PMP Certification Training: PMBOK Guide Principles 1-4
Free PMP Training: PMBOK Guide Principles 1-4
The PM PrepCast is your complete PMP training. With over 35 hours of in-depth video lessons it is a complete PMP online course. Please enjoy this free lesson:
Summary
This webinar is the first of three in which we explore the following four project management principles that were introduced by the PMBOK® Guide Seventh Edition:
1. Stewardship - Taking care of your project
2. Team - Building a solid team culture
3. Stakeholders - Engaging stakeholders brings success
4. Value - Delivering what's important
The webinar is based on our original article "12 Project Management Principles Explained by Experts" and is neither a rehash nor is it a derivative of the PMBOK® Guide. Instead, you can expect to go beyond. Illustrated with quotes from experts and examples from real life not found in the guide, you will learn the concepts behind the principles in terms you need to understand as you prepare for your PMP exam. We even review one sample PMP exam prep question (taken from the PrepCast Simulator) for each of the principles and give you a chance to see if you can spot the correct answer.
Until Next Time,
Cornelius Fichtner, PMP, CSM
President, OSP International LLC
Transcript
F00.21 PMBOK® Guide Principles 1-4
[00:00] [Introduction]
Hello and welcome back to the Project Management PrepCast™. I’m your instructor, Cornelius Fichtner. And this lesson is recorded with a live audience on Facebook and YouTube, and we are going to take a look at the four project management principles. Hello, everybody! Thank you so much for joining me today. So, the four project management principles are our topic today. Here they are.
[00:38] Three Parts
Just so you know, this is Part One of three in which we want to review these 12 project management principles that got introduced with the publication of the PMBOK® Guide Seventh Edition. Today, we want to review stewardship because taking good care for what you have been entrusted with should be at the forefront of our thinking. A team, building a solid team culture is important, the better the team is, the more successful you can be. Stakeholders, because engaging stakeholders will bring success. And the fourth one we’ll look at today is value, because we need to deliver what’s important. But, I want to make one thing clear from the very start here. This lesson is not a reading or even a by-product or a derivative of the PMBOK® Guide. While we follow the 12 principles in the same order and use somewhat the same language, this lesson is based on our content and on our own research.
[01:54] Based on our Article
“12 Project Management Principles Explained by Experts,” that is our article, which is published on our PrepCast website. In this article, we have taken the 12 principles as a starting point. And then, we go above and beyond and we explain them with input and quotes and examples that we have gathered from a dozen experts.
[02:20] Agenda
With that out of the way, here is what we’re going to be looking at today. Generally speaking, we have two sections. I want to start with: What is principle-driven project management? Why are we doing principle-driven project management? And then, we will review the principles 1, 2, 3, and 4, and then a quick take-action and takeaways there at the end.
But today, this is going to be more of a conversation because in the article, we have examples of what does it mean to be value-driven, okay. And I have these examples here for you. But, I want to hear from you as well. So, those of you who are joining me live today, hello again. I will ask you to type into the chat your ideas and your thoughts about what it means to be value-driven, to follow that principle. I’m also going to do review of four exam sample questions. So, for each of these values, we have an exam sample question taken from my Simulator. And I want you to give me your answer there. So, you’re going to get about 15 seconds or so, during which you can type in A, B, C, or D. And I’d like to see how many people get this right. Okay, so!
[03:44] Principle-Driven Project Management
So, what is principle-driven project management? Well, principle-driven project management definitely differs from process-driven, okay. Because there is more emphasis today on making your own choices. You lead the project following a set of core concepts, which guide and shape the work. And this shift has happened because it’s not really possible anymore to mandate every last process and expect them to work for every single project. Processes need to be drawn from Agile, hybrid, and predictive ways of working. So, we project managers, we have to be free to choose the best processes for our projects and following these principles will then help us select the correct processes, okay.
[04:49] Principle-Driven Project Management [Definition]
Here is a definition, right, of this. The principles give you the ‘what.’ So, you look at the principles to learn about what core concepts are important for me as a project manager and project leader. And, I need to remember as I manage the project. Whereas, the processes, that’s really the ‘how.’ How do you plan a project? How exactly do you create a schedule and how do the processes work for doing exactly that? So, the process for creating a schedule, how does that work, right? So, that’s the process-focused.
Are you noticing something here? I’m talking about the principles give you the ‘what’ and the processes give you the ‘how.’ They are not exclusive, mutually exclusive, right. You can’t just use only the principles. You can’t just use only the processes. You cannot manage project without missing one of them. You need both of them. So, this is a very important to know. Let me show you here.
[06:00] You Still Need Processes
I have this high-level conceptual graphic here. The intent is to show you that we have this overarching principles there at the top, and they tell you the ‘what,’ And, when we work in the processes, we use these principles as guidance, right, so they are overarching.
For example, the three principles on leadership, engaging with stakeholders, and team culture are what you will use as your guide once you get to the ‘how to execute’ all the processes around building a team and developing a team, or leading a team. You go back to these principles and you say: What does the principle say? And what I should be doing? And then, what does the process say in regards to how I should be doing? The principles, they are universal. That’s also one important thing to remember. The principle is valid whether you are doing a plan-driven, an Agile or a hybrid kind of model. So, you use the principle to guide you as you are actually executing your project. So it’s different, plan-driven versus Agile versus hybrid.
[07:23] You Still Need Processes [Graph]
So, let’s take this and take a look at it from the PMBOK® Guide’s perspective. What you see here is the, sort of the evolution of the PMBOK® Guide. You can see that it got bigger and bigger and bigger there with the page numbers, until the sixth edition, that’s the largest bar that we see here. And then, it dropped down to 350 pages for the PMBOK® Guide Seventh Edition. Don’t just look at the PMBOK® Guide Seventh Edition as you are managing your projects. You need what was in the sixth edition. The sixth edition gives you the processes, gives you the ‘how.’ The PMBOK® Guide Seventh Edition gives you the ‘what are the principles of good project management.’ Yeah, and with that out of the way, sort of explaining what principles do in project management is. Let’s take a look at our first four principles here. Doesn’t want to move on. Wait. Click again.
[08:20] Four Principles - Stewardship
There we go! Alright! So, we have four principles to look at today --- one, two, three, and four. And, we begin with stewardship where you want to be taking care of your project. What is this all about?
[8:38] Stewardship
Well, being a steward means to take care of something. In a project environment, that means to look after your project and to act with its best intentions in mind at all times. To put in another way, your company has entrusted you with the project resources --- people, money, machines, computers, and so on. And, it is your job to take care of these resources in such a way that they are employed in the best interest of the project and your organization. Stewardship should be part of your project management practice. It matters because the project manager is the person who knows the project better than anyone else. You can steer the project in the right direction and make sure that decisions are made that are beneficial to the organization. It’s a way of ensuring that personal politics do not interfere with whatever is the right thing to do.
Okay. So, what you will notice is we’ll have sort of this introductory slide for every single one of the 12 principles. And then, the next slide is a quote from an expert. What I want to get out of the way here is this: When we originally wrote this article, my team said “You got to be an expert as well, Cornelius, and we want you to be the first expert.” So now, the quote that you’ll see now is my quote as we developed this article. So this is not because I have such a big ego that I have to go first. No, no, it was the team who said, you have to be our first expert in all of these.
[10:23] [Quote: Cornelius Fichtner]
And with that much said, here is a quote from an expert, myself, right. “In a stewardship role, project managers need to act with integrity, so that their decisions are above reproach.” Honesty, it goes without saying, right. It’s important that stakeholders can trust what you do as a project manager, as a project leader, and that they have confidence that they are hearing the truth from you.
As an effective steward, you should demonstrate the values of integrity, honesty, fairness, and responsibilities. I said this because I also believe that fairness and responsibility are essential values for a project manager. Taking a stewardship role for her or his project. As a leader, you need to step up and make sure ethical practices are the norm for your team however tricky that might be from time to time. It’s really important to always remember stewardship, while it is something that everybody on the team has to join in, has to buy-in and has to be a steward, it starts with you. You want to model good stewardship to your team. Alright.
[11:49] In Practice
Then, in practice, this is what this can look like. It looks a lot like careful thinking, negotiating, conflict, negotiating conflicting requirements, and considering ethics in your dealings. You want to stand up for what’s right even if that is the more challenging route to follow. You, obviously, want to follow the code of ethics, and pay attention to the small details and diligently follow through on requests to ensure quality results.
And in regards to when do you apply this, well, you need to use this principle to guide your actions throughout the whole project. So, this is from start to finish. It doesn’t matter what methodology you are using --- plan-driven, Agile, hybrid, any of those. This particular principle here applies throughout the whole project for you. You want to be a good steward. You want to model good stewardship to your team. It will help your organization get the results that it deserves from the project that you lead.
[13:08] Use Your Professional Judgement [Quote]
And of course, you want to use your professional judgement to do good in the world and treat your colleagues and customers like you would want to be treated. That is not my quote. This quote from Elizabeth Harrin from www.rebelsguidetoprojectmanagement.com. She is also one of our experts. You’ll hear from her in another, in another principle later on. Okay. Now, let me give you some examples here.
[13:41] Some Examples
Right. And, this is the moment when this becomes a conversation, okay. I’m going to go through these examples briefly with you. But then, I’d like to hear from you. Stewardship, what does it mean to you? How do you apply good stewardship on your projects? Please go ahead. If you’re joining me live right now here on Facebook and YouTube, please type your ideas into the chat. I’ll bring them up. I’ll show them to everybody. And if you are watching this recorded, then don’t just sit back and let us talk at you. Think along. What does it mean to you? How do you, today and tomorrow, apply the principle of good stewardship on your projects?
Alright! So, the first one, good stewardship: Adhering to the budget because the finances are always important. Your company wants to make sure that your project is a financial success. Therefore, it is probably your number one responsibility when it comes to stewardship, the finances, okay. We want also, this is becoming more and more important, right. This is also something that is becoming more important in quality. Lowest possible environmental footprint. So, you want to have a green project, a sustainable project. That’s kind of the way to go.
You want to make sure that you uphold reputation of team and company. You want to treat resources carefully and you want to ensure that your product is safe to use. And ensure that your product is safe to use. Think about it. This means, it’s going beyond just your project. So, you’re not just doing this as part of a project. You’re thinking beyond your project. Your project, your product, your output is safe to use. Which means that the end-user doesn’t get hurt. So, you’re a good steward of their livelihood as well long after your project is done and you have delivered what it is that you had to deliver, right.
There we go! We got one from Georgia Karanasiou: “Resource management -soft skills, carry food and water - social skills.” Right. And then, we have another one here: “Monitoring scope, schedule, cost, audits, and reviews.” I think this is a good one. I think from a process perspective, Georgia, this is definitely important. Make sure that you are within scope, that you’re not gold-plating, that you’re staying to the schedule, to the cost, and that you follow audit and review requirements of your company. Thank you for bringing this with us.
We continue our conversation here. These were just some of the examples. Thank you for joining in. and, we are now going on and we are opening my PrepCast Exam Simulator right here. There is a sample question. Don’t worry, I’ll make it bigger in just a moment. If it ever shows up. There we go, okay. I’m going to read the question for you and then, I’m going to give you 15 seconds or so for you to provide an answer. Again, just type it into the chat. And if you’re watching this recorded and you need more time, please do press the pause button.
[17:07] [Sample Question 1]
Here we go! The development team completed 24 of the 28 planned story points for the sprint. During the sprint review, the customer approves the completed deliverables. But he admonishes the team as being lazy and incompetent for failing to complete the entire sprint backlog. How should the Scrum Master or project manager read into this, whatever you like? How should the Scrum Master respond?
A, meet with the customer in private and challenge them to be more respectful to the team. B, discuss the reasons for the failed sprint during the next daily standup meeting. C, encourage the team to commit to completing fewer story points for the next sprint. Or, is it D, challenge the team to work on their days off until they cover the shortfall. Okay, everybody. Please type your answer into the chat --- A, B, C, or D. I’ll give you about 15 seconds.
So, we got one participant. Oh no, no, no, they’re coming in. They’re coming in. So, we have Shelbi who says A. Raghu says B. Dover says B. Georgia says B. Hans says B. Keith here is A. So, what will it be? Which one do you think it is? The correct answer is in fact, A. Meet with the customer in private and challenge them to be more respectful to the team.
Remember, we are right now talking about being a good steward, right. The customer is definitely entitled to be disappointed and frustrated with the project team for failing to meet their commitment. However, as a steward, we as project managers, we have an obligation to challenge stakeholders. Customers are project stakeholders, and to consider their words and actions to be empathetic and respectful of others. It is never appropriate to be disrespectful in the way that it has been identified here. It might be a difficult conversation, but the project manager has an obligation to challenge the customer to consider their words and their action with others. Alright! If you didn’t get this one right, don’t worry. We have three more coming up in just a moment. But first, we are moving on from the first principle here, stewardship.
[20:08] Four Principles - Team
We are moving on to the principle of Team, where we want to ensure that we build a culture of accountability and a culture of respect.
[20:22] Team Here are three points to consider for you. First, projects are delivered through teams. And ultimately, we project managers, we are responsible to ensuring that the team members work well together. So, as leaders, it is important for us to understand how to make the team work as effectively as possible. We are mixing principle and process somewhat, obviously. But because the principle of developing a collaborative team environment means that we must know and understand the concepts of team leadership, team development, coaching, mentoring and so on. These are the hard tools that you will apply in order to embrace and implement this principle of team culture. But at the core, we strive to develop a positive environment for everyone to flourish. And all of that starts with a culture of accountability and respect. And this is when I want to bring in our next expert’s opinion, because this is not me who said all of these that you have just heard.
[21:33] [Quote: Michael Tanner]
Instead, it is Michael Tanner from www.credibleleaders.com. So, he is the founder of Credible Leaders. He is also the creator of the Leadership Calculator. He defines team accountability like this: “Team accountability isn’t about a single person,” leader, project manager, or otherwise. Holding every other team member accountable, right. “Team accountability is about every team member holding every other team member accountable. It’s a culture of accountability.” In other words, everyone on our team has a responsibility towards our team culture of accountability. But it’s up to us project managers to facilitate this and help the team self-organize. Great teams do have a positive work culture and that helps the project progress with less disruption. And lack of team accountability, that leads to misalignment, he says. A misaligned team may eventually achieve their goals but never as efficiently and effectively as a well-aligned and a well accountable team.
Alright! So, that’s kind of the theory. But, let’s take this into practice. Let’s see what Michael has to offer in regards for tips for us here.
[22:58] Tips from Michael Tanner
So, we got these four. These, you can apply in practice to adapt these project management principles, right. First, hold yourself accountable as the leader. Again, it starts with you. Your team must see you doing what you say you will do. So, you lead by example. Very similar to what we have just learned from the stewardship. You must be willing to give and receive constructive criticism. And, the combination of these three means, you can hold your team to a higher standard. So, if you take the first three tips, that should lead to your team following your lead and you raise the standard within your project and within your team.
He also recommends this book here”The 4 Disciplines of Execution” by Chesney and Covey. And, he does this because it defines a couple of extra ideas that are useful for team leaders. First is the use of a score card that indicates if the team is winning or losing. And second, it’s about conducting regular commitment meetings where each team member reports on prior commitments and makes new commitments to achieving the team goal. I have to admit, I haven’t read this book. But, I know it is an older book. And, the second tip here, the commitment meetings sounds very much like the daily standups that we have in Agile approaches. So, definitely, give this a go. Recommended by him.
[24:50] Culture of Trust and Efficiency
Other than that, accountability also fosters a culture of trust and efficiency. When you hold all members accountable, team members trust one another as they share an understanding that each one is fulfilling the roles that are assigned to them. Aside from this, as a project manager, you will be able to ensure or you are now able to ensure rather that no energy or time is spent on activities that won’t benefit the project, right, sort of the principle of the value of the work is not done. As a group, you achieve deliverables more efficiently in this way.
[25:36] What It Looks Like
So, what does this look like in real life? And again, how do you do this? How do you apply the principle of developing a good team culture in your own projects? So, here are the four ideas from Michael, right. This is his vision of what a culture accountability and respect should look like with these examples here. So, make sure that all voices are heard and all opinions are considered.
Embrace conflict as a positive force that helps you get better result. Do respect others and call out moments when that respect is not given to ensure that everyone’s experience of the workplace is a positive one. And his fourth suggestion: Make it a regular habit to provide constructive feedback about your team member’s strength, weaknesses, and opportunity, okay.
Also unsurprisingly, this is once again a principle that goes from start to finish all the way through the project life cycle. So, you do this at the beginning all the way to the end. This is not something that is focused on just maybe planning stages of your project. So do we have anybody who has a suggestion here in regards to how they do it? I don’t see anything. So, no input here from our visitors. But please, don’t forget to think this through yourself. Yeah, how do I do this? How do I build a culture of accountability with my project teams? These four here are good place to start.
[27:25] [Sample Question 2]
Moving on: We have another sample question from the PrepCast Exam Simulator. During a sprint retrospective, an issue is raised that some project team members are slow to respond to inquiries resulting in degraded project performance. The identified team member becomes defensive and claims that no standard had been established for response times. What might the Agile leader do differently going forward to improve project performance? Is it A, establish a standard that all inquiries must be responded to within 24 hours? Report the underperforming team member to their functional managers for disciplinary action. Update the lessons learned register with the delay caused by the slow responses. Or D, at every subsequent retrospective, review the team’s social contact and revise as needed. Again, I’m going to give you about 15 seconds or so to answer this. Press pause if you’re watching this recorded and you need some more time.
Alright! I have a couple of answers have come in here. Raghu says D. We have another D. We have another D. Before I give you the answer, I’m going to go back one slide to the previous slide where we had this here. Because we have an input from Hans, who says, you know, what this looks like in real life: “Allow errors and corrections to otivate.” I would say “motivate” is probably what you wanted to say. And I think that’s a good idea, right. Again, everybody is heard. Errors and corrections are motivators. It’s not a downer. You want to give people the opportunity to make errors and that is not a bad thing. Quite in the contrary, it’s a motivation to move forward. Oh, we got another one that’s coming in here from Venkadesh: “Team accountability starts with welcoming suggestions on daily activities, providing room to provide solutions in critical situations.” Thank you, both, for that input.
Back to our question. So it is A, B, C, or D? Most people have answered D. We have a few A’s here. We have a few B’s here. So, we got a lot of input here from everybody. Thank you for participating here. The correct answer in this particular case is D. At every subsequent retrospective, review the team’s social contract and revisit as needed. So team agreements, these are sometimes referred to as team charters or social contracts. They should be established at the start of the project. So, together with your team, you create a team charter, maybe even a vision and mission statement. And you define in this charter, in this team charter, how do we work together on this project?
But, it may be necessary for the team agreements to evolve over the course of a project to address new issues and adapt to the ever-changing work environment. And as part of creating a collaborative project team environment, the project leader, we, we should ensure that the project team develops a set of team agreements and yeah, it’s not uncommon. You have unforeseen conflicts that have not been addressed in this social contact. And this just happens as your project progresses. So, you want to revisit these agreements on a regular basis. And revise them as necessary. It might be helpful to addressing new concerns and establishing norms for team member’s behavior going forward.
Important thing to note here is when you read the question again, you’ll notice that we don’t know what the problem is and why this has happened, right? Not important for this particular question. You will only get what you get in the question Our questions tend to be a little bit more robust, to be a bit more clarity. The real Project Management Professional (PMP)® Exam is said to be extremely vague. But in this case, we didn’t bother saying why exactly this happened. Not needed in order for you to answer the question correctly. So, be prepared sometimes, you know. There are things that you just don’t know and won’t know.
[32:16] Four Principles [Stakeholders]
That’s it for our second principle --- Teams. Now, we’re moving on to Stakeholders. Because stakeholders bring success, right. The important thing here is engaging stakeholders. You do not manage stakeholders. You engage with them on the project. You cannot really manage them. People are people, and managing people is sometimes, especially on a project, very difficult.
[32:42] Stakeholders
Right. So your stakeholders, they will have an active part to play in the work. And you probably want them to take some kind of action. And this why engagement is important and you will learn as you engage with them about them, about their concerns, and once you understand their motivation, it’s so much easier to deliver successfully as a team. And the words ‘as a team,’ is important here.
While you as the project manager, again, are driving this, stakeholder engagement is everyone’s job. It’s kind of like saying everybody in our company is a sales person, right. So, everybody on our project is a stakeholder engagement advocate. If you are designer, then you will probable engage with the customer or the end-user, to understand what they would like things to look like. If you are tester, then you may engage with an external development team. Those are all stakeholders. And since you work with them, you need to engage with them, right. So, it’s everybody’s job. Everybody does this. Everybody engages, right. But to be on the safe side, let’s review what a stakeholder is.
[34:04] [Stakeholder Definition]
Here is the definition for the stakeholder. Stakeholder is someone who is interested in or impacted by the project. Each stakeholder expects something from the project. And it’s important to fully understand their needs, so that you can tailor the engagement to be most effective, alright. And now, it’s time to bring in another expert. You’ve already heard from her previously.
[34:30] [Quote: Elizabeth Harrin]
This one is from Elizabeth Harrin. She is the author of “Engaging Stakeholders on Projects – How to Harness People Power.” And she says that there are many ways that you can engage stakeholders. From simple newsletter, gamification, and there are many tools you can use to create engagement within the project. At first, you want to gain clarity on stakeholders’ involvement and why the project matters to them. And then you can better understand their perspective and build a trusted relationship. Makes sense, right? You engage with me. You talk with me. You learn about me. You learn about my concerns. I talk to you about the project. And we build a relationship. Through this relationship, I begin to trust you as the project manager and to believe that what you’re saying, well, if you follow all the principles, what you are saying is the truth and that you truly want the best for the project and also what is best for me. Or, if you cannot take my input into consideration, at least you are being upfront with it and you’re telling me why that my concerns in this particular case have to stand back because there are bigger concerns coming in from somewhere else. So, it’s an engagement. It’s a matter of knowing people and getting to them. Obviously, this may not be the case in highly public and highly politicized projects. But on most projects most of the time, this is the way to go.
[36:19] Tips from Elizabeth Harrin
Some tips from Elizabeth here. She has a few tips to share. Make sure you know what you are engaging them in. What is it that you want your project stakeholders to be doing on the project? Are they involved in some of the processes? Do they have to do something with the deliverables? Are they just providing expertise, subject matter expertise, right? Yeah. Once you have defined and understand their role, now, you can make sure that your communication and interactions that you share the message also in the most appropriate way. In practice, engaging stakeholders looks a lot like talking and communicating. But with specific goals in mind, that drive the project closer to a successful outcome. Alright! So, these are the tips from Elizabeth.
[37:18] Practical Application
What does this again look like in practical application? Again, please do join in the fun here. If you have an idea, this is how I engage with stakeholders, what this looks in real life. Please do type it into the chat. So in practical situations, this could be all about initiating a dialogue early, early on during project planning. Because that avoids misses that could drain your resources. You want to maybe facilitate the workshop and making sure that all voices are heard. And you want to, as the project manager, resolve a conflict between stakeholders who don’t share the same view what should be in scope, what should be out of scope as an example, right.
And working with a team of end-users, so that they are involved, which helps reduce resistance to change redistance, that’s a new word that I have just come up with. Hans shares an idea: “Avoid to push aside the unpleasant.” I think this is something that is very important for us, project managers. We have to see where the problems are. Don’t sweep the problems under the carpet. Bring the problems out into daylight. Talk them through, right. Georgia says: “Identify stakeholder register, responsibility assignment matrix, RACI chart, team-building activities.” I think all of that helps in engaging stakeholders. And, do you notice something? I think the last one, the team-building activities, that goes for both principles, right? If you have a tool and a technique, and a process, it’s not like ‘Oh, this is only for stakeholder engagement.’ No, no, no, this can be helpful across the board with many of the activities that we do will support many of the principles. There’s another that just came in from Georgia: “Negotiation, win-win.” Yes! Always go for the win-win. Make sure that everybody come out of negotiations feeling like they have achieved what they want to achieve.
[39.37] [Quote: Elizabeth Harrin]
Oh, and don’t forget, these principles applies the whole way through the project from the initial idea, all the way to project closure. Your stakeholder community may change as you through the project. So: “Make sure that you are continually reviewing your plans and engaging the right people.” Coming back here to what Georgia has said: Identify them. Use the stakeholder register. Responsibility assignment matrix, those are important tools to use at this point.
[40:19] [Sample Question 3]
Alright! We continue with another PMP Exam sample question taken from the PrepCast Exam Simulator. Here we go! An organization wants to undertake its first Agile project that will incorporate scrum methods. An Agile consultant is advising the organization on how to transition from a predictive framework to Scrum. The recently hired developers are all well-versed with Agile practices, but the broader internal stakeholder community is unfamiliar with Scrum. How might the Agile consultant address this knowledge gap?
A, no action is needed because the developers are well-versed with Scrum. Is it B, have the stakeholder attend the daily Scrum meetings and ask questions about Scrum? C, conduct a seminar with relevant stakeholders covering Scrum at a high level. Or is it D, submit a change request to access contingency reserves to cover Scrum training costs? Again, give you about 15 seconds. Press pause if you need more time. Please do type your answer into the live chat.
Ah, let’s see. We have a C, a B, a C, a C, a B, a C. Yeah! It looks like I’m getting more C’s here than I’m getting B’s. But B and C, those seem to be the ones. It’s either B or C, I can tell you that. The correct answer is in fact, drum roll please, C, conduct a seminar with relevant stakeholders covering Scrum at a high-level. This is correct because in order to effectively support the project, it is reasonable to assume that some internal stakeholders outside of the development, they will need at least a high-level understanding of the project management approach. And in this case, it is Scrum; it is Agile. So, as a project manager, as a Scum Master maybe, you make provisions to provide introductory Scrum training for the relevant stakeholders.
Now, B, in my opinion, is not such a good choice or the less good choice. It can work, right. If C didn’t exist, I would probably have gone for B as well. Because during the daily standup meeting, that is reserved for the development team. Only the development team should speak during that meeting. So, B, not such a great option. But, if this question did not offer C, right, A and D definitely not. But if C weren’t here, and were another bad option, I would probably go for B and say, Yeah, okay, better than nothing, right. Let me take you to the daily Scrum. Ask questions there and we’ll help you out. But that is not the intent of the daily Scrum. C here, definitely the much better answer. Alright!
[43:38] Four Principles - Value
And with that out of the way, we’re moving on to our fourth and final principle here for the day --- Value, delivering what’s important.
[43:50] Value
Here we go! This principle, this is all about value. In particular, to focus on value so that we can deliver value to our customers. So, it’s a focus. It’s a mindset. It’s a ‘how can we deliver value?’ Value in project management is the balance between the benefits that we gain from the resources that we spend.
For example, you spend money so we can buy building materials and hire construction workers, so that we can deliver to you the value of owning and being able to live in a beautiful house with a beautiful life and then you may ask yourself: ‘How did I get here?’ And I apologize to everybody who got this really silly reference here to a talking head song. So, live in a beautiful house with a beautiful wife. You ask yourself: ‘How did I get here?’ Well, you got here through proper project management, alright? Anyway.
The perception of value differs between stakeholders. So, it’s important to understand what value means to your stakeholder community. For example, my understanding of what makes a beautiful house is probably different from yours. So, whoever designs and builds your house must understand your perception and perspective and not mine.
[45:28] Value of a PMP Study Plan
Let me give you another example here. If you are creating a PMP study plan, you’ll put the topics into your study plan that would have the most value for your learning. Let’s say I’m creating one too. Then I would include things that are different to yours. I would get value of different topics because my past experience is completely different. Maybe, I was working in a very cost-centric type of environment. So, to mee, cost is very easy. Whereas you, you’re in a procurement-heavy environment. So, procurement to you is easy. So, you wouldn’t take that into your PMP study plan, right. So your plan, your value. My plan, my value. So, you want to make sure that you want to get that in.
Georgia also mentions the “definition of done.” Yes! At the end of this, you know, when do we know that we are done? And I think in both cases, no matter which plan you take, your plan or my plan, right, the definition of done at the end is probably this, right: Your first name, your last name, comma, P-M-P. I think that would be a clear definition of done for both of these study plans that we have whether it’s yours or mine.
[46:50] [Quote: Jennie Fowler]
Another expert quote, this one is from Jennie Fowler: “From an Agile perspective,” she says “one of the best ways to focus on value is the benefit.” Don’t overthink this, right. We’re not talking about a ton of mathematics, right. It’s really simple for program or product road map that you are working on. “The goal could be just a single sentence.” And she suggests a sentence that can look like in kind of the following format here.
[47:24] [Single Sentence Format]
“We are moving from X to Y [by a certain date] with a project benefit of [and then a financial value or some other benefit]” She says to pick items from our backlog that help us move the needle towards this benefit. This particular goal with a shortest-path mindset.
And also in addition to this, you can also assign all backlog items to a simple benefit, whether it is financial or, but in most cases, you know, you should be able to assign a financial value to things. As you work on the project then, focusing on value means that making sure that you take into account what is important for the customer at any given time. And if all the items in your backlog have such a value assigned to them, that becomes much easier. It becomes a sorting criteria really, right. And you can say: ‘Well, backlog item number 25, much greater value than backlog item number 27 and 28 together. So, should we do 25 before we address 27 and 28?’ Now, it of course becomes a question of working with the product owner and the customer to define is it true that this value is more important and we need to do this first. Now, that’s when negotiations happen and you want to go for the win-win.
[48:52] Some Practical Ideas
Some practical ideas here. Once again, last chance to join in here. This is our last principle. Please do share your thoughts how does value, the application of value, delivering value, defining value, what does it look like in your own organization on your own projects?
For Jenny, being value-driven could look like this here. You hold regular meetings with the stakeholders to ensure that the project will continue to meet their needs. So yes, meetings to ensure that we’re still meeting the need. Backlog grooming, you want to prioritize the highest value items for delivery in early iterations because the sooner you can deliver value to the customer, well, the happier they will probably be. Regularly reviewing the business case to ensure that the benefits are going to be delivered and collaborating with team members to help them determine the status of the project and accurately estimating where are we truly at. And also instilling into them value as something that is a mindset and we really need to think along this way. The metrics, are we focusing on the right value here. Do we have anybody who had something? We have Hans who says: “Cost benefit analysis.” Absolutely. If you know that one item gives you a greater benefit for the same cost, that’s probably the one with the higher value, you want to go with that. Georgia says: “Backlog, prioritize user stories, deliver the most important ones as early as possible, meetings with customers, engage with customers early on in the design.” This is very much the Agile mindset that we’re seeing here coming through in this particular statement.
[50:56] Different Life-Cycles
Alright! In the previous principles, I said that these were all --- stewardship, team, and stakeholders --- we have learned that we need to apply these throughout the whole project. So being a good steward, building the team properly, and engaging with stakeholders, that’s all throughout the project. But in this particular case, now that we are talking about value, it depends, it depends. It may apply differently depending on your development approach, the delivery approach, the life cycle. If you are doing something plan-driven, here on the left, then the principle really applies more during the planning and execution phases of your project because that’s when you will be aligning what you will be delivering to the customer goals. So do this early on during planning, during executing. Think about value and how to deliver this.
Whereas, if you’re using an Agile approach on the right, these approaches, they encourage you to be value-driven at all times. This is where the prioritized backlogs and user stories deliver most important as early as possible, that’s all from Agile. That’s where this comes on. And I didn’t call this an Agile mindset in this particular instance. I changed it to value mindset. It’s part of the Agile mindset, but it now definitely focused on the value. Right. Thank you, everybody for joining in and being active participants in our webinar here. One last chance for everybody.
[52:49] [Sample Question 4]
We have another PrepCast Exam Simulator sample question here. The product owner along with input from the project team defines and prioritizes the project backlog calculates the total story points, and based on the preliminary estimate of velocity determines an anticipated date for software development projects. Senior leadership is concerned that the estimated release date will not meet the urgent business need. What is the best course of action for the product owner?
A, use the WBS to determine what features have the highest value? B, work with the project team and relevant stakeholders to determine the minimum viable product (MVP)? C, use a burndown chart to track progress against required release date? Or D, submit a change request to update the schedule baseline to coincide with the desired release date. A, B, C, or D, you get 15 seconds. Please press pause if you need more time. Please do put A, B, C, or D in the chat.
Alright! I am getting the first answers in here. We have B. We have more B’s. C here. We got more B’s, more B’s. So, we got lots of B’s coming in here, yes, thank you, everybody. And B is indeed the correct answer here. Before I give you the reasoning, two things. Did you notice the sort of the grammatical issue here in this particular question? It was “determines an anticipated delivery date for software development project.” If you look at that, it’s not perfectly grammatically correct, right. This can happen on the exam as well. We sometimes do this intentionally in the Exam Simulator, to make you go: ‘There’s something wrong with the sentence.’ Don’t let that bother you. That’s part of an exam simulator to do it this way. And also, you may have notice, this is a question about the product owner and not the project manager. Doesn’t matter. The answer is the same whether this is for the project manager, the Scrum Master, or the product owner. The correct answer here in this particular case is B. Yes! In order to meet the urgent business need, yeah, the project team will need to deliver working software as quickly as possible by identifying the MVP, the minimum viable product. The project team can deliver a working product with an earlier first release. And if additional features are still desired, then they can be included in future delivery. So, we have learned today that project teams need to focus on delivering value. This question indicates that it’s unlikely that the entire project backlog can be completed in time to meet that particular need. So, the project team will need to develop a strategy to deliver value in time to meet the urgent business need. Now, one way of doing that would be to add more people to this. We can’t do it all. Well then, let’s bring on more people. Let’s spend more money. But that is not one of the given answers here. We don’t have that. So, without adding resources, the only realistic option and based on the answer choices here is to reduce the scope for the initial release and that option is here in the disguise of a minimum viable product. So, the minimum viable product takes your complete backlog and says: ‘Okay, what is the minimum that we can deliver?’ So, you’re reducing the scope. You have no choice to no adding people, no adding money. They’re not an option here. But reducing the scope, that we can do. And that is why, B here is the correct answer. And again, let me state. Even though it says product owner up there, don’t let that get you confused. The role of who does this selection does not affect which answer is correct.
There are something that I forgot to mention. Did you think that these questions are easy. Do you know it’s obvious in this case that it was B? Here’s the thing. We look at the principle. I give you a question about that principle. We look at the next question. I give you a question about that principle. So, you are in the mindset of that particular principle. So, if this seemed easy for you, then don’t worry on the real PMP Exam, it won’t seem easy for you because you have just taken 132 questions. Everything looks and start sounding the same, and suddenly this question comes up. You have no idea what principle this is. You’re getting tired. It has been 2 hours and 10 minutes already. ‘Oh my God! I only have 20 minutes left.’ So, in this environment, this becomes a very hard question to answer.
[58:31] Take Action
Take action, okay! So, here is what I want you to do. This is kind of the ‘duh’ type of take action. But I want you to download the PMBOK® Guide Seventh Edition, the PDF from PMI. You have to be PMI member in order to do that. So, please go to www.pm-prepcast.com/pmbokdl PMBOK download, DL. It will take you to the PMI page. It’s just a formatting link, nothing more, and then I would like you to review the principles 1, 2, 3 and 4 as they are described within the PMBOK® Guide Seventh Edition.
[59:24] Takeaways
And before I say goodbye today, the takeaways, yes. In addition to what you have learned about the principles of stewardship, team, stakeholders and value, here is what I would like you to remember. The processes are still important. Just because the PMBOK® Guide Seventh Edition only focuses on these principles and also the eight performance domains, the processes are needed to manage a project. You cannot manage a project just on principle alone without having a schedule. That doesn’t work. The principles, however, they illustrate good project management behaviors. This is the way that we want to do it. So, the process-focused approach still very much needed to deliver the project results.
By the way, I have choses these Swiss Army knives. I think it’s a fake Swiss Army knife actually, to symbolize this a little bit here. So, the principles, they tell you how to hold the knife, maybe how much grip to apply, sort of what angle you hold it. But, the process-focus tells you whether you use the large blade, the small blade, or even if you need to use the scissors.
Right! Thank you again for joining me, everybody, today! Appreciate your time. Appreciate your participation in our live event here today. Thank you for joining me.
Until next time.
[End of transcript]