Title: Practice Standard for Work Breakdown Structures – 2nd Edition
Author: Project Management Institute
Publisher: Project Management Institute
ISBN 10: 1933890134
PMI released the second edition of the Practice Standard for Work Breakdown Structures at the Seattle PMI Congress. The original standard was released five years ago and there have been very marked improvements in this latest edition.
This updated version "provides guidance in the initial generation, subsequent development, and application of the WBS. The target audience for this standard includes, project mangers, project team members, contract personnel, and others who participate or have an interest in any aspect of the management of projects or programs. The new standard is consistent with the PMBOK Guide - third edition. This updated standard also includes information derived from accepted project management industry sources."
The new standard is organized as follows:
- Chapter 1 - Introduces the WBS concept.
- Chapter 2 - Defines the WBS and its characteristics. Defines the benefits derived from using a WBS.
- Chapter 3 - How the WBS fits with other project management practices.
- Chapter 4 - Documents the characteristics of a high-quality WBS. It presents guidelines for determining if the WBS is sufficient for subsequent planning and control.
- Chapter 5 - Provides guidance and presents questions that can be asked during the development of a WBS to help ensure that the finished product meets all the needs of the project it will serve.
- Appendices A-D - Provides background information on the PMI Standards Program and the Practice Standard for Work Breakdown Structures, Second Edition project.
- Appendices E-P - Provides documented industry examples to aid the reader in further understanding, creating, and using WBSs. Each appendix represents an approach tailored to a specific purpose, application, or industry. Examples are in different stages of completion and represent the evolutionary development of a WBS. None of the examples should be taken as the only suitable WBS for that type of project.
- Glossary - It provides clarification of key terms that exist in the project management profession, including those that have subtle or variable meanings depending on the organization and industry.
Sharon Sikes, PMP
Title: Race Through the Forest - a Project Management Fable
Author: Timothy L. Johnson
Publisher: Tiberius Publications
ISBN-10: 0977714608
I just finished reading the funniest fiction book with a look of truth on project management. The book is Race Through the Forest - a Project Management Fable by Timothy L Johnson, current president of PMI-Central Iowa Chapter. Even though it is fiction it really can serve as a great primer for someone trying to understand the concept and importance of utilizing project management on projects.
It is a story about two competing sixty-year-old twin sisters Flora and Fauna Forest who are co-owners of a 100 year old company called Forest Industries. The company produces a conglomerate of wood by-product lines.
They decide to make a bet with each other on the company's two largest strategic projects, Project Hickory and Project Birch. The success of either or both of the projects was critical in order for their company to stay vital and competitive.
The proposal for the bet was that each would choose a Forest Industries employee to run a project. Fauna would select a thoroughbred and Flora would choose some slow and steady workhorse. The project that did the best would win the competition.
It is important to note here that for the last several years all of "the company projects had come in late, over budget and with fewer features than promised, and with an abundance of excuses". An additional note about the company is the sisters had hired two whiz kids in project management, Ben Theer and Dunn Thaat to help implement project management processes. Unfortunately no one listened to them and Dunn Thaat left the company. Ben Theer remained with the company as a supervisor for the Quality Control department.
Flora Forest chose as her project manager a successful accounting supervisor, named Barry Tortisse who had been with the company for over 15 years. But Barry had never managed a project before. She gave him a project end date, information about the project, identified herself as project sponsor and asked for a budget from him. She had a dollar amount in mind but wanted Barry's take. Flora also assigned Ben Theer, as a permanent resource to Barry's project.
Fauna Forest chose as her project manager a charismatic, successful top salesman for the last five years, named Biff Haire, who had also been with the company for awhile. Biff, also, did not have any project management experience. Fauna told Biff to set the budget and timelines for the project. She informed Biff that she would be the project sponsor. Biff was excited about the presumed idea of an "unlimited budget". Her parting comment was to just get it done.
The rest of the story goes into how each project succeeded or almost did. There is good information on what to have in a project business case, stakeholder management, risk/issue management, good status reports, and project recovery. I can't tell you how many times I laughed out loud reading the book. There was not a single situation that I could not put a name and face to replace the characters in the book. The book is a quick read.
Sharon Sikes, PMP
PM Book Review – January 2007
Title: The Top Ten Mistakes Leaders Make
Author: Hans Finze
Publisher: David C. Cook Distribution
ISBN-10: 0781445493
I grabbed this book off the shelf, based solely on the title, thinking I would read it when I had more time or on my next business trip. I am always looking for new information that may relate to lessons learned that I can share with our membership. This book is a quick read at 200 pages and full of very good information. If interested in enhancing your leadership knowledge, I would recommend this read. Here is a brief outline of the information you can find in this book.
- "The Top-Down Attitude: The Number-One Leadership Hang-Up
- The top-down attitude comes naturally to most people.
- Servant leadership is much more rare.
- Effective leaders see themselves at the bottom of an inverted pyramid.
- Putting Paperwork Before Peoplework: Confessions of an Obsessive-Compulsive
- The greater the leadership role, the less time there seems to be for people.
- The greater the leadership role, the more important peoplework is.
- People are opportunities, not interruptions.
- Only through association is there transformation.
- The Absence of Affirmation: What Could Be Better Than A Pay Raise?
- Everyone thrives on affirmation and praise.
- Leadership has as much to do with the "soft sciences" as with getting things done.
- We wildly underestimate the power of the tiniest personal touch of kindness.
- Learn to read the varying levels of affirmation your people need.
- No Room for Mavericks? They Bring Us the Future!
- Mavericks can save us from the slide toward institutionalism.
- Large organizations usually kill off mavericks before they can take root.
- Mavericks make messes by their very nature - the good messes institutions need.
- Learn to recognize truly useful mavericks.
- Dictatorship in Decision-Making: Getting beyond, "I Know All the Answers"
- Dictators deny the value of individuals.
- The major players in an organization are like its stockholders. They should have a say in its direction.
- The one who does the job should decide how it is done.
- "Flat" organizations are the model of the future.
- Dirty Delegation: Refusing to Relax and Let Go
- Over-managing is one of the great cardinal sins of poor leadership.
- Nothing frustrates those who work for you more than sloppy delegation with too many strings attached.
- Delegation should match each worker's follow-through ability.
- Communication Chaos: Singing off the Same Page in the Hymnbook
- Never assume that anyone knows anything.
- The bigger the group, the more attention must be given to communication.
- When left in the dark, people tend to dream up wild rumors.
- Communication must be the passionate obsession of effective leadership.
- Missing the Clues of Corporate Culture: The Unseen Killer of Many a Leader
- Corporate culture is "the way we do things around here."
- Never underestimate the mighty power of your organization's culture.
- Cultivating and changing the culture should be one of leadership's top priorities.
- Learn to respect values different from your own.
- Success without Successors: Planning Your Departure the Day You Begin
- Pride tightens the grip on leadership; humility relaxes and lets go.
- Finishing well is an important measure of success in leadership.
- Letting go of leadership is like sending your children away to college: It hurts, but has to be done.
- Mentoring is a nonnegotiable function of successful leadership.
- Failure to Focus on the Future: Prepare Yourself, It's Later than You Think
- The future is rushing at us at breakneck speed.
- A leader's concentration must not be on the past nor on the present, but on the future.
- Vision is an effective leader's chief preoccupation.
- Organizations are reinvented with new generations of dreamers."
Sharon Sikes, PMP
PM Book Review – March 2008
Title: Project Requirements, a Guide to Best Practices
Author: Ralph R. Young
Publisher: Management Concepts, 2006
ISBN: 1-56726-169-8
The ability to clearly identify, document and manage project requirements is a key factor leading to project success or failure. This was well documented in the Standish Groups seminal study, “Extreme CHAOS”, back in 2001, and continues to be an issue today.
Ralph Young’s Project Requirements, A Guide to Best Practices offers project managers a way out of the Requirements Dilemma. In this easy to read, well laid out book, Young provides practical advice and tools that Project Managers can use to identify, document and track requirements from initiation through user acceptance. It’s that Project Managers of all levels of skill will want to buy, read and keep within reach.
The beauty of this book lies in how Young attacks the numerous issues that we all recognize as contributing to the success or failure of the requirements gathering effort. In the early chapters of the book, he offers a list of “Key Success Factors” for requirements management. This list is nearly worth the cost of the book, and constitutes a practical checklist for anyone who manages the requirements gathering process for a project.
Additional chapters address how to partner for success (always a good idea), the role of the team in getting requirements right, and practical advice about how the Project Manager fits into the process. He includes many excellent examples that can be readily applied to real life situations, a very good glossary of terms, and an excellent roles and responsibility matrix. In an appendix written by James D. Palmer, Professor Emeritus from George Mason University and a Software Consultant, the issue of Requirements Traceability is tackled in a way that is both pragmatic and enlightening. The bottom line message provided by both Young and Palmer is that you can manage requirements effectively.
Project Requirements, A Guide to Best Practices is one of the books I keep with me at all times when I’m managing or QA’ing projects. It’s practical, useful, very readable, and best of all, brief. At only 200 pages, and organized like a Requirements Management cookbook, it’s the sort of book that every Project Manager will want to purchase, read and keep around as a tool to ensure project success.
Dave Pratt, PMP