A Stakeholder Engagement Plan is a formal strategy to communicate with project stakeholders to achieve their support for the project. It specifies the frequency and type of communications, media, contact persons, and locations of communication events. It is created at the beginning of the project and updated frequently as stakeholder communication needs change. Parts … [Read more...]
All projects have stakeholders. Like any area of life, no projects exist inside of a bubble. Although some come close, every project must have a project sponsor (as a minimum) who created the project and expects some sort of deliverable. But most projects have so many stakeholders that they must maintain a list in order to manage them all properly. In project … [Read more...]
Mismanaging project costs is the single fastest way to cause project failure. Project costs represent the many multi-faceted experiences that occur on a project, however stakeholders see only the bottom line and draw rapid conclusions from it. For this reason, the planning of the management of project costs is the focus of the Project Management Body of Knowledge's … [Read more...]
Keeping project costs under control can feel like swimming against the current sometimes. To prevent you from going up the creek without a paddle, a Cost Management Plan is the guiding document which allows you to take fast, decisive action when issues arise and the sharks are circling. The Project Cost Management Plan is the component of the overall Project … [Read more...]
In project management, a stakeholder is anyone who is affected by the project. This can be a real or perceived effect. Some are supportive and some are opposed to the project. Some have alot of influence and some have a little. Some are easy to persuade and some are not. But they all have a "stake" therefore project success and stakeholder management are integrally … [Read more...]
A Gantt chart is a horizontal bar chart showing the start and end dates of each task within a project. It shows the tasks on the vertical axis and time on the horizontal axis. The tasks are shown sequentially. It can have many other pieces but these are the basic building blocks. Gantt Chart Example 1 Here is a Gantt chart that was created with Microsoft … [Read more...]
The Project Management Institute’s (PMI) Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) uses the concept of Project Performance Domains to focus on a holistic view of project performance and outcomes. Eight performance domains provide a comprehensive framework for managing a project from start to finish, and are designed to be adaptable to any project type or … [Read more...]
Believe it or not, gantt charts can be created relatively painlessly in Microsoft Excel. A simple one will take about 10 minutes with only a basic knowledge of Excel, and I'm going to show you how. Step 1: Enter the Task data The first step is to enter your tasks in table form in Excel. The following four pieces of data are the minimum requirement for a gantt chart, so … [Read more...]
Election campaigns are intricate and dynamic endeavors that bear striking similarities to large-scale projects. Both are characterized by defined objectives, deadlines, a plethora of stakeholders, complex logistical requirements, and an extensive need for meticulous planning and execution. Indeed, the definition of a project is a temporary endeavor that produces a … [Read more...]
A WBS Dictionary is a supporting document to the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS). It provides supporting data about project tasks in the WBS. This information can be any type and format, ranging from textual information to numerical data to milestone dates. In short, it is an information bank for meta data about the project tasks. For example, WBS Task WBS … [Read more...]
