Dear PM Advisor. Nov 24, 2014

Dear PM Advisor,

I am studying the Procurement Section of the PMBOK and don't understand the term: Privity of Contracts. Can you explain this term in layman's language? 

Private in Peshwar

Dear Private,

Privity of Contracts sounds like something you do in the bathroom. 

I'm no expert on procurement so I first looked through the PMBOK and couldn't find the term. I Googled it and it says, in effect, that a contract exists between a buyer and a seller and a person further down the line is not privy to this contract so he cannot sue one of the contracted parties. For example, a manufacturer sells to a distributor, they sell to a retailer, they sell to a consumer. The consumer is not privy to the contract between the manufacturer and distributor so he cannot sue. Of course, tort suits can still be filed if the product is defective. 

But looking over my words, I'm not sure how that helps you in your case. So I asked my friend Bala who deals with these contracts often. Here is his response: 

Privity of Contracts protects the buyer by preventing the seller from subcontracting out the work to a third party. 

Aha! In this way, the buyer ensures that the work contracted out is done by the firm they have contracted with, not some fly-by-night subcontractor. That make sense to me. How about you? 

Good luck,

PM Advisor.

Send your questions to Bruce@RoundTablePM.com

Dear PM Advisor. Nov 17, 2014

Dear PM Advisor,

I'm learning about the different types of contracts: Fixed Price, Cost Plus, etc. I'm curious what my current project would be classified as. It is a Turnkey EPC (Engineering, Procurement & Construction) Contract with a Price Variation Clause. 

Various in Varanasi,

Dear Various,

I'm not sure what the Price Variation Clause is on your particular project but it usually varies depending on certain commodities like the price of oil or steel. If that is the case, you are dealing with a Fixed Price - Economic Price Adjusted type of contract. 

In these contracts the price of the work is set and agreed to by both parties but the commodity is split out and varies based on the world price over the course of the work. As people use oil and steel, the buyer pays that commodity price in addition to the work being done. 

Good luck,

PM Advisor.

Send your questions to Bruce@RoundTablePM.com

Dear PM Advisor. Nov 10, 2014

Dear PM Advisor,

A low level team member on my team is the brother-in-law of the company's Managing Director. How do I treat him on my project?

Stepping on Eggshells in Bangalore

Dear Eggshells,

I guess it really depends on how much the Managing Director likes his brother-in-law and what his plans are for him. Does he plan on grooming this team member as his replacement or is he just finding a job for him as a favor to his sister? Does the Managing Director want him to succeed or fail? Does he view it as your job to make him look good or are you required to test him to see if he has what it takes to make it in this company? 

The bottom line is that the Managing Director is a major stakeholder of your project. You need to talk to him. First about the project like you would with any other stakeholder. Ask the typical stakeholder questions:

• What does he want to have the project accomplish? 
• What are some potential pitfalls?
• How often does he want communications about the project, what type and in what media? 
• Who else cares about this project? 

But add another question just for him:

• What is your goal for your brother-in-law over the course of this project?

You may not get a truthful answer so you also need to ask other high-level stakeholders the same question: 

• What is the Managing Director's goal for his brother-in-law? 

Then set out to manage his expectation just as you are trying to manage all the other stakeholder's expectations. 

Good luck,

PM Advisor.

Send your questions to Bruce@RoundTablePM.com

Dear PM Advisor. Nov 3, 2014

Dear PM Advisor,

What percent of questions need some calculation in the PMP exam?

Math Geek in Mumbai

Dear Math Geek,

I wish it were all of them. Because I know when I get those correct. The philosophical questions test to see if you can think the same way as the PMI so there is more uncertainty there. 

That being said, let's see what questions are likely to require calculations:

1 - 2 about number of communication channels (just remember C = n(n-1)/2)
1 - 2 Earned Value scenarios, each with 3 - 5 questions associated
1 - 2 Net Present Value questions 
2 - 3 Cost Plus Fee questions
1 - 2 Normal distribution/6 sigma questions
2 - 3 PERT questions (just remember Pert = (O + 4*ML + P)/6)
And if you consider Network Diagramming calculations, 1 -2 of those with 3 - 5 questions in each

So you are looking at a range of 13 - 32 calculation questions within the 200. Most likely these are all within the 175 questions that count so around 15% of your questions require calculations and you can check your work to ensure you got them right. 

Good luck,

PM Advisor.

Send your questions to Bruce@RoundTablePM.com

Dear PM Advisor. Oct 27, 2014

Dear PM Advisor,

I'm taking a PMP Preparation class. How long do the PDUs I earn in this class last?

Learning in Lahore

Dear Learning,

I'm going to assume you are taking a PMP prep class in preparation for sitting for your PMP exam for the first time. In that case there is no date at which the education your are obtaining runs out. According to the PMP handbook linked here, there are years during which your PM experience apply but your education can be 50 years ago for all they care.

If you are taking the class to earn PDUs for maintaining your certification, you must report them in the next three-year period during which you need to obtain 60 credits.

Good luck,

PM Advisor

Send your questions to Bruce@RoundTablePM.com

Dear PM Advisor. Oct. 20, 2014

Dear PM Advisor,

What’s a WBS Dictionary and how do you use it?

Poor Speller in Chicago

Dear Poor Speller,

The Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) is the oldest tool in the Project Manager’s toolkit and one of the more graphic ones. It is the first opportunity for the PM to express his style as he shows the way he intends to organize the project. Will he organize it by phase, function, or deliverable? How many levels will he go before work starts to be done? I always love watching the way a PM drafts his WBS; it is a look into his mind.

One thing about a graphic tool such as a WBS: there is no room for paragraphs or even sentences. Nouns and adjectives are all you have room to work with. And sometimes a chunk of work requires more than that to allow those executing the work to know what needs to be done. That’s where the WBS Dictionary comes in. It is a tool that provides more detail around a piece of work that is in the WBS. Not every WBS element must be defined, just those that need it.

I don’t strictly use a WBS Dictionary as a stand-alone tool. But when I enter WBS elements into the Gantt chart, I’ll use the Notes tab on that line to enter additional details.

Good luck,

PM Advisor

Send your questions to Bruce@RoundTablePM.com

Dear PM Advisor. Oct 13, 2014

Dear PM Advisor,

I'm a Project Manager working for an electronics firm making laptops. My technical team says our battery is a huge risk in environmental hazards. As PM, should I recommend a change in product or battery use to ensure the company is not penalized due to this project?

Battered in Mumbai

Dear Battered,

Aha! An ethical dilemma! I love it! 

Depending on your project setup you may have somebody on your team representing regulatory or legal who should be making this call. If you do not, or you believe they are acting unethically, it is your responsibility to act ethically and ensure that the company does not violate any rules or regulations. 

As a Project Management Professional you sign a code of conduct that insists you act in an ethical manner. While doing so may hurt your career in the short term, you will always be better off in the long term. And taking short-cuts for short-term gains never pays off in the long term. 

But you don't need me to tell you that. Take any religious text or even Plato and they will agree with me. Below is my personal motto that you are free to take:

Do the right thing

Do the thing right

Good luck,

PM Advisor

Send your questions to Bruce@RoundTablePM.com

Dear PM Advisor. Oct 6, 2014

Dear PM Advisor,

I see that the grades I can receive when taking my PMP exam are 'not proficient', 'moderately proficient' and 'highly proficient', Can you explain the value of securing moderately proficient versus highly proficient on my PMP certificate in career perspective?

Overachiever in Delhi

Dear Overachiever,

As far as anyone other than you is concerned, the PMP test is graded Pass/Fail. Nobody asks for your grade. Like most credentials, you either have it or you don't. 

So why does PMI grade it in such a way? Self-preservation.

The PMP exam is a HUGE moneymaker for the organization. $500 a pop for hundreds of thousands of people adds up fast. When I took the exam back in the last millennium (1999), there was a minimum score and they graded applicants with a number. I believe I barely passed which told me I studied exactly enough.

But picture what happens to those who barely fail. They are out $500 and want to argue with the PMI on the correctness of their answers. Especially some of the philosophical questions that ask you what you would do in a certain situation. You can claim to be doing the right thing and PMI disagrees. Who to mediate? 

So the PMI protects itself by not telling you which questions you got right or wrong. It only tells you that you scored each section with a particular proficiency. 

Never mind, just take my advice and pass the test and tell everyone you scored highly proficient. 

Good luck,

PM Advisor.

Send your questions to Bruce@RoundTablePM.com

Dear PM Advisor. Sep 29, 2014

Dear PM Advisor, 

What are the ideal numbers of projects a PM should be conferred upon simultaneously to effectively manage the projects?

Overworked in Lagos

Dear Overworked,

The first answer to this question is: It depends. It depends on how big the projects are. If you are working on a huge new drug development project, this may be your only job for the next seven years and you may have a project coordinator/administrator who keeps track of status and updates your Gantt chart and budgets for you. 

If you are managing a self-sufficient team on a small project you may only require an hour a week to stay on top of this. 

Typically you are somewhere between these two extremes and you end up being placed on multiple projects. 

If you plan your projects properly, they Gantt chart should be able to show your manager how many hours of your time are required by each project on a weekly basis and that should be the primary indicator of how many projects you can work on. 

However, keeping all that information from getting mixed up in your head brings you to a practical upper limit of the amount of projects you can manage simultaneously: FIVE.

Don't let anyone assign you more than that.

Good luck,

PM Advisor

Send your questions to Bruce@RoundTablePM.com

Dear PM Advisor. Sep 22, 2014

Dear PM Advisor

In a small company where the PMO is absent, what should be the role for Project Manager?

Alone in Lahore

Dear Alone,

The Project Management Office has a lot of traditional roles, many of which can be taken over by a Project Manager in a company without the PMO. Let's look at them:

1. Maintain the PM templates
2. Keep all the project records
3. Train the Project Managers
4. Provide PMs to the organization
5. Write the Project Management Guide
6. Facilitate the steering committee
7. Organize project prioritization 
8. Decide on Project Organization style

So in your situation you can do roles 1 and 2, get yourself trained and be the PM for the organization. Writing the Project Management Guide should be done no matter what and you can have a streamlined guide in your current role. 

When it comes time to setting up a high-level steering committee and getting the organization to agree on project priorities, your success depends entirely on your personality.  

Deciding on the Organization Style is pretty simple. Your company has already decided on Functional, Projectized or Matrix. If Matrix, you cannot be strong since you don't have a PMO. If you are called a PM, it seems like you are, you are in a balanced matrix. If not, you're in a weak matrix structure.

Take advantage of the lack of structure to do whatever you want to make life as a PM easier. 

Good luck,

PM Advisor 

Send your questions to Bruce@RoundTablePM.com

Dear PM Advisor. Sep 15, 2014

Dear PM Advisor,

What improvements you have experienced with IT Projects using PMBOK as a reference?

Lighter side in Calcutta

Dear Lighter side,

While I can't claim to be there at the beginnings of PMI, I was one of the first people in my industry to have received the PMP credential. I have seen it become more familiar and progress to the point where people are requesting the credential amongst new hires and even long-term employees. 

Along with this change there there has, naturally, been a greater knowledge of and use of the PMBOK guide. More people are referring to the PMBOK and using the terminology within. So the biggest improvement I have found is the standardization of language. 

Remember that the PMBOK is not a methodology. It tells you what to do, not when to do it or how a particular tool should be used. So the greater improvement I have seen has come from the use of various Project Management methodologies. People go out for training or send their entire team out to the same course and they come back fired up with the way to make projects work more efficiently within their organization. Even better is when a methodology is brought in-house and taught to the entire organization at various levels. 

All these training courses seem to have embraced the PMI terminology so there is more consistency between the courses as to what they call each tool. 

So the real advantage is that PM knowledge transfers easily between companies and even industries due to the standardization of terms championed by the PMI. You can learn your PM skills at one company and move to another without encountering a huge learning curve in these skills. 

Good luck,

PM Advisor.

Send you questions to Bruce@RoundTablePM.com

Dear PM Advisor. Sep 8, 2014

Dear PM Advisor,

In your Project Management experience, how do you manage the individual working styles? For example I worked in project where the development team is in the UK. The typical problem I faced was a team member who overwrites in my email and sends it back. I spend hours understanding what is his response to my email. 

Muddled in Mumbai

Dear Muddled,

Remember that 90% of Project Management is communiucation. Communication is difficult enough when we all speak the same language. Everyone has developed their own way of communicating and it rarely matches anyone elses. Witness almost every married couple for examples of how people who live together daily miscommunicate. 

It gets much harder on global projects where some use English as a second language. Here are some things I have done to help facilitate communication in these environments:

1. When English is a struggle, require a translator with the group who uses English as a second language during status meetings
2. Speak slowly and pause for translations during long speeches
3. Use as little jargon as possible unless it is well-known by all participants
4. Set up ground rules for e-mail communication, talking over each other, etc.

This last rule might help with your specific problem. What you are saying the team member does seems pretty reasonable to me not having seen the results. When I receive an e-mail with a lot of questions, I answer next to each question and write "Answers within your text for clarity' in the body of my response.

Perhaps your problem child doesn't format his answers obviously. I recommend using a different color, bold my responses and make sure there is a carriage return between each response. 

Good luck,

PM Advisor

Send your questions to Bruce@RoundTablePM.com

Dear PM Advisor. Sep 1, 2014

Dear PM Advisor,

I’ve been taking practice PMP tests and struggle with ones where they ask me something is a tool or technique in one of the processes. Other than memorizing every single tool, technique, input and output in every process, how am I supposed to know these?

Feeling like a tool in San Diego.

Dear Tool,

And I mean that in the nicest sense of the word. There are a few tricks I’ve discovered to help you with this problem. The first one is, as you’ve suggested, memorizing every input, tool, technique and output in every process. I have a cheat sheet that you can memorize linked here. It will take a normal person about five hours to do so. If you are willing to spend the time on this, bring it with you in your mind and spend the first 10 minutes of your four hours transcribing this on the pieces of paper they give you when you take your test. Then, when you are faced with these questions, look them up and you know you got another question right.

For those who’d rather spend their time doing other things, here are some hints:

• Tools or techniques = doing something
• Inputs or outputs = something you can hold

About half the time, the question will ask which of the following is or is not a tool or an input or an output.

Eg: Perform Qualitative Risk Analysis

Inputs = Risk mgmt plan

Scope baseline

Risk Register

EEF, OPA

Outputs = Project Doc updates

Tools = Risk prob and impact assessment

Prob & Impact matrix

Risk data qual assessment

Risk categorization

Risk Urgency assess

Expert Judgment

Good luck,

PM Advisor

Send your questions to Bruce@RoundTablePM.com

Dear PM Advisor. Aug 25, 2014

Dear PM Advisor,

I struggle with all the Earned Value Formulae. Any hints for making this portion of the PMP test easier to study for?

Can’t see the value in Albuquerque

Dear Can’t,

Once you struggle with the more philosophical questions on the PMP exam you’ll see the calculations like those Earned Value ones as a breath of fresh air. But first let me give you some hints to make these easier for you.

You are usually given some numbers and asked to calculate the rest. I’m going to assume you know some elementary Algebra before you take the test. Here are the three numbers you are usually given: 

Planned Value (PV), Actual Cost (AC) and Earned Value (EV). 

If they are evil they will give you one of the below formulae and you will need to use that basic Algebra to determine the missing number from above. Either way, you’ll need to remember the following formulae and below I’ll show you the easy way to do this.

There are four rules to remember:    

1. EV always come first in the calculation
2. AC goes with anything that says Cost
3. Negative Variances are always bad
4. Indexes less than 1.0 are always bad

So let’s put these rules to the test. You are asked to calculate Cost Variance. You get Variances by subtracting one number from another. Rule 1 says EV always goes first. Rule 2 says AC goes with any Cost calculation.

Thus CV = EV –AC     Simple, right?

What does that leave you with for Schedule Variance?  EV goes first, Rule 2 is not in effect so the only thing left to put in the equation is PV.

Thus SV = EV – PV.

The same two rules apply for the Index calculations.

Cost Performance Index requires EV to go first, only this time the EV goes in on top of the line. 

We’re talking about cost so AC goes on the bottom.

Thus CPI = EV/AC

SPI must use PV since that’s all that’s left.

Thus SPI = EV/PV

Rules 3 and 4 help you convert formulae into reality. If you have a negative SV, you are behind schedule. A negative CV means you are OVER budget. Don’t get confused by the negative number. Negative is bad, being over budget is bad.

Same with the indexes. Less than 1 is bad so a SPI of 0.8 means you are behind schedule. Over 1.0 is good so a CPI of 1.2 means you are UNDER budget.

Remembering these hints will help you with about 5 of the 200 questions you will be faced with. For those that require TCPI or ETC, you just have to memorize the formulae. More on these in a future post.

Good luck,

PM Advisor

Send your questions to Bruce@RoundTablePM.com

Dear PM Advisor. Aug 18, 2014

Dear PM Advisor,

How would you define and measure EVM?

Regards,

Hugo

Dear Hugo,

That's a quick question with a long answer.

I define Earned Value Management as the only objective way of measuring that you get what you pay for. It is an objective way of determining true project % complete because it uses baseline costs to give you credit for completion of tasks.

Here is a link to the method I use to measure EVM:

Good luck,

PM Advisor.

Dear PM Advisor. Jul 14, 2014

Dear PM Advisor,

I attended your class in New Jersey and have a follow-up question. As a teacher we are often subject to decisions made by higher-level administration. They decide which  projects are run and these projects often result in additional or even nonsensical work for us lowly teachers.

What is your advice for us?

Peeved in Pequannock

Dear Peeved,

These are projects for which you are not a team member I assume. But since you are affected by the outcome of these projects, you are, by definition, a stakeholder. You and the other 100,000 teachers affected by some of these high level projects.  It’s almost as if you share a common core.

Stakeholders should always be considered during proper project management. Those running the project should place you on a Power/Interest grid and deal with you appropriately. Your level of Interest should be rated as extremely high but your Power, unfortunately, would be rated as low. What can you really do about these demands pushed down from above?

Your union, however, should also be on this grid and their Power is high. If you and your fellow teachers ensure that their Interest level on new projects is high also, new projects will be forced to deal with them.

I suggest you ask your union to require that a representative teacher be involved at the earliest stages of any new project. This way a high Power, high Interest stakeholder can be fully informed about what is going on and can gather comments from teachers and ensure that their interests are being met on future projects.

Good luck,

PM Advisor

Send your questions to Bruce@RoundTablePM.com

 

Dear PM Advisor. Jun 30, 2014

Dear PM Advisor,

I’m documenting the introduction to our Project Profile for presentation to management. I’ve been advised not to use bullets for this document. Why not? I believe the white space makes it easier to read.

Format Queen in Morristown

Dear Format Queen,

Bullet statements are good for three purposes:

1.       Lists

2.       To present your resume in an easily readable format that highlights your experiences without causing anyone to push through paragraphs of words.

3.       To present your key points along with your wording as you present something.

A Project Profile, while it may be initially presented, ends up being a stand-alone document that anyone may pick up months or even years later to try and determine what this project is all about.

A stand-alone document cannot use bullets except for lists like deliverables, measures, etc. because bullets typically are not complete sentences and require more words to fully explain what you mean. Since you will not be there to add the needed words, you need to add them now, while you create the document.

Here is what I recommend you do to ensure you have a complete Project Profile:

1.       Write up the Profile with the aid of your team

2.       Print it out

3.       Hand a copy to each of your team members along with a pen

4.       Present your Profile to your team

5.       The team members will mark up your profile with the ad-lib comments you made during your presentation

6.       Type this new information into your edited Profile

7.       Repeat steps 2 – 6 until what you are presenting is exactly what is documented on the Profile

8.       At this point, your Profile is good enough to be that stand-alone document you want.

Good luck,

PM Advisor

Send your questions to Bruce@RoundTablePM.com

Dear PM Advisor. Jun 16, 2014

Dear PM Advisor,

We are documenting our assumptions as we plan but we’re concerned. A lot of the assumptions we are making won’t be proven true or false until we are halfway through the project. Management has challenged these and told us they won’t approve the project unless we have answers to all these questions.

What can we do?

Nervous in New York

Dear Nervous,

Project Planning is the process of predicting the future. But management typically wants our predictions to be 100% accurate while we are dealing mostly in hopes and dreams. We can never be 100% accurate in our predictions so we use past data to try and improve our predictions.

Along the way we need to make assumptions to continue planning. Since we don’t know which of two or more paths will prove to be correct, we assume the most likely path to be true, treat that as a fact and continue planning accordingly. This allows us to complete a project plan, along with all the assumptions that got us to that point.  It is extremely important that management buys off on all these assumptions when they approve the project plan. If they disagree with an assumption, they need to let us know. We’ll pick one of the other paths as true and adjust the plan accordingly.

Some of these assumptions will not be proven to be correct until the project is underway. That is a reality of life. Your management needs to accept this reality and move on. The only way you can determine the validity of this assumption is to proceed to the point where it will be proven. So they need to either allow you to proceed or, if they are too unsure about the project, they need to reject the project’s progress to the implementation phase.

Good luck,

PM Advisor

Send your questions to Bruce@RoundTablePM.com

Dear PM Advisor. Jun 2, 2014

Dear PM Advisor,

I wrote my Project Objective Statement to include the words: “Final product must cost < $2 per pound.” I was told by one of my team members that this was not the correct cost to put in the Objective. My response was that this was extremely important and should be reflected in the headlines of the project: The Objective Statement which appears on every project document.

Who is right?

Concerned in Connecticut

Dear Concerned,

From your question I imply that the ONLY cost you show in your Objective is this cost per pound of your final product. While that is indeed an important measure of the success of your project, management still needs to know how much your project will cost to complete in order to determine whether or not to do your project. If it costs $10 million to complete and brings in revenues of only $1 million a year, it doesn’t matter if you can make the product for $1 a pound, the project will never pay for itself.

You are correct that this important measure needs to be elevated to the Project Objective and appear in the ‘headlines’ of the project. It is OK to have two cost values in your Objective. So your Objective should read somewhere along these lines:

To develop the XYZ product, produce it reliably for < $2 per pound and market it by Dec 21, 2015 for a cost not to exceed $250,000.

Now you have the three elements of a good Project Objective: Cost, Schedule and Performance, along with the most important measure.

Good luck,

PM Advisor

Send your questions to Bruce@RoundTablePM.com

Dear PM Advisor. May 19, 2014

Dear PM Advisor,

I work at a consulting firm that is developing a lot of small IT projects at one time. I've been trying to get the steering committee interested in using the Software Development LifeCycle (SDLC) that I used at previous companies but my proposal got squashed immediately. Enclosed is a project plan template that is very similar to what we used at UPS and Medco which made IT DEV project management run very smooth (not to mention both were multi-billion dollar corporations). 

My point is, if it worked successfully there, I don’t see why we cannot implement this strategy/methodology here. I understand that we have a SDLC methodology here (scaled down – that NO ONE uses) but adding this release calendar to just the IT dev projects would add tremendous value to both the PMO and IT. 

Personally, I think IT would love this methodology in place (I know I do). Let me know your thoughts.

Tied up in Morristown, NJ

Dear Tied up.

It all seems quite reasonable. Why not use these tasks when you plan your projects? You can guide the team members to come up with the wording you want. Sometimes they’ll balk and you use their wording but it means the same to you. That’s what I do when I plan projects. Here’s the conversation:

“So the first thing we need to do is plan this project, right? How about we say Concept proposal? Have you done that already? You have? Good. Then we have to Identify vision and scope. That’s what we’re doing now. Do you know the deliverables? OK, from there we create the project plan.”

And so on until they are using the deliverables and tasks you are familiar with.

I always do that with my projects so that I know what is happening on the project I plan and execute. Often people will add tasks that I don’t have in my template which are specific to that project and the way they do things. I’ll compromise there. 

Good luck,

PM Advisor

Send your questions to Bruce@RoundTablePM.com