Dear Kai-Kookai,
Sorry for the long notes, but it’s not to read the whole thing, it’s more a reference document????
First, I’d like to share few notes about your course project assignments, your delivery will be a couple of pages in total, nothing more:
• Please be explicit in respect to your (3-to-5) milestones within your project charter this week. This should be bullet wise, be direct in terms of the value you propose, where the value (whatever you do) is usually either revenue generation or cost prevention. [2-page MS Word, an optional template is available in my Files]
• You may need to outsource per contracts. If you plan to do that, make sure you mention it on the charter. (In the end, contracts are to protect you not to create incremental burdens. As a buyer, first, try to refrain to work with a supplier that favors “as-is” contracts rather than standard contracts. Second, try to manipulate at least some terms, for instance “force-majeure” closes beforehand. Please check the page number 6 here, again as a buyer, you’ll see that the first version is better: https://www.slideshare.net/christompkins/force-majeure-amp-commecial-impracticability. In short, try to increase their liabilities.)
• Communications aim to create a hub that stakeholders can exchange project information accordingly. [An official MS Word template is available on Canvas, 1-page MS Excel alternative is also available in my Files]
• As a general reminder, please do (do not hesitate to call DeVry Tech) your best to have an access for MS Project, we will start to learn some starting next week.
ASSIGNMENTS SPECIAL
2-page charter is pretty much the norm, even for mega projects. First thing we do after the carter would be the Stakeholder Engagement Plan, which comes up with sponsors, peers, team members. Communication strategy is usually a part or the charter, like the NYU sample in my Files, therefore no need to come up with another attachment, you can use the field there to introduce your communication strategy. (For more extended versions, stakeholder engagement should be used first.) As an example:
· Strategy perspective, Manage would be used for sponsors, since there are some resisting profile, therefore Inform would not be enough, Monitor would be used for team members. (Full list of strategies are 4, they are Manage/Monitor/Inform/Satisfy)
· For sponsors, I’ll more prefer to position Formal/verbal like meetings, where for team members it’s Informal written/verbal, like email, IM, desk desk discussions (Full list of communication strategies are also 4, Formal-Verbal, Formal-Written, Informal-Verbal, Informal-Written)
· Frequency perspective, sponsors would be Weekly, team member would be Daily (It’s usually 4, Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly.)
CHARTER SPECIAL
Charter is the teaser of the project inception and aims to get an authorization, so it talks about many attributes but keeps it short. Basically, Project Charter is the CV of a project. The key differences between a business case and project charter are the stakeholders, communications and milestones aspects. I would like to attach an open public sample (it can be found in my Files) from NYU, that I like very much because of two reasons:
• First, 10-to-15 items are grouped in number of sections, e.g. Project Scope, Communications, so stakeholders might have a more structured understanding
• Second there are some explanations to distinguish terms from one to another, e.g. there is a short reminder about constrains, so you won’t need to check separately
Few extra notes on project charter:
• Project Charter is actually nothing but a summary of 3 items in the larger sense: What (Descriptive), Why (Reasoning and KPIs), How (Needs [Budget/Time] vs Risks)
• All 15 buckets that you see on Canvas are derivatives of the items above. Using all might be nice, but depending on your project, it’s not a necessity. If you feel that you repeat something, choose one. (e.g. Rainy weather should normally be an External Dependency, no need to re-mention in Constraints.)
• You don’t have to give information for all aspects of a Project Charter, e.g. you don’t have to have constraints, then you either don’t mention it, or pass an N/a value.
COMMUNICATION MANAGEMENT SPECIAL
Communications special (Stakeholder engagement topicality might make it easier it understand, it’s in my Files, as well as the communications template):
1-) Readiness
• Models: Acknowledge vs Feedback messages thru decoding-encoding-decoding
• Audience: Vertical, Horizontal
• Context: Internal/External vs Official/Unofficial
2-) Message
• Content: 5Cs of communication management: Correct, Concise, Clear, Coherent, Controlling
3-) Delivery
• Modality: Formal/Informal vs Verbal/Non-verbal (Gestures, Body Language)
• Methods: Pull, Interactive, Push