Dragan Z. Milosevic’s research while affiliated with Portland State University and other places

The project management (PM) Toolbox serves a higher purpose: to increase efficiency of the project players, to provide the right information to support problem-solving and decision-making processes, and to help establish and maintain alignment among business strategy, project strategy, and project execution outcomes. PM tools include procedures, techniques, and job aids by which a project deliverable is produced or project information is created. The essence of business strategy lies in devising ways to create both short-term and long-term growth and sustainability for an enterprise. There are three major steps namely, secure strategic alignment, customize the PM toolbox and improve continuously, each including several substeps, in constructing and adapting a PM Toolbox for specific projects or a project organization. The toolbox improvement team is usually part of the process team responsible for designing and managing project processes.

The intent of performance reporting is threefold: to determine and communicate how project resources are being used to achieve the objectives of the project, to provide information on current performance against the project plan and performance baseline, and to use the information to enable informed project decisions. This chapter begins by focusing at the project reporting checklist. The project strike zone is an excellent tool for evaluating and communicating progress toward achievement of the project objectives. The project manager can use the dashboard as the data source for the performance against the key performance indicators (KPIs) information that is normally included as part of the summary project report. The summary status report provides the crucial points of the overall report while enabling management to review performance progress and trends at a glance. The project indicator can be used for effective communication of project status to the project team.

Project risk is the potential failure to deliver the benefits promised when a project is initiated. By understanding and containing the risk on a project, the project manager is able to manage in a proactive manner. The risk management tools such as risk management plan, risk identification checklist, decision tree, Monte Carlo analysis and risk dashboard are instrumental in identifying risks to the project, assessing their potential impact, developing actions to mitigate them, and monitoring risk dynamics. Other management tools such as the risk register and risk assessment matrix provide a visual representation of risk prioritization and are helpful in determining which risks need action and resources applied. Monte Carlo analysis is effective in determining the impact of identified risks by running mathematical simulations to identify a range of outcomes associated with various confidence levels relating to probability of success.

Schedule management consists of assuring that project work is accomplished according to the planned timeline, assessing changes in the timeline based upon changes to the project scope, and establishing a new baseline schedule when necessary. Schedule slippage is common and needs to be a primary focus of project managers during the execution stage of a project. This chapter presents seven tools namely, burn down chart, slip chart, buffer chart, jogging line, milestone prediction chart, baseline-current-future (B-C-F) analysis and schedule crashing which are designed for different project situations. Some tools are more suited for smaller projects, some for larger projects, others for complex projects, and still others for simple projects. Since the type of project a project manager will be called upon to manage will likely vary over the course of his or her career, it is recommended that each tool become a part of all project managers' PM Toolbox.

Project cost management involves management of the processes required to ensure that project work is accomplished within an approved budget, assessing changes to the budget based upon changes to the project scope, and establishing a new budget baseline when necessary. This chapter identifies the processes, procedures, and tools that will be used to manage cost during project execution. It focuses on how the expenditures will be tracked on the project while it is in the execution stage, and describes the standard metrics that will be used to track and report project budget expenditures. The budget consumption chart represents the amount of project budget available to the project manager at any point in time. The best method for precisely determining the overall project performance status generally, and cost status specifically, is earned value analysis (EVA). The milestone analysis technique integrates project scope, schedule, and cost to determine overall project performance.

The primary outcome of the project selection process is, of course, an approval decision to initiate a project. This chapter begins with the checklist questions for project initiation. Establishing clarity is a primary focus for the project manager during initiation of a project. Using a high-level responsibility matrix during the early stages of a project requires one to take a top-down approach to formulating the project. The ability to characterize and profile the degree of complexity associated with a project has become essential for both executive leaders and their project managers. The project business case, sometimes called the project proposal, is a start-up document used by the project manager and top management to assess the feasibility of a project from multiple business perspectives. The project charter is a tool that formally authorizes a project and serves as the contract between the project manager and the organization.

Stakeholders are many and varied on a project, and come to the table with a variety of expectations, opinions, perceptions, priorities, fears, and personal agendas that many times are in conflict with one another. The stakeholder management plan is used to establish the framework and methodology the project team will use to identify, categorize, and analyze key project stakeholders in order to develop and implement an effective stakeholder strategy. This chapter presents some project management tools such as stakeholder map, stakeholder analysis table, stakeholder evaluation matrix and stakeholder strategy matrix that are designed to help project managers develop an effective stakeholder strategy to positively influence the attitudes and behaviors of the stakeholders associated with their project. The stakeholder map is a very dynamic tool, constantly changing, and for that reason it must be reviewed and updated on a periodic basis.

This chapter focuses on cost planning at the project level. It describes some widely used project cost planning tools. The cost-planning map spells out steps and substeps a project team needs to go through in order to make choices necessary to develop basic definitions, terminology, estimate types, estimating tools, and the process for cost planning. An analogous estimate is generally applied when there is a lack of detailed information about the project. A parametric estimate uses mathematical models to relate cost to one or more physical or performance characteristics (parameters) of a project that is being estimated. A bottom-up estimate is developed just before project execution, or even in earlier phases if the required information inputs are available. The cost baseline is a time-phased budget used to measure and monitor cost performance on a project.

Project scheduling involves the planning of timelines for completing the work identified and establishing dates during which project resources will be needed to perform the work. Since project managers have a set of stakeholders with varying scheduling needs, they need to have various schedule types in their project management Toolbox. This chapter starts by describing the most widely used project schedule type, the Gantt chart, and then describes the schedule development tools such as milestone chart, critical path method (CPM), time-scaled arrow diagram (TAD), critical chain schedule (CCS), hierarchical schedule, and line of balance (LOB). The TAD's quality is heavily dependent on solid information about project scope, team member responsibilities, availability of resources, and the higher-level schedule management system. The LOB schedule displays the cumulative number or percentage of components or units that must be completed by a certain point in time for a schedule to be accomplished.