Business Process and Project Management

They are your most important stakeholders. 

They must be involved in planning and decision-making process. 

Give them insight into the project, let them participate as much as secessary. 

Direct superiors, employeers, "active" clients or suppliers. 

Relations with these stakeholders can tunrn out to be difficult. 

Often found in external project enoronment, difficult to reach and asses. Can decisively influence the project through their power. Usually passive and show little interest for the project. Nevertheless, icnlude them in the information flow and maintain personal contact. 

sponsors, "passive" customers or clients. 

These stakeholders have personally motivated interest in the project, but littel ability to influence it. 

Inform then n regular basis (e.g. project status reports) 

In the pliticial environment, this group represents the "silent big crowd". They can turn allies as well as foes in critical situations. 

media, cooperation partners, work collegause or sales

These stakeholders have little interest wield little influence due to their position or function. 

PResenations, public events, final reports, etc. are appropiate means to satisfy their needs for information. 

Sister companies, holding companies or the public. 

This method is similar to the analogy mehtod. 

Differences: 

Approach to adjusting the effort. 

It uses a fomalised process - the factors are usually avaivable as indices with average values. 

The experts are asked to give a pessimisitc, an optimistic and a most likely (realisitc) estimate. 

The weighted average value is then used in the planning. 

This method is often reffered to as the "effort-per-unti method". 

The whole system is broken down into sub-products to which an effort is assigned. The total number of these sub-products is then mulitplied by the effort per sub-product, which aleardy has to have been determined, to obtain the total effort. 

Important: Only individual, self-contained elements are estimaed, not the process of bringing them togerther or all elements as a whole. 

First a system of factors essential to the assesment has to be created. These factors must be evaluted subjectively (e.g. quality of personnel) or objectively (e.g. existence of certain conditions). The assessment is assigned factor values which according to a given mathematical link, result in the expected total effort. 

WIth the help of correlation analyses, an attempt is made to find influencing factors, the value of which is closely realted to the effort that has gone into completed projects. Manay projects and factors must be examined. An equation is compiled from the factors with the higherst correaltion, in which the associated coefficient expresses the degree of influence of the respective factor. 

The average distribution of effort to the individual project phases is detemined from completed projects. Then either a project phase is estimated in detail and this partial effort is used to calcualte the total effort, or the first phase is completed and then the total effort is calculated. 

1. Preliminary phase 
2. Planning 
3. Execution 
4. Conclusion 

Is an easy chart to undertand represtantion of the process logic diagram. It is the most common form of sequence represenation. 

How it works: 

• Each process / activity is displayed with a bar on the time axis. 
• Milestones are usally represented as diamonds. 
• Only limited information such as description and duration for each activity displayed 

Distinguish between the following types of dependencies: 

• End/Beginnign: Activiy B cannot sart until task A is completed 
• Start/Beginning: Taskb B cannot begin until task A begins. 
• End/End: Task B cannot be completed until Task A is completed 
• Beginning/End: Task B cannot be completed until task A begins. 

Is a more detailed method version of a Gantt chart. it is called Metra-Potentail-Method (MPM) 

Differences: 

In order to determine the criticalpath, and thus the minimum duraton of the project, the following steps are considered: 

1. Compute the earliest start and end date 
2. Compute the latest possible start and end date 
3. Compute the buffer (determine how much buffer each activity has) 

Eaned value analysis

Cost variance: CV = EV - AC 

Schedule variance: SV = EV - PV 

Cost Performance index: CPI = EV / AC 

Schedule performance index: SPI = EV / PV

EV = Earned valued 

PV = planned Value 

AC = actual cost

It is a procedure model, which is well known in Switzerland, recommends the following contentns for the project manamgent plan. : 

• Project description 
• Phases and milestones
• Organisation 
• Project result structure
• Project structure plan 
• Test plan 
• Schedule
• Cost baseline
• Resource planning 
• Procurement plan 
• Communication plan 
• Reporting
• Specifications, methods and tools 
• Quality assurance
• Risk management 
• Escalation procedure
• Document management 
• Change management 

Marks the beginning of a goal- / result oriented project. It is the work for all participants. 

The content which should be covered: 

• Introduction of the individual team members with know-how, and experience
• Establish a common level of information for all project participants, information about the project-relevant contents. 
• Clarify the roles of the indiviudal team members
• Establish rules for teamwork (Organisation, Communication, Code of conduct)

It indicated that the project is on track or isn't on track. 

The following taks must be completed during the project close-out: 

• Verifiy delivery 
• Stakeholder feedback 
• Planning handover
• Final workshop 
• Project avaluation 
• Archiving of project documents 
• Preperation of the final report 

Consequences from the close-out can be used for future projects and learnings. 

How consistently and professionally an organization manages processes (documentation, standadization, measurement, control, continuous improvement)

Situational - ad-hoc, person-dependent, inconsistent outcomes

• Ad hoc processes 
• Inputs and outputs known 
• Procedure known 
• No consistennt planning
• Time not predictable
• Quality unpredicatable 
• Organization may be chaotic

Repeatable - documented enough to repeat consistently 

• Stable, documented processes
• Input and output documented
• Experience from past projects is taken into account 
• Times can be planned 
• Quality verifiable, but fluctating
• Organization is reactive

Defined - standardized, modeled processes

• Standard processes 
• Processes documented
• Organizational unit for implementation defined
• Key figures defined
• Times can be reliably planned 
• QUality still fluctating
• Organization proactive
• Documentation: Model process (e.g. BPMN 2.0) with documents

Guided = KPIs, targets, control of time/quality 

Processes are measured using KPIs 

Quantitative targets defined 

Target achievement measured 

Time & quality can be reliably controlled 

Organization acts service-oriented 

Documentatoin includes: CSFs, KPIs, measurement results

Optimised = coninous improvment, audits, strategic goals

Process is routine 

Continuius imrpovement is established 

Goals are strategic 

Process audits regularly 

Organization acts value-adding 

Weaknesses systematically sought 

Documentation includes: audit docs + continuous improvement process docs

Starts with a customer trigger / demand and ends with customer value delievered 

Crosses departments (cross-functional) 

Has clear inputs, outputs, customer, owner 

Measurable performance (time, cost, quality, flexibility) 

Example: 

Customer order received - order processed - payment confirmed - product shipped - customer receives product

Overview of main processes (often grouped into management, core, support) 

value chain order (how high-level processes follow each other) 

1. Show the sequence of activities and their dependencies 
2. Determine the critical path ( Activities on which the duration of the project depends will be critical activities and their juxtapositon is called the critical path)
3. Assign resources according to availability

break a process into subprocesses (Level 0, Level 1, Level 2...)

variants of a process for different cases/customers/products

A project is typically: 

temporary (start/end) 

unique outcome (not routine operations) 

has objectives, resources, constraints 

involves risk/unvertainty and coordination 

Goal / objective (SMART) Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevenat, Time-bound 

Delieverables (what is produced) 

In scope / out of scope 

Non-goals (explicitly: what you will not do) 

Constraints (time, cost, quality), assumptions, key stakeholders 

The process becomes 10% faster on average over 20 runs by 01.03.2026

1. Overall project objective condensed, linked to company strategy) 
2. Project objectives (outcome)
3. Measuable results (concrete outputs / work order items)

Desired end state / outcome (often measurable)

Condition/capability the solution must fulfill to reach objectives (requirements do not have to be SMART, objectives ideally are)

System objectives

Process objectives 

Additional objectives

properties fo the project outcome (often technical/quality)