[Project Management] PMP Exam Preparation Book - Chapter 2 "Environment"

Section 1: Overview

1. The organizational environment in which the project is located

(1) Enterprise Environmental Factors (EEFs)

Business environment factors within the organization:

Every company has a vision, mission, and values, which determine the direction of the company's development. Do not forget the original intention and firmly follow your own path. This kind of business philosophy determines the basic principle of " what projects can be done and what projects should not be done " in the enterprise.

Enterprises should fully consider their own software and hardware conditions before undertaking projects. For example, the site and equipment will greatly affect the project's decision-making plan and various plans such as cost, progress, and communication; the software conditions of the enterprise's information platform, system, management process, and system will also profoundly affect the project planning. and implementation.

Factors in the business environment external to the organization:

When working on a project, the team must abide by the laws, regulations, industry standards, and norms of its own country and the location of the project. These require the team to study and research carefully, because compliance with laws and regulations is the bottom line of project management.

In addition, the team needs to fully study market, economic and natural environment factors. Even if the project has already started, it must continue to analyze changes in the market situation, development situation and international situation. If it is an engineering project that is sensitive to natural environmental factors, the team must also pay attention to the impact of hydrology, geology, meteorology, disasters, etc. on the project.

(2) Organizational Process Assets (OPAs)

Processes, Policies and Procedures

Processes, policies, and procedures are used to standardize and guide project management, for example, what steps are required for project approval, what conditions must be met for project acceptance, and what procedures should be followed for requirements changes.

Processes, policies and procedures also include project planning boards, operation manuals, project management guidelines, etc., collated and compiled by the project management office (PMO).

Organization and Repository

Enterprises with mature management attach great importance to knowledge management. All completed projects have complete, standardized, and safe files, including project plans, project experiences, and lessons learned, so that future project teams can refer to them.

The industry data collected and purchased by the enterprise, as well as your ideas and materials are also very important resources in the project.

Only through standardized and rigorous management can the above knowledge be properly preserved, maintained, retrieved and shared, and their value can be brought into full play.

The difference between enterprise environmental factors and organizational process assets

	Enterprise Environmental Factors (EEFs)	Organizational Process Assets (OPAs)
from	Government, industry associations, company management	Historical project team and PMO
for	obey	reference
Way	Passive acceptance, do as the Romans do	Active participation, update and maintenance

The following are business environment factors (B).

A. Register of lessons learned from the previous project

B. Project Management Information System (PMIS)

C. The latest industry data purchased by the enterprise

D. Overall Change Control Procedures

Answer: B. The project management information system (PMIS) provided by the enterprise has the same nature as other enterprise information platforms (such as CRM, ERP, OA, etc.), and requires all project teams to use it in a standardized manner. It belongs to the organization's internal process system that the project team must abide by. However, data from past projects, template logs, reports, etc. retained in the PMIS are organizational process assets. Options A, C, and D are all organizational process assets. Option D is the overall change control procedure. The change procedure of each project is formulated separately for this project based on the opinions of the sponsor and all participants. It is the consensus of all project participants, and different projects may not be universal.

2. Organizational structure type

It should be noted that the matrices (weak matrix, balanced matrix, and strong matrix) in the figure below are not in the same category as the " compact matrix " that appears in the PMP exam questions. A compact matrix is ​​not a matrix organization but refers to the centralized office (War Room) of team members, which is conducive to team building and improves the efficiency of team communication and collaboration.

functional organization

As shown in the figure below, in a functional organization, resources are controlled by functional experience, and project collaboration must be communicated at least at the level of functional managers.

Functional organizations are usually suitable for projects with small scale and short duration, or organizations with technology and operations as the main body, such as factories and hospitals.

matrix organization

As shown in the figure below, a matrix organization has different functional departments (vertical) and different project teams (horizontal).

The matrix organization is widely used. It can not only give full play to the advantages of functional division, but also meet the requirements of project management.

project organization

As shown in the figure below, in a project-based organization, an independent project company or company executives directly manage multiple project managers, and the project manager manages the project team.

Project-based organizations are suitable for long-term, large-scale and complex projects, such as aerospace engineering, large-scale infrastructure construction projects, and comprehensive real estate development projects.

Comparison of the advantages and disadvantages of functional, matrix, and project types

type	advantage	shortcoming
Functional	Give full play to the advantages of centralized resources in functional departments, and have greater flexibility in the use of personnel. It is easy to communicate with department personnel, but the flow of experience and project personnel does not affect the continuity of technology. Provide a normal promotion path for personnel in this department.	Projects often cannot become the focus of the work of functional departments. Different projects are prone to conflicts in the priority of resource use. Project owners are not clear, and it is easy to lead to no-one responsibility. Slow response to customers and difficult deployment of personnel to projects are not highly motivated. Cross-departmental difficult to communicate
Matrix	Make full use of organizational resources and avoid repeated settings, which is conducive to concentrating the technology and management advantages of each department. Respond quickly and flexibly to customers and within the company organization. The project team can maintain consistency with company policies.	Violation of the principle of unity of command Project managers and functional managers have conflicting work priorities
project type	The project owner has a clear and single order, fast decision-making, easy communication and coordination, can give full play to the advantages of the team, and respond quickly to customers. The organizational structure is simple, flexible, and easy to operate.	Monopoly of resources may lead to wasteful establishment of organizations, which is not conducive to shared team members. Lack of sense of security and sense of belonging . There is little horizontal connection between teams, and difficulty leads to inconsistent implementation of company rules and regulations by different project teams.

Characteristics of project managers in different organizations

3. Governance model and management process

Governance and Management

Let's take a look at the link between governance and management in business.

Governance can be understood as "setting rules" to achieve a reasonable distribution and checks and balances of responsibilities, rights, and benefits. For example, who reports to whom in the company and who is responsible to whom. Management is all actions taken to achieve business objectives within the framework of governance.

Governance and management are both for the healthy development of the organization, and they are complementary to each other: Governance points out the direction, plans the route, and draws a clear boundary for management; interaction, so that the board of directors can dynamically adjust and optimize the governance structure.

The difference between governance and management in an enterprise is as follows:

	Governance	Management
position	macro, stable	Specific and flexible
Purpose	Design organization formulation, formulate rules, define decision-making mechanisms	Improve organizational efficiency and achieve business goals
main body	Board of Directors	Management

Organizational Governance vs. Project Governance

We also need to understand the difference and connection between organizational governance and project governance. Organizational governance is the high-level framework for direction, support, supervision and control for the entire organization. Project governance is the high-level framework for direction, support, supervision and control that an organization establishes for a project. Project governance is carried out by the Project Steering Committee. As the highest decision-making body of the project, the project steering committee is composed of high-level representatives of the main stakeholders of the project, which is equivalent to the company's board of directors.

Project governance and project management

Project governance is the bridge between organizational governance and project management. Project managers and project management teams must carry out project management work under the framework of project governance. Project governance is to separate the "political" issues of the project (such as conflicts of interest among stakeholders) that the project manager is unable or inconvenient to handle, and hand them over to the project steering committee so that the project manager can focus on the management of the project itself.

The level of project governance is higher than that of project management, and it is a high-level project decision-making mechanism. The role of project governance includes but is not limited to the following:

• Provide project direction guidance
• Provide high-level and external support
• Supervise project management work
• Make decisions on major issues such as project ownership change and project termination

For example, the mechanism of project portfolio management and program management in an enterprise, the qualifications and promotion rules of project managers, the authority and responsibility definition of PMO, the project establishment standards and review process all belong to project governance, while project planning and control, and progress The realization of goals such as cost, quality, etc. belongs to the category of project management.

company culture

Corporate culture includes three levels, from low to high as follows.

• Material layer: corporate image, logo, working environment, etc.
• Institutional layer: the process, system, and interpersonal relationship of the enterprise.
• Concept layer: the tradition, pursuit and values ​​of the enterprise.

Corporate Culture The soul of an enterprise, a good corporate culture can inspire employees' sense of mission, condense their sense of belonging, strengthen their sense of responsibility, endow them with a sense of honor, and realize their sense of accomplishment. The corporate culture is passed on from generation to generation, which makes the company have a distinctive personality and characteristics, embodies the company's business philosophy, and constitutes the company's brand reputation and unique competitiveness.

strategy

The project is the carrier of strategy implementation, and this positioning determines that the project must serve the organization's development strategy. The relationship between projects and strategies can be understood from the following four aspects.

Investment decision

Organizational development strategy determines the direction of organizational development, which also determines which projects must be done, which projects can be done, and which projects cannot be done. Energy needs to be focused and resources need to be concentrated. Only by deeply cultivating a certain field can we accumulate capabilities and gain a competitive advantage. In the face of numerous project opportunities, we must withstand the temptation and make choices resolutely and decisively according to the organization's development strategy.

Allocating resources

Because different projects have different meanings to the enterprise's development strategy, even if the organization chooses to invest in this project, it must objectively analyze the priority of the project, so as to allocate resources scientifically and achieve the goal of maximizing investment benefits.

strategic alignment

In the project life cycle, due to the impact of various external environments and internal collaboration, the project plan needs to be constantly adjusted and changed. No matter how the plan changes, the alignment of the project with the organizational development strategy must always be ensured.

strategic value

Organizations should continuously evaluate the value and contribution of projects to the organization's development strategy, which is not only reflected in market share and financial indicators, but also in personnel training, efficiency improvement, technological breakthroughs, model innovation, environmental contribution to quality improvement, and brand value.

Software and hardware conditions in the enterprise

The workplace, equipment, tools, etc. owned by the enterprise belong to the hardware conditions, while the information system, knowledge, experience, methods, crafts, etc. belong to the software conditions, which will directly or indirectly affect the planning, implementation and even the success of the project.

For example, we are under the control of others because we do not have a lithography machine for manufacturing high-end chips, and many product development projects that rely on high-end chips have been forced to stagnate or run aground: and China Communications Construction Group owns the largest heavy-duty self-propelled cutter suction ship in Asia "Tianji" ", showed its talents in dredging projects, and was invincible in the international market.

4. The business environment in which the project is located

The business environment in which the project is located includes many aspects such as profession, industry, economy, society and nature.

• Professional: It often refers to the advantages that the team can rely on. For example, your team focuses on big data algorithms, AR, VR or artificial intelligence, etc., and builds its core competitiveness relying on rich experience or unique technology.
• Industry: Professional application fields with multiple projects, for example, applying artificial intelligence to the financial, pharmaceutical or automotive industries.
• Economy: Including domestic economy, trade, finance, supply chain and competitive relations.
• Nature: including traffic conditions, climate, sanitation, etc.

Section II: Principles

1. Recognize and respond to system interactions

Projects are always in a complex, dynamic, and organic system composed of multiple factors, and it is difficult to isolate the influence of industry factors on projects. Various factors interact and influence each other.

• The project team should have systematic thinking, which includes the following three key words.
• Collaboration: Promote multi-professional, multi-department, and multi-organizational multi-collaboration systems.
• Balance: Clarify the logic between elements and balance the relationship between themes.
• Efficiency: Treat the system as a living body, continuously optimize and evolve, and improve the efficiency of the system.

Mastering these three key words will help the project team to make correct judgments continuously, reduce contingencies, turn goals into operable methods and steps, and discover and correct deviations and mistakes in time.

Common methods of having systems thinking are modeling and deduction. For example, in a football match, before the game, the coach will use the tactical board to explain to the players the formation and tactics of the enemy and us in the game, and deduce various possible situations, such as how to stabilize the defense if the opponent adopts a high position press, and how to find the solution Chance. For another example, during the Gulf War, the United Nations Army built a war model, deduced a variety of combat plans, and simulated various possible situations.

2. Harnessing complexity

The complexity of the project must be accepted, and the reasons for the complexity include the following three aspects.

• System behavior : The project requires a large number of elements such as professions, personnel, equipment, and information, and they depend on and influence each other.
• Human behavior : the interaction of people from different organizations, different departments, and different professional backgrounds together.
• Uncertainty : Uncharted territory exists in project development trends and changes in various elements, which are poorly understood and cannot be predicted.

The interaction of these three factors leads to an exponential increase in the complexity of the project.

How to Navigate Complexity

You can start from the three aspects of "embracing change", "management knowledge" and "continuous learning"**, continuously improve the ability to manage the complexity of projects in terms of attitude, cognition and behavior habits, and gradually form your own management thinking and management model.

For example, agile development starts with small-scale and small-scale local practices, and continues to develop and mature, forming a relatively complete and systematic agile corporate culture for different needs and scenarios, as shown in the figure.

Manage project knowledge

Managing project knowledge refers to the process of using existing knowledge and generating new knowledge to achieve project goals and help organizations learn.

As shown in the figure below, knowledge is divided into explicit knowledge and tacit knowledge. Knowledge that can be edited and expressed easily belongs to explicit knowledge, for example, knowledge that can be displayed in words, pictures, numbers, and tables that is easy to share and disseminate. Knowledge that cannot be edited or represented is tacit knowledge, such as people's experience, intuition, and knack for insight.

PSCA cycle of knowledge management

As shown in the figure, the meaning of the PSCA cycle is to divide knowledge management into four processes, namely knowledge generation (Produce), knowledge accumulation (Stockpile), knowledge exchange (Communication), and knowledge application (Application).

Knowledge generation ( Produce )

Knowledge generation refers to the acquisition and creation of knowledge. Acquiring knowledge refers to depositing existing knowledge to form explicit knowledge; while creating knowledge refers to summarizing and creating knowledge in carrying out specific business and work.

Knowledge Accumulation (Stockpile)

Fragmented data and information cannot be called knowledge, only when they are organized can it be called knowledge.

For example, when reading a book, if you just skim through it, without sorting out, refining and thinking about the author's thoughts by taking notes, drawing mind maps, etc., and combining the author's thoughts with our existing knowledge Matching and merging, reorganizing, and expressing again, the content in the book will soon be forgotten by us, and the knowledge in the book cannot be transformed into our own knowledge without accumulation.

Organizations accumulate different forms of knowledge in different ways as follows.

• Accumulation of explicit knowledge: create a "knowledge base", and continue to maintain and operate it.
• Accumulation of tacit knowledge: On the one hand, through sharing, demonstration, observation, masters and apprentices, so that these tacit knowledge will not be lost; on the other hand, it is also necessary to reduce the loss of talents with tacit knowledge.

Knowledge Exchange ( Communication )

Knowledge exchange refers to the transfer and sharing of knowledge through direct or indirect means to meet the needs of different subjects for various types of knowledge.

Every knowledge worker should exchange and discuss knowledge with an open mind, so that the truth becomes clearer and clearer.

Knowledge application (Application)

Knowledge is not yours if you do not use it!

For example, we have learned English for many years, learned a lot of grammar, and memorized countless words, but we are still not satisfied with our own English level. know to get an upgrade.

3. Embrace adaptability and resilience

embrace adaptability

In the VUCA era, the environment is changeable and the requirements are unknown. Only by embracing adaptability and building the resilience of the project can you be as light as a swallow, move around quickly, manage the project under a complex and changeable background, and achieve success.

Agile was born under such a background. Agile is not only a project development method, but also an idea to improve project adaptability. Common frameworks for agile development include Scrum, Extreme Programming (XP), Kanban (Kanban), Lean, etc. Among them, more than 50% of the teams in the world use the Scrum framework.

The word Scrum comes from the game of rugby, which is a scrimmage ritual, describing the need for teams to face the same direction and fight side by side. The Sprint in the framework, we translate it into a sprint, which is used to describe that the selection cycle is very short, and a better ability to adapt and respond to changes can be obtained in the sprint.

Agile emphasizes decentralization and avoids talking about it. It is necessary to stimulate the potential and wisdom of everyone in the team, promote the spirit of democracy, and vote by show of hands when team members encounter different opinions.

In the traditional project scenario, we emphasize that under the premise that the scope and progress are basically unchanged, the cost is optimal, and the defect of the project is a waste of cost.

In an agile scenario, activities that do not create value for users are waste. Eric Ries (Eric Ries) mentioned in his book "The Lean Startup" (The Lean Startup) that if an innovative product is to be made, who the customer is and the customer's needs are unknown and rapidly changing , then in such an uncertain environment, arguing over product features, work priorities, and technical routes is a real waste.

Why not shorten the entire feedback cycle and hear the voice of users earlier? The core idea of ​​lean entrepreneurship is that when you have a product concept, you should not rush to invest a lot of resources to develop the product, but to develop a minimum viable product first. (Minimum Viable Product, MVP), bring the MVP to early customers to verify the value of the concept, and then adjust the product concept based on early customer feedback. MVP is not necessarily a real product, but a test product that completes a "build-measure-know" feedback loop with the least effort and the fastest speed. During the process of validating a product concept, teams go through multiple validation cycles.

For example, in recent years, payment for knowledge has become very popular. Platforms such as Get, Chaos University, and Fandeng Reading Club have continuously set new heights for payment for knowledge. An online course has hundreds of thousands of paying users, and tens of millions of yuan in single product revenue People are not uncommon. This makes many people's eyes jump, and they also want to fight back on the track of paying for knowledge. So, should you plan a 100-session course first, and then form a team to record, edit, package, develop the app, and then put it into advertising? How much will it cost and how much time will you invest? Even if you make it, someone will Are you willing to pay to listen to your lectures? These are unknown! How many startups have run out of funds like this, and died before the product was made.

So what should you do? You can first prepare a 10-minute course content, which does not need to be carefully crafted as long as it can reflect the characteristics of your course, and then call interested people into the WeChat group in the circle of friends and make an appointment You can speak in the group. Next, you have to be mentally prepared to face the stormy complaints! According to everyone’s feedback, you have to constantly revise your product positioning, keep trying and making mistakes, find and leave the right content, until many people are willing to pay to listen to you class. How much does it cost and how risky is it? Starting a business isn’t out of reach, is it?

The principle of MVP is to use the least resources and the shortest time to experiment, obtain feedback from early users, and verify the value of the product.

Commonly used MVP methods are as follows:

Video : Before the product is developed, the company can create a video introducing the product. The well-known Dropbox, through a video introducing the core functions of the product, increased its registered users from 5,000 to 75,000 overnight. In fact, before Dropbox started making this product, it has already commented that these functions are liked by users.

Simulation : Before the product is developed, the enterprise simulates the function of the product manually. For example, Nick, the founder of Zappos, the largest online shoe store in the United States, wanted to know whether people had a need to buy shoes online. He did not develop an e-commerce platform, but went to various shopping malls to take pictures of shoes and put them on online. If someone orders, he will go to the store to buy it and send it to the user. He has no inventory pressure and no development costs. In his opinion, the establishment of business logic is far more important than the system launch!

Crowdfunding : Enterprises initiate crowdfunding before developing products, and judge people's attitudes towards products based on crowdfunding. my country's famous air purifier brand "Three Dads" initiated crowdfunding on JD.com, not only quickly raised enough development funds, but also found early users of the product.

Prototype : Developing a product is not to hand over unverified requirements to the team, but to demonstrate the product prototype (Prototype) to the user first. These prototypes may be hand-painted, clay-made, or paper-pasted. Although it is fake, it is very intuitive and vivid, and it is far more valuable than a lot of ambiguous descriptions.

Pre-sale : Launch the pre-sale page before product development. If the pre-sale quantity reaches the agreed standard, the company can start product development; It is not only easy for companies to verify whether the product is really popular, but also at no cost.

Interview : The consultant can obtain important subjective issues of the client organization through contact and conversation with various personnel in the client organization, and the interviewed people also feel that they are making contributions to the project. The interview process is a time-consuming process that requires ingenious and thoughtful construction, and full preparations must be made before the interview, including material preparation and ideological preparation.

embrace resilience

When projects are at risk or disrupted, the entire project team can maintain:

• ability to maintain state
• ability to recover quickly
• Better ability to cope with future uncertainty

The popular explanation of these three abilities is that the project is solid and durable, and it has been tossed!

4. Crop according to the environment

When doing projects, we must fully consider the impact of the environment on the project, which is the so-called assessing the situation and adapting measures to local conditions. The first step is to set project goals according to the environment. Environmental factors that need to be considered include:

• Organizational Governance Model
• Process system that must be followed
• Alternative project development methods
• Templates and materials that can be referenced
• project life cycle

In addition to considering environmental factors, when setting goals you also need to consider:

• Adapt to the unique goals of the environment
• Stakeholders and related complexities
• A combination of unity and individuality
• Team members participate in cutting decisions
• Cropping is continuous and iterative
• Continuously assess goal effectiveness

Set goals according to the environment and strive to achieve:

• value maximization
• use resources more efficiently
• Improve innovation, efficiency and productivity
• Effectively integrate multiple disciplines
• Lessons shared
• Improve organizational methodology

5. Optimize risk response

Risk comes from uncertainty, including negative threats and positive opportunities. Risk has two attributes: probability and impact. Risk management is the process of identifying, analyzing and responding to risks to increase the probability and impact of positive opportunities and reduce the probability and impact of negative threats.

Risk Exposure

Risk exposure is an unprotected risk, also known as "risk exposure", which refers to the part that may lead to losses if no preventive measures are taken against the risk.

For example, even if the project is delivered according to the customer's requirements, there may still be 10% of the final payment of the project that cannot be recovered due to various reasons, so for this project, there is a 10% risk exposure.

The risk exposure of known risks is from zero to the maximum loss caused by the risk, and the risk exposure of unknown risks is from zero to infinity.

Individual project risk vs overall project risk

Dr. David Hillson, a risk management expert, believes that only focusing on individual project risks ignores overall project risks, only pays attention to project local risks while ignoring project overall risks, and only focuses on project short-term risks while ignoring project long-term risks ;Only focusing on project tactical risks while ignoring project strategic risks are manifestations of risk myopia.

For example, for an Internet finance P2P project, code bugs, system security vulnerabilities, server downtime, and the resignation of the backbone of the project team are all individual project risks, while the national policy to restrict P2P business is the overall project risk.

non-event risk

Non-event risks include variability risk and ambiguity risk.

variability risk

If there is an abnormal change in the key conditions or constraints on which the project depends, it will lead to variability risks, such as what we often call "black swan events" and "grassroots counterattacks" and other unreasonable situations.

We can use simulation techniques, such as Monte Carlo techniques, to conduct quantitative risk analysis to assess the probability and impact of variability risks.

ambiguity risk

Ambiguity risk means that people are not sure what might happen in the future. Insufficient knowledge may affect the team's ability to achieve project goals, for example, the inability to predict the direction and speed of technological development, future changes in policies and regulations, rapidly changing user needs, etc. Teams can adopt iterative development, incremental development and adaptive (agile) development models to improve their adaptability to such risks.

Stakeholder attitudes towards risk

The attitudes toward risk exhibited by stakeholders are usually related to risk appetite and risk tolerance. Risk appetite refers to the degree to which stakeholders are willing to bear uncertainty for the expected return, which is a subjective willingness, and risk tolerance refers to the degree or amount of risk that stakeholders can bear, which belongs to objective ability.

We usually use the risk threshold to express the stakeholder's attitude towards the risk: if the risk is lower than the threshold, the stakeholder will accept the risk, and if the risk is higher than the threshold, the stakeholder will reject the risk.

Integrated Risk Management

Integrated risk management refers to multi-level overall risk management in projects, program sets, project portfolios and project organizations. Some risk management should be delegated to project managers, and some risks are beyond the scope of project management or affect multiple projects and should be escalated to the appropriate senior management. Enterprises should implement risk management at all levels of project management to form an organic and dynamic risk management system.

Actively manage risk

When faced with risks, it is often useless to be in a hurry, and it is too late to regret. Only when the team identifies risks in advance, evaluates the probability and impact of risks, and divides work reasonably, assigns responsibilities to individuals, and plans risk response strategies and methods in advance, can the team remain calm and calm in times of crisis. This awareness and habit of actively managing risks will help the team better adapt to the environment and complete the project.

As teams proactively manage risk, they recommend the following:

• Early initiation and ongoing risk identification
• Assess stakeholder risk thresholds and determine management strategies
• Perform qualitative risk analysis to determine priorities
• Carry out quantitative risk analysis, set up stop loss mechanism and reserves
• Study the trigger mechanism and set up an early warning mechanism
• Balance threats and opportunities and actively configure risk portfolios
• Plan risk response methods and control risks
• Track risks and dynamically adjust response plans
• Assess the effectiveness of response measures and prevent secondary risks

identify risks

Identifying risks is the process of determining which risks may affect the project and documenting their characteristics. The main purpose of this process is to document existing risks and build knowledge and skills for the project team to predict future events. Tools and techniques for identifying risks are listed below.

Brainstorming

The group members involved in risk identification conduct discussions and discussions in the form of meetings in a normal, harmonious and unrestricted atmosphere. At the meeting, group members can break the routine, think positively, speak freely, and fully express their views. Group members inspire each other and don't judge lightly, even encouraging seemingly silly ideas in order to get as many ideas as possible.

Delphi Method

The Delphi method is also known as the expert prescribed procedure investigation method. In this method, investigators draw up questionnaires and consult the members of the expert group by letters according to the established procedures, and the members of the expert group submit their opinions anonymously (by letter). After several repeated consultations and feedbacks, the opinions of the members of the expert group gradually tended to be concentrated, and finally a collective judgment result with a high accuracy rate was obtained.

The characteristic of the Delphi method is that the experts never meet each other and do not know who the other experts are, thus avoiding misleading the judgment of other experts due to the prejudice of individual experts to the greatest extent.

Root Cause Analysis ( Root Cause Analysis )

Root cause analysis is a structured approach to problem solving that is used to gradually identify the root cause of a problem and fix it, rather than just focusing on the symptoms of the problem. Root cause analysis is a systematic problem-handling process that includes identifying and analyzing the cause of a problem, identifying solutions to the problem, and developing preventive measures for the problem.

Check List Analysis

In order to find out the risks in personnel, equipment facilities, materials, workpieces, operations, management and organizational measures in the project, the inspection objects are decomposed in advance, and the large system is divided into several small subsystems, and the inspection is performed in the form of questions or scores. Items in the item list are checked one by one to avoid omissions. This form is called a checklist, also known as a checklist. The method of using checklists to carry out project risk inventory is called checklist analysis.

what-if analysis

Every project and its plans are constructed based on a set of assumptions. Hypothesis analysis is to test the validity of assumptions in the project! and identify project risks caused by inaccurate, unstable, inconsistent or incomplete assumptions. The steps of assumption analysis are as follows.

• come up with a hypothesis that might have the outcome we fear
• test the hypothesis, confirm or rule it out
• If ruled out, propose a second hypothesis; if confirmed, propose a more specific hypothesis for the next level
• Through verification, gradually narrow the scope until the real cause of the problem may be found

The figure shows the hypothetical analysis process of the problem of "live online class freeze". There are a total of assumptions in the analysis of this problem: setting 1, the problem on the teacher’s side, most students feedback that the video is smooth, so this item is excluded: setting 2, the problem on the student’s side, other videos seen by the same student are smooth, so this Items excluded; sale three, server-side issues. Among these three assumptions, the first two assumptions have been ruled out, so the problem can only come from the third assumption.

The third hypothesis contains three sub-assumptions: sub-assumption 1, server software problem, the software has been tested too much, so this item is excluded; sub-assumption 2, server hardware problem, the hardware is already top-of-the-line, so it is excluded; sub-assumption 3 , bandwidth load problem, and the load imbalance in some regions, this should be the culprit of the live network class card problem.

fishbone diagram

A fishbone diagram, also known as a "cause and effect diagram," is a method for discovering the "root cause" of a problem. It looks a bit like a fishbone, and its characteristics are simple, practical, deep and intuitive. Risks, problems or flaws (i.e. consequences) of a project are marked with a "fish head". On the fishbone, list the possible causes of the problem in order of occurrence to help illustrate how the causes interact with each other.

System or process flow diagram ( System Flowchart )

The flowchart is a traditional tool for depicting a physical model of a system. Its basic idea is to use graphic symbols to describe each component in the system (such as programs, files, databases, tables, manual processes, etc.) in the form of black boxes. It expresses the flow of information between various components, as shown in the figure.

expert judgment

Experts with experience in similar projects or business areas can identify risks directly. When relying on expert judgment, we need to pay attention to the bias of experts, and at the same time, pay attention to the intuition of experts.

Assumptions and Constraints Analysis

Every project and its project management plan are conceived and developed based on a set of assumptions (uncertain) and limited by a set of constraints (certain). These assumptions and constraints are often incorporated into scope benchmarks and project estimates. By conducting an analysis of assumptions and constraints, it is possible to judge the validity of assumptions and constraints and determine which of them will cause project risks, so that threats can be identified from inaccurate, unstable, inconsistent or incomplete assumptions, and through Create opportunities by removing constraints that affect project or process execution. For example, if the constraints are appropriately relaxed, if 2 more people are added to the 6 people, the risk of not completing the project will be reduced; ), then the risk of the project will be exposed.

SWOT Analysis

SWOT analysis, also known as situational analysis, was proposed by Heinz Weihrich, a management professor at San Francisco University in the early 1980s.

SW (analysis method is a method that can analyze and study the reality of a project more objectively and accurately. Among them, it stands for Strengths, w stands for Weaknesses, and they belong to internal factors: O stands for Opportunities, T Represents threats (Threats), which are external factors.

Individual project risk vs overall project risk

A reminder list is a pre-set list of risk categories that may give rise to individual project risks and can be a source of overall project risk. A prompt checklist can be used to assist the project team in developing ideas when adopting risk identification techniques. We can use the risk categories at the bottom of the Risk Breakdown Structure (RBS) as a reminder list to identify individual project risks as shown in the figure below.

strategic framework

Certain common strategic frameworks are more appropriate for identifying sources of overall project risk, such as "PESTLE" (Political Economic, Social, Technical, Legal, Environmental), "TECOP" (Technical, Environmental, Commercial, Operational, Political) or "VUCA "(Variability, Uncertainty, Complexity, Ambiguity).

Hierarchical chart (bubble chart)

As shown in the figure, in the bubble chart, we draw each risk as a bubble, and use the value of the X-axis, the value of the Y-axis and the size of the bubble to represent the three parameters of the risk. Among them, the x-axis represents monitorability, the y-axis represents proximity, and the influence value is represented by the size of the bubble.

We can also choose indicators such as urgency, latency, manageability, controllability, connectivity, influence and closeness.

Section 3: Tasks

1. Planning and managing project compliance

There are four steps to planning and managing a project's compliance climate.

• Confirm compliance requirements : including safety and health, environmental protection, quality standards, industry regulation, etc.
• Analyze the consequences of non-compliance : distinguish compliance categories and determine potential threats.
• Determine necessary methods and actions : Develop safeguards and regulations in advance.
• Measuring the degree of compliance : continuous review and continuous improvement through audits and reviews.

Project Management Plan and Project Documents

The answer is definitely no, the project management plan and the project plan should not be confused. The "project plan" in the broad sense includes the project management plan and project documents, and is a general term: the " project plan " in the narrow sense refers specifically to the " implementation plan " on the project documents .

As shown in the table, there is a "schedule management plan" in the project management plan, and a "project schedule" in the project file. It is not difficult to find that there is a similar correspondence between cost and quality.

It should be noted that in the PMP exam questions, the use of the two names "project management plan" and "project plan" is sometimes not rigorous enough. You need to carefully analyze the meaning of the question and judge according to the context what the question refers to. plan” or “project plan”.

project management plan

• Rule procedure

In the project management plan, the project cost management plan does not refer to the project budget, and there is no information such as "how much the project needs to spend", but specifies the accuracy of the budget preparation unit (such as US dollars, euros, RMB) (such as , accurate to 10,000 yuan or yuan), the method and basis for preparing the budget (for example, which accounting standards to refer to, which relevant company regulations to implement, and which national and industry norms to follow).

Likewise, there is no project duration in the schedule management plan. The schedule management plan defines the progress unit (day, week), schedule planning method (critical path method, critical chain method), and schedule planning tools (bar diagram, network diagram).

It can be seen that "xx management plan" is a rule program, which defines the planning unit, rules, processes, methods and tools, etc., and does not contain specific information and data of the project.

• project benchmark

How to evaluate the project performance is good or bad? For example, how to define schedule delay? How to define cost overrun? This measurement standard is the project benchmark. The project manager leads the team to evaluate the duration, cost and work content of the project, and confirms it after review and communication between the project sponsor and the senior management of the organization, thus forming the scope benchmark, progress benchmark and cost benchmark. They are the three benchmarks by which project management performance is measured.

Can the benchmark be revised after it is established?

The answer, of course, is yes! But base changes are much more serious than file updates. When we plan, we usually leave room for what we call reserves. For example, if we estimate the cost to be 450,000 yuan and set the budget at 500,000 yuan, the extra 50,000 yuan is the cost reserve. We estimate that the project can be completed in 80 days, but the reported construction period is 90 days, and the extra 10 days are the progress reserve. Therefore, when we encounter some demand changes or risks, these reserves can help us resist for a while and act as a buffer, so that we will not have to change the benchmark at the first sign of trouble.

If the changes affect the baseline, then the baseline has to be revised. For example, the new demand that the customer wants to increase is too "big". If this demand is to be met, the remaining time is not enough and it will take 30 more days. In this case, a new progress baseline is required. Any updates to the baseline must be approved by the project's Change Control Board (CCB). And if the change does not affect the baseline, the project manager can make a decision without going through the CCB. What these changes need to update is the implementation plan in the project file, as shown in the figure.

Why is there no "quality benchmark" in the project benchmark? Isn't quality important?

Of course not, quality is not unimportant, but too important! Quality standards have risen from the project level to enterprise standards, industry standards and even national standards. Not just a certain project, but the quality of all projects in this industry must be controlled and accepted according to uniform standards.

project files

Where is the specific information and data of the project? in the project file. Project documents are divided into implementation plan and information documents. In the implementation plan, the schedule is used to describe the duration of the project, and the cost estimate is used to describe the cost of the project. Data files include various logs and record files such as problem logs, change logs, and communication records.

The role of the project management plan and the project document are different. The project management plan defines the rules and procedures, which cannot be changed overnight; while the project document is a specific implementation plan and data file, which contains a large amount of project details and data. Because the uncertainty of the project determines that the requirements, scope, schedule, cost, etc. will continue to change, these documents need to be updated and maintained frequently.

As shown in the table below, the project management plan and project documents not only have different revision frequencies, but also have different revision processes. The baseline update in the project management plan must go through the overall change control procedure and must be approved by the CCB; while the update of the implementation plan in the project document also needs to go through the overall change control procedure, but only needs the approval of the project manager. For data files in project files (such as problem logs, communication records), project team members record them at any time without going through change control procedures.

Milestone Plan and Milestone Checklist

Milestones are significant points or events in a project. Milestones are similar to regular schedule activities, with the same structure and attributes, but the duration of milestones is almost zero, because milestones represent a symbolic point in time, for example, in software projects, signing, acceptance, release, etc. It is a milestone event.

Milestone planning refers to marking milestone events on the time axis in turn to control the overall progress of the project, as shown in the figure.

The role of milestone planning

• Plan: Break down into phased goals.
• Control: Mandatory constraints to control the realization of goals at each stage.
• Communication: Facilitate good communication with management and stakeholders.
• Responsibility: Clearly stipulates the responsibilities and obligations of all parties involved in the project.
• Report: Concise, vivid, popular and practical.

Milestone checklist refers to listing all the milestones of the project and indicating whether each milestone is mandatory (as required by the contract) or optional (as determined based on past experience).

Project kick-off meeting and project kick-off meeting

Project Initiating Meeting ( Initiating Meeting )

In the process of formulating the project charter, the project sponsor convenes the main stakeholders to participate in the project kick-off meeting, and mainly completes the following tasks:

• Publish project charter
• Appoint a project manager
• Announce the official launch of the project

Kick-off Meeting

When the project plan is prepared, the project manager will convene key stakeholders to attend the project kick-off meeting, and mainly complete the following tasks:

• Announcing the completion of the project plan
• Verify that resources are in place as planned
• Announcing that the project has entered the execution phase

If the project is divided into multiple phases, each phase should have a phase kickoff meeting before execution begins. The kick-off meeting of the project comes from the kick-off in the middle circle in the football match. When the game starts or when a goal is scored, a whistle is sounded, and the ball is kicked out of the middle circle by the serving side, which marks "kick off!" So the kick-off meeting of the project also Often referred to as the "project kickoff meeting".

The difference between the project kick-off meeting and the project kick-off meeting is shown in the table below. It should be noted that in the PMP exam, sometimes "Kick-Of Meeting" is incorrectly translated as "Project Initiation Meeting". So, when you see "Project Kickoff Meeting", be sure to check the English.

2. Assess and deliver project benefits and value

Identify the benefits and value of the project

Assessing and delivering the benefits and value of a project is a three-step process:

• Identify the benefits and value of the project
• Formulate project benefit management plan
• Track and evaluate project value

To identify the benefits and value of a project, we should start from three aspects: economic benefits, social benefits and environmental benefits, which respectively include tangible benefits and intangible benefits.

For example, the widespread use of video conferencing has reduced travel costs and time spent on the road, while reducing emissions from travel. The convenience of video conferencing has improved people's work experience, but the reduction in face-to-face communication opportunities has changed the way people socialize, which may have a profound impact on social benefits.

At the same time, there is a gap between the communication efficiency and communication effect of video conferencing and offline meetings, and whether the communication cost will increase or decrease also needs to be evaluated.

Project Benefits Management Plan

In order to achieve the expected benefits of the project, the project sponsor should prepare a project benefit management plan in advance, which includes:

• Alignment of project benefit objectives with organizational strategy
• Responsibility for benefit management
• Timeline for realizing benefits
• Benefit measurement index and measurement method
• Risk and Response

After the project manager is determined, the project benefit management plan should be maintained by the project manager, and constantly updated and revised according to the actual progress of the project and changes in environmental factors, not only to always ensure the rationality of the benefit target but also to ensure that the benefit target is achieved as planned.

3. Assess the impact of changes in the external business environment

The steps to assess and address the impact of changes in the external business environment on scope are as follows:

• Investigate changes in the environment

For example, in the development of power battery projects, it is necessary to always pay attention to the emergence of new technologies and materials, changes in policies related to new energy vehicles, the development strategies and competition situation of car companies, etc., all of which directly affect the performance of the project and even determine the success or failure of the project. .

• Assess Impact and Prioritize

Changes in the project environment come from all aspects and happen anytime and anywhere. It is impossible for the project team to devote the same energy to deal with these changes. The probability of occurrence is used to determine the priority of response.

• suggest changes

For the changes that must be faced, the project team should come up with a response plan, and formally propose a change proposal, and make timely revisions to the project plan after approval.

• Ongoing review and assessment of impact

Even if the team evaluates and responds to changes in the project environment, it cannot be ignored that environmental changes are dynamic. Therefore, the impact of changes on the project should be continuously reviewed and evaluated, and the priorities and responders of changes should be dynamically adjusted.

Support for organizational change

In order to improve efficiency and management, organizations will continue to seek changes according to strategic needs. Changes include governance models, organizational structures, process systems, and organizational culture.

Changes will inevitably affect upcoming and ongoing projects. The project team must first dynamically adjust the project management model and project management plan to meet the requirements of organizational change. At the same time, actively feedback problems that arise in practice, so that the organization can verify the effect of change in a timely manner And adjust and optimize the change plan.

Section IV: Performance

1. Post-project evaluation

Project Evaluation Model

In order to evaluate project performance, many organizations have developed project evaluation models. One of the more representative examples is the "Excellent Project Management Model" from IPMA.

As shown in the figure, the excellent project management model includes 3 fields, 9 sub-fields, 20 evaluations and 107 element standards, and also includes a large number of cases, process records and certification documents.

As shown in the figure, the contents of 3 domains and 9 sub domains in the excellent project management model include the main evaluation indicators of human process and results.

post-project evaluation

Post-project evaluation refers to the systematic and objective analysis of the project's implementation process, benefits, functions and impacts on completed projects or planned projects.

Post-project evaluation conducts investigation and comprehensive review of the project’s implementation process, results and impact, and compares it with the goals determined during project decision-making and technical, economic, environmental, and social indicators to determine whether the project’s expected goals have been achieved. Whether the project or project planning is reasonable and effective, and whether the main benefit indicators of the project are realized; find out the reasons for success or failure through analysis and evaluation, and summarize experience and lessons; and provide a basis for improving the decision-making level and management ability of future new projects through timely and effective information feedback ; Post-project evaluation can also provide improvement suggestions for problems in project operation, so as to achieve the purpose of improving investment efficiency.

Post-project evaluation includes the following:

• Objective evaluation : the degree to which the project objectives have been achieved
• Implementation process evaluation : rationality and normativeness of the process
• Benefit Evaluation : Financial Indicators and Economics
• Impact Assessment : Economic, Social and Environmental Impacts
• Sustainability Evaluation : Sustainability and Repeatability

2. Environment-oriented value delivery

The environment in which the project is located includes organizational environment, industry environment, social environment and natural environment. Projects are affected by the environment, and projects also affect the environment.

Therefore, the team needs to identify and assess project-environment interactions, amplifying positive impacts while reducing negative ones through project planning and monitoring.

For environmental impact assessment, people mainly pay attention to the impact of the project on the natural environment and social environment. For example, a new chemical plant project must pass an environmental impact assessment to ensure the impact on water, air, soil, solid waste, noise, light, radiation, geology, ecology, etc. Aspects of influence meet the requirements of national laws and regulations.

Environmental impact assessment includes judgment function, prediction function, selection function and guidance function.

3. Program Adaptability and Resilience

Project adaptability refers to the project team's ability to respond to changing circumstances. Of course, the environment here is broad, including organizational environment, industry environment, market environment, economic environment, natural environment, etc. In the process of project management, the adaptability of the project and the environment should be continuously evaluated, and any deviations should be adjusted in time to avoid disconnection between project performance indicators and environmental factors, resulting in an irreversible passive situation.

Improving project resilience is an inevitable choice to deal with changes in the external environment. Only by continuously improving the anti-interference ability, self-healing ability and self-learning ability of the project team can the organization grasp the ever-changing opportunities in a complex environment, avoid dangerous scenarios, and finally achieve project goals.

4. Organizational Process Assets

Contract closeout and administrative closeout

According to different purposes, project closing is divided into contract closing and administrative closing. Contract closing is also called procurement closing, and administrative closing is also called management closing. The difference between the two is an important test point, as shown in the table.

Contract closing refers to fulfilling the responsibilities and obligations stipulated in the contract, including completing delivery acceptance with subcontractors and suppliers, completing delivery acceptance with customers, collecting money from customers, and paying subcontractors and suppliers.

Administrative closeout requires internal filing and reporting of project documentation, lessons learned, including all versions of project plans, project documents, lessons learned and acquired knowledge.

The project data archived and reported in the administrative closeout will be organized, screened, summarized and refined by the Project Management Office (PMO). Among them, for other projects that have reference value and sharing significance, PMO makes organizational process assets play their value through organizational learning, sharing, observation, and communication.