The Project Management School

• Define the term "project" and list its key components.
• Discuss the role of the Project Manager.
• Identify project constraints and explain how they affect a project.
• List and define facility constraints.
• Define Project Management.

A career in project management can be as rewarding as it is challenging. It requires skill, knowledge and understanding to achieve successfully. Project management is an art and a science, requiring a high degree of professionalism. This lecture explains the basics of project management in the home electronics integration industry. A Project Manager has the ability to manage time, scope, cost, and quality throughout the project, while paying attention to project constraints and facility constraints in planning and executing a project.

• Explain a typical home electronics integration project life cycle.
• Discuss how certain key functions define a project.
• Explain the process of planning a project.
• Define the important issues surrounding each implementation phase.
• List and explain the implementation phases.

The Project Life Cycle encompasses the whole project from the minute a sales representative closes the deal to the moment the project is accepted by the customer. In this lecture, we discuss the Project Life Cycle as well as the pre-project and post-project areas to provide a complete picture of managing a project.

• Explain standard, activity-based, and project accounting practices.
• Define revenue, costs, profit, and cash flow.
• Discuss the difference between revenue and contract value.
• Explain the difference between a cash-basis and an accrual-basis company.
• Explain progress payments and state when they generally are made.

Although not responsible for cost accounting, the Project Manager must be familiar with basic accounting principles to maintain the profitability of each project and the overall profits of the company. This lecture focuses on the basics of cost accounting, basic accounting principles, and why a Project Manager needs to understand their underlying structures.

• Understand the information needed to develop the project scope statement.
• Gather and record site condition information.
• Explain how site conditions affect a project.
• Explain the importance of gathering customer information.
• Discuss how to collect standard and non-standard systems information.

A home electronics integration project is only as successful as the information gathered to support the requirements of the stakeholder(s). To that end, it is vitally important that a logical set of procedures are followed, using solid written documentation, in order to meet the needs of the client and of those who help support the project. In this lecture we explore ways in which the Project Manager undertakes the information gathering process, identifies areas of information, and analyzes how this information is used to develop the project scope statement.

• Define the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS).
• Explain formatting approaches to the WBS.
• Discuss the similarities and differences between the Bottom-up and the Top-down methods.
• Define the WBS dictionary.
• Discuss criteria for creating a good quality WBS.

The WBS is a critical document that is used to further define specific features of the project so that it can be properly planned and executed. In this lecture we examine this key informational piece that is the cornerstone of successful project management.

• List the items included in a bill-of-materials.
• Explain who typically performs the cost estimate in a small, medium, and large company.
• Discuss industry, organization, and scope factors affecting the cost estimate.
• Discuss the reasons for a poor cost estimate.
• Explain the uses for and the difference between Bottom-Up and Top-Down cost estimates.

Every project must yield profit for the company, and as a result the cost estimate provides a means to estimate the cost of the project prior to its start. In addition a well-maintained cost estimation system captures costs from previous projects in order to improve the accruracy of the cost estimating process. In this lecture we examine who creates and tracks project costs, and the two primary methods to develop a cost estimate.

• Explain the importance of a project scope statement.
• Discuss the internal versus external view of a project scope statement.
• Define the major components included in the project scope statement.

The project scope statement explains the project details in easy-to-understand terms and leaves out the technology jargon. The purpose of the scope statement is to let both the customer and the project team know exactly what is expected of both parties during the installation and when major events are scheduled to occur. In this lesson we create a template-based project scope statement for our case study company, ABC Integrations, as well as review the major aspects that comprise a scope statement.

• Define the terms project plan and scope management plan.
• Discuss how a business structure affects the project management plan.
• Explain project management plan's policies and procedures.
• Define a project charter.
• Explain how the scope management plan influences information gathering, scope, WBS, and cost.

Home electronics integration is inherently complex, and as such, expectations can vary greatly from customer to customer. And while home electronics integration companies seek to personalize each project, they must formalize their processes to maximize profits while maintaining an exceptional level of customer service. This lecture addresses the need for the development of the scope management plan that helps guide firms through this project management process.

• Discuss time management planning.
• Define outsourcing and explain its use in the home electronics integration industry.
• List the types of resources that a Project Manager considers in planning a project.
• Discuss schedule development.
• Define and explain the critical path method and fast tracking.

Projects always are evaluated and measured against the three constraints of cost, scope, and time. These three project constraints are interrelated trade-offs, pulling in different directions throughout the project. The Project Manager first defines the scope of the project, thus creating the project scope statement, then the project timeline is developed through the use of a (WBS), and finally the cost estimate is determined. In this lecture we discuss the processes involved with time management planning.

• List and discuss the six major processes that comprise project risk management.
• Define a risk management plan and its use.
• Identify common project risks.
• Review an example of Qualitative and Quantitative Risk Analysis.
• Define the components of a risk response plan.
• Define contingency and fallback plans.

What is risk? In the home electronics integration industry, risk can come in many forms. A project manager needs to know what risks are involved in a project before deciding if it's worthwhile to start it. Failure to do so can mean cost overruns, the inability to complete the project on time, customer dissatisfaction, and a whole host of other potential setbacks.

• Define procurement management planning.
• Define outsourcing and list several reasons why companies outsource.
• Explain the phases of outsourcing.
• List and explain the four types of contracts generally used in the home electronics ntegration industry.
• Discuss make-or-buy decisions for outsourcing and why one method would be chosen over another.

While home electronics integration companies strive to complete as much of their project work "in-house," oftentimes it makes more business sense to seek resources from outside the organization.

This lecture focuses on both planning the purchasing process to acquire goods and planning the outsourcing process to acquire services in the home electronics integration industry. Both aspects of procurement planning are discussed separately, although there is some overlap because the principles of procurement planning apply to both purchasing and outsourcing.