Project Management Concepts

What is a Project? Common Project Terms What does a Project Manager do? What’s in a Project? Project Management Processes Getting Started Planning a Project Executing the Plan Finishing the Project

A project is an activity that :▪ is temporary having a start and end date ▪ is unique ▪ brings about change ▪ has unknown elements, which therefore create

risk

Generally projects are formed to solve a problem or take advantage of an opportunity.

Business as usual activities can often be mistaken for projects.

Generally it is the uniqueness of the activity that is the deciding factor – do we do this every year? If so, then it is not truly a project – although you can use project methods to get it done.

What is a project?

Building a deck Implementing a new

system Mowing the lawn Planning a wedding Setting up a business Planning a student

graduation

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Deliverables: Tangible ‘things’ that the project produces

Milestones: Dates by which major activities are performed.

Tasks: Also called Actions. Activities undertaken during the project

Risks: Potential problems that may arise Issues: Risks that have happened Gantt Chart: A specific type of chart showing time

and tasks. Usually created by a Project Management program like MS Project.

Stakeholder: Any person or group of people who may be affected by your project

Deliverables: A plan, a consent form, the deck Milestones:

Tasks:

tasks Subtasks

Plan drafted Requirement gatheredBest practice researchedDraft 1 preparedDistributed to stakeholders

Plan approved Feedback gatheredAmendments madeFinal plan preparedDistributed to stakeholdersSign-off obtained

Plan draftedPlan approved

1 Dec15 Dec

Plan submittedPlan approved

16 Dec15 Jan

Materials purchasedResources bookedEquipment identifiedDeck constructedDeck testedDeck quality approved“Deck warming” completed

16 Jan16 Jan16 Jan19 Jan23 Jan24 Jan28 Jan

Risks: •Plan is not approved after first round of feedback•Resources are not available at the required time•Plan is not given consent

For each of the above, you should have a contingency plan, or do some activity that may prevent it happening in the first place.

Issues:If any of the above actually happens, then it becomes an issue to solve.

Gantt Chart:

Stakeholder: House owner, Builder, Council, ???

A person with a diverse set of skills – management, leadership, technical, conflict management, and customer relationship – who is responsible for: initiating, planning, executing, controlling, monitoring,

and closing down a project.

Project Managers are essentially jugglers. They must make sure that everything keeps to task, that potential issues are quickly eliminated and the project is delivered on time, all the while making sure everyone knows what is happening and the project quality and budget are acceptable. Specifically they:

direct all activities required to successfully meet the project objectives

manage risk – scanning ahead for potential issues and resolving them before they become a problem

solve problems - recommending alternative approaches to problems that arise and providing guidance to the Project Sponsor

track and report project progress communicate to all stakeholders in the project

A project contains a well defined objective. The project objective is defined in terms of scope ( or requirements), schedule, and cost.

A project is carried out via a set of interdependent tasks.

A project uses various resources to carry out these tasks.

Three critical drivers Scope (or requirement), cost,

and time Trade-offs exist in any project

against time and costs Time can only be reduced to a

point Adding more people can create

diseconomies of scale Increasing time may reduce or

increase costs

A project has a definite start date and an expected completion date. The actual completion date may not always be the same as the expected date.

A project is a one time or unique endeavor. A project has a customer. So why do projects fail? See later material!

A project has a degree of UNCERTAINTY. In project planning many assumptions are made regarding:

▪ access to resources.▪ resource capability.▪ impact of environmental factors.

These assumptions are not always accurate.

We measure the success of a project using 4 major project constraints, specifically: Scope. Cost. Schedule (Time). Customer satisfaction (quality and

performance).

Project scope – Have all the project requirements (i.e., deliverables) been completed?

Project cost – Is the cost of the project close to the amount the customer has agreed to pay?

Schedule – Was the project completed on time?

Customer satisfaction – Is the customer happy with the quality of the project?

The goal of a project is therefore: Complete the project scope within budget, time,

and to the customer’s satisfaction. Examples of sources of project failure:

The project manager underestimated the costs or resources required to complete the project.

Uncertainties (e.g., weather, strikes, fire) may cause delays in the project.

Customers may change requirements during the project. This is very common in software and new product development projects.

WBS Hierarchy of tasks required to complete project Each task is broken into smaller tasks that can

be managed and estimated Define task dependencies

▪ Some tasks must begin at the same time, some must end at the same time and some cannot start until the other tasks have finished.

Estimate task durations and cost May be inputted into project management

software Final WBS plan is called baseline WBS

31.1% of projects will be cancelled before they ever get completed….

Over 50% of projects cost almost triple their original estimates. ▪ 1 million dollar project turns into a 3 million dollar

project Estimate:

▪ in 1995 American companies and government agencies spent $81 billion for cancelled software projects.

On the success side, the average is only 16.2% for software projects that are completed on-time and on-

budget.

Things don’t always go according to plan

critical people turnover, natural disasters, hiring freeze, technology change, new managements, competitors may make project more or less important

Requires project managers to re-assess and trade-offs between requirements, costs, and time

5 major phases of a project are:

Identifying a need. Developing a proposed solution. Performing the project. Monitoring and control Terminating the project.

Project Management Demo

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The first step in scheduling is to estimate how long each activity will take.

The duration estimate is the total elapsed time for the work to be done PLUS any associated waiting time.

The person responsible for performing the activity should help make the duration estimate.

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It is necessary to select an estimated start time and a required completion time for the overall project.

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A project schedule includes: the earliest times (or dates) at which

each activity can start and finish, based on the project's estimated start time (or date)

the latest times (or dates) by which each activity must start and finish in order to complete the project by its required completion time (or date)

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Earliest start time (ES) is the earliest time at which a particular activity can begin.

Earliest finish time (EF) is the earliest time by which a particular activity can be completed.

EF – ES = Activity Duration Estimate

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Latest start time (LS) is the latest time an activity must be started in order for the entire project to be completed by its completion time.

Latest finish time (LF) is the latest time an activity must be finished in order for the entire project to be completed by its completion time.

LF – LS = Activity Duration Estimate

Slack or float is the amount of time that a task in a project network can be delayed without causing a delay to: subsequent tasks (free float) project completion date (total float)

An activity that has a total float equal to zero is said to be a 'critical activity', which means that a delay in the finish time of this activity will cause the entire project to be delayed by the same amount of time.

Free slack: The free slack of an activity is the time this activity can be delayed without impact on the following activity.

Total slack: The total slack of an activity is the time this activity can be delayed without impact on the finish date of the project.

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If total slack is positive, it is the maximum time the activities on the path can be delayed.

If total slack is negative, it is the amount of time the activities on the path must be accelerated.

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The critical path is the longest path in the diagram.

The activities that make up the critical path have the least slack.

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Noncritical paths have positive values of total slack.

Critical paths have zero or negative values of total slack.

Sequence of activities chartedLongest path through the network of

activities Task dependencies compressed as much

as possible Tasks may be moved to non-critical

paths to shorten critical path If tasks on critical path run late, the

project will be late.

Gantt Chart a simple bar chart that depicts project tasks against a

calendar

Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) is a graphical network model that depicts a project’s tasks

and the relationships between those tasks (Dependencies and Critical paths are found in PERT charts)

Critical Path Method (CPM) A method used for determining the sequence of task

activities that directly affect the completion of a project

Microsoft Project Most widely used project management software http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/project/default.aspx

Figure CE 18-5

Biggest challenge is scheduling Errors accumulate

Difficult to do credible planning

Every task may be on critical path

▪ MS Vista Operating system was delivered two years late. Was suppose to take 3 Y but took 5 Y ( 67% schedule overrun)

▪ Office 2003 was late. MS SQL server 2005 barely made it into 2005.

Challenges Coordination

▪ Projects often organized into independent groups Diseconomies of scale

▪ Adding people increases coordination requirements Configuration control

▪ Changes must be carefully manages and monitored Unexpected events

▪ Chance of disruption due to unanticipated events

Policies and procedures implemented to instill these principles: Business users take responsibility for new systems’ success Users work with IS throughout systems development Users take active role in project planning, management, and

reviews Development phase not complete until work reviewed and

approved Users actively test system Future systems developed in small increments