Doing the Work

A Case Study for PMP® Certification Course

Table of contents
1. Introduction
2. Challenges
3. Solution
4. Approach
5. Final outcome
6. Critical success factor
7. Lessons learned
Introduction:

The integrated project plan is determined for the entire project, which includes
requirements for managing the project from the initiation of the project till the end,
i.e., closure. The plan is well defined with detailed scope, schedule, budget,
resources, quality, risk, procurement, communication, and stakeholder
engagement plan.

Now the project is ready for implementation. A project execution meeting was held
recently which is aimed at completion of the execution within the defined
baselines. So that the business objectives can be accomplished.

The integrated project management plan includes:

• Scope Baseline, Scope Management Plan, and Requirement Management
Plan
• Schedule Baseline, Schedule Management Plan, and WBS and WBS dictionary
• Cost Baseline (including contingency reserve), management reserve and Cost
Management Plan
• Quality Criteria, Quality Management Plan, Quality Register
• Resource Management Plan, Resource Calendar
• Risks, Risk Management Plan, Risk Register
• Procurement Management Plan, Contracts
• Stakeholder Management Plan, Stakeholder Register
• Communication Management Plan

These are defined to fit in all the levels, that is Global, Regional, and Cell. The
differences in the dynamics of each level are considered, and accordingly the
approaches are chosen, which include Predictive at global level, whereas adaptive,
hybrid, incremental, and iterative in all the next levels based on the dynamics of the
respective level.

Challenges
The typical challenges involved in the global project have complex scenarios, which
can derail the project from the direction to accomplish. It may have an impact on all
the aspects and would result in the project not progressing as expected. It includes
considerations related to the following:
• Varied culture and behaviors
• Economic dynamics of the region
• Availability of resources with right capabilities
• The effective demonstration of varied legal aspects to comply with
• The political scenario of different countries
• The social norms and values

Solution

The successful implementation of the project resides in the effective solution to

overcome the challenges depicted. Since the project is global and has various levels
(i.e., global, regional, cell), it is essential to comply with the plan, procedures, and
templates defined at all levels.

The effectiveness of implementation will be based on ensuring the following:

• Assessing and managing risks on regular basis and keeping risk register
updated
• Executing the project to deliver the business value
• Managing the communication effectively
• Regular engagement with stakeholders and the fulfillment of their
requirements
• Developing and managing the artifacts of the project
• Managing changes successfully
• Managing project issues
• Regular knowledge transfer to project stakeholders including customer and
team

Approach
To ensure the successful implementation of the defined solution, the approaches
required are described in the following sections:

1. Assessing and Managing Risks on Regular Basis and Keeping Risk Register
Updated

Risk management involves identification, assessing and analyzing, and planning and
implementation of the risk response plans.

Implement Identify

Communicate

Plan Assess

Analyze

Figure: Risk Management Approach

The risk management is applicable throughout the project life cycle and the same
needs to be conducted regularly. The changes in the project scenarios will have the
changes in the risk scenarios.

Further, the risk categorization helps in assessing and analyzing them at the
respective levels and risk categories like people, process, technology, etc. Risk needs
to be analyzed qualitatively (probability x impact) and quantitatively (commercial
impact). Effective communication is key.
Risk responses considered shall be escalate, avoid, mitigate, transfer, and accept for
negative risks and escalate, exploit, enhance, share, and accept for positive risks
based on the risk analysis.

2. Executing the Project to Deliver the Business Value

The accomplishment of project objectives should deliver the business value. The
project manager should ensure the projects are executed in the most appropriate
way by balancing the various aspects of the project.

The project manger has to

● Assess the opportunities to deliver the value incrementally
● Ensure checking the business value realization throughout the project lifecycle
● Ensure the tasks are correctly executed so that the product achieve the
minimum viability
● Ensure the regular measurement of the project progress and achievements
● Capture and analyze the project information, take informed decision regularly,
and guide the team to the right direction

3. Managing the Communication Effectively

The need for regular communication during project execution is very crucial and the
project manager spends almost 90% of their time communicating with the project
team and stakeholders.

Effective communication requires establishment of a communication management

plan that includes
● Details of the communication requirements for stakeholders
● Identifying and planning the methods, channels, frequency, content, and
templates for communication based on the communication objectives
● Conducting regular communication as per the plan and update the progress
of the project regularly
● Ensuring the communication has achieved its objectives by checking based on
the stakeholders’ responses and actions
Effective communication during execution requires a detailed communication
management plan and stakeholder register along with the communication
requirements captured. It also requires conducting the communication as per the
plan with necessary adaptation and adoption from time to time. Below table provides
the sample communication management plan.

Stakeholde Channel Frequen

Objective Method Responsibility
rs cy
Status Email, Video
Bi-
Global PM Update Review Conference Regional PM
Weekly
(Regional)
Status Email, Video
Regional Project
Update (Cell Review Conference Weekly
PM Coordinator
Level)
Project
Project Task Project
Assignment Management Daily
Team Allocation Coordinator
Information System

4. Regular Engagement with Stakeholders and the Fulfillment of Their

Requirements

Stakeholders play a major role in success of the project. Regular interaction and
engagement with stakeholder based on the interest, impact, and influence level from
and to the stakeholders has to be done.

Project manager has to ensure capturing the details of the stakeholders, which
includes:
● Identification of the stakeholder
● Stakeholder categorization based on their area of interest and their
relationship with the project
● Regular engagement with the stakeholders as per the defined engagement
plans
● Execution and evaluation of the effectiveness of the stakeholder’s engagement
strategy and plans.
It is very important to understand the stakeholder register is updated and kept up to
date by doing regular evaluation. The various stakeholders for the global project may
include sponsor, project manager, project coordinator, project support, and project
team at all the levels.

5. Developing and Managing the Artifacts of the Project

A project artifact can be any document which is defined for effective management of
the project. The typical project artifact required for the global project can be:
● Business case
● Project charter
● Project baselines
● Approach documents
● Project management plans (including all the subsidiary plans)
● Any templates used during the project, like minutes of meeting, testing report,
etc.

This requires:
● Determining the requirements for management of artifacts
● Validating the project information regularly so that it is up to date
● Assessment of the artifacts on regular basis so that they remain relevant
throughout
● Regular review, updates, and version control of all the artifacts

6. Managing Changes Successfully

Project introduces change to the global environment and effective project execution
ensures the achievement of the objectives and business value creation. Besides,
every project will have the scenarios of changes in the defined plans, baselines,
process, artifacts, etc.

The trigger for the changes can be issue’s occurrence, requests from the project
stakeholders, or any problem which needs to be resolved. It is very essential to
ensure these changes are done in an integrated and controlled manner. This
requires:
 ● Anticipating and embracing the need for the changes
● Defining and complying to the defined change strategies
● Ensuring all the changes are handled through formal change approach
defined
● Determining the responses to the change as the project progresses

Change authorities at various levels have to be identified and nominated so that the
changes are approved formally, before they are implemented.
The typical approach for ensuring the success of the change can be as follows:

Identify

Analyze

Approve

Implement

Review

Figure: Change Management Approach

7. Managing Project Issues

The global project environment being complex, there may be various issues which
can arise as the project progresses depending on the different scenarios of the
project. These issues may have the impact on the project objectives and those need
to identified and managed to eliminate or minimize the negative impact to the
project, if any.
The issues which arise in the project can be related to scope, schedule, cost, quality,
resource, risk, procurement, communication, and so on. The effective handling of the
issues requires:
● Recognizing when the risk has become the issue
● Attaching the issues with the defined plans optimally and ensure the
elimination or reduction of the negative impact to the project
● Communication and collaboration with the respective stakeholder to
effectively address the issue

An issue log has to be maintained so the issues are tracked and closed

Issue ID Description Start Date Target Date Status Action Owner

th th
G12 Integration 10 Jan 2020 30 Jan 2020 In Progress Global PM

Testing
R11 12th Jan 2020 20th Jan 2020 Pending Tools Team
Tool

C13 Attrition 15th Jan 2020 30th Jan 2020 In Progress HR Head
Table: Example of Issue Register

Note: In the above table, the letters G, R, and C used in issue ID can be read as Global
and Regional Cell respectively.

8. Regular Knowledge Transfer to Project Stakeholders Including Customer

and Team

Knowledge refers to the awareness and ability of the project team to apply it to
produce the required results. So, it is required to collect, consume, and use the
knowledge that is essential for the success of the project.

The knowledge is at various different levels and has to be considered, i.e., individual,
project, and organization at all the levels of the project, i.e., global, regional, and cell.
The regular knowledge transfer to the project stakeholders include:
● Creating and maintaining the project knowledge
 ● Discussing and providing the necessary clarity about the roles and
responsibilities
● Outlining the expectation of the working environment
● Confirming the approach for knowledge transfer

Final outcome

With the structured approach of implementation, the project accomplishes the

outputs as per the plan. The deliverables achieved would result in addressing the
problems and challenges which are the reasons for initiating the project. That is,
related to delays occurring in terms of picking up and delivering the goods to the
right destination and being able to track the missed goods easily.

With consideration of issues, risks which were made more visible help in taking up
the right decisions in right time so that project is completed within planned
baselines.

The defined policies and processes help in setting up the right directions and the
compliance to those helps in standardization and optimization, considering the
dynamics of respective levels. Further, consideration of change control across the
project formalizes the process and may not allow any unauthorized changes to get
implemented, at the same time ensuring the correction of any deviation from the
expected behaviors.

The involvement of stakeholders and their active participation result in

achievement of project directions with least deviation, so that acceptance level of
the project deliverables will be high. Communication and collaboration play an
important role.

The established procurement plan provides the necessary structured approach for
identifying and engaging with suppliers for ensuring the deliverables from them are
as per the defined requirements.
Since the metrics and methods of measurement are well defined and followed, the
project success measurement is more objective in nature, rather than being
subjective.

Critical success factor

With the plan, having the combination of various approaches for implementation of
the project provides flexibility to align with changing demands of the project.
However, it is very essential to identify and achieve the critical success factors (CSF).

The typical CSF would be:

• Delivering the project within the defined baselines
• Compliance to the defined policies, process, and templates
• Identifying, analyzing, defining, implementing the issues and risk
management plans regularly, and keeping them up to date
• Engaging with the stakeholders effectively and their active participation
• Effective communication and collaboration
• Regular updates and reviews with respective project stakeholders

Lessons Learned

As the project progresses the various learnings can be captured and consolidated,
so that the same can be referred while the project progresses and at the same time
make them available for future projects.

Besides, these are the typical learnings while following a structured implementation
approach:
• Increased visibility and understanding of the global environment and its
dynamics
• The ability to handle the challenges with the active involvement of the
stakeholders regularly
• The differences between the global and regional are well understood and
project is conducted effectively and efficiently
• Improved ability to balance between the varied culture across different
locations
• The visibility and ability towards the factors influencing the project and
effectively handling them, i.e., political, economic, legal, environmental,
social, technological, etc.