Chapter 10 - Project Communication Management

Project Communication Management. Communication also is one of the important factors that lead the success or failure of projects. There are four processes that involve in communication management which are communication planning, information distribution, performance reporting and managing stakeholders. In communication planning it discuss about the contents of communication management plan such as information that to be communicated, stakeholder communication requirement and so on. In information distribution stress on to get the right information to the right people and at the right time. There are two types of information distributing such as by using technology and formal and informal methods. Face by face communication also important to distribute information. Performance reporting is to ensure that stakeholder will get information from time to time about the project resources. In managing stakeholder there are some suggestion to improve project communication such as develop better communication skills, run effective meetings and so on, this is important so that there are no problems occur just because the information is misunderstanding by certain group of people. As conclusion everyone that involve in doing a project need to have communication skill not only to stakeholder but also among each of them to avoid any incorrect information that lead to the projects failure and also to avoid any misunderstanding among of them.

Chapter 9- Project Human Resource Management

For the overall of project human resources I can say this chapter tells more about people in the organization, because people are the most important assets in organization and on project.
Therefore, it is essential for project managers to be good human resource managers.

The major processes that involved in this project human resources management includes human resource planning, acquiring project team members, developing the project team, and managing the project team.

This chapter also tells us about psychosocial issues that affect how people work and how well they work include motivation, influence and power, and effectiveness.

One of psychosocial issues under motivation is Maslow, that developed a hierarchy of needs that suggests physiological, safety, social, esteem, and self-actualization needs motivate behavior. Once need is satisfied, it no longer serves as a motivator. Next is influence and power, we can say that power is the potential ability to influence behavior to get people to do things they would not otherwise do. One of theory example of influence the power is Thamhain and Welemon that identified nine influence bases available to project manager. In their research found that project success is associated with project managers who use work challenge and expertise to influence workers. And last theory is under effectiveness, project managers can use Steven Covey’s seven habits of highly effective people to help themselves and project teams become more effective. The seven habits include being proactive; beginning with end in mind; putting first things first; thinking win/win; seeking first to understand, then to be understood; achieving synergy; and sharpening the saw. Using empathic listening is a key skill of good project managers.

Two crucial skills of a good project manager are team development and team management. Teamwork helps people work more effectively to achieve project goals. Project managers can recommend individual training to improve skills related to teamwork, organize team-building activities for the entire project team and key stakeholders, and provide reward and recognition systems that encourage teamwork.

Project managers can use several tools and techniques, including observation and conversation, project performance appraisals, conflict management, and issue logs to help them effectively manage their team.

Chapter 8 - Project Quality Management

Project quality management is vey important to ensure the project that we develop have high quality and the end user and stakeholder will satisfy of it. There are three processes define in this chapter which are quality planning, quality assurance and quality control. The main goal of quality planning and quality assurance is to ensure the project meet the quality standard. In quality control we can use control chart to determine every processes are in control or out of control and also to analyze the satisfaction of user towards our project. The seven run rule is related to control chart where we always use flow chart, histogram, scatter chart and so on. The next topic is Six Sigma where it also have the related with quality control because it is more comprehensive and flexible for achieving business control. It has five phases of improvement process which known as DMAIC (define, measure, analyze, improve and control). Six sigma often use in project charters, business cases and so on. One way we can use to ensure the quality standard is by performing system testing. There are many types of testing we can perform which include unit testing, integration testing, system testing and user acceptance testing. Last part of this chapter it suggest some tips to improve IT project quality such as establish leadership that promotes quality, understand the cost of quality, focus on organizational influences and workplace factors that affect quality and follow maturity models. So as the overall conclusion in this chapter I learn on how to ensure the project quality because it is very important before we deliver the project to end user so that they are satisfying enough and give the positive feedback in the end.

Chapter 7 - Project Cost Management

In this chapter it focuses on project cost management where we need to know the importance of project cost. It is to make sure the project complete within the budget estimation. Project cost management has three phases which are cost estimating, cost budgeting and cost control. Cost estimating is to ensure project complete within budget constrain. There are three ways we can estimate budget, firstly by using analogous where take the previous project that most similar for current project that we develop and take the same cost estimation from previous project, secondly is using bottom up estimates looking all the activities that will involve in the project and make our own cost estimation and the last one us parametric modeling by using mathematical calculation for the cost estimation. Cost management plan is document use to how the organization mange the cost of the project. The main goal of cost budgeting is to create the cost baseline. Cost baseline is related to the WBS where we provide the budget for each task so we not exceed the cost until the project complete. Cost control where the financial people need to monitor and control the cost and to monitor any changes that will affect the cost of the project. Lastly in this chapter I learn on how to make sure the cost is not exceed the cost estimation because if the cost too much and the project’s sponsor and stakeholder doesn’t want to provide more cost the project will failure in the future and the project manager and team will loss.