CMa mals Figure 1-5 shows a sample stakeholder analysis table, which you can download from MUS AISA this book’s Missing CD page at www.missingmanuals.com/cds. Look for the Word file ChO1_Stakeholder_Analysis.doc. Hoo ye Seat nae Cty Ma) ee ? - o X FiourE ts When you're working witha (able ina Word document you Stakeholder Analysis Table can adda new row tothe table by pressing Tab when you'e Tine San [eon | fata tonciaemmee paper in ine | ee Po ‘one tying in the last cel of PRecmwertaaies | Seqarereewces | (eP0) 4 row. Tadd an adltional {eee noes Pana ‘objective or contribution o a We Pay | Face BESS r es [Gees ROT cel put the insertion point at the end ofthe cel’ text and Tacos oas | Forename eae __[ Tae then press Enter. Here’s some info that’s helpful to collect about each stakeholder: + Organization or department. Knowing where a stakeholder works helps you remember the objectives they care about, and helps you decide whether they should participate in different activities, For instance, if your company wants to keep strategy sessions confidential, you don’t want to invite external stake- holders to them. + Objectives. List the objectives that each stakeholder cares about—from her hottest button to her coolest. If you need help rallying stakeholders around an objective, this info helps you find allies. + Contributions. List what the stakeholder does for the project. Contributions you list here are different from the responsibilities you put in a responsibility matrix (page 197). In the stakeholder table, you specify the contributions that, individuals make to the project in their roles as stakeholders. + Advisors. The people to whom stakeholders listen are great sources for tips on presenting information effectively and deciding which options a stakeholder might prefer. @ Publicizing a Project and Its Manager A project that gets the go-ahead needs publicity just like movies do. You want people to know the project is starting and why it’s vital, Most important, you want the entire team to get fired up over their new assignments, The project manager needs some publicity, too. Your authority comes from your project and its sponsor, not your position in the organization, so people need to 20 MICROSOFT PROJECT 2013: THE MISSING MANUAL www.it-ebooks.infoknow how far your authority goes. The project charter is like a project's press re~ lease—it announces the project itself, as well as your responsibilities and authority as its manager. A project charter doesn’t impress anyone unless it comes from someone powerful enough to grant you authority, like the project’s sponsor or its customer. On the other hand, don't have the biggest kahuna distribute the charter unless that person actually knows something about the project—you need authority, but credibility is important, too. You may have to tactfully suggest that the project’s customer or sponsor develop and distribute the charter. BEE ou concen gene cater ot more quick oy wing youselso the sponsor ha ony to sion and send, A project charters pretty simple, as Figure 1-6 shows. (You can download a sample charter, ChO1_Project_Charter.coc, from www.missingmanuals.com/cds.) LTT ara Noa ela O) urs) {elo ae 1 ln and mproe ur eve management eat we pend teas 5 pecee of Hone Poa tha rjc manage he Voorn! Funder projet Aerojet manager Me: Papa lsvesporsbl for wong wih fe ete temo Gavelop fehl radon the oct She ‘eth ech up nb ganization ts delp eat plant dees jective forthe ot be tenda ate pol dave ond al at tuning le. 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FN | pont skimp on the =| alstriouton is fora Project Announcement projec charter Send a ate: Janey 72009 ‘copy to anyone to will, es Vebevat Team ane Parnes ~paticpate inthe roect rem: Panny Maney, Proj pensar ‘or who may be affected fe: Vabcvent Funder Prot Dyit Whether you should ‘mal the charter or distibut i on company “The Vlovent Funda projet fin and fancy ronan roc fr ot ogaason Ove letterhead depends on orbcdneto agama sare Your corporate culture CHAPTER I: PROJECTS: IN THE BEGINNING www.it-ebooks.info 21CUT arantoay PROJECT AND IATL) Here are typical elements of a charter: + Project name. A catchy name that rolls off everyone's tongue is wonderful, but a brief name that identifies the project will do. + Purpose. The mission statement works well as the purpose, because it's a high-level overview of the reason for the project. If you haven't crafted a mis sion statement yet, simply summarize what the project is supposed to achieve. + Project manager. Announce who will manage the project. If you're writing the project charter for a sponsor to sign, don't be afraid to blow your own horn, Stakeholders need to know who you are and why you're the person who's going to make sure this project is a success. + Project manager’s duties. Summarize the manager's responsibilities. This brief introduction to the project manager's tasks can warn people about what the project manager may expect from them—and educate people about the mysterious activities that project managers perform. + Project manager's authority. Here’s where the sponsor or customer sprinkles authoritative fairy dust on you, Much like a power of attorney, this section tells everyone that the sponsor or customer authorizes you to perform certain activities, like hiring contractors or dipping into the project's emergency fund, + The official commitment to the project. Don't forget to include a brief bullet point that confirms in writing that the sponsor or customer supports the project and the project manager. Now that the introductions are out of the way, it’s time to start planning your proj- ect. The next chapter provides an overview of a project plan—all the pieces that go into one and why they're important. After that, you'll learn the finer points of using Project 2013 and other programs to build and manage a project schedule. 22 MICROSOFT PROJECT 2013: THE MISSING MANUAL www.it-ebooks.infobaa 3 2 Planning a Project f you're out for a leisurely drive, you can take any road and see where it takes you, But when you're heading to scary Aunt Edith’s house for Sunday lunch, you'd better know where you're going, No matter how fast you drive, if you're on the wrong road, you're not going to get there on time. If you want to make Aunt Edith happy, you need to plan how you're going to get to her house—when you're supposed to and with what you're supposed to bring. You've probably worked at a few places where people think they don’t have time to plan (see the box on page 28). Managers breathe down your neck asking how much you've finished while you're still wondering what you're supposed to do. You may have to do work over because no one agreed on how to do it right in the first place. Critical deadlines slip by, and the pressure to finish increases. Fortunately, there’s a better way. Planning ahead helps you do the right things the right way the first time around. A project plan acts as the road map to your destination. The less time, money, or resources you have, the more you need to plan, Think, for example, about those time-share presentations where a company rambles on for a few hours about the benefits of “owning the dream.” Then, think about the 30-second commercial selling the same dream. Squeezing the message into a brief commercial actually requires far more planning than putting together a 2-hour sales pitch. This chapter provides a quick introduction to project planning, You'll see what goes into @ project plan. You'll also learn how to create a document for stakeholders to approve before you begin executing the project, along with tips and tricks for get- ting the information you need, 23 www.it-ebooks.infoLT TNl coe CTW DRI Naa li Project Planning in a Nutshell Project planning is like other types of planning—you figure out what you're going to do before you do it. And like other types of plans, project plans are destined to change, because the projects they guide never happen exactly as planned. But the inevitability of change shouldn't scare you off planning. What you learn during the planning process can help you keep a project on course even when changes occur. Project planning involves two main elements: why you're doing the project, and how you're going to do it. You begin by identifying what the project is supposed to accomplish. Only then can you start planning how to achieve the project's goals. Veteran project managers have official names for each part of a project plan, but any plan boils down to a series of questions, The rest of this chapter describes the components of a project plan in more detail, but here are the basics: + Why are we going to perform this project? The answer to this question de- scribes the point of the project. You can also rephrase this question as “What's the problem we want to solve or the opportunity we want to leverage?” You describe the problem that the project is supposed to solve in the problem statement (page 29), + What are we going to achieve? By definition, a project eventually ends. You have to know what the project is supposed to achieve so you can tell when it’s, done. The first step is to spell out all the goals, or project objectives (page 29) Projects usually have several goals, which can fall into different categories. For example, a fundraising event may have a financial objective to raise a minimum amount of money, a business objective to raise awareness of the organization and its mission, and a performance objective to improve how the event is run so that more of the money raised can benefit charitable programs + What approach are we going to take? The problems that projects solve usually have more than one solution. Part of project planning is figuring out which solution—or project strategy—is best. Then, the project plan documents the strategy you're going to use to address the problem and why you chose it. + What are we going to do? Based on the strategy that’s selected, the project plan describes how the project will achieve its objectives in a few other forms, each of which plays a specific role. The project scope statement (page 34) lists what is and isn't part of the project. It delineates the boundaries of the project so stakeholders know what to expect. The scope statement also helps you rein in pressures to expand the project (scope creep). Intimately linked to project scope are deliverables—the tangible results the project needs to produce (page 33)—and the success criteria you use to judge whether the deliverables are acceptable. Every section listed in the project scope ‘statement has corresponding deliverables and success criteria, and vice versa, 24 MICROSOFT PROJECT 2013: THE MISSING MANUAL www.it-ebooks.infoWith the scope, deliverables, and success criteria in hand, you're ready to describe the work that needs to be performed. As its name implies, a work break- down structure or WBS breaks down the work that people do on a project into manageable pieces. (This major part of the plan is the sole topic of Chapter 6.) In addition to the work specific to achieving project objectives, projects need a few project-management processes (for things like managing risk, control ling changes, communicating, and managing quality, which are explained on page 36) to keep the project under control. A project plan outlines how these processes will work. + When will the project start and finish? Projects have starting and ending points, so the plan documents these dates, In addition, the project schedule (page 161) actually shows the sequence of tasks and when each one starts and finishes. + Who will work on the project? People and other resources actually do the work, so the project plan includes a responsibility assignment matrix and a project organization chart (page 201) to identify the team. Depending on the size of the project and where resources come from, the plan might also include a detailed staffing plan, + How much will it cost? Blank checks are rare in any environment, so the project plan includes a budget (page 264) showing where all the money goes, + How good do the results need to be? Given constraints on time, money, and resources, you usually don’t have the luxury of doing a spectacularly better job than required. The project plan outlines how you intend to achieve the level of quality the project requires, and how you'll measure that quality. + How do we know when we're done? Part of project planning is to clearly define success. For each objective and deliverable you identify, specify how you're going to determine whether they're done. Otherwise, you could have trouble bringing closure to your project, Project planning is an iterative process, not a one-time deal, You may run through the planning steps several times just to get a plan that the stakeholders approve. Then, once you begin to execute the plan, you'll have to rework it to accommodate the changes and glitches that come up. In addition, for projects with goals that aren't, clear-cut, you might use an even more iterative approach: planning and executing small portions of the project until the entire solution is complete, Figure 2-1 shows the project-planning steps and the path you take the first time through. PROJECT CPN ony Rie ane CHAPTER 2: PLANNING A PROJECT www.it-ebooks.info 25