IS 556 Project Management

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IS 556 Project Management

• Week 4

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Objectives

• Project Plan
• Work Breakdown Structure
• Pert Chart
• Gannt Chart
• Dealing with Human Resources

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Project Plan

• One of the first Formal documents produced
• Includes
• How project will proceed
• What resources are needed
• How risk will be used and managed
• Ensures planning of project activities, sequences
  and
• what equipment and staff is needed and when?
• What activities and who will do them?
• What contingency plans
• Contents depends on project size/complexity

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Project Plan - Page 243
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Scheduled Activities and Milestones

• Project schedule is list of activities, when
  started and end.
• First step WBS - Break down activities into work
  tasks
• Breakdown all tasks into
• Start with listing the activities
• Break down to task level
• Will want to eventually define
• Activity ID and Activity name
• Description
• Start End date
• Dependencies - what other task this on depends
  on.
• Assignment - who is doing this item

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3 Steps to WBS Development

• First got to figure out all tasks needed
• 1. Begin at The Top
• 2. Name all tasks needed to produce deliverables
• 3. Organizing the WBS (there are multiple ways to
  organize WBS.)

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Step 1 - Begin at The Top

• List the major deliverables or high-level tasks
  from the scope
• Might also include intermediate deliverables (if
  major and not an end-product)

Landscape Project
Design
Lawn
Fence
Grass
Shrubs
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Step 2. Name all tasks needed to produce
deliverables

• For example put in grass might include
• buy dirt seed
• spread dirt
• spread seed
• water for 2 weeks
• Dont worry about order of activities yet.
• Need people closer to project tasks to help.
• Can be difficult in new situations
• E.g., if never before executed a process or new
  technology use
• May need to call team together to develop
  strategies for WBS development (high level)

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Step 3 - Organizing the WBS

• There are multiple ways to organize WBS.
• Some things to consider
• organize in a way closer to development process
• organize in a way easier to manage
• organize in way meaningful to sponsors.

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On to Sequencing Tasks

• Once have a WBS need to figure out sequence of
  tasks.

• Either Task 1 or 2 can go first (Can be
  concurrent)
• Task 5 can't start until 2
• Task 3 needs 1 2
• Task 4 needs 3 (therefore needs 1 2 too!)

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Using a Network Diagram

• Network diagram -
• A logical representation of tasks that define
  the sequence of work
• For large projects can be many pages long
• Shows project path and sequences of tasks.
• Typically done before creating schedule.

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Conventions Used in a Network Diagram
Source The Complete Idiots Guide to Project
Management. Sunny and Kim Baker.
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Five Steps to Create a Network Diagram

• List the tasks from the WBS
• Establish the interrelationships between tasks
• Identify Milestones
• Layout tasks and milestones on diagram
• Review the Network diagram logic

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Correct Network Diagram
2 con- current paths
Mile- stone (diamond)
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Incorrect Network Diagram
diamond

• Common problem is removing redundant tasks for
  same resource
• May not have resources to execute 45
  concurrently but diagram should not reflect that
  yet. (only task sequence not resource
  constraints).

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Setting Up Milestones

• Milestones - significant events worth special
  tracking
• Why track milestones?
• Make network diagram easier to read
• Can show input from an external dependency (E.g.,
  government agency releases report)
• Can represent significant events that arent
  tasks (e.g., receive progress payments)

Milestones should be drawn as a diamond
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Scheduled Activities and Milestones - pp.246-247
Project manager usually has significant pressure
to complete Milestones on time
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PERT Charts

• Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT)
• A type of network chart that uses circles and
  arrows
• Arrows represents tasks (activities)
• Circles represent events (end state for gt1
  actives).
• Define Precedence network to plan sequence of
  activities
• Dependence one activity cannot be completed (or
  begun) until another has been finished
• Like network diagrams defines precedence and
  activity sequence.

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PERT chart Components

• Start event source
• End event sink
• Link represents activity and time or effort
• Examples Figures 11.3, 11.4 p.252

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Examples Figures 11.3, 11.4 p.252
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Examples Figures 11.3, 11.4 p.252
Pert chart with critical path
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Critical Path

• A sequence of events critical to successful
  completion of the project
• PERT chart or project can have one or more
  critical paths
• Shortening critical path can shorten project time
• Shortening a non-critical path item will NOT
  shorten project time
• Can be used
• To represent resources and costs
• For analysis and simulation
• May frequently need updating

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Schedules are not engraved in stone

• Milestone deliverable dates may need adjusting
• Schedule and sometimes budget may need adjusting
  at intervals

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Gantt Chart

• Project development schedule
• Start with high level
• Add detail at lower levels
• Good at showing
• Timing of activities
• Activity overlap
• Not good at showing total amount of resources
  needed just timeframe
• Examples Figures 11.1, 11.2, pp. 249-250

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Gantt Chart - Figures 11.1, 11.2, pp. 249-250
Does not indicate amount of resources required
for each activity
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Complex Time Relationships
Source Complete Idiots Guide to Project
Management. Pg 95.
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Development Team

• Scheduling people not the same thing as
  scheduling equipment
• Development team attributes includes
• Number of activities
• Intensity of activities
• Schedule/duration of activities
• Distribution varies with phases of project

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Development Team Size

• Varies over course of project
• Manager may do some functions when work is light
• Part time functions can sometimes be shared
  between projects
• Version control
• Library
• QA
• People might be shared with multiple projects.
• E.g., test specialists

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Skills Needed on Team

• Varies by project and size
• might include programmers, QA specialists, test
  specialists, admin support, managers, technical
  writers, tool support, standard IT.
• Learning curve - often underestimated
• Training needs - sometimes can be hard to predict
  early
• E.g., if programming language decision not made
  yet or technical platform requirements.

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Mythical Man Month (Work Month)

• How much work gets done during the time period
  allotted
• E.g., how many actual work hours/day? How many
  actual days / month or year.
• What is the measure?
• Calendar
• Work
• Schedule
• Overhead when adding staff
• Law of diminishing returns (e.g, can 365
  engineers reduce time to complete project from 1
  year to 1 day?)

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Scheduling Resources

• Space- may be critical especially for contract
  jobs.
• Equipment - e.g., complex lab testing resources?
• Vendor/Subcontractor performance -
• how control something not in your control
• how collect status?

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Schedule Monitoring

• Periodic - periodically PM gathers status and
  submits overall to management
• How does PM know if status is accurate (no
  developer fudging), how much CYA is occurring,
  how much you trust reports.
• E.g., takes 50 of the time to complete last 105.
• When do you update project plan?
• May have to add activities, put in vacation/sick
  time, schedule slips, unexpected items
• PM needs to know enough about each status item to
  answer to management.

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Customer Expectations and Project Management

• Commitment- never commit to a schedule that
  doesnt have a good chance of meeting
• Communicate - Your job is to keep the lines of
  communication open. Dont expect customer to do
  it or you.
• Honesty is the best policy - Best not to try to
  snow customer on issues
• PM must keep a customer prospective, e.g.,
  easy-to-use, quality.

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Summary

• Project Plan - what is it, what goes in one
• Work Breakdown Structure - figuring out tasks,
  creating WBS, sequencing tasks.
• Pert Chart
• Gannt Chart
• Dealing with Human Resources
• dealing with teams, scheduling, training,
  customers.