I need an explanation for this Business question to help me study.

1. Suppose you are purchasing a new car, and you decide to use a scoring model to decide among four options, what would be your top three criteria and what would be criteria’s relative weight?

Cost would weigh the most that is 10 because to me it is most important aspect while I select a car. I will need to see what my budget is and only go for cars that are within my range of budget. Design would be the second criteria important to me and it will weigh 8. I will first select cars that are within my budget and after than I will eliminate few options for which I was not completely satisfied about the design of the car. Fuel economy will weight 6. I will select the car which is in my budget, good design and decent fuel economy per gallon of the gas. Scoring models are often used in project selection when there are multiple projects and several criteria to be considered (Kloppenborg, Anantmula, & Wells, 2019). In this case multiple option that are available are in selecting a car of different brands. To select criteria, there should be a mutual understanding between all the executives. In this case, following will be my selection criteria to select a car – Cost, design, and fuel economy.

1. In your opinion, what are the three most important items in your project charter? How did each help you plan your project better?

A project charter is the deliverable that grants a project manager the right to continue into the more detailed planning stage of the project (Kloppenborg, Anantmula, & Wells, 2019). I think project charter is a resulting document of consensus between the project manager, contractor, and the customer. This document helps keeping everybody on the same page as project develops in time. Considering the importance of the project charter and benefits of using this document, for me, scope overview, milestone schedule with acceptance criteria, and risks can be considered as three importance items.

Scope overview –

Scope for me in simple language is nothing but the explanation of what should be covered in the project and what is not in the project. Scope must consider “what” type of questions that will let everybody know what is in and out of the scope. Scope overview is high level description of what needs to be accomplished and how it will be done (Kloppenborg, Anantmula, & Wells, 2019). Once I know what is in the scope and what is not, I can plan accordingly. I can focus the discussion as well as resources strictly on the things which are in the project scope.

Milestone schedule with acceptance criteria –

The milestone schedule is a high-level plan that indicates a few significant accomplishments that are anticipated over the life of the project (Kloppenborg, Anantmula, & Wells, 2019). I think project manager should know what are the milestones that are set in the project so that manager could plan and assign resources to complete the tasks to complete the milestone. Milestones divide the project is several parts and each part will have a certain acceptance criterion. Milestone is said to be complete once all the deliverables under that milestone are complete to the satisfaction of acceptance criteria.

Risks –

To me for project to be a successful risk management is crucial. Risk is an uncertain situation that could negatively or positively affect the project if it occurs (Kloppenborg, Anantmula, & Wells, 2019). Risk should be analyzed for probability of occurrence and impact on the project outcome. Risks that are high in both the scenarios should be managed proactively instead of managing it reactively. I think risks are important item in project charter because it lets everybody know that these are the risks that are identified in the project, who is the owner of the risk and how we are going to respond to the risks.

1. Upon seeing a rough draft of your charter, your project sponsor asks you to move the finish date up by two months. What do you do?

As a project manager I would listen to the request and try to understand why it is

required. I am willing to re-map the planning to move the finish date up by two months but

surely it comes with trade-offs.

Moving the deadline up by two months means more resources will need to finish the tasks and milestones in time. More utilization of resources will drive the cost up. So, in this case there is a trade-off between time and cost. If project sponsor is requesting for project to be finished in less time, there must be a tradeoff between time and cost. I will explain this situation to the sponsor and see if he/she is willing to do the trade-off. If yes, I will definitely re-map the charter to accommodate new finishing deadline.

Reference

Kloppenborg, T. J., Anantmula, V., & Wells, K. N. (2019). Contemporary Project Management: Fourth Edition. United States: Cengage