Close Procurements

With excerpts from my Project Management Novel, I will illustrate the many processes of the PMBOK.  Here is the forty-second and last one: Close Procurements. Use this map to see how this process fits into the scheme of processes.  

“Well!” said Gwilym. “I had no idea. Anyway, these olders have practically finished the project. We should start doing the steps we normally do to close procurements. I’m just not sure how to do it with this project.”

“Why is it any different this time, Gwilym?” asked Fred.

“Because we don’t pay these folk, for one. We have no final payments to quarry or sawyers, we have no bonuses to mete out. So how can we conduct procurement audits when no money has changed hands? What kind of negotiated settlements are appropriate? We’ve done those in the past when the quarry couldn’t deliver the capstone in Huish for example. We had to pay him a little for the effort but not for the final product since he didn’t deliver us anything. And we normally get final approval on all the contracts and other procurement documents before we can close the project. So Fred, How do we do this if no money has changed hands?”

Fred was looking uncomfortable. “’Tis true that no money has changed hands and that no money is owed. But there is a contract betwixt tha, th’olders and Merlin. And Viviane too if she were still alive. I reckon Morgaine now plays that role. But th’point is, there is a debt that’s owed and it mun be repaid.”

“What debt do we owe, Fred?” asked Gwilym.

“Tha will have to ask Merlin on that.” Fred replied.

Close Project or Phase

With excerpts from my Project Management Novel, I will illustrate the many processes of the PMBOK.  Here is the forty-first one: Close Project or Phase. Use this map to see how this process fits into the scheme of processes. 

Then he and Fred returned to Avalon to see what was happening with the tower. On the way over, they talked about closing projects. “This project will be different from all the others we have closed in the past,” said Gwilym as they waited for the Avalon barge. They were being carefully watched by the four guards at the ferry stop. Gwilym knew all their names and the guards all knew that it was he, not Glastonbury, they were protecting from Palomides.

“Why is that, Gwilym?” asked Fred.

“In the past, what did we do when we got near the end? We looked over the scope and requirements, made sure that the end product matched the one we designed in the beginning. We had the local stakeholders check over our work to ensure the quality matched their expectations. We came up with a punch list of items we needed to finish up to keep them happy. We discussed the lessons we had learned over the course of this project that we could take to the next project. Then, when Sir Kay would come in with his three inspectors, they would look everything over and say they were satisfied. It will be different this time.”

“How so?”

“For one thing, the olders do perfect work. I’ve been watching over them and taking measurements. There is barely a visible crack between stones, let alone any slope to any line. It will never fall or settle. It’s built on solid rock. The measurements are exact so there is no question about a punch list at the end.”

“Second, who is our local stakeholder? Viviane is gone and Nimue seems to have no interest in the tower. The olders are quite happy with their work if I am to believe your translations. You and I can’t be happier.”

“Third, what kind of a lessons learned discussion are we likely to have with these olders. ‘Should have used our magic to be more efficient so we could have built the tower from the top down?’” Fred snorted out a laugh and Grainne gave Gwilym a disdainful look.”

“The only thing that will be the same is getting the final signoff from Kay.”

“Then that’s what we’ll focus on this time,” said Fred.

Manage Stakeholder Expectations

With excerpts from my Project Management Novel, I will illustrate the many processes of the PMBOK.  Here is the fortieth one: Manage Stakeholder Expectations. Use this map to see how this process fits into the scheme of processes. 

Gwilym bowed and thanked King Lot, who asked if there was anything else.

“There is, your highness. I keep track of the people I call ‘stakeholders’ of the project. People who have some kind of a stake in the success or failure of the project. Most are easy to spot, people like yourself and your queen, my crew and myself, King Arthur, Sir Kay. But there are others who need to be searched out who can cause delays by not being identified early enough.”

King Lot was rolling his eyes and drumming his fingers on the arm of his chair so Gwilym got to the point. “I’m concerned about the people who live and work in the buildings we are going to destroy tomorrow. Will they be resettled quickly and fairly?”

“That’s your job isn’t it?” replied the king, looking over the charter.

“I will be happy to break the news to them but I have neither the authority to order them out nor the funds to recompense them for their losses. All the money comes from your treasuries to be deducted from the money you pay to King Arthur in …repayment for other goods and services he provides.” Gwilym had been about to say ‘taxes’ when he saw Lot and Morgause swelling in indignation.

“There’s not much to recompense them. They don’t own the land. Any land and buildings inside the castle walls belongs to me and they pay rent to me for its use. The new month starts in three days so Corwin will refund them that amount. They can find other empty buildings in the castle or move to town and buy their own buildings.”

“I wouldn’t want them to look ill on Corwin, and, by extension, on yourselves,” continued Gwilym. “Would it not be wise to move them first to an inn so that they have time to look for suitable lodgings? Perhaps for a couple of weeks. It will be difficult to move all one’s belongings with half a day’s notice.”

Morgause’s eyes narrowed at Gwilym. “What concern is this of yours? Why do you suddenly care so much about three families and a carpenter?”

“I explained. Stakeholders are important to any project and managing stakeholder expectations ensure success. Ignoring anything you or your husband may want in this project would be fatal to it, that’s obvious. But ignoring the needs of these people may cause problems as well?”

“What kind of problems? Do you suspect they would sabotage the works? I would have them flayed alive for interfering with any of my works!” thundered Lot.

“Oh, I don’t think that’s likely,” said Gwilym, loving the way King Lot was now referring to the tower as one of ‘his works.’ “They respect your laws enough to ensure that will never happen. No, I’m thinking of the power of grumbling among their friends and family. That causes rumors which, in turn, cause low morale and work slowing down. If they’re treated fairly, the grumbling becomes praise and the rumors improve morale.”

King Lot looked again at his wife who was staring intently at Gwilym. He asked her, “What do you think of this advice, Morgause?”

Without taking her eyes off him, she replied to her husband, “I think this man is remarkable…in his wisdom. I think you should take his advice to heart. A few silver pieces invested here could pay off in many gold in the future.”

Distribute Information

With excerpts from my Project Management Novel, I will illustrate the many processes of the PMBOK.  Here is the thirty-ninth one: Distribute Information. Use this map to see how this process fits into the scheme of processes. 

The project ran smoothly for the next few months. The original residents of the buildings that were demolished were moved with the assistance of Gwilym’s entire crew to new lodgings or the inn until they found their own. The carpenter volunteered to assist the crew, curious why he hadn’t been picked by Morgause in the first place since he was not busy. The twenty strong men assigned to the project by King Lot made the demolition, foundation digging, delivery of supplies and foundation building run smoothly. The project was ahead of schedule.

Fred instituted daily meetings of the crew, going over the previous day’s work and emphasizing what must be accomplished today. Gwilym visited the King’s court weekly to distribute project information to the major stakeholder. On receiving the updates, good or bad, King Lot always seemed happier. Gwilym was curious about this.

“King Lot,” he asked one day. “I just told you that the wrong wood had been delivered and the project will be delayed for a week. Yet you seem happy with the news. May I ask why?”

The king frowned at this question, pondered it, then returned with: “I suppose I just like hearing the truth. I’m suspicious if people tell me ‘Everything is going well,’ and then I find out that the project will be delayed at the end. If you tell me about your problems right away, and show me what you’re doing to overcome them, I know that you’re not hiding your problems from me until they’re too late.”

As the summer progressed, so did the tower. With the help of the twenty strong men, they got a head start on the bottom. Gwilym split the crew into groups with the old men concentrating on teaching the boys how to do the work. While this slowed down the work, morale improved because everyone was either learning or teaching and the crew worked later into the long summer nights. The work was not strenuous so the men were able to keep working late.

Gwilym and Fred devised many ways to grow the team. They played games that taught the tricks of one of the tower building professions. They rotated the crew to different positions. They celebrated each minor milestone.

Conduct Procurements

With excerpts from my Project Management Novel, I will illustrate the many processes of the PMBOK.  Here is the thirty-eighth one: Conduct Procurements. Use this map to see how this process fits into the scheme of processes. 

“How are we goin’ to plan this project better than last time?” asked Fred.

Gwilym thought for a moment, then answered, “I don’t think there is much else we can do about planning a project. I believe we have covered everything. Where I think we fell apart in previous projects was in the way we executed the work we planned. While planning is important and deserves the time we spend on it, we need to do the work we planned better.”

“So, which part will we improve first?”

“Procurements. We know how to Plan Procurements; we did that in Glastonbury. Let’s  Conduct Procurements well on this project.”

“Where do we start?”

“Let’s start by looking at the plan we came up with in Glastonbury. I remember things about bidder conferences and make-or-buy analysis but most of that work was done by the Abbot and the priests. This time we’re on our own. And it looks like we could use it for the buying of timber.”

“Aye,” said Fred. “One of those two are goin’ to hate us if we go with th’other. We better have a good reason. Anyway, I’ve written down all th’information in th’project management plan. Let’s look at what we planned.”

Gwilym and Fred pored over the document and planned out what they would do in procuring supplies for this project.

“The first thing we should do is use our Expert Judgment. We’ve built six towers before and know how much we should spend on timber. Let’s figure that out.”

“Well,” said Fred. “It depends on a lot of things. How much timber goes for, how far away it has to come from, how much we need for th’tower, how many sawyers are nearby. In Huish, we had forests nearby and a simple tower. In Airmyn, th’timber had already been purchased. In Londinium, th’timber had to come from far away and we were buildin’ an arch as well as a tower. In Caernarfon, we were buildin’ a defensive structure attached to th’walls and it were wider but shorter than th’others. In Salthouse, we had to get th’timber from faraway forests. In Glastonbury, we were buildin’ a steeple and th’priests bought th’timber. They’re all different.”

“Right,” agreed Gwilym. “So we need to take all those factors into account when we figure out the expected cost of this tower. Looking at the charter, I’d say that the tower we build here will take as much timber of a similar type as in Huish. While we’re not building barracks inside, they do want some kind of living space, so it should take about the same amount of dressed timber as Huish. We also have nearby forests like in Huish but we also have two competitive sawyers only 20 miles away from the job-site. That may help us lower the cost compared with getting wood from small sawyers near the job-site. Those people probably don’t have a stockpile of seasoned logs big enough for the job.”

“Then tha thinks we can use th’price we paid at Huish as a good estimate?”

“I think so, Fred. But the price of timber may be more or less here than in Huish. So let’s keep this amount in mind as we ask them for bids.”

Fred started rubbing his hands together. “Are we goin’ to do all th’things we planned, then? Procurement Statements of Work and  Source Selection Criteria and all?”

“Why not? They were good enough to plan. They seem like they will help us here. Let’s do it all.”

“Great!” said Fred. “What do we do first?”

“We’ll need our project plan before we can do everything because we need to know exactly what and how we are building before we know what supplies we need. We can start creating our Procurement Documents and fill them out with details once we have our project plan.”

“What are they again?”

“Procurement Documents? Those are the scrolls that explain exactly what we want to buy so that sawyers can give us an estimate on how much they’ll charge us. We can’t write the quantity in yet but we can write down what kind of timber we need, how long it has to be aged, what diameter the logs need to be, those details.”

“Can’t we write down the make-or-buy decisions based on what we know about this area and th’team.”

“Yes we can. Also we can document our Source Selection Criteria tonight if we want. We know what matters to us for wood: Length, Thickness, Age, Type, Distance from site, Price, Reliability of Vendor, Quality, Straightness, all those things. We can write it all down so that when we chose one vendor over another, we can show why. We should put those in the Procurement Documents.”

“Right. That’s true. And we can show those to th’sawyers so they have to bid it properly.”

“We should come up with a list of sellers that we can use nearby. We already know of two in Brest. We can also figure out who sells wood nearer the job site that might be qualified to provide us with good timber.”

“I’ll do that,” volunteered Fred.

Fred and Gwilym spent the next few hours deciding what was important about the timber and creating a set of documents that spelled all this out to their potential vendors. They showed in these scrolls what mattered to them so that the vendors couldn’t argue later that they were unfairly taken out of the competition. Wood being seasoned for two years was required; wood being seasoned longer was preferred. Logs for the tower had to be a minimum of one foot in diameter and a maximum of one and a half feet. Length had to be between 22 and 25 feet.

The next day, Fred asked around about other sawyers in the area surrounding the job site, while Gwilym finished assembling the team. He told them they would meet at the temporary quarters near the job site an hour after dinner the next day. Then he went around with Grainne purchasing the foodstuffs and other supplies they would need to feed and shelter the crew for the next few months.

Fred returned and joined the family for supper. Gwilym asked him about his day.

“There were quite a few men in the area cuttin’ wood but most of them were just makin’ firewood for their own purposes or their neighbors. Four were real sawyers, makin’ timber for construction. Only two of those had enough aged wood to meet our needs.”

“Excellent! How close to the job site?”

“One was only two miles away. Th’other were four miles but along a better road. But they each had different questions that I answered but weren’t in th’documents we gave them. So they each know something th’other doesn’t. That doesn’t seem fair.”

Gwilym thought for a moment. “We should hold a bidder conference before we get responses to our requests for quotes. That way they can all hear each other’s questions and our answers.”

“That’s fair. And we should repeat th’questions and answers from today so they all hear it.”

“Fair enough,” said Gwilym. “Let’s plan the project today and tomorrow, then get the men all busy making foundations while we hold the bidder conference in three days.”

“I’ll arrange it.”

Manage Project Team

With excerpts from my Project Management Novel, I will illustrate the many processes of the PMBOK.  Here is the thirty-seventh one: Manage Project Team. Use this map to see how this process fits into the scheme of processes. 

“All right. I got all that. Now what about managin’ th’team. What do we have to do there to make it better?”

“I suppose the two most important things are to stop arguments and to make sure they do what they’re supposed to do.”

“Right. But don’t tha have some fancy Latin words for these things?”

Gwilym laughed at himself. “I suppose they’re fancy but they’re also precise. Let’s see. We’ll start with  ‘Observation and Conversation.’ That’s a nice way of saying that we’ll watch and listen to the crew to see if they are doing what they’re supposed to be doing and looking out for conflicts.”

Fred wrote that down.

“Then we have to make sure they’re doing their jobs as well as they should be.”

“Isn’t that ‘Quality Control’ or somethin’? Didn’t we talk about that before?”

“It’s different,” replied Gwilym. “Quality control was more about the quality of the deliverable. This is more about the quality of the team member. It’s about how well they are capable of doing their job. Let’s call it,  ‘Project Performance Appraisals.’”

“I like it!” said Fred, writing in his guide.

“Then, remember how in Londinium, the crew was fighting amongst themselves and I had to step in. That we can call  ‘Conflict Management.’ That can result in changes to the project scope making us update the Project Management Plan.”

“Should we keep track of these conflicts, Gwilym. In some kind of a log? Call it an Issues log or somethin’.”

“Good idea,” said Gwilym.

“What is a skill a good Project Manager must have to be able to manage th’team best? That would be a good tool to have for this area.”

Gwilym searched his mind, then spoke. “He must have skills in dealing with people, dealing with people with different personalities from each other and from himself. I suppose the fancy Latin words are  ‘Interpersonal Skills.’”

“Great!” said Fred, writing down these final words. “We’ve made a good start. Later on we’ll have to talk about developin’ the team.”

Develop Project Team

With excerpts from my Project Management Novel, I will illustrate the many processes of the PMBOK.  Here is the thirty-sixth one: Develop Project Team. Use this map to see how this process fits into the scheme of processes. 

Gwilym looked around the workshop. He had the crew of thirty men he had requested but the definition of men had been stretched to 12 year-old boys and 60 year-old men. “All right,” whispered Gwilym to Fred, “It’s time to develop the Project Team.”

The crew looked at the Gwilym and Fred expectantly. “Gentlemen!” began Gwilym. “Welcome to this team. We are about to embark on a great adventure. From the ruins of those four buildings over yonder we will raise to the skies a mighty tower; one that will stand a thousand years. We will work together and get to know each other very well by the end of this year. We will learn skills we never knew existed. We will walk away from this completed project knowing so much about building in general and building towers in particular that our skills will be in high demand throughout the kingdom. You are, indeed, fortunate fellows today.”

The men were smiling all around and congratulating each other. Gwilym continued.

“Some of you know each other; I know none of you. So let’s start with a team building activity. It’s called, ‘Two truths and a lie.’ You will introduce yourself to the team with your name and profession and then proceed to tell us three things about yourself. Things that we didn’t know about you. Two of them will be true, one false. Hopefully, many of them will be funny. Then we need to try and guess which one is the lie. We’ll raise our hands, displaying one, two or three fingers, indicating which ‘fact’ we believe to be a lie. Then you tell us, we all laugh and go to the next person. All clear?”

The men nodded enthusiastically. Gwilym said, “I’ll start. My name is Gwilym. I’m the Project Manager. I have traveled to the Holy Land. I received this scar,” showing his leg wound from the tower collapse, “from a charging boar that I speared to death after. I won the Celtic games championship in Brittany two months ago.”

The crew members all buzzed with interest, asking each other what they thought the lie was. Then Gwilym called them to order. “Which is the lie? One: Holy Land. Two: Wild Boar. Three: Celtic Champion. Raise your hands!”

There was pretty much an even split between the three choices and much hilarity when Gwilym revealed the truth about the ‘wild boar.’ They went around the room and, in less than an hour, had achieved a lot of good bonding as well as searing the names of each crew member into their memories by linking them with several stories.

Next Gwilym addressed the obvious lack of strong men in the group. “I see that this team has been assembled with care.” There was some sniggering at this. “But I am happy to have you all! We have a group of wise men here, men who have learned through their mistakes and from their masters, all there is to know about their professions!” Many of the old men nodded.

“And we have a group of very young men,” Gwilym continued. “Who haven’t learned bad habits yet, who are still young enough to listen to their elders without thinking they know it all!” There was much laughter at this remark.

“So I will team up the young with the old and the main work each of you will do over the course of this project is to transfer the wealth of knowledge from the old to the young. Training!”

“But who will move the heavy logs and blocks of stone?” asked one eager young 12 year-old.

“Certainly not you!” replied Gwilym. “Neither will the old men. We have levers and horses and pulleys and winches to do that work. We will use our brains. Now, to ensure that this knowledge is transferred properly, we will all move in together over the course of this project. Our first job will be to clear out this workshop to make it livable for all of us. I found out on my last tower project that co-location was the key to good team building. Let’s go, gentlemen!”

They spent the rest of the day mucking out the three floors of the workshop, making comfortable sleeping, eating and living space as well as a serviceable latrine with three seats, leading outside the walls. Gwilym, meanwhile, spent the afternoon making a careful copy of the charter onto his own sheet of papyrus and asked Fred to verify the copy. Then he took it with him to evening services and asked the priest to also verify the copy and attach his signature to the copy. Fred and Gwilym stayed with the crew that night.

The next morning, after Gwilym had explained the team’s ground rules, Fred ran the men through the project planning activities while Gwilym again braved the throne room.

PMBOK 5th edition exam aid

Back in 2011 I posted some aids to help you study for the PMP exam. But the cheat sheet I asked you to memorize and recreate once you get into the exam room has been significantly obsoleted by the fifth edition of the PMBOK. So I've created a new one for you. You need to print out page one on legal size paper. A3 should work for Europeans.

Get access to a word version of it by clicking on this link:

Acquire Project Team

With excerpts from my Project Management Novel, I will illustrate the many processes of the PMBOK.  Here is the thirty-fifth one: Acquire Project Team. Use this map to see how this process fits into the scheme of processes. 

“What was our biggest problem on the last tower, Fred?”

Fred thought before he replied, “Keepin’ good people. Getting’ them in th’first place and keepin’ them on th’project once we had them.”

“Let’s work on that over the course of this project, then. We need to acquire the project team properly and manage them well once we have them.”

“Aye, that’s true. But don’t tha also think we need to develop th’team once they are with us? It seems like we get a crew to work with us and they build a tower but they are no better for it.”

“What do you mean Fred?”

“Well, look at me. During each project, I learn somethin’. I learned how to read and write. I’m learnin’ somethin’ about projects each time. Why not spend some of th’time teachin’ th’crew somethin’?”

“You’re right Fred. So far I’ve just used people during the project and let them go when done. But you have become much more useful to me because you learn something each project. I should do the same with the rests of my crew so they are more useful in their next job. Not only for the chance that I may need them again, but so that they thank me later when they use those skills on their next job.”

“So it all starts with getting’ th’team in the first place,” said Fred, pulling out his Project Management Guide. “What did tha call it again, acquire?”

“Yes. ‘Acquire Project Team.’ Sometimes we are given the team on arrival at the site. That happened at the first six towers. Let’s call that,  ‘Pre-assignment.’ But other times, we have to get our own crew. That happened at the last tower. We can call that,  ‘Acquisition.’ And I can imagine times ahead where we might have to negotiate for crew members from the stakeholder. Like pulling skilled people from other projects or other tasks that they’re being used on by our stakeholder. So we’re supposed to build a tower within the castle. Morgause may only give us the people she has to spare, keeping her most skilled workers busy doing something else that she prefers. We’ll have to negotiate for the best people for the job.”

“It could be th’other way around, tha knows.”

“How so?” asked Gwilym.

“Morgause might think this is th’greatest thing ever, this tower, and she’ll give us th’best workers, better than we need.”

“Doesn’t seem like a problem to me.”

“Oh but it is. Have you never worked with perfectionists, all tryin’ to compete with each other over who can do th’best job. We’ll never finish.”

“True enough,” nodded Gwilym. “And that may be even harder to deal with than the way I suggested.”

“What is th’result of these acquisitions and negotiations?”

“We end up with a list of people on the project and a calendar for each person, showing what they’ll be doing on what day.”

Fred was still writing these down in his Project Management Guide. “What shall we call them?”

“Project Staff Assignments and Resource Calendars,” replied Gwilym.

Perform Quality Assurance

With excerpts from my Project Management Novel, I will illustrate the many processes of the PMBOK.  Here is the thirty-fourth one: Perform Quality Assurance. Use this map to see how this process fits into the scheme of processes. 

Fred wrote that down. “And this chart is part of this Perform Quality Control?”

“Yes. That and any other measurements we take to make sure we keep track of the quality of the work we do.”

“You mean the “Control Charts. What about when we ask six ‘Why’s’”

“Yes. That belongs there too. Call that ‘Cause and Effect Diagrams.’”

“But if we do this all along, what about what Abbot Crawford was doin’ or what Nantlais does when he checks the tower when we’re done. Aren’t they doin’ quality control?”

Gwilym pondered this for a moment. “It’s not strictly Quality Control because they can’t control anything. It’s usually too late by then. What they are doing is kind of like a “Quality Audit.”

“What’s an audit?”

“That’s where you check how people are doing the things they do. In this case, how are we doing with our quality control activities to assure that the overall quality of the building meets the standards they expect. So it’s more like “‘Perform Quality Assurance.’”

“Do I put that under Monitorin’ and Controllin’?”

“No,” replied Gwilym. “It’s still an Executing Process. Even though some of it, like what Nantlais does, is done after the tower is built, it can also be done during the project and, if they ask us to change our work, like Abbot Crawford did, it results in us having to change the scope of the project.”

“What else do we do as part of Plan Quality Assurance?”

“We change the way we measure our quality. We might plan our quality differently or perform different quality control tools. What Abbot Crawford did for us in Glastonbury was make us add things like the control chart. That’s part of Performing Quality Assurance.”

“Aye,” said Fred, writing in his Project Management Guide.

Direct and Manage Project Execution

With excerpts from my Project Management Novel, I will illustrate the many processes of the PMBOK.  Here is the thirty-third one: Direct and Manage Project Execution. Use this map to see how this process fits into the scheme of processes. 

Now that the crew was hard at work and the tower was underway, Gwilym and Fred were discussing the difference between planning and executing a project. “All we’ve done so far, with the exception of ‘Conduct Procurements,’ has been about planning the project. We need to figure out the best way to direct and mange the project execution

“Aye. You’re right there, Gwilym. So where do we start?”

Gwilym pondered for a moment, his foreman searching his face. “We have a project plan that covers everything. We need information on work performance so that we can keep track of progress on deliverables. With that information, we make Project Document Updates. That’s what we’ve been doing all along in the previous projects. I’m just making up some fancy words for it for you to add to your Project Management Guide.”

“I’m writin’ this all down. Can tha say those terms again?”

Gwilym repeated them, then had a thought. “There were times when we had to change the actual Plan because of changes in scope. Like when we had to make the tower stick out from the wall in Caernarfon. So another thing we have to consider in executing a project is Project Management Plan Updates.

Fred nodded again, writing these terms down in his guide.

Gwilym continued. “Let’s see how this works as we execute this project. I’m sure we’ll be adding things to this part of managing projects, just like we did to the planning part.”

Administer Procurements

With excerpts from my Project Management Novel, I will illustrate the many processes of the PMBOK.  Here is the thirty-second one: Administer Procurements. Use this map to see how this process fits into the scheme of processes. 

First to arrive the next morning was the neighboring farmer who had agreed to transplant the trees. He was a tall, reedy man with a long beard and sky-blue eyes. “Show me de trees you vant moved,” he said on arrival.

While Grainne left to find her sisters and the children explored the farm and the surrounding neighborhood, Gwilym took the farmer into the orchard and indicated the trees that had to be removed for the tower, plus the additional ones required to provide access to it. The farmer examined them closely. “Dese are old trees. Dey should not haf any any more life. See de ones around dem? Much younger. Apple trees only live forty years before dey stop apples producing. Dese trees hundreds of years old are. Dey can’t be much apples producing. Best let dem die.”

“That’s not an option. Are you sure they are not producing?”

The farmer looked up from the thick trunks to the branches and straightened up. “God-fer-dicky!” he exclaimed. “Dis tree more buds dan any of de ozzer trees has. It a good producer is.” He walked around the rest of the orchard and kept returning to the trees scheduled for removal. “All of dese trees are de best producers. But dey de oldest trees are. I understand not at all. But you are right, dese trees you should move. But easy it von’t be.”

“What I’d like would be for you to prepare for them to be removed, then prepare the ground they will sit in, but leave the actual moving to me,” said Gwilym. “You can come back in two days to replant them.

The farmer pulled a piece of parchment out of his breeches pocket and opened it up. “It says right here, in dis procurement document you gafe me, dat I am to remove forty trees, wizout damaging dem, and about one hundred feet avay replant dem. Now, I get here and I find dat I haf to dig dem up but not pull dem out, come back anoder day and plant dem. I suppose I haf to teach you how to keep dem alive while dey are not in de ground?”

“Yes, sir,” replied Gwilym. “That would help tremendously.”

“Two days ago, ven you came to me about your tower, you vere bragging about the way you plan and conduct procurements, but today, ven it comes time to administer procurements, everzing apart falls. Ve had filled out a contract and now it is no good.”

“Sir, I promise I will treat you fairly…” he began but was interrupted.

“Promises are no good! I vant a piece of paper that proves to me I von’t be cheated!”

“I’ll pay you in advance…”

“And tell your king later I cheated you?! I don’t zink so. Ve must de contract change.”

Gwilym mulled this over, then said, “We have a change control process we can use for this. We could easily convert it to a contract change control system.”

“Dat’s good! Den you can run dis change request zrough your system and de contract to de new terms change. Also, I vant to be sure you are happy viz de vork so you must do inspections and my performance I vill report. I vill give you an invoice for de vork and for de money paid I vill a receipt give you. Dat vay nobody can come along later and say one of us cheated de ozzer.”

Gwilym was staring at the man, agog. His first inclination was to protest that all this paperwork was unnecessary for a two-day job, but he resisted that. The system the farmer was proposing was perfect for managing the larger procurements on this project such as quarry work. He wished it had been in place for some of his previous towers, it would have saved a lot of arguments. So he reached out his hand for the farmer to clasp and told him, “It shall be exactly as you propose. Come into the barn and we’ll draw up all these papers.”

Monitor and Control Risks

With excerpts from my Project Management Novel, I will illustrate the many processes of the PMBOK.  Here is the thirty-first one: Monitor and control Risks. Use this map to see how this process fits into the scheme of processes. 

One day, Borg, who still worked hard every day, despite his riches, asked to speak to Gwilym alone. When the two men had walked off a space into the old orchard, Borg shuffled his feet and seemed at a loss for words. “What’s on your mind, Borg?” asked Gwilym wondering if the man was finally going to quit and use his riches for another profession. He hoped not, since Gwilym had named his head of the laborers for his intelligence and foresight.

Borg met Gwilym’s eye. “Remember ven all de risks on dis project ve determined?”

Gwilym said yes.

“And remember ven vich risks vere highest and lowest and most probable and least probable ve determined?”

“Yes.”

“And den ve determined vat our responses to dese risks vould be. How ve vould avoid some risks, mitigate others, transfer some and de rest accept.”

“Aye, I remember it all.”

“Vell,” said Borg, looking down at his shuffling feet. “Ve seem to be ignoring dem now.”

That gave Gwilym pause. “Ignoring them?” he asked finally. “We made changes to the project plan when we avoided or transferred the risks. We’re watching out for the risks we mitigated and accepted. Why would you say we’re ignoring them?”

“But dat is my point. Ve are vatching out for de risks ve mitigated and accepted but only vatching for dem to happen and saying, ‘Oh vell, ve zought dat might happen.’ Ve should be more active in vatching out for dem I zink. If ve know dere is a risk ahead, can ve not for early varning signs or somezing vatch out?”

“Hmm,” thought Gwilym out loud. “You’re asking me to monitor and control the risks just the way I monitor and control the project work. How would I do that?”

“De Project Plan and de Risk Register you haf. You can de project performance against your expectations measure. You can if some of de early varning signs dat a risk is about to occur are coming see.”

“We do variance analysis already for the scope of the project. I suppose we could use that for Risk Monitoring…”

“And ve need de risks to reassess. Sometimes, zings happen and de risks get better or vorse but ve don’t change de vay ve are dem treating.”

“You’re quite right Borg. Let’s get Fred involved and we’ll plan a way to improve our process.”

They went back to the project work-room and pulled out the scrolls and ink and formalized the process for monitoring and controlling project risks. In addition to the tools they had identified before, they added a process called Risk Audits to actively look at future risks, Reserve Analysis, to see how realized and future risks affected the project reserve and Risk Register Updates to make any needed changes to the Risk Register.

When the three men looked at what they had accomplished, they were happy and shook hands all around. Borg was looking quite pleased with himself.

PMBOK edition 5

So the PMBOK standard changed again, like it does every four years. Any major differences? Looks like they made it bigger, no surprise there. 618 versus 497 pages. But the big difference can be spotted on the map. The matrix that shows the processes in Process Groups versus Knowledge areas has changed: See the new one below:

PMBOK edition 5. 2013

Compare this to the fourth edition:

PMBOK edition 4. 2008

So they have decided to add another knowledge area: Stakeholder management.

They also added the plan process for the knowledge areas that lacked this in the past: Scope, Time and Cost. So I suppose it has become more standardized though I question if all these planning activities were needed in the first place. Do we really need to plan how to plan?

Anyway, prepare to take the new test starting in July.

Report Performance

With excerpts from my Project Management Novel, I will illustrate the many processes of the PMBOK.  Here is the thirtieth one: Report Performance. Use this map to see how this process fits into the scheme of processes. 

Gwilym fully expected to be called last and found his mind drifting away from these boring claims, a surprising number involving cattle raids form one clan to another. He started when he heard his name called. “Gwilym of Teach Mør!”

He stepped forward with his scrolls and addressed the king. “Your highness, I come to report performance on the watch-tower being built.”

“Do so, then,” said the king.

Gwilym was prepared and went through his Performance Report. He started by giving an analysis of past performance, showing how his team was doing against the plan. Then he detailed the current status of risks and issues, most around the weather and the availability of cut stone. Then he showed exactly what tasks had been completed since the project started and finished by predicting the work to be completed next period. Since the project was in early days, his team was still adhering quite well to the plan so the report was almost all good news, with the exception of some of the risks.

The king looked at Gwilym carefully. “You’ve done well with your tower. I thank you for your report and will hear you again in two months. But I have a question for you on another subject. Sir Kay pointed you out to me at Garde Joyeux. You have a disagreement with Palomides. What is the source of that?”

Perform Quality Control

With excerpts from my Project Management Novel, I will illustrate the many processes of the PMBOK.  Here is the twenty-ninth one: Perform Quality Control. Use this map to see how this process fits into the scheme of processes. 

Fred came up to Gwilym one day, asking about the measurements they were taking on the tower. “I know tha wanted to do this in Glastonbury and we called it Quality Plannin’ but it isn’t really part of th’plannin’ activities is it?” He showed Gwilym the control charts he had been making of the straightness of the tower and the level of each course of stone.

Gwilym thought for a moment and agreed with his foreman. “You’re right, Fred. It’s more of a Monitoring or Controlling activity. I imagine there are lots of these Monitoring and Controlling activities we should include in your guide. This is the first that we have identified.”

“What shall we call it, then?” asked Fred.

“Perform Quality Control?” replied Gwilym.

Fred wrote that down. “And this chart is part of this Perform Quality Control?”

“Yes. That and any other measurements we take to make sure we keep track of the quality of the work we do.”

“You mean the “Control Charts. What about when we ask six ‘Why’s’”

“Yes. That belongs there too. Call that ‘Cause and Effect Diagrams.’”

“But if we do this all along, what about what Abbot Crawford was doin’ or what Nantlais does when he checks the tower when we’re done. Aren’t they doin’ quality control?”

Gwilym pondered this for a moment. “It’s not strictly Quality Control because they can’t control anything. It’s usually too late by then. What they are doing is kind of like a “Quality Audit.”

PMBOK Process map

The latest PMBOK has a real lousy process map so I created my own. Here is a link to the PowerPoint version. Enjoy.

Control Costs

With excerpts from my Project Management Novel, I will illustrate the many processes of the PMBOK.  Here is the twenty-seventh one: Control Costs. Use this map to see how this process fits into the scheme of processes. 

“All right. You’ve convinced me we’re going to Eireland next. But now we need to focus on this tower. What can we do to make this tower better than the ones before?”

“We have to control costs. Remember, we’ve taken all th’money and won’t get any extra from Sir Kay. Any savin’s we get go directly into our pockets and any overcharges come out of them.”

“Right,” agreed Gwilym. “And how do we do that?”

“I was thinking about that, Gwilym and I think I have an answer. But I have to talk it out. Will tha listen for a while and tell me if I’m crazy?”

“If it has anything to do with numbers, I can tell you with certainty, you’re not crazy.”

“Thanks, Gwilym.” Fred thought for while, then said, “Tha know how we break down th’project into deliverables, then each deliverable into tasks? Then we figure out how many hours a man needs to work on each task and how much we pay them per hour to figure out how much each task costs. We add th’materials to that and we have the cost of every task, every deliverable and finally th’whole project.”

Gwilym nodded his head.

“But then th’project gets going and some tasks cost more and some less and we end up under or, more often, over th’budget we set.” He looked again to Gwilym for confirmation. Gwilym nodded.

“Right then. So when Caratacus was asking us how we were doing with our budget we could show him from our project plan what we were supposed to have spent and from our purses how much we had spent and we were usually a little over budget. But then we ended up finishin’ under budget. Let me show tha what th’problem is.”

Fred flipped over the map and drew the two axes of a graph on it. He labeled the vertical axis ‘Ag’ and the horizontal ‘Days’. Then he drew a curve on it looking like a flattened out letter S that started at the intersection of the two axes and curved its way to the upper right.

“This is th’way we usually plan to spend money on our projects. A little at first while we plan it, then a lot in th’middle while we do all th’heavy work, then a little at th’end to finish up the loose ends.” He labeled this line ‘Planned Costs.’

He then drew some dots below this line saying all the while, “And these dots represent our weekly expenses in wages and materials for the first half of th’project.” He connected the dots in a rough curve revealing a curve that was lower than the first one. The curve ended about halfway along the first curve. He labeled this one  ‘Actual Costs.’

“So, Gwilym, how is this project doin’?”

“It’s doing well, Fred! We’re under budget.”

Fred shook his head. “Nay Gwilym. That’s what I’m tryin’ to show tha. Tha can’t know from these two lines how thy project is really doing.”

“Why not?”

“What if I were to look up from these graphs at th’tower and tell tha, ‘Th’tower is completely finished.’ Then what would tha say about th’project?”

“I’d say, we were way under budget. We did really well.”

“Aye, fair enough. Now what if I looked at th’jobsite and told tha, ‘Th’tower is barely started, we’ve only dug th’foundations.’ Then what would tha say?”

Gwilym said nothing. He looked at the graph and slowly nodded his head, his chin resting in his hand. “You’re right Fred, the graph you made only shows money spent per week against money planned to be spent for progress. It doesn’t show actual progress.”

Fred beamed and he fumbled around for a third color of ink. “But here’s th’thing, Gwilym. There’s another line we can draw on this graph that shows progress.” He drew another line in between the two and labeled this ‘Earned Value.’ “This line shows thy progress, Gwilym. I’ll show tha in a minute how tha gets this line. But right now, let me explain what it means. This line shows th’amount of work tha’ve earned by doing some tasks. When th’project is over,” Fred completed the line to finish at the same height as the Planned Costs line, though at a later date, “Th’cost of this line will equal th’Planned Costs line. That’s because th’value you get from th’completed project can never be more or less than th’planned cost of th’tower.”

He then extended the Actual Cost line, ending it at the same time as the Earned Value line but at a lower point on the cost axis. “We hope costs will finish less than planned, meanin’ profit for th’project. And these lines finish at th’same time. We stop spendin’ money when th’project is over.”

“I like it so far, Fred, but how do you get this line?”

“Well that’s where I hope I’m right and I don’t have one of those…circular arguments tha told me about. Hear me out and tell me if I’m crazy.”

Gwilym nodded and sat back down to listen.

“We already know what every task is supposed to cost and when we’re supposed to do it, giving us th’first line. Then th’project starts and we start doin’ work while spendin’ money. One of our first tasks is diggin’ th’foundations. We planned on ten men diggin’ all day for two days. That was goin’ to cost th’budget twenty silver. But one man got sick th’second day and didn’t show up but th’rest of th’men worked harder and finished on time anyway. How much did that task cost th’project’s budget?”

“Nineteen silver.”

“Aye. But how much value did th’men perform for th’project?”

Gwilym thought in silence for a while. Then he pointed to the planned costs curve and said, “They did a portion of this line, they did twenty silver worth of this line.”

“Twenty silver, right?” asked Fred. “They get th’planned value of th’task as credit on this third line. And if th’foundation stones cost more than we had planned and th’next task costs us 50 silver instead of 45 silver, how much value does that task earn?”

Gwilym was standing now and nodding. “Still 45 silver. Yes, Fred, I think you have something here. This ‘Earned Value’ curve shows how much progress you are making on the project on a daily basis using the ‘Planned Costs’. And if you are halfway through a task at the end of the day, the project gets credit for half the planned costs of that task. You can add these up every day and at the end it will add up to the entire budget of the whole project. It’s brilliant, Fred!”

“It gets stranger, Gwilym, when tha looks at how to use it. When I compare th’actual costs with th’earned value I can see how much money I’ve spent compared to how much I’ve accomplished and show how much under or over budget we are.”

Gwilym’s eyes grew wide and he clapped Fred on the shoulder. “It’s brilliant!”

“Aye,” but Fred’s shoulders drooped further and he looked like a kicked dog. “But this is where it all falls apart. When I compare th’planned costs with th’earned value I can see how far ahead or behind schedule I am.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“Look at th’units, man! This says I’m 40 silver pieces behind schedule! What th’hell does that mean, ‘40 silver behind schedule’? How am I supposed to explain that to anyone?”

Gwilym studied the graph. “You are behind schedule. You’ve completed less actual work than planned. So the direction is right. I suppose you could convert the silver into percent of the project and that back into schedule to say you’re 5% behind schedule and that means 2 weeks behind schedule on a year-long project. But I suspect that using gold and silver is the right way to do it.”

“Why, Gwilym?”

“Sometimes when I have to tell my sponsor how my project is doing, I have guessed about how I’m doing on budget but I could tell from the schedule how I’m doing on time. I could tell him that I was two weeks behind schedule but fifteen gold under budget. I’ve seen his face and he’s confused. ‘Is that good or bad?’ he’s thinking because he can’t compare gold pieces with weeks. Now you’ve given us a way to compare apples to apples. We’re 20 silver pieces under budget but 40 silver behind schedule. So, in general, we’re 20 silver in the hole.”

Fred’s eyes grew blank and Gwilym recognized this expression in his old friend as when he was internalizing a concept. He remained silent. Finally Fred responded. “Aye, Gwilym. Tha have it! And it works every way. As long as tha calls bein’ under budget a negative number and behind schedule a negative number, tha can add th’numbers together and get th’overall status of th’project. If tha be under budget and ahead of schedule, tha adds two positive numbers. If tha be over budget and behind schedule, tha adds two negative numbers. And if tha be behind schedule and under budget or ahead of schedule and over budget, tha adds a negative to a positive and sees if tha is positive or negative in th’whole. It works!”

“And how do you make sure that bad things are always negative numbers?” asked Gwilym.

“Easy!” replied Fred. “Always subtract th’other number from th’earned value number. Cost Variance equals Earned Value minus Actual Cost. Schedule Variance equals Earned Value minus Planned Costs.”

Gwilym nodded. Then he had an insight. There’s another way to use this graph to see how far behind schedule you are. Look at this.”

Gwilym drew a line between Earned Value and Planned Costs but this time it was horizontal. “See, you can compare it on the Time axis and get the schedule variance in days, not silver.”

“But that’s th’answer to my problem,” said Fred. “I’ve been doin’ it wrong all this time tryin’ to use silver to look at schedule.”

“No,” said Gwilym. “You were right the first time. It is a big improvement to be able to compare costs and schedule the way you did. And this way isn’t strictly accurate either because it only takes work into account, not critical paths or any dependencies. It just gives a rough estimate of how many man-days of work you are behind. No. The more I think about it, we should use your way to estimate how the project is doing in general, we can use this to show how many man days we are ahead or behind schedule, but then use the schedule to show exactly how we are doing against schedule given the dependencies.”

“Tha thinks it useful then? I’m not crazy?”

“You are definitely not crazy, Fred. My gut tells me this is a huge improvement in the way we can control costs. Let’s use it and see how it works.” Gwilym clapped Fred on the shoulder and the younger man’s eyes teared up from emotions at the compliment from the man he respected most in the world.

Control Schedule

With excerpts from my Project Management Novel, I will illustrate the many processes of the PMBOK.  Here is the twenty-sixth one: Control Schedule. Use this map to see how this process fits into the scheme of processes. 

Fred and Gwilym were talking about how to make the most profit on this project. “In th’past,” said Fred. “We had to pay a premium for labor during harvest and plantin’ time. If we had more slack time in th’schedule, we could just let the men go free durin’ these times and save a lot of money.”

“True,” agreed Gwilym. “We need to Control Schedule just like we Control Costs. But how can we build in that much slack time?”

“We can measure it now, using this ‘Earned Value Analysis’ and look at Schedule Variance and compare it to th’Critical Path and see how we are really doin’. Then we can decide how much free time we have.”

“I agree that this Variance Analysis measures the slack time, but it doesn’t build any in,” said Gwilym.

The two men looked over the schedule and discussed different ways to speed up the plan during the cheap labor times.

“Remember how we did Resource Levelin’ to make sure we weren’t overusin’ our people?” asked Fred. “Couldn’t we add more people and raise th’level by one to shorten the timeframe?”

“Yes we could,” agreed Gwilym. “We can often make ten men do a ten day job quicker than five men. Sometimes it works better than others.”

“How does tha mean, Gwilym?”

“Well,” Gwilym thought. “Say we are digging a small hole. One man can dig at a certain speed. Adding another man gets in the way of the first man though they can spell each other and gets it done one and a half times faster. That’s not too efficient. But putting logs in place means that one man doesn’t have to keep moving from one end of a log to another and use levers and pulleys to put the log where it belongs. Three men moving logs is better than three times as fast as one man doing it. It’s probably ten times as fast.”

Fred was nodding all through this. “Aye! And layin’ foundations is th’same. Tha needs one man to bring th’rocks to th’other man laying them or he falls behind quickly. And we can use a lower cost laborer to bring th’rocks to th’higher priced mason. But can we lay rocks from more than one place at th’same time?”

“What do you mean, Fred?”

“Well. Say we have th’wooden walls of th’tower built. And we’re layin’ rocks around th’outside. Could we have one pair of men working on one corner, goin’ around th’tower and another pair working th’opposite corner and they meet each other’s walls about th’same time? Or would that cause problems if they are not at th’same level?”

Gwilym thought for a moment, then smiled broadly. “It could work! The masons first string around the tower already to ensure the level and build the rock up to that level. So, we could have as many as four masons working at the same time, one starting at each corner and building up a level to the next man’s corner. Then they lay the next string, that works better with four men, then go to the next layer.”

“Even better,” said Fred. “We could have one laborer for every two masons. They always work faster than th’masons because all they do is bring stones, the mason needs to select th’right stone and mortar it into place.”

“So let’s get this straight. With four masons and two laborers we could do the stone cladding at four times the pace of what we had scheduled? That’s amazing! We could clad this tower in 30 days rather than 120. And that is right on the critical path so every day we save is a day off the tower!” Gwilym was getting excited.

But Fred was shaking his head. “That might be too fast, Gwilym. We have to think about giving th’mortar time to set. Maybe we should only use two masons and one laborer. Can’t build it so fast it comes crashin’ down.”

Gwilym nodded in agreement, then said. “I like the term, though.  ‘Crashing.’ That’s what we did to the schedule. Crashed a huge part of it by adding resources efficiently. We’ll halve the time of a major part of it by increasing our resources by one mason but all the men will be working for regular pay, not harvest pay.”

“There are other ways to speed up th’schedule,” said Fred. “We could do some of th’jobs at th’same time or almost th’same time rather than wait for one to finish.”

“We already do that. We’re building the roads while we build the tower. We gather supplies while we dig foundations.”

“Aye, but there are other jobs we could do in parallel. They’re a little riskier but we could do them. What about claddin’ th’lower stories of th’tower in rock while we are buildin’ th’higher stories. And even completin’ some of th’inner work while we build th’structure?”

Gwilym considered this. “You’re right about it adding risk. That’s the main reason we have always waited until the structure is complete before we work on the inside and outside. We’ve already run the cladding and inside work in parallel before when we’ve needed to catch up on the schedule because of bad weather. But what about running all three in parallel?”

“We will get in each other’s way when we’re tryin’ to lift th’logs up high,” said Fred.

“And if we drop a log in the process, we’ll destroy whatever work we’ve done below and probably kill some men.”

“When’s th’last time we dropped a log? I thought that finished with Tarrant,” said Fred.

“It’s still too risky to build inner work made of wood underneath a moving log. I won’t do it. But rock cladding should survive a falling log. Maybe a few rocks will need to be replaced. But we can’t risk men’s lives. How about this? We build the first couple of stories of log tower. Then we start cladding it in rock. But we stop work whenever we raise a new log in place. That only takes a few minutes each time. The men can stagger their breaks to fit that schedule. Then, once the tower structure is complete, we start work on the inside.”

Fred was looking at the schedule. “That will take a lot of time off th’schedule.” Do we call this crashing as well?”

Gwilym thought for a moment. “It’s different. Instead of adding resources, we’re moving deliverables and tasks to run in parallel. It’s like the tracks of a cart. Let’s call it ‘Fast Tracking’ instead. And let’s always think of the risks involved when we do it. Makes no sense to be gold-foolish while being copper-wise. I’d hate to save a couple of days and bring on a disaster that costs us weeks.”

Control Scope

With excerpts from my Project Management Novel, I will illustrate the many processes of the PMBOK.  Here is the twenty-sixth one: Control Scope. Use this map to see how this process fits into the scheme of processes.   

As the autumn moved into winter and the work on tower moved inside, Robert, the priest, was asking for changes on the interior design of the steeple. At first Gwilym agreed to his changes but soon it became clear that each change cost money and time. He addressed his concerns to Robert.

“Father, you’ve asked me to move that wall three times now. You realize that each time I do that, it costs me a day of two men’s time. Not only is that money out of my pocket, it takes a day away from us finishing on time. I have to keep in control of the project’s scope.”

“I understand, son,” replied the priest. “But it is much cheaper to make the changes now, rather than when the steeple is finished isn’t it?”

“It is certainly cheaper for you. You’re not paying me anything for these changes. But each one is costing me.”

Father Robert looked thoughtfully at Gwilym. “I dare say you’re right. Perhaps you should be charging me from now on.” They agreed to a daily rate for all changes and the priest’s requests dropped significantly.