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The first process in the Scope Management knowledge area, process 5.1 Plan Scope Management, has the object of creating the Scope Management Plan, which is the framework for all the other five processes from the Scope Management knowledge area.

The main input is the project charter, and by using the tools and techniques of consulting with knowledgeable individuals (expert judgment) and in groups (meetings), the two main outputs are the Scope Management Plan itself and the Requirements Management Plan.

Below is a table summarizing these inputs, tools & techniques, and outputs.

Before we go on to the next post, I will go into detail regarding three topics: a) the difference between the Project Statement of Work (SOW) and the Project Charter, b) the contents of the Scope Management Plan, and c) the contents of the Requirements Management Plan.

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In the last post, I gave a general introduction to Chapter 5 of the PMBOK® Guide, the Scope Management knowledge area.

This post contains is a summary of the six project management processes that are in the Scope Management knowledge area.

1. Scope Management Knowledge Area—Six Processes

You will notice that the Scope Management Knowledge area, as well as the following two knowledge areas of Time and Cost, only have processes in either the Planning Process Group or the Monitoring & Controlling Process Group. In particular, the Scope Management Knowledge Area has four processes in the Planning Process Group, and two processes in the Monitoring & Controlling Process Group.

Let’s take a closer look at the process descriptions.

5.1 Plan Scope Management

This is a new process in the 5^th Edition of the PMBOK® Guide. This is not to say that the scope management plan was never done before, it’s just that the process of creating that plan was considered part of the larger generic process 4.2 Develop Project Management Plan. Now, however, EACH of the knowledge areas has its own process that is dedicated to planning.

In the case of the Scope Management Plan, the plan gives details on how the project scope will be defined (processes 5.2 through 5.4), validated (process 5.5) and controlled (process 5.6). It therefore charts how the organization will chart its way through the rest of the scope-related processes.

5.2 Collect Requirements

This takes the high-level needs and expectations of the sponsor, customer, and other stakeholders outlined in the project charter and translates them into detailed set of requirements that can be analyzed for possible inclusion in the scope baseline.

5.3 Define Scope

This is the detailed description of the project and product, which includes which of the requirements collected in the previous process will be included in the scope and which will be excluded. The output of this process is the Project Scope Statement, one of the three components of the scope baseline.

5.4 Create WBS

This is the process of subdividing the project deliverables and project work into smaller, more manageable components called work packages. The output of this process is the work breakdown structure or WBS, and the WBS dictionary, which contains detailed information about the contents of the work packages. The WBS and WBS dictionary are the other two components of the scope baseline besides the Project Scope Statement.

5.5 Validate Scope

The interim deliverables are formally accepted by the customer or sponsor as a way of making sure that everybody is on the “same page” when it comes to the project progressing along the lines of the performance baseline, which in the case of the scope management knowledge area means the scope baseline in particular.

The deliverables are internally verified to make sure they meet the requirements (as part of the Control Quality process), and then the Validate Scope process makes sure they are either externally validated by the customer or, in the case of a purely internal project, with the sponsor of the project.

5.6. Control Scope

Control Scope is the process in the Monitoring and Controlling Process group which attempts to maintain the project within the scope baseline if possible. If it is not possible and the scope must be changed, then the process may generate as an output a change request which may (if approved) lead to a changed scope baseline.

This is a basic outline of these processes. Tomorrow I will go through the inputs, tools & techniques, and outputs of the first process, 5.1 Plan Scope Management.

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I am now starting a series of posts on the 5^th chapter of the PMBOK® Guide, which covers the first of the individual knowledge areas besides Integration which can be seen as tying all of the other knowledge areas together.

Scope Management is the first individual knowledge area perhaps because its management is perhaps the most crucial to the success of a project. Scope creep, or the inability to manage the scope, is one of the most common reasons for a project to get out of hand and not meet the other constraints of being completed on time and within the budget.

1.  Product vs. Project Scope

To start the discussion of this chapter, let me begin with a discussion of the distinction between the scope of the product and the scope of the project.

2.  The Scope Baseline

The scope baseline, against which the performance of the project is measured, consists of three elements.

1. Project scope statement
   
2. Work Breakdown Structure
   
3. WBS Dictionary
   

The processes that create the scope baseline are found in the planning process group. The processes that can potentially change the scope baseline are found in the monitoring and controlling process group. The next post will outline these two sets of processes.

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1. FSI Language Courses

I wrote a review last year of the fsi-language-courses.org website, saying that it was a great free resource for those learning foreign languages. It contained courses developed by the Foreign Service Institute in the 1980s and earlier for members of the government who needed to be able to speak foreign languages fluently as part of their position.

Although my understanding was that these courses were in the public domain, I had it in the back of my mind that it wasn’t the Foreign Service Institute itself who was maintaining the website, but some linguistic do-gooder who had taken it upon himself to make the courses available for the general public.

Personally, I have used the courses for Advanced Spanish, French, and German, and was currently going through the materials on the Standard Chinese: A Modular Approach course. Or I should say reviewing them, because I happened to take a Chinese course at the University of Illinois in the 1980s which utilized the materials.

Last year I had taken the Chinese proficiency exam HSK (Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi) at the third level out of six. The Chinese have in the past few years realigned their language proficiency exam levels to correspond to the European Common Reference Framework for language levels.

2. European Common Reference Framework for language levels

Here is an explanation of the European Common Reference Framework

Some language proficiency tests cover all four areas of reading, writing, speaking and listening, such as the French DELF (Diplôme élémentaire de langue française) or the Spanish equivalent DELE.

Some tests cover reading, writing, and listening, but do not have a speaking component, such as the Chinese HSK or the Japanese Language Proficiency Test.

I found the FSI Language materials good in terms of reviewing grammar and doing drills to help you remember vocabulary. Some courses take you all the way from beginning level A1 through B1, and other Advanced Courses go from B2 through C1 in terms of the level of language you are using.

The best course in my opinion was the Chinese course because besides having a well-developed textbook and audio materials, there were an extensive series of practical exercises helping you use the language in situations that were as close to real life as possible. Each module would be grouped around a series of practical linguistic skills, such as

• Module 1: Orientation, where you learn to be able to introduce yourself
  
• Module 2: Biographical Information, where you learn to tell about your immediate family and extended family background
  
• Module 3: Money, where you learn to be able to count the currency of either Taiwan or Mainland China, be able to exchange traveler’s checks and purchase items in a store
  
• Module 4: Directions, where you learn to be able to tell a taxi driver where the address is you want to go
  

These aren’t the only skills learned in the modules, but they give an example of how they were geared towards practicality as opposed to an academic course that would train you to read and write the language for academic purposes.

3. Where are the materials now?

I had downloaded module 3 in January, after not being able to so for a couple of weeks for what I assumed was server maintenance (a lot of places use the holidays for that sort of thing these days). When the site was up, I presciently decided to download module 4 just in case.

When I went to double check the site this weekend to make sure I had downloaded everything, I got the following message

“FORBIDDEN: You don’t have permission to access / on this server. Additionally, a 403 Forbidden error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.”

I checked at the following website and quite a few people have also been remarking recently that the FSI Language Courses site is down:

http://ielanguages.com/blog/death-of-a-language-website-fsi-language-courses-org/

Some temporary solutions being offered by the commenters (more of whom are commenting every day on this site, it seems) are:

• Having volunteers upload the materials they already have to a site so that others may at least share what people have
  
• Going to an archive of the FSI Languages Courses webpage
  
• Wait and see what happens to the website
  

The first option is fine if you just happen to want a course that somebody else has uploaded, but you’re out of luck if it is not there.

The second option is no good–the archive page contained the layout of the old webpage, but none of the links are functional, at least for the Chinese language course which is the one I tested.

The third option is what I am going to do for now because either the site is down again for maintenance, in which case it will be up in a week or so like it was last time around the Christmas holidays. Or it will be down permanently, in which option 1 is the only viable option, I’m afraid. For now, if you have ever used FSI Language Course materials or are interested in using them in the future, monitor the website and the link up above which seemed to be popular internet gathering around this topic.

If the situation changes, I will update this post and send a tweet about it with my Twitter account which also uses the handle 4squareviews. At least I know that if the site does go away, that there are enough language-learning fans out there that it will be sorely missed!

UPDATE:   FSI Language Courses are now available at the site fsi.antibozo.net!   Thanks so much, Jennifer, for letting me know about this alternative site!

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This post is a summary of a conversation that Jane Morley, a Senior Editor at the Economist Intelligence Unit had with Paul Lewis of Economist Education on February 28th, 2013.

1. Introduction

The continent of Africa is growing faster than any other place in the world other than India and China. The fastest growing economies in the continent are Angola, Nigeria, and South Africa. Most of the other countries are expected to grow quickly as well; there are some exceptions such as Zimbabwe and Swaziland, but these are in the minority.

2. What is driving growth in Africa

a. External demand from China and India, particularly for natural resources such as oil (Nigeria and Angola) and minerals (Tanzania). This demand is keeping commodity prices high, which has fueled much of Africa’s growth recently. Oil has been discovered in Uganda recently and in Kenya as well.

b. Domestic demand driven by increasing urbanization and rising disposable incomes. This is true of emerging service sectors such as telecommunications and banking, but in traditional sectors such as agriculture (Ethiopia, Rwanda).

c. Political changes have brought stability and growth. Improved economic management after the debt relief in 2006 and 2007 has led to increased capital inflow.

d. Demographics: Africa has the youngest and most populated market in the world. More than half of population is under 24. By 2050, Africa’s population will be 2 billion, greater than the 1.6 billion in India or 1.4 billion in China. Urbanization is rapid: 40% of Africans live in cities; lower than China but higher than India, but by 2030, urbanization will increase to 63% of Africa. Meanwhile, the middle class is growing and families are starting to have fewer children. 10 years ago the average African woman had 6 children; today she has 5 (compared to the average of 1.7 in Asia). The growing middle class will create demand for schools and utilities.

3. Country profiles—a sampling of differing outcomes in Africa

Here are sample profiles of some of the countries in Africa, with the opportunities and challenges faced by them.

4. General Challenges

Some of the general challenges faced in Africa are that some government backing and regulatory support, in addition to the financial investment, are necessary in order to have investments thrive.

However, rapid policy improvement in order to reduce bureaucracy is taking place in Africa, and this should accelerate growth in the future. Free trade zones are a popular policy idea but they do not yet function well. It is even more difficult to unify fiscal policy between countries, so this is a development that will take a long time in order to bear fruit. But the potential rewards are enormous, and this promise should help propel things forward.

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One of the subsidiary management plans under the Project Management Plan is the Change Management Plan. I have already discussed change requests in an earlier post.

In this post, I want to accomplish the following

• Review how change requests fit into the project management process
  
• Discuss the elements of the Change Management Plan
  
• Discuss the philosophy behind managing change on a project, utilizing an acronym called PECHO which summarizes this philosophy
  

1. Change Requests—where do they fit in the project management process?

Change requests are identified, reviewed and approved, and then implemented at different parts of the project management process.

They can be identified either while project work is performed during the Executing Process Group (Process 4.3 Direct and Manage Project Work) OR as a result of comparing planned results to actual results during the Monitoring and Controlling Process Group (Process 4.4 Monitor and Control Project Work).

These outputs of the two processes mentioned above then become inputs to Process 4.5 Perform Integrated Change Control, where they are reviewed, analyzed, and then either approved or rejected. IF they are approved, they are then outputs to this process, and become fed into Process 4.3 Direct and Manage Project Work as inputs to be implemented.

Here’s a diagram summarizing this process.

2. Change Requests—review of types of requests

Do you remember the Charles Dickens story The Christmas Carol? In it, Ebenezer Scrooge was visited by three ghosts, the Ghost of Christmas Past, the Ghost of Christmas Present, and the Ghost of Christmas Future.

On a project, a project manager is also haunted by three types of problems, Defects Past, Defects Present, and Defects Future. In other words,

• Defect repair—defects or nonconforming products which have already been created as a result of project work must be modified or repaired;
  
  
• Corrective action—an activity which realigns the project work, which is not conforming to the project management plan
  
  
• Preventive action—an activity which ensures that the future project work will be aligned with the project management plan
  
  

Of course, rather than aligning the project work to the project management plan, another types of change may be:

• Updates—changes to the project management plan itself

3. Change Management Plan

The time to manage changes starts before they even happen, of course, during the Planning Process Group. That’s the time when you should create a Change Management Plan so you know how to handle the changes when they do occur.

Here are the elements of the Change Management Plan

And here are the various elements of the Change Management Plan with regards to when they come into play. The Change Control Procedures and the Change Control Plan are set up beforehand, so that when changes occur, Change Control Meetings can be used to evaluate them. Once they are evaluated, they are then approved or rejected in the Change Control Board according to the Change Authorization Procedures, and then they are tracked in the Change Control System whether they are approved or not.

4. PMI philosophy of managing change

I learned an acronym for simplifying the PMI philosophy with regards to how to manage changes on a project. I first thought of the elements of

• Prevent changes if possible (eliminate need for changes, or see if changes are not allowed as per charter)
  

• Evaluate the impact of the change on the other constraints of the project
  
• Create options to reduce the impact (compressing schedule, etc.)
  
• Get the change request approved by authority (PM, CCB, or sponsor)
  
• Get approval from customer (if required)
  

Playing around with this awhile, I saw the following letters PECHO (meaning CHEST) in Spanish.

• Prevent changes
  
• Evaluate impact
  
• Create options
  
• Higher-ups, aka authority, approval
  
• OK from customer
  

In this way, you can see that the best way to handle changes is to NOT have to handle them by preventing them. But if you do you need to first see what implementing this change will do to the project. Then create options as to minimize that impact, and then create a change request which outlines the change (does it change the product scope or any part of the performance measurement baseline itself) AND your recommendations.

The authority or higher-ups must then either approval or reject the change. Internal approval is first granted and then okayed with the customer, although some Change Control Boards include both representatives from the company doing the project and the customer’s company.

Then you log the change request in the change control tracking system and indicate whether it has been approved. If approved it is then implemented! Of course, if the project plans are changed, then this version is labeled “1.1” to distinguish it from the original project plan “1.0” (or however your change configuration numbering system is set up).

And that sums up the philosophy behind how to minimize the impact of changes on your project, but following a well-designed change management procedure set forth in the change management plan.

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1. Project Management Plan components

There are three categories of plans that make up the overall Project Management Plan.

2. Additional management plans—additional explanation

It is fairly obvious that the nine management plans listed under item 2 above come from the various knowledge areas listed. However, I feel a little more detail should be in order for those 4 additional management plans listed under item 3.

Although they are not explicitly linked to knowledge areas in the PMBOK® Guide, it should be fairly obvious that these four subsidiary management plans are linked to the knowledge areas in the following way

ALL of these elements combined to form the Project Management Plan, which really is a collection of all the other plans combined in one overall plan to be referred to during the Executing and Monitoring & Controlling process groups.

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This Process 4.6 Close Product or Phase, besides being the final process out of the Integration Management Knowledge Area, also happens to be the last process you will encounter on the project itself.

There are three separate closures going on in the project. There is the closure of the product, the closure of the project, and a closure of the resources behind the project. This is not PMBOK terminology, but my way of organizing these various parts of the closure process.

The closure of the product means getting the customer to accept the final deliverable if the project is external, meaning that the end result is going to be delivered to a customer outside of the organization. If the project is internal, meaning that the end result is going to be delivered to the sponsor, then the sponsor is the one that has to sign off on the final deliverable. Besides handing off the completed product, and gaining acceptance, this is often a good time to solicit feedback from the customer or sponsor about the project for use in the “lessons learned” for future projects. What went wrong? What went well?

The closure of the project means the formal closing of the administrative procedures, the updating of project documents, and the lessons learned knowledge base, and then the indexing and archiving of those records and databases. This is also a time for review of the project performance in terms of various criteria agreed upon beforehand to judge the degree of success of the project (was it within budget, on schedule, etc.).

The closure of the resources behind the project means the financial closure of the project. This is important because financial closure must be completed before the unused resources assigned to that project can be returned to the organization for use on other projects.

These three processes need to be completed if the project is not only going to be successful, but is going to be the seed of future successful projects because all of the lessons gained through experience can now be used to prevent the project manager from having to “reinvent the wheel” the next time.

Having completed a review of the six processes of the Integration Management knowledge base, I would like to return to a few topics from this knowledge area.

The first one is to review the various subsidiary plans that go into the Project Management Plan. All of the knowledge areas have their own subsidiary plans that go into this “master” plan, if you will, but there are four additional subsidiary plans that are a vital part of this Project Management Plan which need to be recognized as well. Those subsidiary plans will be the subject of the next post.

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1. Introduction

Process 4.5 Perform Integrated Change Control is one of the most important of the project management processes. Remember that the cost of implementing changes in the project goes up as the project gets further along. Therefore, it is best to prevent changes if possible, and if not possible, to make those changes as soon as possible in the project.    If you cannot avoid making a change, then you need to go through the process of analyzing what the impact on the project will be.

2. Inputs, Tools & Techniques, and Outputs

Here is a chart summarizing the inputs, tools & techniques, and outputs.

Here are a few things to note:

Change requests are inputs from two different processes. If the need for the change is obvious and is noticed while the project work is being executed, then the change request may be an output of 4.3 Direct and Manage Project Work. On the other hand, if the need for the change is only noticed as a result of the monitoring the project (by measuring earned value at various points along the way, for example), then the change request may be an output of 4.4 Monitor and Control Project Work.

In either case, the change requests are analyzed as part of a process that was set out in the Change Management Plan. The tools & techniques for change management are expert judgment, meetings, and the tools used to facilitate these two techniques.

The APPROVED changes are then input back into the 4.3 Direct and Manage Project Work, although all change requests are entered into the Change Log, whether they are approved or not.

The next process is that of 4.6 Close Project or Phase, which I will summarize in the next post.

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It’s approaching Spring, and that means the arrival of bees, flowers, and … the Toastmaster Spring Speech Contests! This Spring the contests will be the Table Topics Speech Contest and the International Speech Contest.

For those who have performed six speeches already in Toastmasters, you are eligible to enter the International Speech Contest if you are a member in good standing (i.e., you have paid your dues). If you want to be in the Table Topics Speech Contest, you have no other requirement other than being a member in good standing.

Now this blog post is entitled “Support your Toastmasters Spring Speech Contest”, for the reason that, even if you decide not to enter the contest yourself, you can still support your club’s contest in two different ways.

1. Assist at the Club/Area Contest

If you are not a contestant, you can still support your club contest and then your area contest after that by taking a support role. This can be as simple as sitting as the registration desk, or it can be as demanding as being the Toastmaster (or Master of Ceremonies) of the contest itself. A contest at the club will involve a Toastmaster, a Timer, a Contest Master (to introduce each of the two contests), with the regular members acting as the Judges of the speech by voting for which speech they thought was best, just like they do at regular meetings.

At the Area Contest level, besides the Toastmaster, Contest Master, and Timer, you have Judges that are usually from a different Area and a Chief Judge who is the one who announces the winners at the end. Your Area Governor would certainly appreciate the help, and in showing up to the area contest, you can also support your club’s contest in the following way.

2. Support your Club’s Contestants

If you assist at the Area contest, you can also cheer on your own club’s contestants. But even I you don’t assist at the Area contest, you can of course do this as well. When our club sent a contestant last Fall to the Evaluation Contest, I made sure to go to the Area Contest to cheer our club member on. I sat with him, and in the various breaks in the action of the contest, we would go over the various points of what makes a good evaluation. He ended up winning 2^nd place in the contest, which was exciting for him, because it was the first time he had ever been in such a speech contest in his life.

But it was a great moment for me, because I know that my club members supported me when I did my speech, and I felt good about “paying it forward” and helping those in my club who were themselves entering this time around.

Just remember, the whole point of the contest is to take your game to a new level. To do this takes experience, preparation, and enthusiasm. The club member supplies the experience and preparation of course. But by supporting your club member and attending the contest, you can help supply the enthusiasm!

Whether that club member wins or loses the contest, the club member will win by the experience he or she gains, and you will win by the camaraderie that develops when you support someone in the contest.

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