Teaching Project Management in the Accounting Curriculum

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Teaching Project Managementin the Accounting
Curriculum
A Presentation to the Federation of Schools of
Accountancy October 2002 Nancy A. Bagranoff
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Why teach project management to accounting
students?

• Accounting is project-centric
• Everyone manages projects
• Project managers are in demand
• Close relationship to project accounting (project
  accounting software)
• Its a skill theyll use throughout their careers
• Its fun?

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Ok but why me?

• It doesnt have to be youbut it CAN be you!
• Accounting faculty, either on their own, or by
  team teaching, can emphasize the importance of
  project management to accounting students -- and
  they can teach project management in an
  accounting context.

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The Growing Importance of PM

• Needs of society due to
• - more knowledge
• - increasing product and service complexity
• - global competition
• Growth in project management PMI had 7,500
  members in 1990, gt95,000 today! (www.pmi.org)

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What is a project?Have you ever managed a
project?
??????????
What is a successful project? Why would you
say project management is a high-profile,
high-risk endeavor?
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Project Management Skills

• Soft
• Leading
• Coaching
• Facilitating
• Technical
• Planning
• Budgeting
• Problem-Solving
• Area expertise (variable)

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Triple Constraints of PM
Outcome (Scope)
Resources (Budget)
Time
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The Project Life Cycle
Plan
Schedule
Monitor
Control
Close
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Project Planning

• Process of coordinating and regulating
  activities, time, and resources toward
  accomplishment of a specific goal or objective
  within a specified time period.

Also may include Project Selection.
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Project Management What the software does
Adapted from The Complete Idiots Guide to PM
with MS Project
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Project Initiation Document
Adapted from The Complete Idiots Guide to PM
with MS Project
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The Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

• A hierarchical representation of product scope.
• The answer to the question What activities are
  needed?
• The first step in making time and cost estimates.
  

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Risks of Skipping the WBS

• Identifying activities in isolation
• Identifying only a handful of activities
• Incorrect time and budget estimates

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Types of WBS

• Function-based
• Component-based

Breaking down the structure Activities versus
areas of work
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Activities Tasks

• Break down activities into tasks
• How will the task be done?
• Who will do the task?
• How long will it take?
• How much will it cost?
• What resources are needed?

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An In-Class ExerciseThe Wedding Planner I

• Develop a functional WBS for a wedding.
• How would a component-based WBS differ?

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Scheduling the Project

• Gantt horizontal bar charts showing time
  relationships among activities
• Critical Path Analysis network portrayal of
  project activities
• PERT
• CPM

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Dependencies

• Vs. Parallel Tasks
• Finish-to-start dependency
• Start-to-start dependency
• Finish-to-finish dependency
• Start-to-finish dependency

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An In-Class ExerciseThe Wedding Planner II

• Referencing the functional WBS, determine which
  activities are parallel and which have
  dependencies. Describe the type of dependency
  between each dependent set of activities.

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Assigning Resources

• How important is quality for each task?
• How critical is time for each task?
• What skill levels are needed?
• How important is the task to the project
  workflow?
• Will more resources improve speed, quality?
• What do extra resources cost?

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Monitoring a Project

• Collect
• Compare
• Analyze
• Respond Change the game plan

Frequency? Consider the time it takes to collect
and compare Data so that you can analyze and
respond in time.

• Use of status reports
• Importance of milestones

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Monitoring a Project What to Measure?

• Cost (Job costing)
• Quantity of work performed
• Quality of work performed
• Frequent status reports

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Feedback and Closing

• Feedback loop
• Feedback cycle time
• Is it really over?

• Post-project evaluation
• Archiving the project
• Advertising success

Controlling a Project What can you do?

• Do nothing
• Add more resources
• Cut the projects scope

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Questions???