Project Management: Managing Uncertainty and Risks

Overview

In this course, you'll continue developing your project management skills by creating epics and user stories, building a product backlog, creating an initial release plan, conducting a spring planning meeting, and replanning the project. You'll also analyze risks to the project, create a communication plan, and develop a change control plan. This is the third course in a multi-course Specialization. All of the courses in this Specialization require that you have a recent version of Microsoft Word and Excel installed in order to open the course data files. The course setup instructions provided in the first course go into more detail about the hardware and software requirements.

Syllabus

Planning for Adaptive Projects

Projects are expected to produce valuable deliverables that enable customers to streamline work and produce benefits for the business. One of the problematic aspects of a Predictive project approach is that it defers all of the value of the project deliverables until the project is completed. However, it's clear that real value can accrue to the business long before the entire solution is delivered. Pragmatically, the work on any business service continues over the long run, in any case, as the business need continues to evolve and the solution in turn needs to adapt to meet new needs. Adaptive approaches, therefore, prioritize the early delivery of the highest value aspects of a solution. This enables the customer to reduce overall project risk, extract value from the solution much more quickly, and drive better quality feedback to the Product Owner and the team on what additional stories might be needed to help best optimize the value to the business. In this lesson, you will learn about the different phases and the components and events of an Adaptive approach.

Planning for Project Risks, Communication, and Change Control

You have learned about planning the time and cost for Predictive projects as well as planning for Adaptive projects. Now you need to proceed with the other elements of good planning. In this lesson, you'll plan for project risks, communication, and change control in your project. You want to make sure that none of the customers, stakeholders, or members of the project team are surprised by delays, changes, or unavoidable risks. By planning ahead and monitoring the project, you can increase your chances of leading the project to a successful completion.