From these you can craft more solid project objectives, such as. Each of these can be measured and affected by your project. They can also map pretty closely to your designs and the features offered. Objectives may also bring out new requirements. In these ways, objectives help you focus as you gather ideas for the site, and these may later become project requirements. If there are multiple objectives, be sure to create a prioritized list with your business sponsor and project team.
Objectives sometimes conflict with each other during design, and the team will need to know what takes precedence. The final prioritized list of objectives should come from your project sponsor, but you can be a key part of the discussion.
If you find the project objectives are unclear at the beginning of a project, you can bring your facilitation skills to bear. Help the project team understand the business-related context of the project by holding a workshop with key stakeholders see the next chapter for more on identifying the right stakeholders. Strengths and weaknesses could include internal processes as well as external perceptions—and often they influence each other.
Considering the things that differentiate the company from its competitors, what future initiatives could it pursue that will open up a new niche or strengthen a current one? What situations could threaten those plans? That could give competitors a chance to respond more quickly a threat. Who are the competitors for the site being developed? They can be different, especially for large companies or brand new sites. SWOT and competitors are good topics to discuss at the same time because they interact with each other.
Solidifying project objectives helps you understand expectations of what the project is going to accomplish. Understanding the project approach will help you collaborate effectively and involve the right people at the right time. I would like to receive exclusive offers and hear about products from Peachpit and its family of brands. I can unsubscribe at any time. Pearson Education, Inc. This privacy notice provides an overview of our commitment to privacy and describes how we collect, protect, use and share personal information collected through this site.
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Somewhere between over-relying on project management and rejecting all project management is the correct approach for managing a specific project. Project managers along with their project teams must identify among the numerous project management processes and practices those that are most appropriate for each project.
Each project management process should be carefully considered to determine if it is applicable to the project. Today, a project's approach should be developed to reflect the uncertainty that many projects face. Developing a project's approach recognizes that all projects are not the same—requirements will likely change, schedules are compressed and often come with imposed deadlines, budgets are limited, and stakeholders will have varying degrees of involvement.
Today, most organizations manage a significant number of projects. Ten years ago, the consensus was that the application of project management processes and practices was the same on all types of projects.
Recently, research has shown that different types of projects require different approaches and competencies for their management. Large, complex, high-risk projects need a different approach compared to smaller, simpler, low-risk projects.
The purpose of a project categorization system is to aid in determining the approach used for managing the project. A project categorization system identifies significant differences that exist between projects.
To accomplish this, projects need to be classified hierarchically for the purpose of determining which project management practices are best suited to the different types of projects. Comparability makes it possible for the project manager and the project management team to draw on the lessons learned from similar projects and apply the proper level of planning and control. This aids in determining the approach for completing the project. There is a wide variety of elements used in establishing a project categorization system.
The elements should be specific to an organization, its business environment, and its history. In some industries, the business landscape changes quite often and these elements change quickly to capture new business conditions, new understandings, and new meanings. In other industries, such as construction, the elements change very slowly. The following are elements of a project categorization system that can be used to classify projects. Starting a project categorization system with product category may not seem obvious because it is often taken for granted, which makes it difficult to see.
The product category can be associated with the industry your organization operates in. Understanding the industry and its market dynamics and emerging trends will provide a background for developing innovative end products that help your organization stay competitive in its industry.
Exhibit 1 includes examples of product categories based on industry sectors. Exhibit 1 — Examples of industry classifications that can be used to define the product category. Each of these industry classifications can and should be subdividied for further granularity. For example, construction could be subdivided into commercial construction, industrial construction, and residential construction. Each of those subcategories could be further broken down for further granularity.
No classification system is inherently better than another. The only measure of success of a classification system is its value. Different people or organizations may have different ways to label their product category, so what works for one individual may not work for another. All products have a life span, called the product life cycle. A product life cycle is a series of stages that represent the evolution of a product, from the introduction stage through the growth stage, the mature stage, and the decline stage.
In reality, very few products follow such a prescriptive life cycle. The length of each stage varies, and not all products go through each stage. Each industry has its own perspective on its product's life cycle.
In Exhibit 2, the addition of the ideation stage and the development stage illustrates the comparison between the product life cycle and the project life cycle. The development stage consists of the project life cycle.
The scope of the project cannot be adequately defined without some understanding of how the product life cycle influences the development stage used to create the end product. A product that is in the introduction stage of the product life cycle will have different project objectives than one that is in the growth stage or mature stage. Decisions made at the development stage have ramifications for a product's life cycle.
Manufacturers are becoming increasingly responsible for the life cycle of the products they produce due to legislation, customer demand, and negative publicity. A result of the strategic planning process, a list of the organization's goals and objectives, established by senior management, reflect the organization's philosophy and strategic direction. An organizational philosophy helps identify which strategic initiatives will fit within the organization's current culture. For example, an organization philosophy could be exceptional customer experience or developing innovative products.
Strategic direction covers areas that senior management feels are important for continued organizational growth and development, such as quality improvement goals or expansion goals. The value of project management is the ability to link projects that are tied to the business strategy of the organization. Initially, high-level project categories may be based on the following strategic considerations:.
Project categories are influenced by a variety of environmental factors, organizational constraints, and the influence of stakeholders. The goal of portfolio management is to balance these factors, both short-term and long-term, while staying aligned with the organizational strategy and objectives.
The different project categories should be established based on decisions in the best interest of the organizational strategy and objectives. The project life cycle identifies the beginning and the end of the project. At a high level, the project life cycle breaks down a project and identifies the logical sequence of tasks that must be completed to produce a product or service. All projects share a common life cycle by virtue of being a project, meaning that all projects have a beginning, a middle, and an end.
A project life cycle can be reused with some variation for similar types of projects. Different project life cycles exist for different products and services. For example, the life cycle to construct a building is very different from the life cycle to develop a software application. There is no ideal project life cycle applicable for all projects. A project manager may have a preference for determining a project life cycle based on past experience.
There should be a consensus on which project life cycle is used regarding the selection, value, and usefulness of each particular project. A predictive plan-driven project life cycle attempts to define the total scope at the beginning of the project. This project life cycle works best in project environments where there is the need to have a high level of certainty regarding what the project is expected to deliver. It does not work well in environments with high levels of uncertainty and change.
A predictive life cycle is used to satisfy a management need to provide predictability and control over the project. Changes to the project are managed by a formal review and acceptance process. A common misconception with a predictive project life cycle is that it requires a significant amount of bureaucratic controls and unnecessary documentation.
That is not necessarily the case. There is no reason why the project management team cannot be empowered to make decisions to fit the needs of the project. Project documentation can also be tailored to fit the needs of the project. An iterative project life cycle is one where the end product or service is developed through a series of repeated cycles, while an incremental project life cycle successively adds to the functionality of the end product or service.
Iterative and incremental project life cycles are generally preferred when the project team needs to manage changing objectives and requirements to reduce the complexity of a project, or when the partial delivery of the project's end product provides value for one or more stakeholder groups. An incremental project life cycle is a variation of the predictive project life cycle. It is assumed that the total scope for each incremental release or phase can be completely defined prior to executing the work to build that release.
An iterative project life cycle typically has smaller units of functionality than an incremental project life cycle, and the end result of each iteration may or may not be a usable end product. The planning for the next iteration is carried out as work progresses on the current iteration's scope and deliverables and allows the project team to progressively build some level of functionality that gradually builds toward the final end product.
An adaptive change-driven project life cycle is expected to respond to high levels of change and ongoing stakeholder involvement. Find out what the children already know about the topic. Be sure the children are clear about what they will be investigating.
Bring some items related to the project topic such as objects, photos, or books , and invite the children to bring similar items from home. Let children handle the items, and invite them to talk about their own experiences related to the objects. Invite children to draw or paint pictures that depict their memories or ideas related to what they are studying. Read some nonfiction books that contain information about the topic. Use class meetings to involve the children in discussions of their own experiences and ideas related to the topic.
Make a list of questions the children would like to answer during their research. Ask the children what they want to find out about the topic.
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