4. Chapter3_How to Scope a Project (2).ppt

Effective Project Management:
Traditional, Agile, Extreme
Presented by
Dr. Majid Ali Khan
Managing Complexity in
the Face of Uncertainty
Ch03: How to Scope a Project

 Learn the Tools, templates, and processes used to
scope a project
 Managing client expectations
 Conditions of satisfaction (COS)
 The project scoping meeting
 The Requirements Breakdown Structure
 Requirement Gathering:
 Use Cases
 Business process diagramming
 Choosing a PMLC Model
 Project Overview Statement (POS)
Contents

 Scoping Process
 Conditions of Satisfaction (COS)
 Project Scoping Meeting
 Requirements Gathering Techniques
 Use Cases
 Diagramming Business Processes
 Project Overview Statement
 Approval to Plan the Project
Tools, Templates, & Processes used to Scope a Project

Client Wants vs. Client Needs Dilemma
What your client wants may not be what your client needs.
Your job is to make sure that what they want is what they
need and that you will deliver what they need.
WANTS
NEEDS

Client Wants vs. Client Needs Dilemma
 Example:
 Client (A large government organization) wanted to replace
Windows and HP-UNIX systems with Linux on all the production
servers in their system
 Question: Why do you want to replace them?
 Turned out to be mainly due to performance issues. A simple root
cause analysis session identified that their real problem was
performance bottleneck on their Windows Oracle database system
(triggers took too much time)
 The client needed some database analysts to investigate and fix
the problems in their database systems

Project Scoping Process
Figure
04-01

 The conditions under which a product owner would
be satisfied that a product backlog item is done.
Conditions of satisfaction are acceptance criteria that
clarify the desired behavior
 Generally 5-7 , high level, SMART project objectives
 SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time
Based)
 Examples:
• Department chair (faculty) should be able to view all
textbooks in their departments and also view their
inventory and ordering status
• Faculty or department chair should be able to change
textbook with the approval of bookstore administrator
What is Conditions of Satisfaction (COS)

Establishing Conditions of Satisfaction
Negotiate agreement and
write Project Overview Statement
Request Response
Clarify
Request
Agree on
Response
Figure
04-02

 Purpose
 Gather and Document requirements
 Project Overview Statement
 Attendees
 Project Manager
 Client Group
 Core Team Members
 The Facilitator & Technographer
Planning and Conducting the Project Scoping Meeting

 Agenda
 Introductions
 Purpose of the Meeting (led by Facilitator)
 COS (conduct or review if done earlier)
 Description of current state (led by client representative)
 Description of problem or business opportunity (led by client representative)
 Description of end state (led by client representative)
 Requirements definition and documentation (led by facilitator)
 Discussion of the gap between current and end state (led by project
manager)
 Choose best-fit project management approach to close the gap (led by
project manager)
 Draft and approve the POS (whole scope planning group)
 Adjourn

 Deliverables
 COS
 Requirements Document
 Best-fit project management life cycle (PMLC)
 POS

Requirements are things that define project deliverables
What Are Requirements?

Requirements Classification
 FLURPS
 Functionality, Localization, Usability, Reliability, Performance,
Supportability
 Think about FLURPS for each requirement identified in your
system
 Functionality:
 The functional requirements of the project
 Example: The customer should be able to reserve a vehicle
 Localization (Internationalization):
 The requirements to support multiple languages, currencies etc.
 Example: The system should support English and Arabic
Languages. It should not be difficult to add new language or
update descriptions in existing languages

 Usability:
 How easy is it to use the system
 Example: The customer should be able to find most used
features within a few clicks
 The customer should not be made to memorize and enter
product codes
 Reliability:
 The system should be robust and not fail very often
 Example: The system should handle erroneous conditions
gracefully. All user inputs must be validated and should not
cause system crashes

 Performance:
 The system should be responsive and not consume large amount of
memory
 Example: The customer should be able to view search results with
less than 1 second delay.
 The system memory requirements should not exceed more than
30MB (even if the number of customers is huge)
 Supportability:
 The system should be easy to support
 Example: The programmers should write code that is easy to
maintain. They should not use improper variable and method
names.
 The software should not require lots of configuration and most of the
time it should run fine with default configurations

 Facilitated Group Session
 Interview
 Observation
 Requirements Reuse
 Business Process Diagramming
 Prototyping
 Use Cases
Approaches to Requirements Gathering

 Client: A large vehicle rental company
 Project Goal: The client wants to develop
an online (web based) vehicle rental
management application.
 Is this a client want or a client need?
 Identify actors
 Identify scenarios
 Identify use cases
 Develop Requirement Breakdown Structure
(RBS)
 As you work through scenarios and use cases,
place the requirements in RBS
Class Exercise: Scenarios/Use Cases/RBS

Building the Requirements Breakdown Structure (RBS)
Figure
04-03

RBS Example: Vehicle Rental Application
Figure
04-03
 Goal: Develop an online web application to manage vehicle rental
• R1: Customers should be able to search for the required vehicle
• R1.1: Provide search by vehicle type
• R1.1.1: Search based on vehicle type in dropdown list
• R1.1.2: Support to display vehicle category based on
number/type of passengers
• R1.2: Search by start/end dates
• R1.2.1: Provide calendar support
• R1.3: Search by store location
• R1.3.1: City/branch (same place for start/end trip)
• R1.3.2: City/branch (different place for start and end of trip)
• R1.3.3: Search by distance (km)
• R2: Customer should be able to make reservations
• R2.1: New Reservation
• R2.2: Edit existing reservation
• R2.3: Notification of new and change reservation
• R2.3.1: Email
• R2.3.2: SMS

Handling use case complexity
 Diagramming business processes
Some of the use cases might be quite complex
OR the client has trouble envisioning
a solution
If so, then consider:

A business process is a collection of activities that take
one or more inputs from one or more different sources
and produces a change of state that delivers business
value.
What is a Business Process?
Change
of state
Business Process
Input B
Input C
Input A
Figure
04-04

What is a Business Process?
Figure
04-05

The Top-Down, Left-to-Right Format
Figure
04-06
Order Processing System

The Swim-Lane Format
Figure
04-07

 Vehicle Rental Application sent to company
headquarter for evaluation:
 The Customer name, id (e.g. iqama number), start date, end
date, store id (which will rent the vehicle) and vehicle type are
sent with application request
 The manager reviews the information:
• If the customer had a major accident (cost >SR 1000)
during last year, increase premium by 50%
• If the customer had two major accidents (cost >SR 1000),
during last year refuse rental
• If the store has only limited number of vehicles (<=2) of
requested vehicle types, allocate vehicle based on
customer priority
Class Exercise: Business Process Diagram

 A general statement of the project
 A reference for the planning team
 A decision aid for the project
 To get management approval to
plan the project
Purpose of the Project Overview Statement
POSs
A one-page description that is:

Contents of the Project Overview Statement

PROJECT
OVERVIEW
STATEMENT
Project Name Project No. Project Manager
Problem/Opportunity
Goal
Objectives
Success Criteria
Assumptions, Risks, Obstacles
Prepared By Date Approved By Date
Office Supply Cost Reduction PAUL BEARER
Our cost reduction task force reports that office supply expenses have exceeded budget by an
average of 4% for each of the last three fiscal years. In addition an across the board budget cut of
2% has been announced and there is an inflation rate of 3% estimated for the year.
To implement a cost containment program that will result in office supply expenses being within
budget by the end of the next fiscal year.
1. Establish a departmental office supply budgeting and control system.
2. Implement a central stores for office and copying supplies.
3. Standardize the types and brands of office supplies used by the company.
4. Increase employee awareness of copying practices that can reduce the cost of
meeting their copying needs.
1. The total project cost is less than 4% of the current year office supply budget.
2. At least 98% of office supply requests are filled on demand.
3. At least 90% of the departments have office supply expenses within budget.
4. No department office supply expense exceeds budget by more than 4%.
1. Central stores can be operated at or below the breakeven point.
2. Users will be sensitive to and supportive of the cost containment initiatives.
3. Equitable office supply budgets can be established.
4. Management will be supportive and consistent.
5. The existing inventory control system can support the central stores operation.
Olive Branch Del E. Lama
9/2/11 9/3/04
Example POS
Figure
04-11

POS Problem/Opportunity
A problem needing resolution or an
untapped business opportunity.
A statement of fact that everyone
would agree to. It stands on its own.
This is the foundation on which the
proposed project will be based.

POS Project Goal
A one or two sentence statement of
how you intend to address the stated
problem/opportunity.
A scoping statement that bounds the
project you are proposing.

POS Project Objectives
 5 or 6 brief statements that further
bound your project goal statement.
 From these statements it is clear what
is in and not in the proposed project.
 These statements might identify major
project deliverables.
 These statements form a necessary and
sufficient set of objectives.

POS Project Success Criteria
IRACIS
IR Increase Revenue
AC Avoid Costs
IS Improve Service
Use quantitative metrics only!
How much and by when?

 Technological
 New to the company
 Obsolescence
 Environmental
 Management change
 Staff turnover
 Interpersonal
 Working relationships
 Cultural
 Fit to the company
 Causal Relationships
 Will the solution solve the problem
POS Assumptions, Risks, and Obstacles

 Risk Analysis
 Financial Analyses
 Feasibility studies
 Cost/benefit analysis
 Breakeven analysis
 Return on inverstment
POS Attachments

 Expected Review Questions from Management
 How important is the problem or opportunity to the organization?
 Does the goal statement related directly to the problem or opportunity?
 Are the objectives clear representations of the goal statement?
 Is there sufficient business value as measured by the success criteria to warrant further expenditures on
this project?
 Is the relationship between the project objectives and the success criteria clearly established?
 Are the risks too high and the business value too low?
 Can senior management mitigate the identified risks?
Gaining Approval to Plan the Project

Example: Problem/Opportunity
 The customers are facing various kinds of problem
during vehicle rental process such as:
 They don’t find suitable vehicles upon arrival
 They don’t know about vehicle rental fees structure
 There is long queue of customers at front desk
 Our competitor is building an online web application
that will negatively affect our number of customers

Example: Goal
 The goal of this project is to ease the vehicle rental
process for the customers
 Not a good goal definition. why?
 The goal of this project is to develop an online web
application that will be used by customers to easily
search for vehicles in the stores nearest to them and
make online reservations

Example: Objectives
 The customers will be able to search for vehicles
based on different search criterion described in the
requirements document
 The customers will be able to make online reservations
and print their reservations
 The customers will be able to make changes to existing
reservations
 The customers will be able to get email notifications
and reminders about their reservations
 The customers will be able to add further options like
child seating, DVD players etc. during online
reservation

Example: Success Criteria
 The project completion will:
 Increase number of customers by at least 50% within an year
of project deployment
 Increased revenue from reservations by at least 50% within an
year of project deployment

4. Chapter3_How to Scope a Project (2).ppt

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