Real Project 2009 - Introduction

REAL PROJECT

"Gantt chart is NOT a project plan." Hence, Real Project is about to
bring you a “Real Project Plan”. Its aim is to let Project Manager
manage their project easier and to increase the successful rate of
project completion.   More importantly, it provides Management with an
overview of the project just at one glance.

Strengths of Real Project

"All successful projects adequately document objectives and
deliverables. These documents are a mechanism to align sponsors,
clients, and project team's expectations." Real Project is a
comprehensive software package that helps to achieve the aim. It
enables the production of Project Management Artifacts such as Project
Charter, Change Control, Work Breakdown Structure, Gantt chart, Team
Structure Plan, Communication Plan, Risk Register, Issue Log, Cost
Management, Closure and Lesson Learnt in the project management
application.

Real Project is designed by a group of PMP's (“Certified Project
Management Professionals”). It strictly follows the fundamentals that
outlined in "A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge -
PMBOK Guide" published by Project Management Institute. In addition,
Real Project is able to address most of the commonly seen problems
that appear in most of the project management software currently
available in the market.

Weaknesses of Other project management software

• Nowadays, few packages in the market are built around a sound
project management method.
• According to Gartner Group , what is even worse, some packages e.g.
Microsoft Project encourages counterproductive behavior by
inexperienced project managers via having the Gantt chart as the
default start-up view. This encourages too early focus on task
identification and scheduling vs. proper formulation of project
objectives and final deliverables. So, such packages implicitly force
upon an unsuspecting user an unsound project management process.
• Besides, many packages offer advanced visual formatting
capabilities, which make it possible to produce nicely looking but
completely nonsense documents.
• Many packages also offer e-mail integration, which encourages
automatic assignment of tasks and due dates. This universally leads to
counterproductive, date-driven behavior (see: critical chain) and may
contribute to improper setting of team member's performance
expectations.

KNOWLEDGE AREAS OF REAL PROJECT

Project Charter

Project charter is a document that formally authorizes a project. It
should include, either directly or by reference to other documents. It is
also the product description of the developing product and the
underlying business needs that the project is going to address.

Real Project enables the depository of key information of project
requirements and business cases of a particular project in Project
Charter folder of the application for easy project management reference.

Major items captured in Project Charter include Project Manager
Assigned, Authority Level, Objectives, Business Cases, Methodology,
Project Description/ Deliverables.

Scope of Work

Scope of Work is mainly derived from the business requests of
business users. Real Project allows the classification of “inclusive” or
“exclusive” tasks which focuses on the mainstream. Other items
captured under Scope of Work include the Task Version, Creation Date,
Goals/Objectives and Requests.

Work Breakdown Structure (“WBS”)

A WBS, as defined in the PMBOK Guide - 2000 Edition, is: A deliverable-
oriented grouping of project elements that organizes and defines the
total work scope of the project. Each descending level represents an
increasingly detailed definition of the project work (Project Management
Institute 2000).

Real Project enables easy construction of WBS with an overview of the
project displayed on a tree diagram and details of each task displayed
on the vertical panel next to the diagram. Of which, certain task details
are mandatory in the production of a Gantt Chart.

Based on the Scope of Work provided by business users, a tree
diagram can be created by the project manager once related tasks are
defined and broken down from the highest to lowest level. A WBS
code, also named as a task number, will be automatically generated
for each task and rank on a hierarchy basis. Whenever a WBS code on
the tree diagram is highlighted, details of the task will be shown on the
adjacent panel where the project manager can input, amend and save
details of each task such as Date Issued, Task Description, Qualified
Objectives, Product Description, Acceptance Criteria, Resources
Assigned, Cost, Due Date, Duration and more importantly the
Interdependency of each task.

Gantt Chart

Gantt Chart is a graphical representation of the duration of tasks
against the progression of time. It is a useful tool for planning and
scheduling projects. Also, it is helpful when monitoring a project's
progress.

Many people think the creation and listing of “task description” in Gantt
Chart is already a WBS. Logically, this is NOT correct. WBS, which can
be regarded as framework of the project, must be in place prior to the
set up of Gantt Chart rather than vice versa, otherwise
counterproductive may be resulted.

Real Project provides a logical flow from the construction of WBS to the
feeding of information into Gantt Chart and is able to mitigate the risk of
counterproductive. Under this knowledge area in the application, there
is a tabular Gantt Chart, a pictorial Gantt Chart, a Schedule, Assigned
Person table and a Statistics.

The Tabular Gantt Chart is automatically fed from WBS with items such
as WBS codes, task description, starting and completion date as well
as duration of project. In the pictorial Gantt Chart, task dependency and
project progress can easily be visualized.   Schedule is used to define
the start date and working date of the project and the maintenance of
relevant holidays. Assigned Person Table gives an overview of the staff
and cost involved in a particular task. Statistics is a highlight of the
project in terms of project status, completion percentage and cost
involved.

Cost Management

Cost Management enables cost capturing of the project undertaking
and the price at which customer will pay (in case of external) in a
consistent manner.

In Real Project, Cost Management includes three key tabs: (1) Costs &
Budget (2) Asset Costs (3) Cost Tracking. This allows proper
identification of project cost factors, accurate estimation of cost values
and budget creation as well as the reflection of cost tracking and cost
variances.

(1) Costs & Budget:
Actual running costs such as resources, overhead and project specific
classified by month can be input. An accumulated up to date total cost
(i.e. variable & asset costs together with risk contingency costs – see
the section “Risk”) will be shown on top left hand corner of the screen
for comparison with budget indicated at top right hand corner and also
for cost tracking at different stage of the project.

(2) Asset Costs:
The costs of asset acquisition usually involve tangible assets that are
used to create or implement project deliverables which can include
hardware, software, peripherals, infrastructure and telecommunication
equipment.   Total costs of these items will be fed into accumulated up
to date total cost under Costs & Budget tab.

(3) Cost Tracking:
Once the project is underway, costs and expenses must be tracked to
ensure that budget utilization matches project progress. Real Project
captured cost variances in both actual figure and in percentage on a
monthly basis. Calculation of which are as below which data feeding
from Costs & Budget tab:
Monthly Variance:        Monthly Budgeted Expenses - Actual Expenses =
Variance Amount

Variance Amount
Monthly Budget         x 100 = Variance Percentage

Project Variance:        Project Budgeted Expenses - Actual Expenses =
Variance Amount

Variance Amount
Project Budget         x 100 = Variance Percentage

Risk Register

In Real Project, this knowledge area provides a template for the
capturing of risk identification, mitigation plan, contingency plan,
schedule, estimated impact of the potential risk on both variables and
fixed costs, the possibility of the risk occurrences and the related
contingency cost involved.   The estimated risk contingency cost will
then be fed into Cost & Budget Tab under COST.

Change Control

Change Control is a formal process used to ensure a product or
process is only modified in line with the identified necessary change.

Real Project provides a proper issue log to capture all the changes for
manageable controls.   The log is able to allocate a unique number to
each project issue, record type of issue and provide a summary of all
analysis and status.

Project Team Structure

Team Structure is a graphical representation of member’s role and his
reporting structure in a team in the form of a tree structure.

Real Project not only provides a structured tree diagram under Project
Team Structure, but also a panel that shows all member’s personal &
contact details, skill sets and performance evaluation from past
projects. Hence, clear presentation of the role and responsibilities of
each team member as well as the selection of appropriate staff in the
project can be ensured. In addition, names of all team members will
be shown in a combo box for the selection of “person assigned” under
WBS which enables a wider and easy choice of person for a particular
project.

Communication Plan

Communication Plan outlines all stakeholders (i.e. technical or non-
technical, business or non-business, internal or external) in a project
and the channel to be used for communicating with each stakeholder.

Real Project has a panel in the Communication Plan that states the
name, title, company, contact, preferred channel and frequency of
communication. As such, an efficient and effective way of
communication with all stakeholders involved in the project can be
ensure.

Project Closure

Project Closure is provided for a broad audience including senior
management (IT & Business), project participants, stakeholders,
users, steering committees, application and technical support staff, etc.

There are two panels under Project Closure in Real Project: (1)
Closure Summary and (2) Lesson Learnt.

(1) Closure Summary
It describes final products/ services delivered by the project. Besides, it
is a final project status report comparing the original project plan and
the actual project performance at completion by tasks, schedules,
resources and others. As such, an evaluation of project performance
and a summary of recommendation for subsequent project are
available in Real Project.

(2) Lesson Learnt
Lesson Learnt can be in terms of technical, business process and
management aspects. The documentation of what worked well and
what did not in a project and things that will be of value or to or should
avoid in future projects are captured in this section.

Real Project 2009