Dear all,
I am back, seems I'm not a swift coder because I got a lot of hiccups with my coding skill so I will write more about something else in this post.
What do we have today, not a specific use case so I create a plain article to talk about some hints on how to create a rough plan and timeline for your project. This post also tell you some concepts about project management.
However, those are the triangle factors, one item will impact to the others so you can't say what is the most important but as mentioned, scope is the most fuzzy that you have to be careful to control.
So how to make sure you can analyze the scope carefully enough, let's say this, you have to apply a drill-down technique. Which will help to you stand from an overview goal/picture then start to drill-down into more detail of the picture to view each part and list out the questions until you make sure you can make this part with your understand (or with agreement). This is not relate to only the Business Analyst or PM tasks but also Developer and Tester, they have to make sure the information level is clear enough in order to do the task. As a manager (or Product Owner for this case, you have to understand clearly on your scope) you might have to stand out a little bit in order to see the integration points in order to plan for the integration, not only on the development work but also on other factors might impact such as environment, resource supply ... those will impact into the scope or/and time, budget.
Scope is the most important part so it will leads to other points in PMBOK such as Change Control, Project Closure ... not only at the planning phase but during the execution and closing, you have to monitor and control the scope then line up with the other two.
Then the next item is time, usually, you have to run with your clock to catch up with milestone, I had been asked to cut down a 3 months project to one month, then I told the client (we had good relationship) this story "A developer asks his manager that when he has a woman then after 9 months he might have a baby but if he has 9 women if he can has a baby after a month?" then luckily, the 3 months project just there. So the basic concept is although the theory that you can break down every task into Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) but even-though some nature tasks are in sequence. You can make tasks overlapped but never get 100% parallel and the overlap also take time. However, in the other hand, too much buffer time is not good too. You will have low velocity and drag down your productivity of your team, so my experience, the good buffer is around 30% of your original estimation.
Last item, budget, why this is the last one where money always the most important, because it's too important so as PM level you should not touch into this criterial until get agreement from stakeholders. So, usually, it should be a fix number for you to control. However, with Agile world, the project is more flexible so the budget can be more manageable with "micro-deliverable" at spring level.
It's all about the theory so far, let's share you a sample when I interview candidate about project management ability, everyone will have their mindset or instinct how to do a project, so let's test them on their approach to a simple problem. I will play a role-playing game with them where I will be a client with a need to build a house (let say a building structure) then the candidate is a construction engineer, he has to ask me all the questions that he need in order to build what I want. Not to very detail of the engineer design but he has to draw out a sketch design. As mentioned somewhere earlier, there is no right or wrong but this will taste how your candidate approach and form a project. What are the expectation looks
Project charter:
I am back, seems I'm not a swift coder because I got a lot of hiccups with my coding skill so I will write more about something else in this post.
What do we have today, not a specific use case so I create a plain article to talk about some hints on how to create a rough plan and timeline for your project. This post also tell you some concepts about project management.
Scope - Time - Budget
So let start with a core concept, PROJECT, what is a project, based on PMBOK, a project is defined by goal/scope, timeline and budget/resource. Those are the 3 main factors that define a project so whenever you want to test about the awareness of doing a project, you should check about those items. Timeline and budget are measurable by number so the most complicated factor is scope, usually this factor is defined by words and a word might have different meanings or way to understand so you can see in any commercial contract the wording will be verified carefully, the same for a manager, you have to make sure everyone of the stakeholders will be on the same page of the wording in your project scope.However, those are the triangle factors, one item will impact to the others so you can't say what is the most important but as mentioned, scope is the most fuzzy that you have to be careful to control.
So how to make sure you can analyze the scope carefully enough, let's say this, you have to apply a drill-down technique. Which will help to you stand from an overview goal/picture then start to drill-down into more detail of the picture to view each part and list out the questions until you make sure you can make this part with your understand (or with agreement). This is not relate to only the Business Analyst or PM tasks but also Developer and Tester, they have to make sure the information level is clear enough in order to do the task. As a manager (or Product Owner for this case, you have to understand clearly on your scope) you might have to stand out a little bit in order to see the integration points in order to plan for the integration, not only on the development work but also on other factors might impact such as environment, resource supply ... those will impact into the scope or/and time, budget.
Scope is the most important part so it will leads to other points in PMBOK such as Change Control, Project Closure ... not only at the planning phase but during the execution and closing, you have to monitor and control the scope then line up with the other two.
Then the next item is time, usually, you have to run with your clock to catch up with milestone, I had been asked to cut down a 3 months project to one month, then I told the client (we had good relationship) this story "A developer asks his manager that when he has a woman then after 9 months he might have a baby but if he has 9 women if he can has a baby after a month?" then luckily, the 3 months project just there. So the basic concept is although the theory that you can break down every task into Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) but even-though some nature tasks are in sequence. You can make tasks overlapped but never get 100% parallel and the overlap also take time. However, in the other hand, too much buffer time is not good too. You will have low velocity and drag down your productivity of your team, so my experience, the good buffer is around 30% of your original estimation.
Last item, budget, why this is the last one where money always the most important, because it's too important so as PM level you should not touch into this criterial until get agreement from stakeholders. So, usually, it should be a fix number for you to control. However, with Agile world, the project is more flexible so the budget can be more manageable with "micro-deliverable" at spring level.
It's all about the theory so far, let's share you a sample when I interview candidate about project management ability, everyone will have their mindset or instinct how to do a project, so let's test them on their approach to a simple problem. I will play a role-playing game with them where I will be a client with a need to build a house (let say a building structure) then the candidate is a construction engineer, he has to ask me all the questions that he need in order to build what I want. Not to very detail of the engineer design but he has to draw out a sketch design. As mentioned somewhere earlier, there is no right or wrong but this will taste how your candidate approach and form a project. What are the expectation looks
Project charter:
- How much money do I have for the building (budget)
- For how long do I expect (time)
- What the purpose of the building (generic scope to start for the deep dive)
Scope detail: (purpose is a family house)
- Where the location should be
- How many people in my family, who are they
- Which style of design (classic, gothic, modern ...)
- How many stories should be, which facilities it should have (pool, garage, guest room ...)
- How many bedroom, bathroom
- How large, capability of kitchen, dining room, ...
- ... Then now go as detail as you like
But with those generic items you will get an idea how your candidate approach to peel the project onion.
I started this post almost 3 years ago but didn't have time to finish it, then now, I recheck my PMP credential where it was expired since July 2017 so now I can't say I was PMP certified then I decided to close the door behind my back.
I will revisit this post whenever, I remind anything else, however, so long since my PMP from 2011 till now, I should wrap this for other topic!
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