Making a Party out of Project Management: Chapter 5 - The Plan for the Team

               At this point, Abby had a lot of important information figured out. She could clearly see what would need to happen to get the work done, and what it would take to get there. Abby decided the best next thing to do next was to review and add to her human resource management plan, to finish planning how to best manage her team. She had already involved her friends in some of the planning, like the brainstorming sessions, and she documented the processes that she had used so far as part of the plan. Her human resources management plan would become especially helpful once the work began, though. By planning ahead for how to best manage her team to get the work done, Abby could come up with ideas for how to train everyone and how to review their work and provide the right feedback. How would she address something needing to be done better? It generally works best to think about things like this ahead of time, to come up with feedback that helps a team member do work of acceptable quality without making them feel bad for needing some help getting there.

The Iron Triangle of Project Management

               Now that Abby had determined the scope of the project to throw the party, created a schedule for her team to set up the party, and estimated the total cost of throwing the party, she could see how changes in any one of these three elements could affect the other. If extra items were added to the party, it would result in the party taking more time to prepare if any setup was required or costing more money if the extra items were purchased. So, an increase in scope would increase the amount of work time required or increase the cost of the project, if not both.

Making a Party out of Project Management: Chapter 4 - Paying for the Party - Part 2 of 2

               As Abby figured out how much work would be involved with certain parts of the party, she decided it was time to think about hiring some help from outside of the project team. She knew Nathan would really love a bouncy castle at the party, but neither she nor her friends or parents, had ever worked with a bouncy castle before. They could make every last party supply themselves, but some would be hard to do and would take a long time. There were just certain things that made more sense to pay someone else for than trying to do everything on their own, even if it might cost more money. With that realization, Abby started to make a plan for how to find the right help for the party.