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checklists of possible risks, surveys, meetings and brainstorming and reviews of plans, processes and products. The project manager can also use the process database to get information about risks and risk management on similar projects. b) Risk Control Identify the actions needed to minimize the risk consequences. This is also known as risk mitigation. Develop a risk management plan. Focus on the highest prioritized risks. Prioritization requires analyzing the possible effects of the risk event in case it actually occurs. This approach requires a quantitative assessment of the risk probability and the risk consequences. For each risk, determine the rate of its occurrence and indicate whether the risk is low, medium or of high category. If necessary, assign probability values in the ranges as prescribed based upon experience. If necessary assign a weight on a scale of 1 to 10. c) Risk Ranking Rank the risk based on the probability and effects on the project; for example, a high probability, high impact item will have higher rank than a risk item with a medium probability and high impact. In case of conflict, use judgment. d) Risk Mitigation Select the top few risk items for mitigation and tracking. Refer to a list of commonly used risk mitigation steps for various risks from the previous risk logs maintained by the project manager and select suitable risk mitigation step. The risk mitigation step must be properly executed by incorporating them into the project schedule. In addition to monitoring the progress of the planned risk mitigation steps, periodically revisit the risk perception for the entire project. The results of this review are reported in each milestone analysis report. To prepare this report, make fresh risk analysis to determine whether the priorities have changed. Q3. Discuss the various steps in project monitoring and control. Answer: Project Monitoring and Control: Any project aimed at delivering a product or a service has to go through phases in a planned manner in order to meet the requirements. It is very important to measure the performance of the current status of the project at anytime against its planned version. This helps to tackle any unexpected deviation in time, efforts and cost. It is possible to work according to the project plan only by careful and close monitoring of the project progress. It requires establishing control factors to keep the project on the track of progress. The results of any stage in a project, depends on the inputs to that stage. It is therefore necessary to control all the inputs and the corresponding outputs from a stage. This is achieved through devising proper controls for every stage. A project manager may use certain standard tools to keep the project on track. The project manager and the team members should be fully aware of the techniques and methods to rectify the factors influencing delay of the project and its product. It is important for all stakeholders to know the impact of the changes in any parameters to the overall project. The various steps involved in monitoring and controlling a project from start to end are shown in figure
effectiveness of the review and also reduces the time gap. Conduct Quality Review: Conduct the quality review in a structured and formal manner. Quality review should focus on product development and its quality factors. Focus on whether it meets the prescribed quality standard. Follow Up: Revise the complete quality review product status from In-progress to QR Complete. Follow up the actions planned in strict manner which ensures conformity to the standards. Review Quality Control Procedure: Verify that the quality objectives for each product are appropriate and that all participants are satisfied both with the process and its outcome. This is to ensure that all the stakeholders of the project are in conformity of control procedures. Q4. What is Project Management Information System (PMIS)? What are the major aspects of PMIS? Answer: Project Management Information System (PMIS): An information system is mainly aimed at providing the management at different levels with information related to the system of the organisation. It helps in maintaining discipline in the system. An information system dealing with project management tasks is the project management information system. It helps in decision making in arriving at optimum allocation of resources. The information system is based on a database of the organisation. A project management information system also holds schedule, scope changes, risk assessment and actual results. The information is communicated to managers at different levels of the organisation depending upon the need. Let us find how a project management information system is used by different stakeholders. The four major aspects of a PMIS are a. Providing information to the major stakeholders b. Assisting the team members, stakeholders, managers with necessary information and summary of the information shared to the higher level managers c. Assisting the managers in doing what if analyses about project staffing, proposed staffing changes and total allocation of resources d. Helping organisational learning by helping the members of the organisation learn about project management Usually, the team members, and not the systems administrators of the company, develop a good PMIS. Organisations tend to allocate such responsibility by rotation among members with a well designed and structured data entry and analytical format. Q5. What is PERT chart? What are the advantages of PERT chart? Answer: PERT stands for Program (or Project) Evaluation and Review Technique. It is a popular project management model designed to analyse and represent the tasks involved in completing a given project. It also helps in identifying the minimum time required for completing the total project. A number of activities make a project. Due to technological necessities, some activities can be performed only after some others have been completed. Some activities are independent of some other set of activities. Different activities have different duration for their completion. Some projects are big and a number of clearly distinguishable stages or milestones are identified. Since some activities run concurrently, there are possibilities that one set of activities end up early and have to wait for some other activities to proceed further. This means that there are more paths from the beginning to the end, and one of them takes more time than the others. We call that critical path. A PERT chart helps us to follow the critical path. Let us become familiar with the PERT chart. A PERT chart is a graphic representation of a projects schedule, showing the sequence of tasks. It also shows the tasks that can be performed parallely, and the critical path of tasks which has
direct impact on the project schedule. The tasks in the critical path must be completed as per schedule in order for the project to meet its completion deadline. The chart can be constructed with a variety of attributes, such as: Earliest and latest start dates for each task Earliest and latest finish dates for each task Slack time between tasks A PERT chart for a seven-month project with five milestones (10 - 50) and six activities (A - F).
transaction details and negotiation. It may also be done by a new CEO hired specifically to make the difficult and controversial decisions required to save or reposition the company. It generally involves financing debt, selling portions of the company to investors, and reorganizing or reducing operations. The basic nature of restructuring is a zero sum game. Strategic restructuring reduces financial losses, simultaneously reducing tensions between debt and equity holders to facilitate a prompt resolution of a distressed situation.
proposal has to contain the strategies adopted to market the product to the customers. Design Phase: Based on the inputs received in the form of project feasibility study, preliminary project evaluation, project proposal and customer interviews, following outputs are produced: System design specification Program functional specification Program design specification Project plan Inspecting, Testing and Delivery Phase: During this phase, the project team works under the guidance of the project manager. The project manager has to ensure that the team working under him implements the project designs accurately. The project has to be tracked or monitored through its cost, manpower and schedule. The tasks involved in these phases are: Managing the customer Marketing the future work Performing quality control work Post Completion Analysis Phase: After delivery or completion of the project, the staff performance has to be evaluated. The tasks involved in this phase are: Documenting the lessons learnt from the project Analysing project feedback Preparing project execution report Analysing the problems encountered during the project Q2. Write brief note on project planning and scoping. Answer: Project Planning and Scoping: Before you create a project plan, you need to define the project scope. A project scope provides the information that you need to complete the project plan. The purpose of project planning and scoping is to first identify the areas of the project work and the forces affecting the project and then to define the boundaries of the project. In addition, the scoping has to be explicitly stated on the line of the project objectives. It also has to implicitly provide directions to the project. The planning and scoping should be such that the project manager is able to assess every stage of the project and also enabling the assessment of the quality of the deliverable of the project at every stage. First, let us list the steps involved in project scoping. These steps include: i) Identifying the various parametric forces relevant to the project and its stages ii) Enabling the team members to work on tools to keep track of the stages and thereby proceed in the planned manner iii) Avoiding areas of problems which may affect the progress of the project iv) Eliminating the factors responsible for inducing the problems v) Analysing the financial implications and cost factor at various stages of the project vi) Understanding and developing the various designs required at various stages of the project vii) Identifying the key areas to be included in the scope through various meetings, discussion, and interviews with the clients viii) Providing a base and track to enable alignment of project with the organisation and its business objectives ix) Finding out the dimensions applicable to the project and also the ones not applicable to the project x) Listing out all the limitations, boundary values and constraints in the project xi) Understanding the assumptions made in defining the scope After completing the project scoping, you can start your project plan. Project planning involves three processes as shown in the figure
If all the above steps are performed, scoping and planning become effective and the ideal outcome are achieved. Q3. What is Return on Investment (ROI)? Explain its importance? Answer: Each Project Management Review meeting starts with an introduction of the members along with the agenda and guidelines of the meeting. The remainder of the review meeting focuses on six categories of information general overview, status of action items from prior review, project status, product status, issues and risks, project unique information. The project status category focuses on the management approach used for the project. This includes schedule, cost, decision, points, ROI, funding status among others. ROI Return on Investment (ROI) is the calculated benefit that an organisation is projected to receive in return for investing money, time and resources in a project. Within the context of the review process, the investment would be in an information system development or enhancement project. ROI information is used to assess the status of the business viability of the project at key checkpoints throughout the projects life-cycle. ROI may include the benefits associated with improved mission performance, reduced cost, increased quality, speed, or flexibility, and increased customer and employee satisfaction. ROI should reflect such risk factors as the projects technical complexity, the agencys management capacity, the likelihood of cost overruns, and the consequences of under or nonperformance. Where appropriate, ROI should reflect actual returns observed through pilot projects and prototypes. ROI should be quantified in terms of money and should include a calculation of the break-even point (BEP), which is the time (point in time) when the investment begins to generate a positive return. ROI should be re-calculated at every major checkpoint of a project to see if the BEP is still on schedule, based on project spending and accomplishments to date. If the project is behind schedule or over budget, the BEP may move out in time; if the project is ahead of schedule or under budget the BEP may occur earlier. In either case, the information is important for decision-making based on the value of the investment throughout the project lifecycle. Any project that has developed a business case is expected to refresh the ROI at each key project decision point (that is, stage exit) or at least yearly.
deliverables and the execution process have to be measured. The former is done to make sure that they support the business objectives. The latter is performed to make sure that the processes are running as predicted.
Let us now look at some metrics and find out their meanings, measurements and benefits: On the same lines we have the following metrics for the project execution: Schedule Estimate Cost estimates Staff productivity Average time to repair The top management may determine which of the metrics they would like to use to measure efficiency, which they can communicate to the client also. Then the project manager will set up suitable reporting systems and analyse the progress accordingly. Success is the culmination of all measuring activities which brings satisfaction to all stakeholders. Lessons learnt should be the guiding factors for future projects. Q5. What is Project risk management? Explain its significance. Answer: Risk is an inherent part of any project. You cannot neglect the potential impact of risk in the project. Risks can be at any stage of the project life cycle and create impact based on it. In simple words, project risk can be defined as the possibility that something may go wrong, or at least not turn out as planned. Risks are different for each project, and risks change as a project progresses. In any project, it is difficult to assess the quantum of risks involved. Therefore careful planning will result in minimising the risk in a project. The formulation of a project is based on the estimates of the past data available with the project management team. The data may have been from the recorded information about past projects executed successfully or from the experience of the project management team members. Project risk management is all about the systematic process of identifying, analysing, prioritising and responding to risk by applying risk management principles and controlling the probability and/or impact of unfortunate events at the project level. It attempts to maximise the probability and consequences of positive events and to minimise the probability and consequences of adverse events. The goal is to prevent or reduce risk in a cost-effective manner without compromising quality or harming the mission or timeline. You discussed earlier that risk may be associated at all stages of a project life cycle. The earlier the risks are identified, lesser is the impact and easier is the mitigation. By contrast, risks can be more difficult to deal with and more likely to have significant negative impact if they occur later in a project. Risk probability is simply the likelihood that a risk event will occur. On the other hand, risk impact is the result of the probability of the risk event occurring plus the consequences of the risk event. Impact, in simple terms is defined as how much the realised risk is likely to hurt. The propensity (or probability) of project risk depends on the projects life cycle, which includes five phases: initiating, planning, executing, controlling, and closing. While issues can occur at any time during a projects life cycle, issues have a greater chance of occurring in earlier stages due to unknown factors. The relationship of risks and their probability across the project life-cycle process is illustrated in the following figure. As the figure explains, the probability of the occurrence of the risk is higher in the initial stage and least in the closing stage. The greater area in pink signifies a greater probability of occurrence of risk.
Hence, it is important to adapt to these risks and be flexible enough to tackle them. We discussed about the probability of the risk occurring at various stages of the project life cycle. In the later section, you will learn about the impact created by these risks at each stage. Q6. Write brief note on project management application software? Answer: Support Software Having learnt the basics of application software; you would have a fair idea of how and to what extent project management processes could be automated. However, the challenge of making things work remains unchanged. While software vendors are confident of making it work, two yawning gaps still remain: 1. Business processes which are not covered in such software 2. Integration of multi vendor supported software applications The enterprise is normally in a dilemma whether to look at the same vendors to support such customisation or not. This normally works out too expensive for their comfort or within their tight budgets. Several software vendors have seized the opportunity with offerings that substantially fill these gaps effectively at a fraction of the costs quoted by the major vendors. The other carrot which these vendors offer is a unilateral transfer of the facility to customise themselves which is seen as a huge advantage. The various support software that may be used for managing projects are: 1. ARROW 2. FEDORA 3. VITAL 4. PILIN 5. MS EXCHANGE SERVER 2003 The ARROW Project: It is a consortia of institutional repository solution, combining open source and proprietary Software .Arrow is preferred support software because it: Provides a platform for promoting research output in the ARROW context Safeguards digital information Gathers an institutions research output into one place Provides consistent ways of finding similar objects Allows information to be preserved over the long term Allows information from many repositories to be gathered and searched in one step Enables resources to be shared, while respecting access constraints Enables effective communication and collaboration between researchers The vision of project ARROW: The ARROW project will identify and test software or solutions to support best practice institutional digital repositories comprising eprints, digital theses and electronic publishing. ARROW project wanted to be a solution for storing any digital output. Their initial focus was on print equivalents such as thesisand journal articles among others. It provided solution that could offer on-going technical support and development past the end of the funding period of the project. Fedora: ARROW wanted a robust, well architected underlying platform and a flexible objectoriented data model to be able to have persistent identifiers down to the level of individual data
streams. It accommodates the content model to be able to be version independent. Since the beginning of the project ARROW has worked actively and closely with Fedora and the Fedora Community. The ARROW projects Technical Architect is a member of Fedora Advisory Board and sits on Fedora Development Group. This association is reinforced by VTLS Inc. VTLS President is a member of Fedora Advisory Board and VITAL Lead Developer sits on Fedora Development Group VITAL: VITAL refers to ARROW specified software created and fully supported by VTLS Inc. built on top of Fedora. It currently provides: 1. VITAL Manager 2. VITAL Portal 3. VITAL Access Portal 4. VALET Web Self-Submission Tool 5. Batch Loader Tool 6. Handles Server (CNRI) 7. Google Indexing and Exposure 8. SRU / SRW Support 9. VITAL architecture overview VITAL is part of creative development of ARROW institutional repositories. VITAL has the following features: 1. Inclusion of multimedia and creative works produced in Australian universities 2. Limited exposure nationally or internationally 3. Addition of annotation capability 4. Inclusion of datasets and other research output not easily provide din any other publishing channel 5. Being developed in conjunction with the DART (ARCHER) Project 6. Exploration of the research-teaching nexus tools that will allow value added services for repositories 7. Integration with or development of new tools that will allow value added services for repositories (for instance the creation of e-portfolios or CVs of research output of individual academics) PILIN Persistent Identifiers and Linking Infrastructure