Hi! Are you working on a project and heard tons of project terminologies that
you just weren't 100% sure exactly what they meant? Well in this video I'm going
to share with you my top 10 project terminologies that I have defined just
for you!
Hi I'm Adriana Girdler and I'm president of CornerStone Dynamics and
MyVisualVision.com and I'm also a project management professional. And in
this video, as I mentioned, I want to share with you the terminology that I
come across all the time, that I do find within my projects, some people are not
100% sure exactly what they are. And you can see them right up here to my right.
All right my first one is, and I have my little cheat sheet here, is sponsor.
There also known as project sponsor or an executive sponsor and the official
definition for this: is this is a person who ultimately has authority over the
project this person provides funding, direction, and is the champion of the
project to the organization. This is a really critical role and interestingly
enough I find sometimes it's a ghost role. Organizations will have projects
and they'll put a sponsor in it, yet the sponsor is not acting as the true
champion in the organization, so as important as this definition is, the rule
is even more critical, and would suggest strongly that in your projects if your
champion is kind of hard to find, you should really take a look and ensuring
that you find your sponsor so they can start promoting stuff in the
organization. Number two: stakeholder. Now that is specific people that have a
stake and the outcome of the project most of the time stakeholders come from
within company but depending on the project you can have external
stakeholders as well like suppliers. So this is really everybody who's
potentially involved that could be from the sponsor, all the way down to project
team members. Number three is steering committee: a group of high-level
stakeholders who are responsible for guidance on strategic direction,
roadblock removal, and general approval of project related items. Now your
sponsor may or may not be part of your steering committee, but they're usually
high-level executives who have the ability to one, remove roadblocks which
is really important. Two: ensure that the priority of the organization is still
being kept in check within the scope of the project.
They're there to approve items that are happening and really
keep aligned with a strategy of what's happening overall, steering communities
are excellent, highly recommend it, sometimes I find organizations will
actually try to skip the steering committee and do one on one, don't do it
please please don't do it, really have that formalized meeting, it makes a huge
difference in successes of projects versus, kind of the one offs that happen.
Number four is scope statements: now this is probably the heartbeat of your
project and what is a scope statement? Well it describes what the project is
about, it's a boundaries of what will and will
not happen so we talk a lot about what's in scope and out of scope, that's what
the scope statement does. Highly recommend as a project manager, if you
are a project manager that you work with your sponsor in creating the scope
statement, this is going to give the direction that you need to ensure you
have project success and everyone is then very much aware of what they're
supposed to deliver on. Number five is gold plating: and what is gold plating?
Well it's adding extra features or flexions to product or the project or an
actual service that your project is doing, that's not included in the scope
statement, and is usually done by the team to no additional cost to the
project. Now it's interesting because gold plating may seem like a really
great idea "oh my god we're giving extra stuff" but I promise you it's actually a
bad idea and from a project management standpoint we actually really highly
recommend you do not gold plate. It can create issues without you realizing. You
created a scope statement, you did all your planning accordingly, and if you go
and do over above items, they actually can be detrimental sometimes I thought
recognizing and realizing it, so really get clear on your scope statement,
understand what the needs of your customers are, what the needs of the
sponsors are, get that all down in writing so that everyone can move
forward working towards that plan, and please do not goal plate. Number six
scope creep: this is in that line of gold plating, but it's slightly different and
the definition for this is: it refers to uncontrolled changes in the scope due to
interference of stakeholders, or customers, or
due to misunderstandings of the scope by the project manager. So I've seen
projects killed by scope creep because what happens is usually internally a
manager will say "oh just add this to the project scope statement" without taking
into account resource, budget, time and now you're scrambling you and your
project team, are scrambling to get this extra stuff done because someone thought
it would be a good idea without understanding the full ramifications of
it. It's the job of the project manager and the team to stop scope creep. Now that
being said, yeah you may have new items that have to be added to a project, but
go through the formal channel of change control. Makes a big difference.
Number seven, charters: I love charters so here's a definition for charters: it's a
document that kicks off the project, it has project objectives, it has a scope
statement, deliverables, risk assumptions, project organizational charts, roles and
responsibilities, it's created by the PM, which is a project manager, and it's sent
to all the stakeholders who are part of the project for signature. This is your
lifeline in your project, it sets the tone it gives all the information that
your team members need in order to be successful, it lays out the
expectation, what am I responsible for? What are you responsible for? What are we
gonna get this stuff done? And I love a signature part because it makes people
accountable, I've used my project charter in many ways, heavily in the beginning of
a project, and towards the end, more is just a reference document particularly
when I find team members perhaps may not be delivering towards roles and
responsibilities or if a sponsor or steering committee wanted to change
something, we go back to the document. Powerful! Highly recommend it and the
Charter is a must. I do have on my website for free a mini project Charter
template that you can use for smaller projects, you really should have a
charter for everything, because it gives the direction needed in order to be
successful, so definitely check out my free template, just go down below in the
verbiage, under this video and you can click and get that free download. Number
eight: WBS. Now, you can have a lot of connotations
for those three letters, but I am NOT going to go there, it is work breakdown
structure. And what is a work breakdown structure? Well, it break down
the project deliverable in a hierarchical fashion, in manageable
sections. It's very similar to organizational chart, in fact in one of
my past videos I actually talked about a work breakdown structure, when you're
looking to organize your time, but a work breakdown structure is something like
the Charter, it's the second core piece of document but I could not run a
project without, it takes massive concepts and breaks them down into these
manageable chunks so you have an understanding as to how you're going to
deliver on your major milestones, your tasks, etc. It just makes your project
work a lot easier because you now have an understanding how to break it down.
Number nine: action plans. Also known as work schedules, also known as work plans,
also known as schedules, and I actually call my action plans work breakdown
schedule, or even a structure so what exactly is all that? Well it really is
the project plan that tells the project manager all the tasks that need to occur
to complete the project with, responsibilities and due date. So just
like the charter,s our first key document that delivers all the information,
your work breakdown structure allows you to understand what the hierarchy is so
that you can then go to this next part which is your action plan, right! What is
it that we're gonna do? Who's responsible for what? What are all the tasks
associated with it? Again the project manager works off of this, it's a live
document, it's constantly changing being updated, because as time progresses,
things are changing within your project, and you have to manage it, do not manage
a project without some sort of work plan schedule, WBS, it doesn't matter what you
call, it but you need one, and ironically enough I do find some team members I go
oh everyone will take care of their own tasks, uh-uh-uh,
one single location, it is critical for project success. Last but not least
number ten: is risk planning. So what is risk planning? It's a systematic approach
to identifying all possible failures in a process, product or service. So really
your looking at the failures within your
project. Now I have a tool that I use and absolutely love, it's called a FMEA, which
is a failure mode effect analysis. You can find them on the Internet,
and it really looks at potential causes, where those failures can happen, it has a
great ranking system, once you determine what your ranking is, you can do action
plans, mitigation plans, and you add them to your project plan, and it is just a
really lovely way to ensure that when risk comes, because risk always happens
within a project, something occurs, I've never come across a project that does
not have any risk, you are going to mitigate it, and you're gonna minimize, as
I like to say, the gaping hole, I'm either gonna fall into a huge pothole and I
can't get out, or I'm gonna trip over a crack because I've done all my risk
mitigation. So that's my top ten list. If you want more information on project
management, I highly recommend you visit PMI.org, that's project management
institute dot org, great wealth information project management tips and trades and
templates and all that fantastic stuff. As well as don't forget to go to the
verbiage below this video, under the show more section, and you can download my
free Charter template, it's for many charters, just small stuff that allows
you to be very controlled, and then again giving you the structure you need to be
successful on projects. If you like this video please give it a thumbs up, please
make sure you subscribe, share this video with your friends, and family, and
colleagues. I really would appreciate it. Anyway, you have a fantastic day and
we'll see you at the next video. Thanks!