Answers to Frequent Questions
Product Development Projects extend or revise product lines by introducing new concepts and functionality that benefit the customer:
Product development is a part of product life cycle strategy.
Specific goals of the process range from modifying product features to introducing new methods of service delivery, within the scope of the product development project.
What is meant by Project Scope?
A clear and concise definition of scope is key to the success of any project. Scope should describe what is to be accomplished, from a quantitative perspective. Its purpose is to aid in establishing realistic work plans, budgets, schedules and stakeholder expectations.
Should identified work arise that falls outside the defined scope, the project manager must either deem the work out of scope and defer it, or expand the scope of the project to include the work. The latter choice would result in formal changes to the project work plan, resource allocation, budget or schedule.
What is a Stakeholder?
Even at their inception projects create relationships between individuals or groups with an interest in the outcomes, including the project initiators and others who will benefit from (or be affected by) some aspect of project delivery.
As such, stakeholder groups may comprise clients, end users, contractors, consultants, labour unions, the line organisation, public authorities, financial and insurance companies, controlling organisations, news media, and third party suppliers. Stakeholder satisfaction is a primary indicator of project success.
How do you define a Project Milestone?
Within the project plan definition, there is a list and description of significant project accomplishments that will serve as primary checkpoints for measuring progress and cost. These are generally the points at which the completion of an activity or group of activities causes the project to reach a milestone by producing a highly visible or significant product or result (equipment delivery, material delivery, review meeting, approval checkpoint). Not every task completion date in the project will be a milestone but every milestone should be tied to a result.
What is meant by a Project Work Plan?
This is a detailed work breakdown structure (WBS) of all stages, tasks and sub-tasks. It includes a Gantt chart which shows estimates of how long it will take to complete each sub-task, task and stage, the resources required to complete each task, the task dependencies and inter-relationships and any special considerations that must be made.
Since scheduling is an iterative process, the project manager must continually review the Project Work Plan and adjust it based upon ongoing activities and progress achieved.
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