Project Management Resources and Links

Tools

Project Lifecycle - The Project Life Cycle Framework leverages Project Management as the overarching process which coordinates the underlying life cycle processes of project funding approval, acquisition and system development. At various stages in the project life cycle, each of the underlying processes may occur and overlap with each other based on a variety of factors including control agency requirements. Project approval and funding must be obtained prior to completion of the acquisition activities and before any activities begin during the system development phases. These life cycle activities, while discrete, are often intertwined due to certain dependencies on each other. The exact timing of these activities will be based on organizational, project, and control agency requirements.”

Project Lifecycle - FAA FAA executes its acquisition management policy by means of the lifecycle management process, which is organized into a series of phases and decision points. The circular representation conveys the principle of seamless management and continuous improvement in service delivery over time.

PERT Chart - Complex projects require a series of activities, some of which must be performed sequentially and others that can be performed in parallel with other activities. This collection of series and parallel tasks can be modeled as a network.

CPM - Critical Path Method – Good explanation and example of CPM

CPM from NASA - The cost estimator needs to understand how to estimate schedule realism as well as proposed compressions or delays in a project schedule. Part of estimating these schedule changes is being able to quantify the impacts of schedule changes of the cost and risks of the project and translate them into the cost estimate.

Scheduling Issues - From Delivering on Time by Stephen Rickard. The book concentrates on the 'soft' areas of Project Management, the cracks in the pavement, where most projects meet problems.

Risk Management from FAA - The objective of Risk Management is to provide a proper balance between risk and opportunity. It seeks to understand and avoid the potential cost, schedule, and performance/technical risks to a project, and to take a proactive and well-planned role in anticipating them and responding to them if they occur.

Estimation – Learning Curve - The theory of learning is simple. It is recognized that repetition of the same operation results in less time or effort expended on that operation. For the Wright learning curve, the underlying hypothesis is that the direct labor man-hours necessary to complete a unit of production will decrease by a constant percentage each time the production quantity is doubled. If the rate of improvement is 20% between doubled quantities, then the learning percent would be 80% (100-20=80). While the learning curve emphasizes time, it can be easily extended to cost as well.

Critical Chain Project Management – Based on the work of "Theory of Constraints" (TOC), Critical Chain focuses on a systems approach to project management. Rather than focusing estimates on individual tasks, CCPM focuses on early task completion and buffering the project system for variability.

The Beer Game – The beer game studies irrational decision behavior induced by delays in supply chain management, or in a project/program. It uses a board game and cards to simulate the supply chain flow. (An agent based model of John Sterman's Beer Game.)

Primavera (PM Software) - Since 1983, Primavera has become widely known as the leading provider of comprehensive project management, control and execution software. In fact, it is estimated that projects totaling more than $4 trillion in value have been managed with Primavera products. Primavera offers the premier project management software solutions to businesses of all types that manage by project. You can count on Primavera for the most reliable, responsive and well-received systems and services to help you succeed in managing and improving the delivery of all your projects, programs and resources.

Government Sources

Federal Project Manager (OPM Guidelines) – This interpretive guidance addresses position classification, job evaluation, staffing, qualifications, training, and development for project manager positions based on existing criteria and guidance.

Federal Acquisition Certification for Program and Project Managers (FAC-P/PM) – Establishes general training and experience requirements for program and project managers in civilian agencies. The FACP/PM focuses on essential competencies needed for program and project managers; the program does not include functional or technical competencies, such as those for information technology, or agency-specific competencies.

Earned Value Management (Defense Acquisition University) - Earned value is a management technique that relates resource planning to schedules and to technical cost and schedule requirements. All work is planned, budgeted, and scheduled in time-phased ''planned value'' increments constituting a cost and schedule measurement baseline. There are two major objectives of an earned value system: to encourage contractors to use effective internal cost and schedule management control systems; and to permit the customer to be able to rely on timely data produced by those systems for determining product-oriented contract status.

Earned Schedule - Within EVM, cost measures are used to measure schedule. These measures (SV and SPI) may become inaccurate as the project progresses. Earned Schedule provides a time-based measure of project progress which may be useful, especially in the latter portions of the project.

Earned Schedule Papers and Presentations

Exhibit 300 Business Case (OPM) – OMB Circular A-11 Part 7 establishes policy for planning, budgeting, acquisition and management of Federal capital assets, and instructs you on budget justification and reporting requirements for major acquisitions and major IT systems or projects. OMB provides procedural and analytic guidelines for implementing specific aspects of these policies as appendices and supplements to this Circular and in other OMB Circulars.

Exhibit 53 (OPM) – This information helps OMB:

Ensure that spending on IT supports an agency=s mission;
Identify investments in agency infrastructure and office automation;
Identify investments that support agency enterprise architecture development, business process re-engineering (BPR), IT policy development, and acquisition management;
Identify IT and E-Gov investments for review during the budget process.

DoD PMBOK Extention - This document is the first edition (2003) of a U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) Extension to the Project Management Institute’s (PMI®) A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) 2000 Edition. The primary purpose of this document is to identify and describe defense applications of the core project management knowledge areas contained in the PMBOK® Guide, as well as those defense-intensive knowledge areas not contained in the Guide. It is important to understand that this is an extension to the PMBOK® Guide, and is not intended to be a stand-alone document. The PMBOK® Guide is a valuable document in its own right and its principles need to be understood and practiced by DoD Program Managers (PM).

VA Program/Project Management Guide – Program/Project Management Guide by Veterans Administration.

NASA Handbook – Project guidelines within NASA, including EVM.

USA.GOV – Federal Portal, linking all Federal websites.

Educational Sources

Project management tutorial (University of Texas) Managing your digital media project is one of the most important and often overlooked aspects of the development process. You will find that effort you put into planning, scheduling, and organizing your project will pay off enormously. Here we'll outline some proven techniques for planning, scheduling, and completing your project.

Project Management Documents (UC Davis) - Depending on the role of the project management team and the scope of the project, one or more of the following documents would be used to plan and track the progress of the project. Take a look at some sample documents. These are .pdf files, so you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to view these documents.

EVM from Defense Acquisition University (Defense Acquisition University) – Information on Government EVM.

Defense Procurement and Acquisition Policy – DPAP is responsible for all acquisition and procurement policy matters in the Department of Defense (DoD). The DPAP office serves as the principal advisor to the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics (AT&L), Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Technology (A&T), and the Defense Acquisition Board on acquisition/procurement strategies for all major weapon systems programs, major automated information systems programs, and services acquisitions.

FedBizOpps - The single government point-of-entry (GPE) for Federal government procurement opportunities over $25,000. Government buyers are able to publicize their business opportunities by posting information directly to FedBizOpps via the Internet. Through one portal - FedBizOpps (FBO) - commercial vendors seeking Federal markets for their products and services can search, monitor and retrieve opportunities solicited by the entire Federal contracting community.

Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) – The FAR is the principal authoritative reference document for most Federal procurements.

Acquisition Management System (AMS) – The AMS is the principal authoritative reference document for most FAA procurements.

Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) – The UCC promotes the purposes of: (1) to simplify, clarify, and modernize the law governing commercial transactions; (2) to permit the continued expansion of commercial practices through custom, usage, and agreement of the parties; and (3) to make uniform the law among the various (United States) jurisdictions.

Pricing Guides – A set of five reference volumes that were developed jointly by the Federal Acquisition Institute (FAI) and the Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT).

Organizations

PMI (Project Management Institute) – PMI is the world’s leading not-for-profit association for the project management profession with more than 270,000 members. PMI is recognized for the advocacy programs we conduct with governments, organizations and industries around the world as they recognize and embrace project management to achieve business results.

IPMA (International Project Management Association) - In 1965 the Association started as a discussion group of managers of international projects. The first international Congress was held 1967 in Vienna with participants from 30 different countries. Since that time INTERNET (which was the name of the organization until 1994) has developed steadily and is now the prime international promoter of project management. A most significant IPMA characteristic is the parallel development of associated national societies that serve the specific development needs of each country in its national language. IPMA has thus emerged as an international network of national project management societies. Currently IPMA comprises over thirty National Associations representing approximately 20,000 members primarily in Europe but also in Africa and Asia. They promote project management professionalism under specific cultural requirements, in all types of projects. Moreover, institutional contacts to National Associations in North America, Australia and South Africa ensure a true global dimension to the work of IPMA.

APM (Association for Project Management) - The APM Practitioner Qualification is for Project Managers, Project Coordinators and Team Leaders with more than three years experience managing non-complex projects. This intermediate qualification is for project management practitioners who can demonstrate their ability to manage any non-complex project or run a key control function of a large scale project. The Practitioner Qualification (IPMA Level C) is for any relatively experienced professionals looking to demonstrate their ability to manage projects successfully.

Books

Project Management: The Managerial Process, 4e (Gary Larson) – The text is holistic--it directs attention to the needed linkage between projects and organizational strategy. This text treats both the technical and the behavioral aspects of the Project Management.

Project Management: A Systems Approach to Planning, Scheduling, and Controlling, 10th Edition (Harold Kerzner) – The text is holistic--it directs attention to the needed linkage between projects and organizational strategy. This text treats both the technical and the behavioral aspects of the Project Management.

The Fast Forward MBA in Project Management (Eric Verzun) – The Fast Foundation in Project Management downloadable forms site.

Project Management Audio Books – Multi-Media Publications Inc. publishes a broad line of products for project managers. Our mainstream project management books appear in our Project Management Essentials Library series of books. In addition, we have the popular Project Management Audio Library series of audiobooks and recorded live seminars on project management topics. Finally, we have a number of DVDs of live presentations on project management subjects from some of the world's top project management speakers.

A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK Guide)

The $5 Billion Misunderstanding: The Collapse of the Navy's A-12 Stealth Bomber Program by James P. Stevenson

The Pentagon Wars: Reformers Challenge the Old Guard by James G. Burton

Pentagon Paradox: The Development of the F-18 Hornet by James P. Stevenson

Critical Chain by Eliyahu M. Goldratt

Identifying and Managing Project Risk: Essential Tools for Failure-Proofing Your Project by Tom Kendrick PMP