Accountability vs Responsibility

PMP Terminologies
Let’s speak about some of the terminologies related to Human
Resource Knowledge area. In HR we come across a few terminologies which look
similar, but there is difference in terms of definition.
Accountability vs Responsibility
Accountability is taking ownership of the out come/result of
a project, and who is answerable. Responsibility is the duty or the activities
to be performed. Simple example is in a group of team headed by project
Manager, the team executing the job are responsible and the PM is accountable.
For a given activity, there can be only one accountable and multiple people who
will be responsible.
RACI vs RAM
The accountability and responsibility can be represented by
the RACI model.
R-Responsibility, A-Accountability, C-Consult and I-Inform.
RACI model provides the picture of roles and responsibility
of a particular activity or set of activities. It is represented in the form of
Matrix.
The matrix which is explaining the roles and responsibility
of the people who are working on an activity or a set of activities is called Responsibility Assignment Matrix or
RAM.
Role vs Responsibility
Role can be individual or group or the function/department.
Responsibility is the activities that are carried out by the individual or
group of people or the function/department.
For example: Project Manager is the role and the
responsibility is to carry out the activities like planning, execution,
monitoring & control, closure etc…

Authority vs Power
Power is ability to impose the will where as Authority is
right to apply those power.
For example right to apply or use project resources,
spending funds, making decisions or give approvals.

Personal Power vs Positional Power
We understood what is the meaning of power? Power is referred by more than one name.
There are five forms of powers which a Project Manager can posses.
Legitimate: The power derived from position and also called formal power.
Reward: The power of rewarding directly or indirectly to the
team. The reward can be by appreciation, motivation, monetary, salary
etc.. If nothing can be done, just say Thank you! You can read 101 ways to
reward Team members by Kevin Aquanno.
Referent: The power derived from personality.
Expert: The power
derived out of the expertise may in the technical aspects.
Penalty: Penalizing the team members directly or indirectly.
This is also called coercive or
punishment.
Positional powers are derived
from the position of the Project Manager. Legitimate, Reward and Penalty are
derived from positional powers.
Personal powers are derived from
the Project Manager himself/herself. For
example when the Project Manager is technically expert, the team members will
follow him. Expert and Referent are derived from Personal power.
If you generalise, among the
above, Expert is the best form of power. Will you agree?

PMP Terminologies

PMP Terminologies
When we study PMP, we come across different terminologies. And
many terminologies when we read, it looks similar. But there are differences.
And these differences give the clear picture of concepts as well helpful for
the examination to crack.
Let us list one by one with series of articles.
1 Accuracy vs Precision
Accuracy is defined
as, "The ability of a measurement to match the actual value of the
quantity being measured".
Precision is defined
as, "(1) The ability of a measurement to be consistently reproduced"
and "(2) The number of significant digits to which a value has been
reliably measured".
Simple example is
measurement of temperature using Thermometer. If the room temperature is 22,
and the thermometer is showing the values, 22, 22.1, 22.2, 22.3, 22.4, 22.5, 21.5,21.6,
21.7, 21.8, 21.9, then we can say that it is accurate, but not precise. Because
the range is very high and no tendancy towards a particular value. But they are
very close to the expected temperature.

2 Grade vs Quality
Grade is nothing but number of Features in a given product.
Quality is how those features are performing.
Let’s take an example:
There are 2 products.
One is product A having five features and none of them are working as
per the requirement and lot of defects. The second one is product B having two
features and both of them are working perfectly without any defects. Now which
product is having high grade and high quality or which product is having low
grade and low quality? Yes, you answered correctly. The product A is having
high grade and low quality. Where as product B is of low grade but high
quality.
The better one to choose is high quality products. Here in
this case it is B.

PMP Terminologies

PMP Terminologies
When the Project Manager is in the Planning process group,
most of his/her time will go in thinking
in the line of estimating the resources, time
required to complete the project and the cost that is going to incur and
of course other than this, risk planning, procurement planning etc… The
estimation can be done using different techniques like analogous, parametric,
three point estimation, expert judgement, etc. Let’s consider the difference
between Analogous estimation and Parametric Estimation.
Analogous estimation Vs Parametric
Estimation
Analogy means similar or equivalent. Analogous estimation is
done based on the time or cost taken by similar projects which were done during
earlier days. So this is based on the historical or the experience of the team
who have done similar projects in the past. One of the disadvantages of this
technique is estimation may not be accurate.
For example: For the cost of development of an online
booking application took about 1 month and you are going to develop the similar
application for another client, then we can take 1 month as the estimation to
develop it.


















Parametric estimation is done on the per unit basis and uses
the relation between variables to arrive at the cost or the duration. This
estimation is more accurate compared to the analogous estimation. But the measurement must be scalable in order
to achieve the accuracy.
For example: It takes 1 day to produce 10 pieces of work.
Then to produce 100 pieces how many days it takes? Simple, 10 days.

Parametric

Above, we discussed
about types of estimation. Now what is estimation? Estimation is the likelihood
of the duration or the cost in terms of quantitative numbers to complete the
project. But can we achieve the project with estimation? The answer is may not
be. So this ambiguity leads to adding the buffer which we call it as reserves
to the estimate and approve the same. This final figure becomes budget.
Estimate Vs Budget
Estimate is an approximate figure to arrive at the duration,
cost, effort, resources to complete the project.

Budget is approved estimate after the addition of reserve.

For example: After the estimation if the cost is coming to
about $1M, then will add about 5% considering the reserve. So the budget will
become $1.05M.
Just now we spoke about reserve. Now in PMP there are two types
of reserves one is the Contingency reserve and the other is Management reserve.
Let’s see the difference between them.
Contingency reserve vs Management reserve
Contingency reserve is the amount of duration or the cost
added based on the unknown but potential identified risk. And this will be
added usually by the Project Manager after the estimation and becomes Cost or
time baseline.
Management Reserve is the amount of duration or the cost
added based on the unknown risk and which are not visible. This will be added
by the Sponsor or the PMO office. To use this reserve by the Project Manager it
calls for approval from sponsor/PMO.
Contingency reserve is called “known unknown” and Management
reserve is called “unknown unknown”.
The technique of using the Management Reserve and
Contingency reserve is called the Reserve
Analysis.

Effective Project Management

Effective Project Management
What is the significance of a Project Manager during Project
management? Project Manager play key role during the project life cycle which
runs generally from requirement collection, design, development, testing,
deployment and finally handing over to the maintenance. Of course these aspects
are covered with Initiation, Planning, Execution, Monitoring & Controlling
and Closure which are part of five process groups under PMP.
As we know these five process groups are covered with 42
processes under 9 knowledge areas. When we consider these knowledge areas, the
Project manager should balance all the constraints like scope, time, cost,
quality, risk, resources. That’s true that he/she should balance, but how? Is
it possible? Yes, why not, by having the basic four qualities. They are a
Project Manager should be good communicator, an effective Integrator, sensible
Negotiator and being Proactive. An effective project Manager should have all
these qualities. Let’s look one by one:
Communicator: PMP
recommends a Project Manager should spend 90%
of his or her time in communication. What is communication in Project
management? Of course it is a combination of soft skills as well as management
communication which is nothing but managing stakeholders. Soft skill meaning using interpersonal
skills, applying leadership skills and by being soft but firm. Managing stakeholders and distribution of
information are important processes. By providing right information to the
right people using right methodology or the technique to the right people. If a
Project Manager is carrying out these processes effectively, then 90% of the
time which is required for communication can be achieved.
Integrator: How a Project
manager can be good Integrator? By aggregating all the knowledge areas of the
project management and most important by balancing the constraints which are
mentioned above. This can be achieved by
·
Developing Work Breakdown Structure, schedule
and budget
·
Set Priorities
·
Continually reviewing and updating the Project
plan
·
Resolving conflict resolution
·
Removing roadblocks
·
Resolving customer or the client issues
·
Maintaining communication link tightly coupled
I think if a project
manager reciprocates to the above points, balancing can be achieved.
Negotiator: What is the
meaning of negotiation? Negotiation meaning making win-win situation and it is
not loose-loose or loose-win situation. In a given project the conflicts are
inevitable. It can be due to schedule, business reason, technology, and customer
or can be due to ego clashes. As an effective project Manager, he should be in
a good negotiator position to handle the situation. Other than this a project
manager has to negotiate with functional manager to get best resources in the
interest of project to make the project success. This situation comes typically
in a functional or a matrix based organisation. Because, every functional
manager will be interested in using the resources to develop the functional
aspects of his or her area than giving importance to the project. So in this
situation, if a project manager is not a good negotiator, then project may
fail. Can we know when negotiation fails?
I would say when you don’t negotiate. Yes, if you don’t negotiate you
will not get best of what you require. This rule is applicable not only in
project management as well as in our day to day life.
Proactive: How a Project
manager can be Proactive? By anticipating. But how to anticipate? By
experience, looking or learning other’s mistakes or his/her own mistakes.
Proactive leads to minimising the risk in the project. Identification of risk
is very important during the project management. When you identify a risk,
immediately you think of how to handle or to respond to it. If you respond to
it by mitigating and averting, we can say that it is proactive. Of course I can
understand a project manager can’t be always proactive. But at least reactive
mode leads to proactive. For example, there are 100 servers and all are in the
same network. One of the servers is infected by virus and is down. The reactive
mode is to apply the antivirus software and repairing it. But we know that rest
of the 99 servers will be affected. Before they catches with virus, apply the
antivirus to all of them. This becomes Proactive.

Role of a Project Manager

Project Manager is the key person to the successful completion of the project. To make this success, he/she should be a good Communicator, Integrator, Negotiator and pro-active.

Communicator: Sharing the information to the right stakeholders at the right time at the right place either it is bad or good.

Negotiator: Getting the best skilled resource to the project and delivering the product or the result or the service

Integrator: Balancing all the constraints of the projects like scope, time, cost, quality, resource etc.. and combining them to the successful delivery

Pro-active: Nothing better than this. Anticipating the issues or the risk and mitigating or making the right choice of the response.