What Is A WBS Dictionary?

Project Management Key Concepts, , ,

Breaking Down The Work

A typical Work Breakdown Structure “decomposes” items, or breaks them down from a high level feature or deliverable, into smaller Work Packages or User Stories that a person can work on.

But once you’ve decomposed those deliverables, you need to add information to them to make them meaningful. And you do that with a WBS Dictionary.

What Goes In A WBS Dictionary?

A WBS Dictionary lists our deliverables, the work packages in those deliverables, and then any additional project information we need. It will usually include:

  • A Unique ID
  • Deliverable Name
  • Work Package Name
  • Description

And then Project attributes, such as:

  • Resources Required
  • Cost Estimates
  • Duration Estimates
  • Dependencies (what needs to be completed first)
  • Quality Requirements (tasks or acceptance criteria)

And lastly, the people involved, such as:

  • Who the item is assigned to
  • Who approved or signed off on the item.

Having all this information at a glance makes it easier to understand your project and see what is needed.

See more Project Management Picture Concepts: 

You can see what people are saying about David McLachlan here: REVIEWS

Navigate to Free Project Management and Leadership Articles through the links on the right (or at the bottom if on Mobile) 

PMI PMP 35 PDUs CourseThe Ultimate PMP Project Management Prep Course (35 PDUs)
Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP 21 PDUs)The Complete Agile Course: PMI-ACP (21 PDUs), Coaching, Jira and MORE! 
50 Project Management Templates Gantt Chart Risk Matrix and more Excel50+ Project Management Templates in Excel and PowerPoint (Gantt Chart, Risk Matrix and more!)
Project Management Plan TemplatesPre-made Project Management Plan Template: Save 100 HOURS!

 

David McLachlan Review – “I aced the PMP on my first attempt with AT across all 3 domains.”

David McLachlan, ,

“Great job on the course content and delivery. The mock exams were useful to build the project mindset. I aces the PMP on my first attempt with AT across all domains. All I needed was this intense 4 day crash course and exam style questions.” – Nosakhare – PMP Course on Udemy.

No matter where you’re starting from, you can improve your life.

No matter how small it starts, each small improvement you make will build on the previous one, getting bigger and bigger like a snowball rolling down a hill. Make the right choices.

Choose the study instead of television. Choose your family instead of social media. Learn something new every day. This is another person passing their PMP – it is wonderful to hear 😊 And YOU can do it too!

See live comments and reviews on David McLachlan on YouTube, Udemy and Etsy.

See what people are raving about! Get the Project Plans, Project Tools in Excel, Udemy PMP Course or Udemy Agile course here:

PMI PMP 35 PDUs CourseThe Ultimate PMP Project Management Prep Course (35 PDUs)
Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP 21 PDUs)The Complete Agile Course: PMI-ACP (21 PDUs), Coaching, Jira and MORE! 
50 Project Management Templates Gantt Chart Risk Matrix and more Excel50+ Project Management Templates in Excel and PowerPoint (Gantt Chart, Risk Matrix and more!)
Project Management Plan TemplatesPre-made Project Management PLAN Template: Save 100 HOURS!

 

How The Cost of Quality Increases On Your Project

Project Management Picture Concepts, ,

The cost to fix a defect increases as it gets closer to the Customer.

🤝 During Requirements: It costs very little to check, prototype and review requirements before we program them.

🤝 During Solution and Design: It costs relatively little to review and change a design.

🤝 During Development: It costs a bit more in time and effort to redo an item if it gets this far and there’s a defect. We may need to re-look at the requirements and design too, and re-code the solution.

🤝 During Testing: If we catch a defect during Testing, we may have to redo it in Development, or even go through the process from requirements again.

❌ But once a defect gets to a customer, we have the added cost of bad customer reviews, impacts to our brand or reputation, PLUS the time taken to review the customer complaints and address them, PLUS the waste of something we created that may have to be completely redone.

➡️ What else would you add to the Cost of Quality?

See more Project Management Picture Concepts: 

You can see what people are saying about David McLachlan here: REVIEWS

Navigate to Free Project Management and Leadership Articles through the links on the right (or at the bottom if on Mobile) 

PMI PMP 35 PDUs CourseThe Ultimate PMP Project Management Prep Course (35 PDUs)
Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP 21 PDUs)The Complete Agile Course: PMI-ACP (21 PDUs), Coaching, Jira and MORE! 
50 Project Management Templates Gantt Chart Risk Matrix and more Excel50+ Project Management Templates in Excel and PowerPoint (Gantt Chart, Risk Matrix and more!)
Project Management Plan TemplatesPre-made Project Management Plan Template: Save 100 HOURS!

 

How to Measure Business Value for Your Project (NPV, ROI and more!)

Project Management Picture Concepts, , , , , ,

Measuring Business Value

There are many ways to measure the business value you deliver as part of your project. Some of these ways are tangible (money, shareholder value, market share) and some are intangible (Brand recognition, goodwill, strategic alignment etc).

Ultimately the best value comes down to an improvement in some financial measure for your company, and these are measured in the following ways:

Cost-Benefit Ratio:

The cost-benefit ratio = the Total benefit of the project / Total cost of the project.

Choose the highest.

Return on Investment (ROI)

Return on Investment = the Project Return – Project Cost / Project Cost x 100.

Choose the highest.

Internal Rate of Return (IRR)

IRR is the return on your investment in a given time period.

Choose the highest.

Net Present Value (NPV)

Net Present Value = Today’s value of our expected return – Initial investment.

Choose the highest.

Payback Period (PBP):

The Payback period = The Cost of the project / Average Annual Return.

Shorter is better.

See more Project Management Picture Concepts: 

You can see what people are saying about David McLachlan here: REVIEWS

Navigate to Free Project Management and Leadership Articles through the links on the right (or at the bottom if on Mobile) 

PMI PMP 35 PDUs CourseThe Ultimate PMP Project Management Prep Course (35 PDUs)
Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP 21 PDUs)The Complete Agile Course: PMI-ACP (21 PDUs), Coaching, Jira and MORE! 
50 Project Management Templates Gantt Chart Risk Matrix and more Excel50+ Project Management Templates in Excel and PowerPoint (Gantt Chart, Risk Matrix and more!)
Project Management Plan TemplatesPre-made Project Management PLAN Template: Save 100 HOURS!

 

Crowdstrike and Quality Management on a Project

Uncategorized, , , , , ,

Why is Quality important in your project?

You probably heard about the Crowdstrike outage on the weekend of July 2024 that disrupted airports, banks and stores all around the world. It was caused by Crowdstrike pushing a system file full of zeros to production.

How can we avoid this sort of disaster as we manage our own Projects? There are many ways:

➡️ Peer review & Code Inspections: Checking the requirements with a user or reviewing the code with another Developer.

➡️ Continuous Integration: Merging changes into the main test system (often daily) with automatic tests.

➡️ Test Driven Development: Tests are written first, failed, then run again and passed after the solution is coded.

➡️ Unit Tests: Testing each small piece or User Story.

➡️ System Testing: Testing the integrated system as a whole.

➡️ User Acceptance Testing: Testing the system from the User’s point of view.

➡️ Regression Testing: Testing the existing system with the changes to see if they’ve impacted normal operations.

➡️ Production Verification Testing: Testing the change in the live environment after go-live then rolling the change back if it goes wrong.

➡️ Sprint Review: Demonstrating the actual change to the customer or senior users before release.

Quality is one of the 10 Project Management Knowledge Areas for a reason.

⭐ What are some of the ways you manage Quality on your own projects? ⭐

See more Project Management Picture Concepts: 

You can see what people are saying about David McLachlan here: REVIEWS

Navigate to Free Project Management and Leadership Articles through the links on the right (or at the bottom if on Mobile) 

PMI PMP 35 PDUs CourseThe Ultimate PMP Project Management Prep Course (35 PDUs)
Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP 21 PDUs)The Complete Agile Course: PMI-ACP (21 PDUs), Coaching, Jira and MORE! 
50 Project Management Templates Gantt Chart Risk Matrix and more Excel50+ Project Management Templates in Excel and PowerPoint (Gantt Chart, Risk Matrix and more!)
Project Management Plan TemplatesPre-made Project Management Plan Template: Save 100 HOURS!

 

Scrum Roles & Responsibilities

Project Management Picture Concepts, , , ,

There are Three Main “Roles” in a Scrum Team

Scrum is one of the main frameworks that make up Agile as we know it today – but it is not the only framework.

Agile has also expanded in use outside of development teams, and into general knowledge work, design, research, or anywhere else an iterative and incremental approach to delivering value is needed.

The heart of a Scrum Team is the Team.

The Team

The team are traditionally Developers, but today they can be anyone involved in creating the increment of value that the team are delivering. Team members are often “T-shaped”, where they have a broad range of skills and one deep specialty, like a capital letter “T”.

The Product Owner

The Product Owner is responsible for the value the team delivers. This is called the Product Goal. They do this by creating a backlog of usable, customer-valued features or “increments” that the team can deliver, and prioritizing this from highest value to lowest value (sometimes adjusting for effort also). This is called the Product Backlog.

They ensure the Product Backlog is transparent to all and well understood by anyone who needs it.

The Scrum Master

Is the “Servant Leader” – they serve the team by removing blockers (escalating to their network or helping the team problem solve as a neutral third-party facilitator). They also facilitate many of the team ceremonies such as the Daily Stand-up, Sprint Planning and Retrospectives – but they don’t have to if the team is mature enough to do this on their own. They focus on the team’s growth, looking for ways to help them improve in their chosen field (e.g. development, analysis, business value etc.) and in their Agile way of work.

See more Project Management Picture Concepts:

You can see what people are saying about David McLachlan here: REVIEWS

Navigate to Free Project Management and Leadership Articles through the links on the right (or at the bottom if on Mobile) 

PMI PMP 35 PDUs CourseThe Ultimate PMP Project Management Prep Course (35 PDUs)
Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP 21 PDUs)The Complete Agile Course: PMI-ACP (21 PDUs), Coaching, Jira and MORE! 
50 Project Management Templates Gantt Chart Risk Matrix and more Excel50+ Project Management Templates in Excel and PowerPoint (Gantt Chart, Risk Matrix and more!)
Project Management Plan TemplatesPre-made Project Management PLAN Template: Save 100 HOURS!

 

The Change Control Process in Project Management

Project Management Picture Concepts, , , ,

Change Happens When Delivering a Project

There are many competing factors when delivering change with a Project. Not only do you have many competing stakeholders with their different needs, biases, history in the organization and more, but you have competing constraints too.

The triple constraint of Scope, Schedule and Cost is impacted frequently on a project. If scope changes a little, it might impact how long it takes to deliver it. And that might cost more. Balancing these is an essential part of being a good Project Manager.

Use Change Requests to Keep Change under Control

If you’re studying or working in Project Management this year, know the broad Change Control process.

So, so many project managers never even outline their Change Control approach – or worse – they confuse it with modern Organizational Change Management (transitioning a product to operations or BAU).

The good part is, you get to decide (with your stakeholders) your project’s Change Control approach and you outline this in your Change Management Plan.

YES this works for Agile too, but it’s usually just a single line as the Product Owner decides on Scope Changes with the Product Backlog, and they understand and absorb the impact to their Schedule (Cost is often fixed).

Make sure you know it. Make sure you write it down.

Then deliver value and win. The typical Change approach might be:

  1. A Stakeholder raises a change to the Scope, Schedule, Cost, Resources (or any other baselined part of the project).
  2. We note that proposed change in the Change Log.
  3. We analyze the impact of the change to our project Cost, Schedule, Scope, and any other necessary impact.
  4. We take this information to the Change Control Board, or the approver. This might be multiple people or just one person (i.e. a Project Sponsor or Product Owner).
  5. We communicate the outcome of the change to the necessary stakeholders (Approved, Deferred, Rejected).
  6. We update the Change Log with the outcome and take the necessary change action.

See more Project Management Picture Concepts:

You can see what people are saying about David McLachlan here: REVIEWS

Navigate to Free Project Management and Leadership Articles through the links on the right (or at the bottom if on Mobile) 

PMI PMP 35 PDUs CourseThe Ultimate PMP Project Management Prep Course (35 PDUs)
Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP 21 PDUs)The Complete Agile Course: PMI-ACP (21 PDUs), Coaching, Jira and MORE! 
50 Project Management Templates Gantt Chart Risk Matrix and more Excel50+ Project Management Templates in Excel and PowerPoint (Gantt Chart, Risk Matrix and more!)
Project Management Plan TemplatesPre-made Project Management PLAN Template: Save 100 HOURS!

 

Prototypes in a Waterfall or Agile Project

Project Management Picture Concepts, , , , , ,

Prototype First, Then Build With Less Risk

If you’re working in or studying Project Management, it is essential to know about Prototyping and the different types of prototypes you might use.

A Prototype is a small, low cost version of the real thing, so we can see if it works and whether we really want it.

The idea of Prototyping works in any form of project. We might build a house or a bridge using a sequential, step-by-step approach (such as Waterfall). The prototypes we’ll use on these projects might include architectural designs, blueprints, or 3D models created by a draftsman or engineer to help us see if the design will work.

In a software environment, it is common to create a storyboard or wireframe of the new system, so we can see if it flows well when we “use” it, and we can see if the design works for any customers that trial it.

These are the most popular Prototypes you’ll come across:

  • ✅ Mock-ups or Wireframes: A simple drawing or design of the new idea.
  • ✅ Process Maps: Connecting process steps with boxes so you can see how a new process will flow.
  • ✅ Storyboards: Connect your designs together to link as they would in the real item, as you navigate a new design.
  • ✅ Computer generated models (2D or 3D): Using Blender or CAD, or cardboard and glue, you can see it in more depth and make corrections early.

➡️ What are some other Prototyping methods you use in your projects?

See more Project Management Picture Concepts:

You can see what people are saying about David McLachlan here: REVIEWS

Navigate to Free Project Management and Leadership Articles through the links on the right (or at the bottom if on Mobile) 

PMI PMP 35 PDUs CourseThe Ultimate PMP Project Management Prep Course (35 PDUs)
Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP 21 PDUs)The Complete Agile Course: PMI-ACP (21 PDUs), Coaching, Jira and MORE! 
50 Project Management Templates Gantt Chart Risk Matrix and more Excel50+ Project Management Templates in Excel and PowerPoint (Gantt Chart, Risk Matrix and more!)
Project Management Plan TemplatesPre-made Project Management PLAN Template: Save 100 HOURS!

 

Agile Estimating Techniques – Planning Poker and More

Project Management Picture Concepts, , ,

Agile Estimating Techniques

Agile Projects Need Estimates Too

Even though you might hear people say we need to “move fast and breaks things” in Agile, the opposite is actually true. It might look like we’re moving fast, because we’re delivering small, usable increments of value on a regular basis.

We still need to estimate the effort of items on an Agile Project too. We can use the normal estimating approaches such as Analogous Estimating (using a similar item or project), Parametric Estimating (using a Parameter such as dollars per hour), 3 Point estimating (using an average of the Pessimistic, Most Likely and Optimistic estimates).

In Agile we can also use techniques such as Wide-Band Delphi estimating, Planning Poker, and Relative estimating.

Wide Band Delphi Estimating

The team members doing the work estimate the effort on a User Story, anonymously. High and Low estimates discuss their reasons then re-estimate until a consensus is reached.

Planning Poker

Team members estimate anonymously with numbered cards face-down on a table, and reveal their estimates all at once.

Relative Estimating

The smallest User Story has “1” story point, then other User Stories are estimated relative to that size, often in the Fibonacci Number Sequence: 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21.

 

Learn Project Management and earn 35 PDUs, Learn Agile and earn 21 PDUs, save yourself 100s of hours with the Excel and PowerPoint templates below.

You can see what people are saying about David McLachlan here: REVIEWS

PMI PMP 35 PDUs CourseThe Ultimate PMP Project Management Prep Course (35 PDUs)
Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP 21 PDUs)The Complete Agile Course: PMI-ACP (21 PDUs), Coaching, Jira and MORE! 
50 Project Management Templates Gantt Chart Risk Matrix and more Excel50+ Project Management Templates in Excel and PowerPoint (Gantt Chart, Risk Matrix and more!)
Project Management Plan TemplatesPre-made Project Management PLAN Template: Save 100 HOURS!

 

Good versus Bad Project Management

Project Management Picture Concepts,

What Does Good Project Management Look Like?

People often ask what the value of a project manager is. When Project Management is done well:

  • We meet business objectives
  • We can resolve problems and issues
  • We can satisfy stakeholder expectations
  • We manage the project constraints (Cost, Schedule, Resources, Scope)
  • We can identify, recover or terminate failing projects.

However, when Project Management is done badly, it soon becomes very obvious. Have you ever been on a project where it is not being run effectively? You might see:

  • Cost Overruns
  • Missed deadlines
  • Poor Quality and rework
  • Unsatisfied stakeholders
  • Uncontrolled expansion of the project scope
  • Failure to achieve the project objectives
Use the Project Manager Competency Triangle to Win:

There are three major areas of competency that a Project Manager needs to ensure they stay on the “Good project management” side of the equation. They are:

  1. The Project Management Process
  2. The Business Environment
  3. People Skills

We need the Project Management Process (from the PMBOK Guide, 6th Ed or the Process Groups Practice Guide) so we know all the steps to effectively delivering value and change.

We need knowledge of the Business Environment because we need to understand the value that we are delivering, and be able to help the team solve problems as they arise.

Lastly we need People Skills in order to build and grow an effective team, manage stakeholders and their expectations, lead as well as manage, shield the team from external politics, and ensure everyone is doing their part.

See more Project Management Picture Concepts:

You can see what people are saying about David McLachlan here: REVIEWS

Navigate to Free Project Management and Leadership Articles through the links on the right (or at the bottom if on Mobile) 

PMI PMP 35 PDUs CourseThe Ultimate PMP Project Management Prep Course (35 PDUs)
Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP 21 PDUs)The Complete Agile Course: PMI-ACP (21 PDUs), Coaching, Jira and MORE! 
50 Project Management Templates Gantt Chart Risk Matrix and more Excel50+ Project Management Templates in Excel and PowerPoint (Gantt Chart, Risk Matrix and more!)
Project Management Plan TemplatesPre-made Project Management PLAN Template: Save 100 HOURS!