Discussion Questions

1. How would you sell your client on the wisdom of using management reserve?
2. How would you go about the task of decomposing the project into meaningful business chunks in preparation for an Incremental approach? Speak to the rules you might employ.
3. You have completed the first few increments and released deliverables to the client. They are now coming to you with changes to what has been released. These changes make sense, but will cause your project to go off schedule if integrated into the future increments. What would you do?
4. List the advantages and disadvantages of using management reserve.
5. How would you manage the time between increments in an Incremental PMLC model? There is pressure for longer between-increment delays to allow the client to integrate the increment deliverables, and there is pressure for shorter between-increment delays to reduce the risk of losing a team member. How do you balance these conflicting needs? How would you manage the work of your team members between increments — that is, what would you have them do?
6. What is the impact on your risk management plan for using a Rapid Linear PMLC model instead of a Linear PMLC model — that is, what risks are added and what mitigation plans would you put in place? Be specific.
7. Assume that your organization is interested in using CCPM along with TPM. What criteria would you use to decide which approach makes more sense for a given project? You might try answering this question by considering some of the characteristics of the project that would lead you to one choice over the other.
8. You are a senior project manager in your company. You have 15 years' experience with them and a solid reputation for delivering successful projects. What might you do, acting on your own, to get your organization to appreciate the value of CCPM? What obstacles might prevent you from going forward with your plan?