tnsd bestpractices mpp

8/12/2019 TNSD BestPractices MPP

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2002 Infosys Technologies Ltd. Strictly private and confidential. No part of this document should be reproduced or distributed without the priorpermission of Infosys Technologies Ltd.

Schedule planning process

Automation of scheduling and tracking usingMicrosoft project plan

TNSD Good practices


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Building a $ and model

3

Challenges

Problem areas

Proper planning

Up to date tracking and monitoring

Realistic expectations

Project milestones

Lack of proper tool to support planning activities

MPP helps

Project plan, schedule, track and budget

Communication tool

Metrics collection and managing data

Remember

Its not a solution to all project management challenges and issues

Provides road map to implement project management concepts

Easy. Easy. Ease your planning problems, if we make an effort to experiment and learn.


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Building a $ and model4

What we know - MPP

Project tasks entry sheet.

Only for initial plan and schedule.

Not suitable for large and complex project.

Too much for me to learn, I have deadlines. Excel will do

Messes up with dates, when I revise it

No easy way to communicate to team and stake holders

Not suitable for software development activities.

Manage resources, I have never tried.

Obtain project progress data. Never heard of it

Need to import data for excel for sr. management reporting. Toocumbersome.


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Road ahead

Effective and Powerful tool, How?

Rethink on what we know MPP

Challenge previous points

Formulate appropriate solutions

Pilot and propagate in teams

Understand best practices in detail

Road map on thisImplement and continuously upgrade


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Schedule planning process

Activity definition

Identify activities that must be performed as part of project deliverables

Activity sequencing

Identify interactivity dependencies

Activity duration estimates

Estimating the number of work hours required to complete particular activity

Schedule developmentAnalyzing the activities, sequencing, estimates and resource requirement to

arrive at schedule

Schedule control

Controlling changes to project schedule


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Schedule plan Inputs

Project requirements (Requests/Scope statement)

Project methodology Maintenance/Development/Re-engineering

Life cycle model waterfall, iterative, RUP etc

Work breakdown structure

Project estimates

Resource list and their skill set Constraints Deliverables, Delivery dates, Resources, Dependencies

Any other relevant items??


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How MSP schedules?

Factors to be considered

Task dependencies

Constraints

Interruptions etc

Duration = Work / Resource Effort Key thing in schedule

For example, if:

Two programmers develop code for 5 days on a component, with an effort of 8 hours per day,the work for each resource is 40 hours: (5 days * 8 hours).

The total effort of the resources is 16 hours per day: (2 SEs * 8 hours).

The total work for component development is 80 hours

The duration is 5 days: 80 hours / (2 SEs * 8 hours).

Triple Constraint

Duration

Work

Resources


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Good Practices

Set-up project information

Define task drivers

Define schedule constraints

Define network logic

Level resources

Do not enter dates (Start/finish) Attach cost to resource

Generate report automatically

Other areas??


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Set up project information

Define Options settings

Mention relevant items as applicable to project

Define calendar

Check with holidays list

Define project information

Start date

Status date

Choose calendar

All these set-up activities are one time and ensures right commitments to some extent initially


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OptionsSetup initially


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Project information


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Set up project information

Benefits

Accommodating holidays and buffers if any

Makes plan easy to monitor with initial set-up

Status can be obtained at any time with no efforts.

All the more, runs on pre-defined setting and little room for mistakes.


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Define task driver

Identify relevant WBS PRIDE template

Define task type (Lets have fixed work item)

Define task as milestone

Significant item in WBS (Major deliverable or phase end). Duration is zero.

Define very few milestones (5-6 per medium project).

Conduct casual analysis after reaching milestone.

Use milestone information as project summary.

Task drivers

Fixed work. Eg. Writing use case documents.

Fixed duration. Eg. Training program, Conf Calls.

Fixed units. Eg. Write code (LOC) and Test module(10 test cases).

Recommended to use fixed work


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Sample WBS


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Task information


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Define task drivers

Benefits

Control over task variable (Fixed item, fixed work, fixed duration).

Focusing on key areas rather entire WBS.

Easy to modify and control tasks.

Effects of new entry tasks could be judged

Ensures for analysis at milestone phase.


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Schedule constraints

Define schedule constraint

Is there any constraint imposed on this task by any means?

Eg. Test data is required for preparation of test cases

Use your best judgment ALAP As Late As Possible

ASAP As Soon As Possible

FNET Finish Not Earlier Than

Etc

Few constraints, real ones and applicable to particular task

Automatically constraint appears when we enter dates manually


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Constraint types


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Relate and link tasks based on project requirements

Define dependency b/w tasks

Finish to start

Start to start

Finish to finish

Start to finish

Use best judgment for dependency

No task is in isolation

Determine critical path and monitor critical tasks

Use negative lag for parallel tasks.


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Sample network


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Sample critical path


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Dependencies


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Benefits

Auto determines the critical path

Determines critical tasks to project and can be focused on these.

Revision of plan and schedule is done without difficulty.Gantt chart tracking done with track grant (Baseline)

Provides holistic view of plan


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Level resources

Use resource sheet

People (Infosys/Client)

Hardware

Software

Assign resources to tasks

Level resources

Identifies over-loaded resources.

Identifies gaps in resource utilization.

Helps in re-assignments and identifying new resources.

Do not over load key resources.

Over load resources to extent 120-125%. (Not more than 70% of resources)

Have buffer to handle unplanned tasks.


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Resource Sheet


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Level resources

Benefits

Helps in resource usage optimum by identifying the gaps in resource pool.

Determines the resources usage and task usage, hence better allocation oftasks.

Integrates well with resources and tasks.

Re-arrangement and impact of resource lack will be determined.


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Integration between MSP and Outlook

Assign tasks to resources Via MSP to outlook

Individual can track tasks in outlook and update

Automatic update to MSP

Effective team collaboration


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Do not enter dates

Let MPP determine start and end date (Key feature of MPP)

How to arrive dates

Enter appropriate task driver

Enter constraints

Enter resources info

Enter duration of task

Start date and end date are computed by MPP

Revise dates by changing duration and assignments


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Define costs

Attach cost to resources

Use resource sheet for cost entry

Helps in

Analyze data based on earned value

Profitability analysis

Metrics data and analysis

Manage project like profit and loss account


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Project Statistics


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Reports

Generate reports

Project overview like project summary, milestones, critical tasks etc.

Assignments Who does what and when, To do list etc

Workload like resource usage, task usage

Costs like earned value, remaining costs

Customize reports

Define specific project reports

Publish various reports for

Team communication

Sr Management communication

Client communication


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Sample project summary


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costs and reports

Benefits - Costs

Brings cost perspective of project analysis.

Provides data for profitability analysis.

Acts as corrective measure trigger.

Benefits Reports

Easy and quick in generating reports (Provided plan is up to date)

Custom report to suit specific requirements

Earn value analysis report helps in project metrics and analysis


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Summary

Introduction of MPP

Best practices of MPP

Set-up project information

Define task drivers

Define schedule constraints


Level resources

Do not enter dates (Start/finish)

Attach cost to resource

Generate report automatically

Other areas??


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Thank you all

tnsd bestpractices mpp

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