsible for creating the landing page mockup?
1 / 1 point

The Web Developer

The Web Designer

The Graphic Designer

The Web Manager

Correct

The Web Designer creates the layout, determining how the page looks and how customers interact with
it.

Activity Exemplar: Assign project roles and

responsibilities in a RACI chart
Here is a completed exemplar along with an explanation of how the exemplar fulfills the expectations
for the activity. 

Completed Exemplar

To view the exemplar for this course item, click the link below and select “Use Template.”

Link to exemplar: RACI chart

OR

If you don’t have a Google account, you can download the exemplar directly from the attachment
below.

Activity Exemplar_ RACI chart - Phase 2

XLSX File

Assessment of Exemplar

Compare the exemplar to your completed RACI chart. Review your work using each of the criteria in the
exemplar. What did you do well? Where can you improve? Use your answers to these questions to guide
you as you continue to progress through the course. 

Note: Your answers may vary (particularly for Consulted and Informed individuals), depending how you
interpreted each stakeholder’s responsibilities.

Let’s review the six tasks in the RACI chart. The exemplar includes RACI assignments for each task and
role:

Design a landing page 

 The Web Manager has the final say on many aspects of the project. They are accountable for
most tasks, including the initial design of the page. 
 The Web Designer is responsible for designing the landing page, which they submit to the Web
Manager for approval.
 The Graphic Designer is consulted on the landing page design.
 The Web Developer, Quality Assurance Tester, and Content Writer can all be kept informed on
the state of the design throughout the process. 
Create landing page mockup
  The Web Designer is responsible for creating the landing page mockup and incorporating it
into the Office Green website.
 The Web Manager signs off on the mockup, making them accountable.
 The Graphic Designer, Web Developer, and Content Writer are all consulted on the mockup
because they contribute content and design elements to the landing page. 
 The Quality Assurance tester can be kept informed. 
Design image assets

 The Graphic Designer is responsible for creating the image assets for the landing page. 
 The Web Designer signs off on the image assets, making them accountable. 
 All other stakeholders can be kept informed.
Write content

 The Content Writer is responsible for writing the landing page content.
 The Web Manager signs off on the content, making them accountable.
 All other stakeholders can be kept informed.
Code the landing page

 The Web Developer is responsible for writing the code that powers the landing page. 
 The Web Manager makes sure the Web Developer produces functional code, making them
accountable.
 All other stakeholders can be kept informed. 
Test the landing page

 The Quality Assurance tester is responsible for running quality tests for the landing page. 
 The Web Developer should be consulted about coding requirements. 
 The Web Manager signs off on the final product, making them accountable.
 All other stakeholders can be kept informed.
. 

Why projects fail: Initiation missteps

You have been learning the necessary planning steps to take in order to set a project up
for success. But despite your best efforts, projects can still fail. Sometimes the factors that
lead to project failure are out of your control. The technology to complete the project is
unavailable, for example, or a stakeholder decides to drastically change the goals of the
project. However, there are factors that can lead to failure that are more in your control,
such as being unable to complete the project deliverables within the agreed upon time or
being unable to fulfill the stakeholder’s vision for the project.

In this reading, we will explore a few key reasons why projects fail and examine how
missteps during the initiation phase can lead to project failure. 
Unclear expectations 

You may remember the questions you need to answer at the start of the initiation phase of
the project, including: 

 What is the end goal? 

 What are the expected deliverables and schedule? 
 What is the budget? 
 Who are the stakeholders? 
Not taking the time at the beginning of a project to ask essential questions, document
decisions, and understand the true scope of the project may lead to failure. After all,
without directions, you can never reach your destination. 

Unrealistic expectations

We all like to impress our managers, but sometimes, we accidentally agree to unrealistic
expectations and set our projects up for failure from the start. For example, if a project is
expected to take two weeks due to the level of detail and effort required but we try to
complete it in one week, we will not have the resources available to meet the consolidated
schedule. This will likely result in quality issues. It’s important to understand the
requirements of a project before agreeing to any deadlines. As a best practice, don't
commit to firm dates when initiating the project to avoid setting unrealistic expectations.
You will have more information and will be able to better manage expectations in the
planning phase.

Miscommunication

Clear communication is key. If information is not communicated in a timely manner, does

not include pertinent information (risks, decisions made, scope changes, etc.), or is not
sent to the correct stakeholders, then you may be setting yourself up for failure.
Conducting a stakeholder analysis and then utilizing a RACI chart to understand which
stakeholders should be kept informed or consulted is a great start to creating an effective
communication strategy.
As a project manager, you do not necessarily have to cater to everyone’s unique
communication styles, but you do have to set expectations about how communication
will occur. As you are kicking off a project, make sure you take some time to understand
the communication needs of your team and stakeholders. Some people dislike emails and
would prefer to have a phone conversation, some prefer to have communication in
writing, and some prefer face-to-face meetings. A strong communication system
incorporates all of these methods. Set expectations for your communication approach
early so that you, your team members, and your stakeholders have a clear understanding
of how you will all communicate.

Lack of resources

Resources include your team members, budget, and materials. Unfortunately, without
proper planning, your resources can quickly be over-tasked or depleted. Sometimes
project managers don’t account for the fact that team members are juggling multiple
tasks and may not be able to devote the time necessary to complete all of their assigned
tasks correctly and on time. Or, project managers may not realize that a specific skill set is
required to complete certain tasks. Ensuring that the right team members are available at
the right time is crucial.

Another common error is to incorrectly calculate your project expenses. For example,
imagine you have a project budget of $10,000. If your project requires $10,000 for
materials and you also have to ship and install those materials, then you will not have
enough money to complete your project. Clarify your resource needs and confirm their
availability with leadership up front to avoid delays or issues further along in the project. 

Scope creep 

The scope provides an overarching framework of what is and is not included in the
project’s work and deliverables. Defining the scope in the initiation phase helps identify
the resources needed, the cost associated with those resources, and the schedule
required to complete the work. Sometimes projects fail because the scope of the project
grows and impacts to the scope are not captured. 

For example, imagine that you are given a project that originally includes three
deliverables. During the course of the project, a stakeholder requests that two additional
deliverables be included, but no changes are made to the schedule, budget, or team
members to reflect the impact of the increased number of deliverables. As a project
manager, when deliverables change, you have to make sure that you are capturing the
potential impact of those changes to the schedule, budget, and quality. This is why it is so
important to make sure that everything is documented in the initiation phase. Have a plan
for how to handle scope creep if it occurs, and clarify who has the authority to approve
scope changes.
Key takeaway 

Taking the time to clarify expectations—particularly around communication methods,

resources available, and scope—during the initiation phase will increase the chances of
your project’s success. Even if you follow these best practices, you may still encounter
failure. Remember that in every failure, there is the opportunity to learn, grow, and do
better the next time.

For additional reading on lessons that can be learned from projects that have failed, check
out this article: Seven Lessons to Learn from a Failed Project

Kudos! You finished another module. That was a fun one! We covered a lot of topics that
were likely new to you. So let's recap. In our first video, we checked out each individual
role associated with projects. You learned that as a project manager, you'll have to ask
yourself key questions to make sure you build a successful team. You have to consider
things like team size, necessary skills, availability, and motivation.
Play video starting at ::28 and follow transcript0:28
Then you completed a stakeholder analysis. This helps you understand how you might
manage communication with each person on the project. Next came the RACI chart, which
defined rules and responsibilities for individuals or teams. This helps people get work
done efficiently, and it creates clear lanes and instruction for each team member to
operate within. It does this by assigning which roles are responsible, accountable,
informed, and consulted. Overall, you learned some really useful concrete tools to help
you stay organized throughout the project. You can use these charts as you work with your
stakeholders. And if your project is ever-evolving, as some are, stakeholder mapping and
RACI charting will help you stay on top of the tasks and communicate effectively. In the
next module, you'll learn about other useful resources for managing projects and discover
how to know which tool to use when. See you soon.

Introduction: Utilizing resources and tools for

project success
Welcome back, and congrats on completing that graded assessment. In the previous
module, you learned all about project roles and responsibilities, and we introduced you to
some tools that you can use to ensure team accountability, like stakeholder analyses and
RACI charts. Coming up, we'll talk about project tools and resources, and the value of
documentation. By the end of this module, you'll understand the types of resources
available to a project manager, you'll be able to document information in a formal project
charter, and you'll be able to compare and use various project management tools. Ready
to get started? Meet me in the next video.

Essential project resources

So far, you've learned how to determine project goals and scope, and how to identify the
right stakeholders for a project. Now it's time to add another important ingredient:
resources. As a project manager, understanding your resource needs is crucial to
achieving your goals. So during the initiation phase, it's important to ask yourself what are
the things we still need to acquire in order to complete our project? Project resources
usually include budget, people, and materials. You'll use tools to manage all those
resources. As you think about the goals and the scope of the project, you figure out the
different resources you'll need to meet those goals. It's important to figure out your
resources before the project gets rolling. This makes it easy for everyone on your team to
get their work done, and that's your job as a project manager. You won't be doing the
work directly, but you'll support the people who do. Figuring out resources early on also
helps you avoid accidentally understaffing your project, which can seriously slow down
team progress and eat away at the overall timeline. Even worse, if you're not careful with
your resource planning, you could wind up underestimating the budget. Meaning, you
might not have enough money to purchase necessary materials, hire vendors, or support
overtime requests. Planning your resources early is a great way to set your team up for
success. Because when your teammates have what they need to do their work on time
and on budget, they are better set up to meet the project's goals. Now, let's break down
some of the resources that project managers typically work with. First, let's talk about
budgets. A budget is an estimate of the amount of money a project will cost to complete.
Almost all projects have budgets because they need funding for expenses, like buying the
right materials or software, hiring vendors to complete jobs, or doing marketing once the
project's done. During the initiation phase, you'll talk to the stakeholders and the people
working on the project to figure out the tasks needed to get the project done. Here, you
might ask questions to help uncover hidden costs. For example, are there any taxes on
products that you need to account for? What about extra fees? All this information will
help you create a budget, which you can use to source and compare proposals from
vendors, figure out upcoming costs, and track all the money moving in and out of your
project. You'll often include the budget and the project charter, and the stakeholders
review it for approval. We'll talk more about what goes into creating a project budget and
creating a project charter later on. When we talk about resources, we're also talking about
the team of people who help execute the tasks of a project. For example, you, as the
project manager are a resource. So is the marketing manager who might create
advertisements for this new product. Other resources can include people outside of your
company who have unique skills and can do certain tasks that people in your organization
can't do personally. Then, you have materials. These are items you need to help get the
project done. For example, project materials might include the lumber needed to
complete a construction project, okay? So you know that project resources include
budget, people, and materials. How do you organize these resources? That's actually a
nice transition into our next topic which is: tools. Tools are aids that make it easier for a
project manager or team to manage resources and organize work. They help you do things
like track tasks, manage budgets, and collaborate with teammates. There are all kinds of
tools out there including productivity tools like Google Docs and work management
software like Asana. We'll talk more about these tools later in this program. Tools are
essential for tracking progress, so you want to keep them top of mind at all phases of your
project. Let's talk about how you might determine your resources during the initiation
phase of your project at Office Green. As a reminder, the Plant Pal Service offers customers
small low maintenance plants like cacti and leafy ferns that they can place on their desks.
Customers can order them online or from a print catalogue, and Office Green will ship the
plant straight to the customer's work address. The project goal is to increase revenue by
5%. So how do you get started? Well, you might do some research to figure out the cost of
launching the new plant service. That might include the estimated prices of developing a
new website, a new promotional materials, as well as shipping and delivery costs. You also
might want to budget for specific tools, like a project management software that will help
you track progress on this complex project. With that information, you can start to build a
realistic budget and you'll also need to figure out who's working on this project with you.
To do this, you might make a list of people and external vendors who will help complete
all the projects' tasks. For example, the person who manages client communications with
customers or a new plant supplier that can provide you with your product. Great,
hopefully, you're getting more comfortable with the types of resources you'll need not
only to get stuff done, but to achieve your projects goals, too. In the next video, we'll talk
about documentation, another important topic for anyone who manages projects
professionally.

Managing resources to get the job done

As we continue learning the tools and techniques that will help you succeed in project management,
let’s consider the importance of project resources. Project resources are who and what you depend on
to complete a project, including budget, materials, and people. While each resource is a separate
entity, they all depend on one another—your team cannot do the work without materials, and you
cannot purchase materials without a budget. In this reading, we will discuss some key project
resources and tips for managing them.

Budget

Have you ever created a budget for yourself or your family? If you have, you know that a budget
includes a wide variety of expenses. For example, a monthly personal budget can contain items that
include anything from food to transportation costs to rent. With only a certain amount of funding to
cover each expense, it is important to closely monitor your spending to avoid going over budget. If you
go over in one category of your budget, you will impact the others and will need to make adjustments.
As a project manager, you will take the same general approach with your project budget. 

Common aspects of your project budget will include:

 Team: the cost of the people performing the work

  Services: any outside vendors helping your project
 Materials: any tangible items purchased to complete the project
Throughout your project management career, you will encounter various types of projects with a wide
range of budgets. Some budgets will have no margin for error, whereas other budgets may be more
flexible. Regardless of this variability, budget issues will inevitably arise, so it is important to make sure
that the budget is aligned with the project scope and the stakeholders’ asks. 

People

People are a vital resource on your project; you cannot complete your project on your own! You will
need to rely on a strong team of people with a variety of skill sets and specialties to get the job done. As
a project manager, make sure that you have commitment and buy-in on the number of hours it will
take for your resources to complete their tasks. Additionally, you will find the best partners on a project
are people who are aligned to the goals of the project or who are most interested in the project's work.

Materials

Materials can be different on every project. For example, if you were working on an IT project, materials
could include hard drives and computers to handle the coding efforts. You can also have materials that
are intangible. For example, on the same IT project, online storage, software programs, or employee
training may also be considered materials. It is important to account for any and all potential materials
in order to execute a successful project with the right people and within budget. 

Key takeaway

Your project resources include things like the budget, people, and materials. As a project manager,
remembering that your resources are dependent on one another is key to understanding the function
of each resource and determining how to manage all of them. Take the time to interview stakeholders
and potential team members about what resources they think they will need in order to deliver the
project. They may have an idea of materials they require that you may not have accounted for within
the budget, for example, or can identify people with expertise that would make them an asset to the
project team. 

Next, we will discuss project charters, which are an important tool that project managers use to gain
clarity on the resources that they will need for a project.  

The value of project documentation

By now, you've probably noticed that a big part of project management is guiding
decision-making. Even if you're not the one making final decisions on major aspects of the
project, it's still your job to keep track of every new decision and use those decisions to
create a plan. As you've learned, there are a lot of important decisions to keep track of.
That includes everything from identifying project goals and deliverables to choosing the
right people to add to a team. It's way too much for any one person to mentally keep track
of. It's also important information for everyone on the team to be aware of; not just the
project manager. If a decision affects a member of the team's tasks, they'll need to know
about it, right? That's why documentation is such an important part of a project
manager's role. While your team may work deeply on specific areas of the project, you
might be the only person on the team who is aware of and communicating across all the
different areas of the project. Clear and consistent documentation can ensure
transparency and clear communication. Documentation helps set the stage for the
project. It communicates the answers to key questions. For example, what problem are
you trying to solve? What are the project goals? What are the scope and deliverables, and
who are the project's stakeholders? Lastly, what resources does the team need to
complete their work? This is all crucial information for anyone who's working on a project,
regardless of their role. Documentation also helps preserve decisions made early on in the
project and can serve as a reference point for team members who might join later in the
project life cycle. It's your job to ensure that this information is easily accessible through
some kind of formal documentation, like an e-mail, a presentation, or a digital document.
Also, documenting decisions can help you uncover tasks, timelines, or costs you hadn't
previously considered. And lastly, this process provides a historical record that can be
reviewed at the end of your project. You can apply the lessons you've learned in the
future. Ok, let's get into different types of documentation. Up next, we'll look at project
proposals and project charters, two types of documents that can set you up for success
early on. See you soon!

Project proposals and charters 101

Hello, and welcome back. Earlier, we discussed the value of documentation in effective
project management. Now let's talk about two common types of documentation you
could use to keep track of details and keep your stakeholders informed. These are: the
project proposal and the project charter. A project proposal is a form of documentation
that comes at the very beginning of the project. This document's purpose is to persuade
stakeholders that a project should begin. And typically, a senior organizational leader
creates the proposal. So you might not need to worry about creating the proposal, but you
will have to keep track of the proposal's progress. The project proposal is a great starting
point to help you understand the desired goals and impact. A proposal may be a formal
document, a presentation, or even a simple email to get others on board with the idea.
Then, we have the project charter: a formal document that clearly defines the project and
outlines the necessary details to reach its goals. A project charter helps you get organized,
set up a framework for what needs to be done, and communicate those details to others.
So how do these documents differ? A project proposal is created earlier in the project life
cycle than the project charter. The proposal kicks off the initiation phase by influencing
and persuading the company to move forward with the project. The project charter serves
a similar purpose and often comes at the end of the initiation phase. However, its goal is
to more clearly define the key details of the project. Another difference between these two
documents is that a charter will often serve as a point of reference throughout the life of a
project. The proposal is only used at the earlier stages. Now that you know the difference
between these two documents, let's take a closer look at the project charter, which you'll
learn more about in this module. The project charter makes clear that the benefits of the
project outweigh the costs. As you learned earlier in this course, there are a few questions
you might ask yourself when performing a cost benefit analysis. That includes questions
like: What value will this project create? And how much money could this project save my
organization? How much time will people have to spend on this project? You'll include the
answers to these questions in your charter. Including this type of information ensures that
you and your stakeholders agree on the project value. The charter also helps ensure that
you and your stakeholders agree on the details of the project. Project charter approval
means that management is supportive, and it's also a key step to ensure that the project
matches the needs of the organization. After the stakeholders and project sponsor have
reviewed and approved the project charter, you now have the authority to move forward
with the project. Project charters can be formatted in a few ways and can contain different
information depending on the project and the organization. The information in a charter
might also be tailored to its audience or the needs of specific stakeholders. For example, if
you're writing a project charter for a stakeholder who is a marketing executive, the charter
might include information about how the project will impact the organization's brand. Or
if the stakeholder is a chief technology officer, the charter might include information on
the cost of engineering resources needed to maintain the project. Regardless of the
format or the audience, creating a project charter is a best practice for ensuring that
everyone agrees on how to move forward before entering the planning phase. The project
charter is a living document. This means that it can evolve as the project progresses. As
the project manager, you'll review and refine the charter throughout the process. Now
that you know more about the value of a project charter, it's time to learn how to create
one. Meet me in the next video to get started!

Project charters: Elements and formats

A project charter clearly defines the project and outlines the necessary details for the
project to reach its goals. A well-documented project charter can be a project manager’s
secret weapon to success. In this reading, we will go over the function, key elements, and
significance of a project charter and learn how to create one. 

The charter is the formal way that the project’s goals, values, benefits, and details are
captured. You can think of the charter as the compass for your project since you will use it
throughout the life cycle of the project. Many stakeholders will look to your project charter
to ensure that you are indeed aligned with strategic goals and set up for achieving the
desired end goal. Since the project charter carries so much importance, it is important to
incorporate the right amount of detail while omitting miscellaneous elements.

As with any of your project documents, it is a good idea to collaborate with your team and
stakeholders early and often. Developing the project charter in collaboration with both
groups can help you make sure that your project charter addresses your key stakeholders’
most important concerns and keeps your team aligned. Be sure to use the business case—
the reason for initiating the project—as the guiding direction to your project charter.
Project charters can vary from organization to organization and from project to project. It
is key for a project manager to identify the best type of charter for the project in order to
capture the relevant information and set your project up for success. Project charters will
vary but usually include some combination of the following key information:

 introduction/project summary
 goals/objectives 
 business case/benefits and costs
  project team
 scope
 success criteria
 major requirements or key deliverables
 budget
 schedule/timeline or milestones
 constraints and assumptions
 risks
 OKRs
 approvals
You will likely use many different project charter formats throughout your project
management career. One example is a condensed, simplified document, like the one
you'll learn about in the upcoming video and the one linked in the activities. A short and
simple project charter can be used on smaller projects that are not very complex. 

For more complex projects, you may link to additional analysis or documents. You can
house these items in the appendix. 

Your organization may have a unique template for you to use, or you may have the
flexibility to leverage one you come across in your career. As your project progresses, you
may also encounter revisions to your project charter—and that is okay. Remember, it is a
living document; let it grow with your project, and review and revisit it often to ensure
you are aligned. 

0:01
Hi again. Let's talk about how to create a project charter. In the last video we discussed
how project charters, are a valuable document for project managers. Project charters are
key for securing approval from stakeholders and moving forward. Project charters can
also be formatted in many different ways and there are many different templates available
online for you to choose from. Here, we'll use a template that's similar to one that
program managers often use at google and to fill in each section will use details from your
project at Office Green, ready? Let's take a look! At the top of your charter, you'll want to
add in the name of your project. Let's add in the name of your project at Office Green, it's
called: Project Plant Pals.
Play video starting at ::52 and follow transcript0:52
You also want to add in a brief summary, let's type that in. Our plan is to offer high volume
customers, small, low maintenance plants that can thrive in an office environment.
Play video starting at :1:10 and follow transcript1:10
Next up, let's fill in the section labeled "project goals." Remember that goals should be
smart. Let's add in the goal for Project Plant Pals which is to increase revenue by five
percent by rolling out a new service that provides office plants to top clients by the end of
the year.
Play video starting at :1:30 and follow transcript1:30
Great, now let's add in the project deliverable. Remember that a deliverable is a tangible
outcome from a project. As you learned earlier, our deliverables for this project are to
send 1000 plants to 100 customers and to launch a new website for orders and customer
support.
Play video starting at :1:52 and follow transcript1:52
Okay, now let's add in the business case, which captures the reasoning for initiating this
project. Let's type in: "this is a top requested service from our customers and it will also
improve customer satisfaction and retention."
Play video starting at :2:15 and follow transcript2:15
The business case is supported by the cost benefit analysis and we'll add that in now. We'll
start with the benefits. The benefits or expected gains of the project, include improving
customer satisfaction and an increase in revenue.
Play video starting at :2:33 and follow transcript2:33
Now, we'll move on to the costs. The costs include the price of the sourcing products,
developing a website and marketing materials. Let's type in: "$250,000" for the estimated
budget.
Play video starting at :2:49 and follow transcript2:49
Nice, we've now outlined some of the benefits and costs of this project.
Play video starting at :2:55 and follow transcript2:55
Keep in mind that these are simple examples to teach you the basics of filling out a
charter. When running a real project, you'll perform a more detailed analysis to determine
the benefits and costs.
Play video starting at :3:7 and follow transcript3:07
The key takeaway here is that benefits should always outweigh the cost.
Play video starting at :3:13 and follow transcript3:13
Fantastic, let's keep going. Next, we're going to add in the project scope as well as what's
considered out of scope for this project. Remember scope is an agreed upon
understanding of what is included or excluded from a project. An item that is in scope,
includes creating a service to deliver small plants to last year's top clients. An item that is
out of scope, and therefore not available to customers, includes plant care after they're
delivered. Amazing. Hopefully you can see how stating what's in scope and what's out of
scope helps everyone working on the project understand where they should focus their
efforts.
Play video starting at :3:59 and follow transcript3:59
Great, now let's add in your project team. Let's see here. The project sponsor is Office
Green's director of product. So let's add that in.
Play video starting at :4:15 and follow transcript4:15
Who is the project lead? Well, that's you.
Play video starting at :4:21 and follow transcript4:21
The project team may include marketing associates, website developers and external
plant vendors and more, so we can add in a few important project team members here.
Play video starting at :4:42 and follow transcript4:42
Awesome. Let's move on to additional stakeholders. Additional stakeholders may include
the vice president of customer success, who is accountable for customer feedback and
corresponding product requests. We can also add in the account manager who will
leverage their existing relationships with top clients. And let's also add in the fulfillment
manager, who will help acquire the plants needed to launch the service.
Play video starting at :5:8 and follow transcript5:08
We're almost done, let's add in how we'll measure success. Here we will type in that we
want to see a five percent increase in revenue by the end of the year. Let's also type in that
we want to hit a customer satisfaction rate of 95 percent, three months after launch.
Play video starting at :5:29 and follow transcript5:29
That's it. The project charter is filled in and now it's ready to be reviewed by your
stakeholders. Now you're done. You've seen how documentation helps form the roots of a
project and how it contributes to the project's ultimate success. Like nurturing a plant,
you're learning to nurture a project to ensure its the best it can be. Up next, we'll talk
about the tools that project managers rely on to guide their teams and ensure that they
complete their tasks. See you soon.

Measuring success lists the success criteria that help you determine when the project has
reached its goal.

Measuring success

What is acceptable

 3% increase in revenue by the end of the fourth quarter

 5% increase in new customers three months after product launch

Project goals should be SMART and well-defined.

Project goal(s)

SMART objective 1
Increase overall revenue by 3% by the end of fourth quarter by releasing our new athletic
shoelaces.

SMART objective 2
Gain 2,000 new social media followers from the running community prior to launch.
 Correct.
The executive summary outlines the project’s purpose and desired outcomes.
Project overview
Our plan is to add a line of replacement laces that will stay tied during athletic activity.

Deliverables include expected outcomes—both tangible and intangible.

Deliverables

Major requirements

1. Design slip-proof shoelace weave.

2. Manufacture 12,000 pairs of athletic shoelaces.
3. Increase brand awareness in the running community.

The project team lists the various people who will participate in the project.

Project team

Stakeholders
Project sponsor: Director of merchandise

Project lead: Project manager (you)

Project team: Shoelace designer, prototyper, quality assurance tester

Additional stakeholders: Director of market research, marketing manager, sales manager,

director of online sales

Benefits and costs describe what the company hopes to get out of the project, as well as
the money and resources it requires.

Benefits and costs

What we’ll gain/pay

Benefits:

 Add new product to our lace line, leading to 3% revenue increase, increased brand
awareness and customer loyalty

Costs:

 Price of materials, design, and prototyping

 Adding laces to inventory software

Budget needed:

 $525,000

The business case explains the reason for the project and how it supports the company’s
overall success.

Business case

Why are we doing this?

Customer research reveals this as an untapped opportunity in the market, with the potential
to win loyalty among a demographic obsessed with finding the best gear.

Scope and exclusion defines activities that are part of the project—and those that are not.

Scope and exclusion

What’s in- and out-of-scope

In-scope:

 Product development, prototyping, manufacturing, marketing

Out-of-scope:

 Vendor contracts, delivery to customers

Weekly Challenge 3
Total points 10

1.
Question 1

Which of the following responsibilities does project management include?

1 point

Sign off on budget and resources

Ensure that the business meets its overall objectives

Oversee the scope, schedule, budget, and quality of a project

Apply technical expertise to execute the project’s day-to-day tasks

2.
Question 2

Which three of the following responsibilities can belong to the project sponsor?
1 point
Ensure that the project delivers the agreed upon value to the business.

Play a key leadership role throughout the project.

Fund the project.

Plan and organize the project.

3.
Question 3

Which stakeholders benefit directly (not indirectly) from a project’s success? Select all that apply.
1 point

Minor players

Primary stakeholders

Secondary stakeholders

Key players
4.
Question 4

Which of the following are typical responsibilities of project team members? Select all that apply.
1 point

Take on multiple project tasks

Initiate the project

Provide technical expertise

Carry out day-to-day project tasks

5.
Question 5

Which term refers to identifying stakeholders and grouping them by interest and influence?
1 point

Steering committee meeting

Stakeholder analysis

Stakeholder buy-in

Stakeholder monitoring
6.
Question 6

Which of the following activities are steps in a stakeholder analysis? Select all that apply.
1 point

Assess each stakeholder’s level of interest and influence

Assess each stakeholder’s reputation and level of experience

Determine which stakeholders should be excluded from the project

List the stakeholders impacted by the project

7.
Question 7

What does the acronym RACI stand for?

1 point

Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed

Responsible, Appeased, Consulted, Interested

Responsible, Accountable, Considered, Interested

Responsible, Accountable, Considered, Informed

8.
Question 8
Which three of the following situations can lead to role confusion on a project?
1 point

When only one person is designated as accountable

When team members perform overlapping work

When ownership of decisions is unclear

When workloads are unbalanced

9.
Question 9

As a project manager, you make considerations when building a team. You decide how many people
should be on the team, if they have the time to work on the project, and what expertise each team
member needs for their tasks. What else should you consider when building a team?
1 point

Degree of project sponsor engagement

Whether the project has a strong business case

Likelihood of project success

Team member motivation

10.
Question 10

As a project manager, you’re prioritizing stakeholders with a power grid. One stakeholder has high
power and low interest. What level of engagement should the team have with the stakeholder?
1 point

Meet their needs

Manage closely

Show consideration
Monitor
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Weekly Challenge 3
Latest Submission Grade 85%

1.
Question 1

Which of the following responsibilities does project management include?

0 / 1 point

Sign off on budget and resources

Oversee the scope, schedule, budget, and quality of a project

Ensure that the business meets its overall objectives

Apply technical expertise to execute the project’s day-to-day tasks

Incorrect

Try reviewing the reading on essential project roles.

2.
Question 2

Which three of the following responsibilities can belong to the project sponsor?
1 / 1 point

Play a key leadership role throughout the project.

Correct

Fund the project.

Correct
Plan and organize the project.

Ensure that the project delivers the agreed upon value to the business.
Correct

3.
Question 3

Which stakeholders are indirectly impacted by a project’s success?

1 / 1 point

Key players

Minor players

Secondary stakeholders

Primary stakeholders
Correct

4.
Question 4

Which responsibilities belong to project team members?

1 / 1 point

Use technical expertise and interpersonal skills to complete day-to-day tasks

Making sure the project fulfills its objective and supports the overall business strategy

Report project findings and progress to the project sponsor

Oversee the scope, schedule, budget, and quality of a project

Correct

5.
Question 5

Which term refers to identifying stakeholders and grouping them by interest and influence?
1 / 1 point
Stakeholder monitoring

Stakeholder analysis

Stakeholder buy-in

Steering committee meeting

Correct

6.
Question 6

What is the first step in a stakeholder analysis?

1 / 1 point

List the stakeholders impacted by the project

Assess each stakeholder’s ability to participate and find ways to involve them

Determine each stakeholder’s level of interest

Determine each stakeholder’s level of influence

Correct

7.
Question 7

Which of the following statements are true of RACI charts? Select all that apply.
0.5 / 1 point

Assess each stakeholder’s ability to participate and build necessary partnerships

Define project roles and responsibilities to ensure efficiency

Determine which stakeholders are responsible for which tasks

Correct

Record the level of risk stakeholders bring to the project

This should not be selected

Try reviewing the video on assigning roles and responsibilities using a RACI chart.
8.
Question 8

Which three of the following situations can lead to role confusion on a project?
1 / 1 point

When team members perform overlapping work

Correct

When workloads are unbalanced

Correct

When only one person is designated as accountable

When ownership of decisions is unclear

Correct

9.
Question 9

As a project manager, you make considerations when building a team. You decide how many people
should be on the team, if they have the time to work on the project, and if they have a personal
incentive to work on the project. What else should you consider when building a team?
1 / 1 point

Necessary skills for the project

Likelihood of project success

Team member communication preferences

Degree of stakeholder engagement

Correct

10.
Question 10

As a project manager, you’re prioritizing stakeholders using a power grid. One stakeholder has high
power and high interest. What level of engagement should the team have with the stakeholder?
1 / 1 point
Meet their needs

Manage closely

Show consideration

Monitor
Correct

Utilizing tools for effective project

management
As a project manager, tools are some of the most helpful resources you have at your
disposal. They're essential for tracking progress, so it's important to keep them top of
mind throughout the entire project. Let's talk more about why tools are so useful and why
it's important to choose the right ones for your needs. There are lots of different tools out
there, and you'll learn more about them later. As a reminder, tools are aids that make it
easier for a project manager or team to manage resources and organize work. They're
useful because they can help you track detailed information about all kinds of tasks, and
they make it easy to communicate with lots of different people. And remember, effective
communication and tracking are huge parts of a project manager's day-to-day
responsibilities. Just think about how much tougher your job would be without help from
collaboration tools like e-mail or digital documents created in Google Docs or Microsoft
Word. Let's imagine this in the context of our project at Office Green. As lead project
manager, you have tons of information about the company's plan to provide office-
friendly plants to top clients. But what would happen if you wrote every project detail on a
whiteboard instead of a shared online document? Well, every member of your team would
have to stop by your desk to get the latest information, and that's definitely not the most
efficient use of anyone's time. But if you store this information in easily-accessible online
documents, you save everyone on the team time, energy, and a major headache. Today's
tools have made it so much easier to share information with teammates. Even better with
project management tools, information sharing goes both ways. That means team
members can also easily update you on their progress without the need for extra meetings
or phone calls. How great is that? When you choose the right tool for a project, you make it
easy for teammates to let you know if a task is on schedule or if it's delayed, which lets you
quickly see how any changes might affect the rest of the project. Project management
tools increase visibility and transparency for everyone, including stakeholders. You can
use a variety of tools to accomplish many different things, like tracking progress on tasks,
deliverables, and milestones. Tools can also help you manage a budget, build helpful
charts and diagrams, manage contracts and licenses, and keep stakeholders informed.
Tools can be straightforward, like digital spreadsheets or documents, or they can be more
sophisticated, like scheduling and work management software. It's important to think
about the needs of the project when choosing which to use. One thing to keep in mind is
that if you choose a more sophisticated tool, your teammates and stakeholders will need
some time to get familiar with it. For small projects, that might be more trouble than it's
worth. So for small projects, a straightforward tool might be more effective. But if a
project has a big scope, then it might be worth the team's time to learn and ultimately
work with a more sophisticated project management tool. You should also keep in mind
that sometimes you won't have a choice about the types of tools you use. If an
organization has already decided to use a specific tool, then you will need to work with
what they give you. It's all about remaining flexible. Are you starting to see how you can
use tools to keep projects on track? Whether they're straightforward or sophisticated,
tools have the power to help you communicate and manage more effectively. Next up,
we'll cover some of the most common types of tools for effective project management.
See you there!

Introducing new tools to a team

Project management tools and processes are always evolving. In this reading, we will discuss the
importance of choosing the right tools for a project and the implications of introducing new tools to
your team. 

As a project manager, it is important to be open to implementing new tools that may be beneficial to a
project's outcome. You will experience change in lots of forms throughout your project’s life cycle, and
navigating change is essential. But if you choose to implement a tool that your team is unfamiliar with
—especially if you decide to roll it out midway through a project—your team may be hesitant. People
embrace change differently, particularly if the change will directly impact their routine and the way
they work. Simply put: Change can be met with resistance.

Before you introduce a new tool to your team, you should be sure that this change is actually going to
benefit the project, and ensure that those involved in your project understand the benefits of this
change. Demonstrating to your teammates and stakeholders that you understand the tool and have
evaluated its competency will help build trust, especially if this new tool is replacing an existing tool.
Taking the time to introduce the new tool to your team members will also demonstrate that you have
the best interest of the team in mind—not just the success of the project. 
Here are some important considerations and keys to successfully introducing new tools:

 Discuss the tool early and often, if possible. The team should not feel blindsided by a new
change. Make sure they know the change is coming as early as possible. This will help them
prepare for an introduction or migration to the new tool.
 Ask for feedback from key stakeholders. You could get great feedback on features that you
may have overlooked without asking for their expertise. You can solicit this feedback by
requesting their input about functionality or have them list features in order of priority. The
key is to create an opportunity for stakeholders to provide their feedback and allow you to
incorporate their feedback into next steps.
 Involve the key stakeholders in demonstrations as you get closer to making the final decision
on the project tracking tool. You will be able to leverage key stakeholders' acceptance by
letting them test the product or sign up for a trial run. It is also important to make sure that the
tool is actually going to meet the mark and provide a meaningful change for the project. You
may want to pull in key users from your team to test and familiarize themselves with the tool
prior to rolling it out. This will allow the team to get on board with your plans or discuss their
concerns beforehand. This will also highlight in-house experts for future training, assistance,
and implementation.
 Ensure the tool is fully functional before the team is introduced to it. Whenever possible, hold
off from introducing the tool if it still has any issues. Make sure the tool is accessible for all
users. Keep in mind, your team members may resist a tool that doesn’t live up to how it is
supposed to function. This will impact implementation and acceptance fairly significantly, so
put your best tool forward!
 Set up training for the tool as needed before you ask the team to actually use it. Everyone has
different levels of comfort with different tools. It is your job as the project manager to ensure
that each team members’ needs are addressed. Setting up training also helps create positive
first impressions, which will lead to higher productivity and quicker, more successful
implementation and acceptance.
Remember, some pushback is normal, but successful project managers should take the steps to
prepare and mitigate any friction for their team when possible. 

Pro tip: If time allows, plan for a period of transition if you are replacing an existing tool. It is common
to allow both tools to operate during this period. You will need to “sunset,” or retire, the existing tool
eventually, but allowing for a period of transition between using the old tool and the new tool can help
stakeholders and team members feel more at ease and give them time to gain familiarity with the new
tool. Be prepared for productivity to be impacted as the team transitions from one tool to another.

Exploring types of project management tools

Hi there. So, you've learned about how tools can make you more effective. Now let's learn
more about the different types of tools used in project management. These include
scheduling and work management software and tools for productivity and collaboration.
Let's get started. One common tool type is scheduling and work management software.
There are lots of different types of work management software on the market, including
popular tools like these. Certain tools may work better for your project depending on a
bunch of things; for example, the project methodology you're running or the number of
tasks and people involved. So, why would you choose to use scheduling and work
management software? Well, it can be really useful for assigning tasks to multiple
teammates and for tracking progress on that work. It can also help you visualize your
team's progress. For example, if you're using work management software to assign and
track tasks, you're more likely to notice if your team completes 50 tasks one week and just
three tasks the following week. That's a clear sign that you need to check in to see if
there's a problem that's blocking progress. If you hadn't been tracking their tasks, you
might not have noticed the issue. That's part of the reason why work management
software is so useful. It provides an overview of how the project is going so you know
when you need to check in with your teams to get tasks back on track. Another type of
project management tool we'll discuss is tools for productivity. Productivity tools can be
very helpful for you and your team. This includes word processing tools, like Microsoft
Word or Google Docs. You can use these to create shared documents with the team, like
the project charter we taught you how to fill out earlier. You can also use these tools to
build documents like meeting agendas and status updates, and we'll talk more about
these in a later course. Spreadsheets are another useful productivity tool. They're
versatile, and you can use them to make documents, like RACI charts and project plans, as
well as other helpful charts you'll learn more about in a later course. And presentations
created in tools, like Microsoft PowerPoint, Keynote, or Google Slides can be a great way
to package your project in a visual, easily-digestible way. Now, let's discuss collaboration
tools, which you'll probably rely on to work closely with your teammates. These include
tools you're probably familiar with, like email and chat. Tools like this can help you
quickly and efficiently check in with each other on questions, comments, and other topics
related to the project. Productivity tools like documents and spreadsheets, and
collaboration tools like email and chat, are all pretty simple, which means they're great for
smaller projects with fewer tasks and teammates to keep track of. Scheduling and work
management software is better for bigger projects with a larger number of tasks and a
bigger team of people to manage. Cool. You've learned more about the types of tools
available to you, including scheduling and work management software, productivity tools,
and collaboration tools. We'll spend the next video diving a bit deeper on some of the
most popular project management tools out there. Meet you there.

1.
Question 1

What are the main uses of scheduling and work management software? Select all that apply.
1 / 1 point

Quickly communicate with teammates and stakeholders

Efficiently track progress on the team’s work

Correct

Work management software is useful to track and visualize progress so project managers don’t have to
do it manually. It also helps them easily assign tasks.

Help visualize a team’s project progress

Correct
The software typically has a visual component that makes it easy to understand task progress. It also
helps project managers easily assign tasks.

Easily assign tasks to multiple teammates

Correct

With the software, the project manager can easily assign tasks and the team can understand who is
working on what tasks. It also helps the project manager visualize team progress.
2.
Question 2

Which of the following are best practices when introducing a new tool to a team? Select all that apply.
1 / 1 point

Discuss the tool early and often

Correct

Make sure you give your team enough time to prepare to use a new tool. Discuss the new tool with
them from the start so they don’t feel surprised when you introduce it. You should also give them the
chance to provide feedback.

Get feedback from stakeholders on important features that may help manage the project.
Correct

Use stakeholder expertise to get feedback on features. You may also ask for their input on the tool’s
functionality.

If replacing a tool, allow for a transition period

Correct

If you are replacing an existing tool, allow for a period of time to transition from the old tool to the new.
You should also ask for stakeholder input and make time to discuss the tool from the start.

Ensure the tool is functional after the team is introduced to it.

3.
Question 3

Fill in the blank: If a project has a _____, then it may be worth the team’s time to learn a more
sophisticated tool.
1 / 1 point

large scope

limited budget
short deadline

small team
Correct

Projects with a large scope and sufficient funding may benefit from a more robust project management
tool. With a more sophisticated tool, the project team and stakeholders will need time to get familiar
with it.
4.
Question 4

As a project manager, you need to determine how best to communicate with stakeholders across the
company. Which tools are best for communicating?
1 / 1 point

Budgeting tools

Work management software

Productivity tools

Collaboration tools
Correct

Collaboration tools such as email and chat can help you quickly and efficiently communicate with your
team and stakeholders.
5.
Question 5

Which three of the following best practices can help you choose tools for your project?
1 / 1 point

Select tools based on your project’s scope

Correct

You may choose a tool based upon the project’s scope. For a larger project, you may need to use a
more sophisticated tool. For a smaller project, a straight-forward tool might be more effective.

Understand a tool’s purpose.

Correct

When you understand a tool’s purpose, you can determine if it’s going to solve a specific problem. For
example, some tools are good at helping you organize work and manage resources. Other tools will
help you communicate more effectively.
Choose the same tools you used in your last project.

Know a tool’s capability.

Correct

When you understand a tool’s capability, you determine if it’s going to make tasks easier for you or
cause additional confusion. Sophisticated tools like scheduling and work management software can
solve very specific problems. For example, they can help you visualize your team’s progress.

Common project management tools

Earlier, you learned about different types of project management tools, from scheduling and
work management software, to tools for productivity and collaboration. Now let's discuss a
few popular tools you might be expected to use, or at least be familiar with. There are many
different types of work management software that automatically make project planning and
tracking a lot easier and that are much more efficient than manual project tracking. One tool
that we'll focus on in this program is Asana. Asana is a work management platform that
helps teams plan and coordinate their work from daily tasks to strategic initiatives. Asana
provides a living system and a source of truth where everyone's work lives. With Asana,
everyone can see, discuss, and manage team priorities, giving teams clarity on who is doing
what by when. It's great for building project plans, assigning tasks, automating workflows,
tracking progress, and communicating with stakeholders. As a project manager, you can use
Asana to create a log of tasks, like gathering cost estimates from external vendors, and
assign a task to people on the team. All tasks are visible and organized in the format of the
project manager's choice—like in a list or on a calendar—and designed to drive transparency
and connection with all the tasks related to the overall goal. It's easy to use with external
stakeholders as well, because within Asana, you can share status updates and other
communications with people outside your company. Another great tool we'll focus on
throughout this program is the spreadsheet. Spreadsheets are extremely versatile, and you
can use them for a wide range of tasks, from creating timelines and billing charts to
managing budgets and tracking tasks. You can add and view project information in a variety
of formats, depending on what you need in the moment. For example, let's say you enter a
list of tasks, due dates, completion statuses, and task owners into a spreadsheet. From
there, it's very simple to sort the list by due date to see what's due next.

Play video starting at :2:26 and follow transcript2:26

You can then filter the list of tasks by task owner, so that you only see the things you're
responsible for.

Play video starting at :2:41 and follow transcript2:41

You can also highlight the rows of the sheet in different colors to visually illustrate the tasks
with the least progress. With spreadsheets, you can easily transform, visualize, and
manipulate information. Spreadsheets and more comprehensive tools like Asana are just
two options for effective project management, and it's a good idea to get a basic
understanding of the variety of software options out there. Then, if your company doesn't
have a standard software tool, you can choose the right one for the project needs. Being
able to recommend the right tool for the job can be a great way to add value to your team at
the beginning of a project. Keep in mind, however, that software options are constantly
changing. From the addition of new features to the launch of new tools, there's no way for
you to know every software available, and no company would expect that of you. Many of
these tools have similar functionality, like task tracking and task assignment, so if you
understand one tool deeply, you should be able to easily adapt to a new tool on the job.
Now that you've learned a bit more about Asana and the power of spreadsheets, take some
time to explore these tools, since we'll be working with them later in the program. Coming
up, you'll hear from a project manager who will tell you all about their experience using
tools during their day-to-day role at Google. Stay tuned.

Using Google Sheets for project management

Essential Sheets features for project
management
Collaborate with your team

Google Sheets makes it easy to collaborate and share information. This is useful for remote
workgroups or working with teams that have different schedules. 

When you share your Sheet, you can select from the following permissions:

 editing, which allows others to make direct edits and changes to the file;
 commenting, which allows others to add comments and make suggestions; or 
 view only, which allows others to view the file but not edit, comment, or suggest. This is a good
choice if you don’t want any changes to be made to the file.
Once you’ve shared your Sheet with your team and given them either editing or commenting
permissions, you can all collaborate directly in the Sheet by leaving comments. You can also assign a
task or action item through comments.

Check out these resources from the Google Help Center to learn more: Share and collaborate on files

Format your spreadsheet 

Create lists
To create any list in Sheets, simply label each list—for example, Name, Date, Notes, or other criteria—in
the header row. (The header row is the top row in the spreadsheet.) Then, add a different list item in
each cell underneath the list title. Most lists are arranged vertically, but you might prefer a horizontal
list depending on the types of items. Note: You’ll learn how to build out a full project plan and prioritize
tasks later in this course. 

Display and hide content

Freeze rows or columns
Freezing the header row (or column for horizontal lists) and formatting headers is a great way to make
the list titles stand out. Freezing a header row keeps the row in place when you scroll down the list, so
you can always see what the list titles are. Format the headers just like you would text in a document
by changing the font, style, size, or color.

Group and hide related content

Grouping rows and columns allows you to expand and collapse larger categories of data or information
with a single click. This makes your spreadsheet easier to read and manage by hiding the grouped data
when it’s not needed, or quickly ungroup and show when it is needed.

Check out these resources from the Google Help Center to learn more:

 Freeze or merge rows and columns; Group, ungroup, or hide rows or columns
 Google Sheets cheat sheet

Add checkboxes
Checkboxes provide a quick and highly-visual way to track progress on a task or indicate whether
certain criteria have been met. 

Check out these resources from the Google Help Center to learn more: Add checkboxes to
spreadsheets

Organize data

Create dropdown lists

If you’re working with others on a shared Sheet, you might end up with inconsistent responses or
descriptions of data. For example, one teammate may list their task as “done” while another notes it as
“complete.” Adding a dropdown list (also referred to as data validation) ensures the data entered into
your spreadsheet is exactly what you specify. It also makes it much faster for others to add data since
they’re selecting from a predetermined list of options.

Check out these resources from the Google Help Center to learn more: Restrict data entry with lists

Add color coding

Sometimes it’s helpful to change the color of cells and text so you can quickly see how your project is
progressing. You can add color coding to your spreadsheet by applying conditional formatting.
Conditional formatting formats cells in a certain way if they contain specific information. For example,
track progress status as “Not started” in red, “In progress” in orange, and “Complete” in green. 

Check out these resources from the Google Help Center to learn more: See data changes with
conditional formatting

Sort and filter data

Large sets of data can be difficult to manage. Sheets helps you sort and filter data to limit what is
visible and find specific types of data within your spreadsheet.
Sorting data allows you to arrange data in exactly the order you want it to appear in, like alphabetical,
by date, or progress level. Filtering limits what data gets displayed and shows you only the data you
are interested in, such as tasks that have not yet been started, or budget items within a certain value
range.

Check out these resources from the Google Help Center to learn more: Filter data in a spreadsheet

Add links 
It can be helpful to link to other project documentation or even external websites in your spreadsheet.
This provides your team easy, centralized access to all relevant data they might need. For example, you
could add a link to your project charter document from your project plan spreadsheet.

Check out these resources from the Google Help Center to learn more:

 Use links
 Link to data in a spreadsheet

Visualize data

Create a pivot table

A pivot table is a basic data analysis tool. Pivot tables summarize your data and can help show the
relationships between data points, making it easier to understand all the information contained in your
spreadsheet. You’ll learn more about how to create and use a pivot table later in this course. Or, check
out the Help Center article below.

Check out these resources from the Google Help Center to learn more: Create and edit pivot tables

Make a chart or graph

Presenting data in charts and graphs is a great way to quickly and effectively summarize important
information about your project to stakeholders and make reports and presentations more engaging.
Sheets enables you to automatically create different kinds of charts and graphs using the data in your
spreadsheet.

Check out these resources from the Google Help Center to learn more: Insert and edit charts

Perform calculations

Use functions 
Functions can be used to manipulate data and perform calculations. Google Sheets has a wide array of
functions that are already built in, which means they will automatically perform the calculations you
specify. Use functions to quickly calculate sums or averages, automatically determine start or end
dates, generate financial reports, and much more.

Check out these resources from the Google Help Center to learn more:
  Add formulas and functions
 Google Sheets cheat sheet

Useful spreadsheet templates

Using spreadsheet templates for project management

Creating the same types of spreadsheets over and over can be time-consuming. You can save time by
using templates such as those available from the Google Sheets template gallery. Choose from a
variety of pre-made spreadsheets for budgets, schedules, and trackers, or create your own!

Some of the more common templates are described and linked below. To use the templates for these
course items, click the links below and select “Use Template”:  

 Project Timeline: A project timeline template is useful if you want to track an entire project
from conception to close. This example includes a visual timeline that lays out the life cycle of
a project and the major activities that need to happen during each phase. You’ll learn more
about creating and tracking a project timeline later in the course and get to experience
working with your own project timeline templates.
 Project Tracking: A project tracking template is useful for tracking your project’s budget,
deliverables, and other data. This example includes columns for tracking costs and time, as
well as a column with dropdown lists for tracking tasks’ priority levels. Other features include
formulas for calculating hours, costs, and percentage of deliverables completed, which allow
you to track your spending and progress on a project. 
 Gantt Chart: A Gantt chart combines many of the aspects of other types of project
management spreadsheets into one. It organizes tasks by day and is useful for showing the
relationships between the many moving parts of a project. It’s also helpful for managing a
project with multiple collaborators. Gantt charts often include conditional formatting that
makes cells change color based on how far along the project is so you can immediately
determine how much progress you have made on a particular task.
 Event Marketing Timeline: A timeline template is useful for creating a schedule, tracking
events, and visualizing the tasks and milestones involved in a project. You might use this
template to manage a project that involves a lot of marketing or public-facing tasks. You can
track social media posts, market research, and coordinate content across multiple platforms.
Check out these resources from the Google Help Center to learn more: Create document templates

Demonstrating your knowledge of project

management tools
During an interview for a project manager position, the interviewer may ask you to discuss the project
management tools you are familiar with or have used in the past. There are many types of project
management tools that you will come across during your career. These tools will continue to grow and
change as technology improves. Being able to talk about these tools, and how you use them, will be
crucial to landing the role.

In addition to the interviewer asking general questions about tools, they may ask more specific
questions, like “How do you know if a project is off track?” It’s important to tie this answer back to the
types of scheduling tools you have learned about in this course. If you haven’t had experience working
with certain scheduling tools, like Smartsheet or digital spreadsheets—try to leverage real-life
experience. 

For example, have you ever planned for a move? If so, you can discuss how you planned your timeline
and scheduled vendors so that you could meet your move date. Did you use a spreadsheet to keep
track of your budget, schedule, and belongings? This experience demonstrates you understand how to
use tools. It also demonstrates that you know the importance of creating, monitoring, and managing
the project schedule to deliver results at project completion. 

Another related question the interviewer may ask could be, “How do you execute tasks within your
timeline?” This is a great opportunity to demonstrate your ability to be productive by sharing your
experience with tools, such as digital documents or spreadsheets. These tools help you create project
artifacts, track tasks, and store project details in one place! You can also use them as a collaboration
tool because they are easily shareable with teammates and stakeholders and allow for real-time
updates. 

Finally, there are special project management tools, also called work management tools, that put all
the benefits discussed above into one place. Project management tools such as Asana, Monday.com,
Basecamp, and Trello are among some of the top ranked tools for managing projects.  These tools help
you plan, track, and complete work across many project phases. They often have visually appealing
layouts and automated features that save time and create efficiency in a project manager’s day-to-day
tasks.  Explaining your knowledge of these tools—and how they benefit the project manager, team, and
company—in an interview is a great way to demonstrate that you are qualified for the role.

Pro tip: Learn more by trying free tutorials or trial versions of popular project management tools. By
navigating project management software, you will be able to explain the uses and functionality of these
types of tools firsthand. Here are some examples to get started:

 Asana and Asana Guide

 Basecamp
 Trello
 Jira
 ClickUp
 Monday.com
 Microsoft Project or Project Libre (open source)
 Smartsheet (Demo)

Build a project management tool tracker

As you progress through this course, you will learn about different types of tools used by
project managers and the organizations that hire them. Tools can include software
applications like Adobe, Google, and Microsoft and specific work management tools like
Jira and Asana. They can also include methodologies, techniques, formulas and concepts,
and technologies related to project management. 
This reading provides step-by-step instructions for creating a tracker for all of these types
of tools. You can use your tracker to list the different tools you learn about, their
descriptions and links, their features and benefits, and your level of experience with each.
This way, you can easily identify the tools required for different roles and can determine
where you might want to focus your professional development efforts.

Developing your tool tracker spreadsheet

Follow these steps to begin creating your project management tool tracker:

Step 1: Create a new spreadsheet

Start by opening a new spreadsheet using your preferred method. If you have a Google
account, click the link to open a Project Management Tool Tracker Template.

Some of the information has already been filled in for you as an example. Feel free to
modify your Tracker in the way that works best for you.

Step 2: Add column headers

Consider the different types of information you’d like to track about each tool, and add
these as column headers in your tracker. (The header is the top cell or cells in a column in
the spreadsheet.)

Here are some example column headers:

 Tool Name
 Description/Benefits
 Link to product website
 Link to course content in Coursera
 Cost to use
 Requirements (training/equipment)
 Your current experience with the tool 
 Notes
Step 3: Add tools and relevant information

Review some of the course videos, readings, and activities so far that discuss project
management tools. Select three or four tools and add the names to the tracker. Add any
information you have about each tool to the different columns. To help you get started,
the template has several tools listed that have already been mentioned in this course. Feel
free to edit the list to include the tools that are most relevant to your progress.

You might not be able to fill in all the columns with information just from this course, so
do your own research if necessary.

For example, we discuss the work management tool Asana in the video Common project
management tools, but we only cover some of the features and benefits. You can look up
the Asana website online and add more information about what features are offered,
along with pricing and system requirements.

Step 4: Format your sheet

After you’ve added a few tools and some initial information, format your sheet by bolding
column headers and adding drop-down lists, conditional formatting, or web links. Try out
other formatting options like bolding, highlighting, or colors to make important text stand
out. Google Sheets training and help contains articles with step-by-step directions for how
to use all of these features and more.

Step 5: Continue adding tools

Continue to add more tools and information that’s relevant to your career goals. Search
job listings and add tools, software, or specific knowledge needed for jobs you’re
interested in. 
Key takeaway

If you’ve followed the steps laid out in this reading, you'll be able to develop a tracker that
is useful to you as you continue on your project manager journey. Knowing what tools are
available, what their benefits are, which ones are used for certain types of projects, and
which ones you're skilled at will build your confidence. You'll be able to demonstrate to
employers that you have an understanding of the industry, even if you're applying for your
first project management role.

Reflection: Project tools

Total points 4

1.
Question 1

For this exercise, you will read a scenario and describe tools you should use for the project. Start by
reading the scenario:

As the project manager of a new project, you decide which scheduling, productivity, collaboration, and
work management tools the team will use. For the project, you will have eight team members and four
remote stakeholders. You expect the project to take around six months to complete. There are a dozen
deliverables and over 100 tasks. 

Have you read the scenario?

1 / 1 point

I have!
Correct

Great! Now, compare your answers to the feedback below.

2.
Question 2
List at least one scheduling tool to keep the project on track. In 1-2 sentences, describe how you can
use the tool.
1 / 1 point

scheduling tools, like Smartsheet or digital spreadsheets.

Correct

Did you consider any of these scheduling tools?

 Smartsheet to maintain the project’s schedule, resources, and budget

 Google Sheets to create task lists and project plans, and analyze data with charts
3.
Question 3

List at least two productivity and collaboration tools to achieve tasks and better communicate with the
team and stakeholders. In 1-2 sentences, describe how you can use each tool.
1 / 1 point

productivity tools like Google Docs and work management software like Asana. collaboration
tools like e-mail or digital documents created in Google Docs or Microsoft Word

Correct

Did you consider any of these productivity and collaboration tools?

 Cloud Storage such as Google Drive to store documents online

 Email such as Gmail or Outlook to send emails to vendors
 Chat tools such as Slack to better communicate with your team members and stakeholders
 Video conferencing tools such as Zoom or WebEx to host online meetings
 Comprehensive tools like Microsoft Teams or Google Workplace to streamline productivity and
collaboration
4.
Question 4

List at least one type of project management software—also called work management tools—to plan,
track, and complete work. In 1-2 sentences, describe how you can use the tool.
1 / 1 point

Project management tools such as Asana, Monday.com, Basecamp, and Trello are among some
of the top ranked tools for managing projects

Correct

Did you consider Asana, Trello, Monday.com, or Basecamp to help organize the work and visualize the
team’s tasks?

Remember that work management tools, such as Asana, often provide a lot of features. They may
include the scheduling and productivity tools you need to complete your project.

Amar: Tools are our best friends

Hi, I'm Amar. I'm a Senior Engineering Program Manager at Google Shopping, and on a
day-to-day basis, I drive programs which span across multiple products at Google. As a
Project Manager, tools are our best friends. Tools and the tools which will help us drive the
execution—those should be near and dear to us, and those are near and dear to me. What
I look at is what tools will help me create the body of work. There are a lot of open source
tools as free tools, like Google Spreadsheets are there, Google Docs is there. Many of these
tools are out there, and there are some other supporting tools also, like JIRA and ALM.
These will help you create the body of work. This will help you define that what needs to
be delivered and when. This will help you create the timeline. There are timeline tools, like
Gantt Chart, Gantt tools, that you will find out. Then there are tools which will help you
drive the visibility across the board and that drive the dependent ecosystem. We want to
make sure when we are starting the project, we look at the available toolset so that we are
not defragging the system that much, we are not really kind of adding too many
complexities on new tools in the ecosystems. We want make sure that, ok, what are the
current tools which are out there? Have a look at this toolset. Find out, are those
supported? Find out what's the current adoption rate, and look at what are the gaps. If
there are gaps, go for new tools. Propose new tools to improve productivity. But if there's
an existing toolset which our team is following, which your team is following, try to learn
those tools because those are the tools which will get quick adoption, and those will be an
amazing toolset to have with you.
1.
Question 1

Fill in the blank: If the project has a _____, then it may be worth it for the team to learn a more
sophisticated project management tool.
1 / 1 point

new project sponsor

short timeline

few deliverables

large scope
Correct

2.
Question 2

As a project manager, you need to update your project charter with a statement about the tangible
outcome of the project. In which section of the project charter does this information go?
1 / 1 point

Project deliverable

Project scope
Benefits

Business case
Correct

3.
Question 3

Fill in the blank: A project manager creates a project charter _____ a project proposal.
0 / 1 point

as an introduction to

before

after

at the same time as

Incorrect

Please review the video on project proposals and project charters.

4.
Question 4

Fill in the blank: Project managers need to ensure project information is _____ through formal
documentation, such as email, a presentation, or a digital document.
1 / 1 point

available only to stakeholders

easily accessible to everyone

available only to team members

easily accessible to the public

Correct

5.
Question 5

As a project manager, you introduce a new tool to the team on Monday and tell them to be ready to use
it by Wednesday. Your team members are resistant to using it. They also report that technical issues
with the software are keeping them from completing tasks. What three steps could you do next time to
ensure a smooth transition?
0.5 / 1 point

Set up training for the tool before the team uses it.
Correct

Test the tool thoroughly before rolling it out to the team.

Correct

Introduce the tool to the team earlier than on Monday.

Have the team take an online training course after introducing the tool.
This should not be selected

Please review the reading on introducing new tools to the team.

6.
Question 6

Work management tools primarily help a project manager complete what two tasks?
1 / 1 point

Assign roles to team members

Correct

Quickly communicate with team members

Build documents, such as meeting agendas

Track and visualize the team’s progress

Correct

7.
Question 7

The project sponsor requests a report on the current budget needs of a project. They would like to
review a detailed breakdown of costs. Which type of tool would be best to use to meet the project
sponsor’s request?
1 / 1 point

Visualization cards
Spreadsheets

Chat

Scheduling software
Correct

8.
Question 8

Collaboration tools such as email or chat allow teams to do what tasks? Select all that apply. 
1 / 1 point

Check in on project tasks

Correct

Visualize project task completion

Plan the budget

Work collectively and closely with other team members

Correct

9.
Question 9

Fill in the blank: _____ are items you need to help get the project done. They are considered project
resources.
1 / 1 point

Meetings

Materials

Reports

Status updates
Correct

10.
Question 10
When developing the project charter, who does the project manager typically work with?
1 / 1 point

teammates and stakeholders

the customer only

teammates only

stakeholders only
Correct

Course wrap-up
Nice work! Getting through all this material is a huge accomplishment. Take a moment to
consider how much you've learned so far about the ins and outs of successfully kicking off
a project. You dug deeper on initiation, the first phase of the project life cycle, and how
important it is to determine your project scope, including what's in-scope and what's not.
You also learned about project goals and deliverables, and you learned how to measure
project success by creating success criteria early on.
Play video starting at ::35 and follow transcript0:35
Then you learned to define project roles and responsibilities. Choosing the right people for
a project team is a big decision and one you'll always want to consider carefully. You now
know how to create a stakeholder analysis that tells you how and when to communicate
with different stakeholders, and you learned how to create and track team accountability
using a RACI chart.
Play video starting at :1: and follow transcript1:00
You also studied the final steps of the initiation phase: identifying resources, creating
documentation, and selecting tools. You learned about the resources that project
managers rely on to achieve the goals of a project, from budgets to people to the
materials needed to complete a deliverable. You also learned the value of documenting
your work using a project charter, which is a key step to getting approval to start your
project.
Play video starting at :1:31 and follow transcript1:31
Lastly, you learned about the many types of tools that can help you be a more efficient
project manager—from straightforward tools like email, to sophisticated tools like Asana.
Completing this course is no small feat, and you've put in hours of work. Give yourself a
pat on the back! You've earned it. In the next course, you'll jump right into the next phase
of the project life cycle, and my colleague, Rowena, will be your guide. Get ready to have
some fun as Rowena shows you the ropes of serious project planning!