What should a project overview contain

Product roadmapping: how it is carried out in project management. Roadmap tool: this is all you need to overcome complexities in Project Management. Project milestones examples that you can have in different projects. Escribe un comentario. Email Address. Before getting started we'd like to inform you that after creating your account is possible that we may need to:.

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List questions that you want to raise in your project. Explain how you will get your topic information. Explain resources and the methodology you will use. You may choose to include interview sources or required reading from books that support your research. Outline what the project will be like.

Explain what your project will look like upon completion and how you will demonstrate the success or failure of your project. Put the name of the project and your name at the top of the overview page. If others are involved in the project, list their names and responsibilities on the project overview statement, such as the instructor overseeing the project. You get the idea; the constraints are all dependent on each other. Think of all of these constraints as the classic carnival game of Whac-a-mole Figure 2.

Each time you try to push one mole back in the hole, another one pops out. The best advice is to rely on your project team to keep these moles in place. Here is an example of a project that cut quality because the project costs were fixed. The P oil platform Figure 2. In March , the P was producing around 84, barrels of oil and 1. The sinking is attributed to a complete failure in quality assurance, and pressure for increased production led to corners being cut on safety procedures.

The following quotes are from a Petrobras executive, citing the benefits of cutting quality assurance and inspection costs on the project. The dynamic trade-offs between the project constraint values have been humorously and accurately described in Figure 2. In order for you, as the project manager, to manage the competing project constraints and the project as a whole, there are some areas of expertise you should bring to the project team Figure 2.

They are knowledge of the application area and the standards and regulations in your industry, understanding of the project environment, general management knowledge and skills, and interpersonal skills. It should be noted that industry expertise is not in a certain field but the expertise to run the project.

So while knowledge of the type of industry is important, you will have a project team supporting you in this endeavor. For example, if you are managing a project that is building an oil platform, you would not be expected to have a detailed understanding of the engineering since your team will have mechanical and civil engineers who will provide the appropriate expertise; however, it would definitely help if you understood this type of work.

By standards, we mean guidelines or preferred approaches that are not necessarily mandatory. In contrast, when referring to regulations we mean mandatory rules that must be followed, such as government-imposed requirements through laws. Every industry has standards and regulations. Knowing which ones affect your project before you begin work will not only help the project to unfold smoothly, but will also allow for effective risk analysis. Some projects require specific skills in certain application areas.

Application areas are made up of categories of projects that have common elements. They can be defined by industry group pharmaceutical, financial, etc.

These application areas are usually concerned with disciplines, regulations, and the specific needs of the project, the customer, or the industry. The pharmaceutical industry is interested in regulations set forth by government regulators, whereas the automotive industry has little or no concern for either of these types of regulations. You need to stay up-to-date regarding your industry so that you can apply your knowledge effectively. There are many factors that need to be understood within your project environment Figure 2.

At one level, you need to think in terms of the cultural and social environments i. Then we move to the physical environment; here we think about time zones.

Think about different countries and how differently your project will be executed whether it is just in your country or if it involves an international project team that is distributed throughout the world in five different countries. Of all the factors, the physical ones are the easiest to understand, and it is the cultural and international factors that are often misunderstood or ignored. How we deal with clients, customers, or project members from other countries can be critical to the success of the project.

For example, the culture of the United States values accomplishments and individualism. Americans tend to be informal and call each other by first names, even if having just met. Europeans tend to be more formal, using surnames instead of first names in a business setting, even if they know each other well.

In addition, their communication style is more formal than in the United States, and while they tend to value individualism, they also value history, hierarchy, and loyalty. The Japanese, on the other hand, tend to communicate indirectly and consider themselves part of a group, not as individuals.

The Japanese value hard work and success, as most of us do. How a product is received can be very dependent on the international cultural differences. Western companies planned their telephone systems to work the same way in Asia as they did in Europe and the United States. But the protocol of conversation was different.

Call-waiting, a popular feature in the West, is considered impolite in some parts of Asia. This cultural blunder could have been avoided had the team captured the project environment requirements and involved the customer. It is often the simplest things that can cause trouble since, unsurprisingly, in different countries, people do things differently. One of the most notorious examples of this is also one of the most simple: date formats. Of course it depends where you come from; in North America it is February 8th while in Europe and much of the rest of the world it is 2nd August.

Clearly, when schedules and deadlines are being defined it is important that everyone is clear on the format used. The diversity of practices and cultures and its impact on products in general and on software in particular goes well beyond the date issue. You may be managing a project to create a new website for a company that sells products worldwide. It is obvious that you need to ensure the translation is correct; however, the presentation layer will have its own set of requirements for different cultures.

The left side of a website may be the first focus of attention for a Canadian; the right side would be the initial focus for anyone from the Middle East, as both Arabic and Hebrew are written from right to left. Colors also have different meanings in different cultures. White, which is a sign of purity in North America e. Table 2. Project managers in multicultural projects must appreciate the culture dimensions and try to learn relevant customs, courtesies, and business protocols before taking responsibility for managing an international project.

Here, we are thinking of items like your ability to plan the project, execute it properly, and of course control it and bring it to a successful conclusion, along with your ability to guide the project team to achieve project objectives and balance project constraints.

There is more to project management than just getting the work done. Inherent in the process of project management are the general management skills that allow the project manager to complete the project with some level of efficiency and control.