You are project manager for a project to develop a banking app for one of your customers. You want to include metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure project progress and earned value in your project plan.
Respond to the following in a minimum of 175 words:
• What are the best metrics to measure business value in this situation?
• Develop 1 KPI for this banking app scenario. What led you to choose this metric?
task?
Answer:
Week 2:
Continuous improvement is an integral part of all agile methodologies. You can think of it as holding a “lessons learned” review at each step of the project, rather than waiting for project completion.
Respond to the following in a minimum of 175 words:
• Describe your top 3 key continuous improvement components. Why do you consider these the most important components?
• Share an example from your research or personal experience where you have seen these key components used. Describe how they contributed toward continuous improvement.
Answer:
Week 3:
The “Adaptation” section (which includes the “Levels of Planning,” “Adaptation,” and “Agile Sizing and Estimation” subsections) on p. 417 of “Appendix A: Next Steps” of PMI-ACP® Project Management Institute Agile Certified Practitioner Exam Study Guide reviews several considerations for adaptive planning. – See highlighted below for the references:
Adaptation
Practicing agility allows the team to adapt to changing environments.
Adapt the cadence and the planning process based on results of periodic retrospectives about characteristics and/or the size/complexity/criticality of the project deliverables in order to maximize the value.
Inspect and adapt the project plan to reflect changes in requirements, schedule, and budget and to reflect shifting priorities based on team learning, delivery experience, stakeholder feedback, and defects in order to maximize business value delivered.
Review and apply these recommendations to the following scenario: You are a project manager for a new video streaming service. Your video streaming service is competing with other prominent and established video streaming services, such as Netflix® and Hulu®. Your project goal is to provide quality programming at a competitive price.
Agile Sizing and Estimation
Planning is different in an Agile project as compared to a Waterfall preplanned project, therefore estimation and sizing of work needs to be adaptable and relevant to the work itself.Size items by using progressive elaboration techniques in order to determine likely project size independent of team velocity and external variables
.Adjust capacity by incorporating maintenance and operations demands and other factors in order to create or update the range estimate.
Create initial scope, schedule, and cost range estimates that reflect current high-level understanding of the effort necessary to deliver the project in order to develop a starting point for managing the project.
Refine scope, schedule, and cost range estimates that reflect the latest understanding of the effort necessary to deliver the project in order to manage the project.
Continuously use data from changes in resource capacity, project size, and velocity metrics in order to evaluate the estimate to complete or ETC.
Respond to the following in a minimum of 175 words:
• Describe 3 items that should be tracked and considered to measure earned value and discuss how that value is determined.
• List 3 KPIs that should be tracked and indicate what good and poor values are for each KPI.
Answer:
Week 4:
One of the aspects of adaptive planning is communicating project changes and issues to the stakeholders in terms of budget, planned value (PV), and earned value (EV).
Identify a project you have worked on or one you may have read about in the readings or your research.
Using the project you identified, respond to the following in a minimum of 175 words:
• Was the project you identified run in a traditional or agile methodology?
• If traditional, would it have benefited from applying agile techniques? How?
• If it was managed using agile, were PV and EV used in monitoring and communicating the status?
• Based on your newfound knowledge of agile management techniques, what would you have done differently to improve project performance for the identified project?
If this project was unsuccessful, how would the use of adaptive planning strategies have improved the project performance and value?
Answer:
Week 5:
You are in charge of a project for a personal electronic device, such as a smartphone. Your design team is based in the United States, and your manufacturing team is based in China. Your project is going through multiple design updates, and it is essential to keep everyone on the team updated about the same information.
Review the potential issues for distributed teams in Ch. 7, “Effective Team Performance on Agile Projects,” on pp. 287–296 of PMI-ACP® Project Management Institute Agile Certified Practitioner Exam Study Guide.
Respond to the following in a minimum of 175 words:
• Describe how you would identify and address 2 of the Code of Ethics “offenders.”
• Describe how you would use 2 of the suggested communication and coaching techniques to improve team collaboration.
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Answer:
Week 6:
Review the Agile (B): Project Management Mind-set Case Study.
For this discussion, consider Jane, the project manager from the Agile (B): Project Management Mind-set Case Study and the following details: Imagine that Jane is now using agile management techniques, as opposed to her traditional hands-on project management style. Jane has encountered issues that will make the project fail to meet its cost and schedule targets. She has been holding regular meetings with project stakeholders. These stakeholders include project team leaders that have been empowered to manage their portions of the project, senior management within Jane’s company, and the end customer for the project.
Respond to the following in a minimum of 175 words:
• Based on this week’s readings, how should Jane’s project shortfall be communicated to the stakeholders and when?
• What would you have done differently if you were in Jane’s situation?