Project Management Mini Lessons

By Margaret Meloni

What if you had access to years of project management experience?

What if you had the answers to some of the most commonly asked questions about how to really apply project management? You do!

Project Management Mini-Lessons is a set of TEN eBooks that give you down-to-earth clear and reasonable explanations on difficult topics such as earned value and the network diagram AND also provides you with real-life examples of how you can create accurate estimates. Using true stories and examples you will see the value of change control, how to work with your stakeholders, and the best way to give status to your executive team.

You can easily read each book within one hour, and that means you are one hour away from upping your project management game.

Since 2006 pmStudent Community Leader Margaret Meloni has been creating project managers who master both the art and since of project management. This TEN book set of quick tips is based on some of the most common questions she receives from her students and will help you boost your confidence and define your strategy.

Get your Project Management Mini-Lessons today and receive:

1) Quick Tips for Understanding Earned Value
So many people are so uncomfortable with earned value. There is no reason for you to be one of them. When someone explains it to you in the right way, it all becomes clear.

2) Quick Tips on How to Use your WBS for Teambuilding
You already know that creating a work breakdown structure is an important project management best practice. In this quick tip guide you will also learn how the WBS helps you with the people side of project management.

3) Quick Tips for Identifying your Project Resource Needs
You are supposed to know what resources you need to run your project. But how do you know what you need? Relax, these quick tips will help you sort things out.

4) Quick Tips for Setting the Stage for Productive Conflict
If everyone on your project agrees with each other all of the time, you must be working with robot zombies. If you work with human beings like the rest of, there will be conflict. And you will make the conflict beneficial to all.

5) Quick Tips on Using Change Control Successfully
Margaret Meloni learned early on that a lack of change control was NOT a good thing. Feel her pain as she tells her story, and know that you never have to have the same challenging experience.

6) Quick Tips on How to Report Status to Executives
Some people get nervous, some people just do not prepare, and others tell their executives exactly what they want to hear. These are not success strategies. . Use your time in front of your executives to impress them with your skills.

7) Quick Tips on the Project Management Processes
Understanding the thinking behind processes and bodies of knowledge make it so much easier to harness the power of best practices for your project success.

8) Quick Tips on How to Avoid Estimating Pitfalls
Ugh. Another estimate that was wrong. Followed by that uncomfortable feeling that it did not have to be this way. Creating accurate estimates is a critical skill. Don't fall prey to the same mistakes that so many others have made. Use these tips to navigate around estimating tricks and traps.

9) Quick Tips on Stakeholder Management
A tale of stakeholder intrigue. Ok, maybe it's not that dramatic. But this short story on successful stakeholder management proves that yes, different people, with different ideas can get along.

10) Quick Tips for Understanding the Network Diagram
What is going on behind the scenes in your scheduling software? What tiny elf create this report with this crazy end date? YOU did it. And when you learn about the network diagram you will understand how your schedule dates are calculated.

Plus a special bonus - Project Inspiration. A special book full of quotes and thoughts for you and your team to help y

• Language: English
• Publisher: Margaret Meloni
• Release date: Mar 11, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005696863

Margaret Meloni

I have been managing IT and non-IT projects in Computing, Financial Services, Telecommunications, and Aerospace for over a decade. I have also been a team member on projects in both technical (as a database developer) and non-technical capacities, and I have been a project sponsor. I have worked on projects with a Waterfall approach, Scrum Agile, and various mash-ups including some elements of Critical Chain project management.A major theme throughout my career is process improvement projects. My passion for processes has led me to lead many automation and organizational process initiatives. I initiated a sizeable chunk of these, as a sponsor or just a “concerned citizen” wanting to make things work better. That passion also makes me constantly evaluate my own project management processes and improve them on a continuous basis.I was a professional trainer for several years before managing projects, and I love to teach. While working for Gateway computers I earned several internal technical training certifications and awards as a trainer before making the career switch to management and project management. My academic background includes a Bachelor of Science in Project Management and I am PMP certified.I love to write and speak about project management. My blog at http://pmstudent.com/ has the goal of helping new and aspiring project managers learn about project management and reach their career goals. You can find my publications and interviews on dozens of sites and print publications. I am an avid volunteer for several project management organizations including the PMI New Media Council, past Vice Chair of Special Projects for the Students of Project Management Specific Interest Group (PMI). I speak from time to time at both large conferences and local events on various project management topics.I live in Sioux Falls, South Dakota in the United States with my wife and our three sons. Oh, and I am a science & technology geek too!

Book preview

Welcome to the Project Management Mini-Lessons series of eBooks by Margaret Meloni of pmStudent.

Within this volume, you have ten separate ebooks or mini-lessons, plus the bonus of the Project Inspiration book. All of this has been compiled to give you a strategic edge in your project management career. To use project management strategically, you must first understand the basics, and then consider how to leverage them. This series of books is designed to help you do just that. Gain an understanding and then review how you can take these best practices and make them work for you.

Margaret is passionate about creating BETTER project managers. Her background in IT Project Management and PMO Leadership; enables Margaret to understand that managing projects can be difficult. This is why her goal is to provide her community with knowledge and skills that can be used on the job RIGHT NOW! Her wish is to see her students take on tough projects and emerge as strong and sought-after project managers.

Margaret is a dynamic teacher, who uses her real-life lessons learned combined with inspiration, common sense, and a dash of humor to create students who successfully navigate the human side of the project world. Training project managers online is really her gift.

Margaret Meloni holds a B.S. in Business Administration and an M.B.A. from California State University, Long Beach. She is also a certified Project Management Professional (PMP).

Copyright © 2022 pmStudent.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical or electronic, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher, except for brief quotations in review articles.

The Publisher wants to stress that the information contained herein may not be in accordance with varying practices within specific organizations. The material represents the Author’s preferred practice and process based on the Author’s professional experience in various organizations and industries.

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Table of Contents

Introduction

Quick Tips for Understanding Earned Value

Quick Tips Use Your WBS for Team Building

Quick Tips for Identifying Project Resource Needs

Quick Tips for Set the Stage for Productive Conflict

Quick Tips on Using Change Control Successfully

Quick Tips on How to Report Status to Executives

Quick Tips for Understanding PM Processes

Quick Tips for Avoiding Estimating Pitfalls

Quick Tips on Stakeholder Management

Quick Tips for Understanding the Network Diagram

Project Inspiration: Quotes for the Human Side of Project Management

Why don’t you and I take some time and have a brief discussion about Earned Value Management? If you are preparing for the PMP Exam® it is important for you to understand Earned Value Management or EVM. This overview will help you master the key concepts. If you are a person who already uses EVM you should know that this overview is very simplistic. In fact, it is purposefully simplistic. The goal here is to recap the concepts of EVM. This is especially for you if you need to understand EVM and currently do NOT have in depth experience using EVM.

You might go your entire career and due to the nature of the company you work for or the industry in which you work, you might not use EVM. There is nothing wrong with you. You are not in trouble or doing anything wrong or bad as a project manager. EVM at this time is very popularly used with some consulting firms, in aerospace, with the United States Department of Defense, and in government contracts. In fact, it is usually written into the contract as a requirement. You might not work in those worlds. But you need it for the exam. And perhaps after understanding it better, you will decide to make use of it on your projects.

What is EVM? It is an integrated project management system. Another way I like to say it is that it marries or integrates scope, schedule, and budget and expresses project progress using scope, schedule, and budget together. Using primarily monetary values. We are going to work with an example and for the purposes of capturing the EVM concepts, it is a simple example.

Here is the scenario. I work for you on a project. The project is supposed to take 10 days. I earn $10 per day. This will buy me some 99-cent tacos and a soda. I am very happy with my $10 per day. Every day the plan is for me to complete 10% of the project work and if I do then the project will definitely end in 10 days, and it will cost you $100.

After two days on the project, what is a reasonable assumption for you to make?

It is likely that the assumption you have made is that at the end of day two, we are 20% complete with the project and you have paid me $20. That may or may not be true. You are smart and when I show up and ask for my $10 each day, you are going to ask me how much work I completed. That is the missing piece. If you just assume that because it has been two days and that $20 has been spent that the project is on track, you are at risk of being off. If I did not complete the required amount of work each day, then you are paying more for the work than you initially planned. If we live in a world where we report by the effort expended and dollars expended, the part of the conversation we are missing is– and what did you get for that effort and dollars expended?

The fact is that I worked for two days, that’s good. But did I produce what I was supposed to in those two days? Did you get what you planned on getting in those two days? That is why Earned Value Management is a popular approach and why the Project Management Institute really wants us to consider using Earned Value Management because it takes some of the guesswork away. It really does tie it all together.

As we continue with our scenario, we are going to look at some of the basic formulae and talk about what they mean. When you use the term Earned Value or EV, this is the percent of the original work that has been earned.

Day 1 – I come to your office, and you give me $10 (it is in my contract, you must pay me each day no matter what.) You ask me what I completed, and I tell you that I did complete the planned 10% of the project work. This means that 10% of the project was completed on the first day. So now your Earned Value or EV is 100% for that day so 100% times $10, you’re EV is equal to $10.

Day 2 – I come to you and put my hand out for my $10. You say, Here’s your $10. What did you do today? What did you accomplish? Now I look down at my feet and start mumbling. And you say, What? And I say, Well, I… I only finished half of the work today. If we are keeping a running total here is where we are: You have $10 of EV from day one. But on day two, I only finished 50% of the work. That is 0.5 or 50% of $10 that is $5. You have $10 from day one and $5 from day two, you have $15.

Before we go on, you can see that there might be some problems here. And the problems are expressed right now at this point in terms of Planned Value or PV. The Planned Value is what did you think was going to happen? It is your baseline. You take a baseline when you finish your schedule and your budget and your scope. You say, Here is what we are going to do. Your baseline is your approved cost, schedule and scope. Our plans for this project include a ten-day schedule, a $100 budget, completing 10% of the work each day and paying $10 each day for the work.

Day 1 – the Planned Value or PV is $10.

Day 2 – the PV is $20. The $10 from day 1 plus the $10 from day 2.

Are you starting to see why knowing the Earned Value and the Planned Value begin to show you that there might be a problem with this little quick and easy project of ours?

What about the amount we have actually spent on our project? These are called the Actual Costs or the AC. I’m showing up every day for my $10. At the end of the first day, you spent $10. At the end of the second day, you spent another $10 making your AC equal to $20. The purpose of collecting this data is to perform some calculations and determine variances. These variances help to create an accurate picture of how the project is really progressing.

CV = Cost Variance. This is the difference between your Earned Value or EV and your Actual Costs or AC. The formula is CV = EV – AC.

Day 1 – CV = $10 - $10 or 0. We have no cost variance, so from a perspective of project budget, everything is exactly as it should be.

Day 2 – CV = $15 - $20 or -5$. We have a cost variance, and this is telling us that right now you are spending more for your project than you planned and you are not getting the amount of work you planned to get for the amount you are spending. You earned $15 worth of value and you spent $20 to get it.

When you look at the variance numbers, a zero means you are exactly on plan. When you have a negative number, it means you are underperforming. At this point, it looks like you are going to go over budget. At this point, you are going to go over budget by at least $5.

Variances can also be expressed as an index, an expression of the relationship between two values. For cost this index is called Cost Performance Index or CPI. The formula is EV/AC. This is a tip and it could be a silly tip, so take it for what it’s worth. When I was studying for the PMP exam, the way I remembered the indices was that once I got the variance formula down, I realized I just used the same two figures and instead of having a minus sign, I just flipped the minus sign and made it into the divisor sign.

Day 1 – EV = $10

AC = $10

CV = $0

CPI = 1.0

We are exactly on target!

Day 2 – EV = $15

AC = $20

CV = -$5

CPI = .75

A negative variance means you are not performing as planned and in a negative way. You are underperforming. A CPI of less than one tells you the same thing. If something does