Appendix 1

Summary of Project Management Tools

Sources: PMBOK^® Guide (2008); A guide to PMD Pro 1 (PM4DEV); Fundamentals of Project Management (PM4DEV); Budd (2010), “A practical guide to earned value project management”; Couillard, Garon, Riznic (2009), “The Logical Framework Approach – Millenium”; Kemp (2005), “A guide to Project Management”; Meredith and Mantel (2009), “Project Management – a managerial approach”; Schwalbe (2006), “Introduction to Project Management.”

• Logical Framework:
  The Logical Framework matrix identifies and communicates the logical relationships in a project by tracking the vertical and horizontal reasoning that connects the levels of the matrix. The relationship between the elements on each level of the logical framework illustrates the vertical logic that will result in the achievement of the project’s ultimate goal.
• Gantt chart:
  The Gantt chart is a tool commonly used to illustrate the schedule of the project. Every activity is represented by a bar, together with the dependency relationships between them.
• Critical Path Method:
  The Critical Path Method (CPM) is an algorithm for scheduling a group of project activities. The goal of the algorithm is to identify a proper schedule of the project that balances the trade-off between the project duration and its cost.
• Earned Value Management System:
  The EVMS guidelines incorporate best business practices to provide an integrated project planning and control. The processes includes the integration of the project’s scope, schedule, and cost objectives, according to which a baseline plan is defined so to guarantee the accomplishment of the project’s objectives. During the project development, earned value techniques for performance measurement are used to assess the development of the project both in terms of schedule (i.e., the project is behind or ahead of schedule) and cost (i.e., the project is under- or overspending).
• Work Breakdown Structure:
  The Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) is a basic project document that describes all the work that must be done to complete the project and constitutes the basis for costing, scheduling, and work responsibility. Project objectives are disaggregated so to identify the elementary activities required to perform the project.
• Responsibility Assignment Matrix:
  The Responsibility Assignment Matrix (RAM) is a matrix that puts in relationship the activities of the project as described in the work breakdown structure and the resources involved in the development of those activities. The RAM allows to map “who is responsible for what” so to clearly state responsibilities and roles.
• Stakeholder Analysis Matrix:
  The Stakeholder Analysis Matrix is a tool that describes the characteristics of the relevant stakeholders of the project. Typical it is represented by a matrix that identifies information on each stakeholder, capturing their position referred to their influence, interest, and their level of understanding and commitment to the project.
• Organizational chart or Organizational Breakdown Structure (OBS):
  The Organizational Breakdown Structure (OBS) is a hierarchically organized depiction of the project organization. It provides a structured description of the resources involved in the project and the hierarchical relationships among them.
• Milestone Schedule:
  The Milestone Schedule is a simplified version of the Gantt chart. Specifically, it is a summary-level schedule that identifies the major schedule milestones.
• Progress report:
  The Progress Report analyzes the work accomplished during a specified time period. It also contains information about what remains to be done on the project.
• Cost Accounting:
  The implementation of a cost accounting system implies the structured allocation by resources of both time and costs to the project. When a performance measurement system is adopted, work packages are defined in terms of cost accounts, thus associating to activities a specific cost based on the amount of resources allocated.
• Risk Analysis:
  Risk analysis implies a proper examination of uncertain events that may significantly influence the project’s performance. Typically, this implies a structure evaluation of the probability of a specific event and the evaluation of the impact of this event. Typically, proper mitigation actions are often associated so to at least partially avoid the negative impacts of risks.
• Contingency reserve:
  Contingency reserve is a specific amount of funds, budget, or time allocated to the project to cover, at least partially, the risk of overruns to a level acceptable to the organization.
• Communication Plan:
  Communication planning is the process of determining the information needed by the project’s stakeholder and defining a communication approach. The communication planning process associates to each stakeholder the kind of information and communication required and how these will be provided in terms of who needs what information, when they will need it, how it will be given to them, and by whom, etc.
• Issue Log:
  The Issue Log is a structured document that provides structured information about occurred issues and helps monitor who is responsible for resolving specific issues by a target date. Issue resolution addresses obstacles that can block the team from achieving its goals.
• Scope Management:
  Scope Management is a set of tools and processes aimed at defining and controlling properly the project in terms of work so to guarantee that the project implies all and just the work needed to achieve the project’s goals.