Deck 6: Project Management

Question 1

How is a Six Sigma project selected?

Answer 1

Six Sigma projects are selected for their ability to contribute to the overall financial health of the organization. They have three basic characteristics: performance, time, and cost. Six Sigma projects seek to reduce costly variation within processes, eliminate mistakes made while performing work, and eliminate waste.

Question 2

Why is it critical to manage a project well?

Answer 2

Poorly managed projects are costly for an organization. A project that does not achieve its goals and objectives, or one that is not aligned with the goals and objectives of the organization, wastes time, money and other resources. Misdirected projects, poorly planned projects or poorly guided projects are demoralizing for the organization's members. Care must be taken to ensure that projects are appropriately selected to support the organization's mission and goals. Once selected, a project must be served well by its project manager and team in order to ensure its successful completion. Effectively managed projects ensure that time, cost, and performance goals are met.

Question 3

Why are measures of performance critical to project evaluation and control?

Answer 3

Project control and monitoring involves gathering and appraising information on how the project's activities compare with the project plan. Actual progress is tracked against the performance measures established in the project plan. These performance measures help a project manager assess how time, money and other resources have been used to produce the expected outcomes. Costs can get out of control when the project costs are not watched closely and corrective cost control was not exercised in time. By closely monitoring the performance measures associated with the project, an alert project manager can be prepared to respond quickly to deviations in order to keep the project on track and under control. Though very few projects have not had their goals and objectives modified in some way or another from their beginning to the end, careful project control enables a project manager to minimize the effects of these changes on the overall project.

Question 4

What makes a project different from day-to-day work activities?

Question 5

What is involved in project control?

Question 6

How would you recognize that a project is being managed well? What clues would you look for?

Question 7

What are the components of a sound project plan? Why is it worth making the effort to develop a sound project plan?

Question 8

What are the resources that a project must compete for against other projects?

Question 9

What are contingency plans? Why are they useful?

Question 10

What do readers look for in a well-constructed project proposal?