Conifguration Management

Submitted by chullan88 on Tue, 06/17/2014 - 03:31

In Rita's book,there is a question asking what will be of the most concern to a PM if six sponsors are signing on the charter?

The answer is more time to be spent on configuration management.

The other options were
* Who will be member of CCB
* Getting a single sponsor
* Determining the reporting structure

I thought the communication part would be more complicated and reporting structure would have to be clearly determined.

Any thoughts??

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admin

Tue, 06/17/2014 - 04:47

All of the above may be concerns, but the question is about which of them is of most concern to the PM

Practically speaking in my opinion - Stakeholder management and keeping all 6 sponsors on same page with project happenings is the main concern.

But considering the following are not of as much concern

* Who will be member of CCB - Can be sorted out.
* Getting a single sponsor - Not necessarily required.
* Determining the reporting structure - There may or may not be an hierarchy and its not a major concern.

The best answer is time spent on configuration management .

However if the options were

1. Communication and stakeholder management
2. Time spent on configuration management.
3. Scope changes and aligning all sponsors with changes
4. Handling conflict between the sponsors.

What would you pick :)

chullan88

Tue, 06/17/2014 - 07:22

Scope changes and aligning all sponsors with changes??

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admin

Tue, 06/17/2014 - 08:02

In a way you are right, although you are unlikely to get such a question in the real exam. lets try to understand, why its right -

Time spent on config management is a concern but its not as big a concern as how the 6 sponsors will be managed when there are changes in the project. One may agree, another may not. It can result in conflict and may delay decisions on the project.

Communication and Stakeholder Management is also a concern but its more generic statement. In the same way, Handling conflict between sponsors is generic statement. There will be conflicts and may have to be resolved , but that is always PM's job, since here we are talking about sponsor who is in some way above PM

The only real risk is Scope changes and aligning all sponsors with changes, as i explained earlier, it can seriously impact the schedule.