Module G035 Systems Management lecture 2

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Module G035Systems Managementlecture 2
project management, planning and analysis tools

• Andy Dawson
• Department of Information Studies, UCL

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What we will cover today

• Project management
• What is it
• What does it involve
• Methodology
• Planning and Analysis tools
• Especially Network Analysis
• Practical session - Network Analysis!

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Project Management

• What is Project Management?
• Why is it important?
• What does it involve
• What practical techniques can we learn and apply?

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Project Management

• A whole framework of logical and progressive
  management planning and decisions,
  perceptiveness, the liberal application of common
  sense, proper organisation, effective commercial
  and financial management, painstaking attention
  to documentation, and a clear grasp of proven and
  long-established principles of management and
  leadership. (Lock)

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What is Project Management?

• A way of exercising control
• A way of preventing mistakes
• A way of maximizing efficiency
• Why is it important?
• Project success and failure...

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Types of project

• Practical projects
• Classic industrial subjects e.g. construction
• Projects with tangible production outcomes
• Management projects
• Organisational projects e.g. Relocations
• May not have such a tangible outcome
• Research projects
• More difficult to fit in the mould
• Outcomes may be undefined!

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Types of management

• Cost
• Time
• Performance
• Quality
• The relationship between cost, time and
  performance
• Balance of objectives
• The importance of good communication

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Project management in our contexts

• Large vs small scale projects
• Relevance of proper techniques
• Formal considerations
• Functional and line management
• Matrix organisation
• Authority and responsibility
• Whats the best approach?

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PRINCE2

• Projects in Controlled Environments
• Complete project management philosophy
• Useful framework regardless of scale
• Not suggesting direct use (in most cases) but
  approach can remind us of important considerations

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PRINCE2 environment

• Key elements
• Organization
• Plans
• Controls
• Project Board
• Manages project overall
• Responsibilities/Interests
• Executive, User, Technical

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PRINCE2 environment

• Project manager
• executive manager - plans, monitors,
  co-ordinates overall project
• Stage manager
• manages parts of projects, focus on
  schedule/quality/cost targets
• Project assurance team
• Business, Technical User coordinators

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Project definition

• Need for clear scope
• User specification
• User needs analysis
• Feasibility studies
• Operational requirements
• Whats and Hows

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Cost estimation

• Estimating - an art on its own!
• Confidence
• Price and profit
• Optimism and pessimism
• Coding costs
• Purpose
• Rigidity
• Elements
• Material
• Labour/time
• Equipment

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Contracting

• Contracting out
• Buying turnkey systems
• Work packaging
• Making things clear
• Contract terms and conditions
• Keep everything
• Explicit
• In writing

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Planning scheduling

• Whats the difference?
• Planning
• Comes first
• Estimating, sequencing, time analysis
• Importance of network analysis
• Scheduling
• Follows on, and extends, the plan
• Allocates resources
• The working details to implement the plan

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Approaches to planning

• Free planning
• Planning with minimum constraint
• A certain solution?
• Idealistic?
• Target planning
• Practically focused
• Unduly constrained?
• Dangers of undue compromise
• Whichever, must be realistic and honest

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Monitoring the plan

• The key questions
• Where should we be?
• Where are we?
• And thus
• What do we need to do?
• What can go wrong?
• Estimating errors
• Execution errors
• Importance of honesty (again)
• Key danger - the knock-oneffect

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Planning ( scheduling) tools

• Timetabling
• Bar charting (Gannt charts)
• Simple bar charts
• Linked bar charts
• Problems
• Complexity
• Rescheduling

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Network analysis

• Not as intuitive
• Inappropriate for resource schedulingBUT
• Much more powerful notation
• Prevent constraints being missed
• Allow prioritisation
• Criticality quantified by task duration and
  interdependence

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Network analysis

• Notation systems
• Arrow systems (activity-on-arrow)
• ADM, CPM/CPA, PERT
• Good for initial freehand planning
• Node systems (activity-on-node)
• PDM (Precedence Diagram Method)
• Good for checking
• Quite acceptable to use either or both!

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Example of ADM
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Example of PDM
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ADM

• Logic diagram not to scale
• Activities (arrows)
• Events (nodes)
• ID numbers
• Dependencies
• Durations
• Dummy activities

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PDM

• Again, logic diagram
• Activities are nodes
• Other data in boxeswithin the node
• Extra data explicit
• Concepts otherwiseas for ADM

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ADM in practice

• Brainstorm rough out plan
• Check logic (precedence)
• Estimate durations
• Perform analysis
• Forward pass
• Backward pass
• Establish CPA and float
• Review

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Resource scheduling

• Views of resource scheduling
• Utilisation of actual resource
• Identifying whats available
• How to deploy it as efficiently as possible
• Identifying whats needed and whats surplus?
• Establishment of requirement for bought-in
  resource
• Subcontracting
• Purchasing

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Resource scheduling in practice

• What can be scheduled?
• People
• Equipment
• Materials
• Money
• Preferred vs constrained (target) scheduling
• Relation to the CPA
• Gannt charting

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Gannt (linked bar) chart example
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The seven steps of scheduling (after Lock)

• Define the objectives
• Divide into manageable parts
• Decide in detail what has to be done and in what
  sequence
• Estimate durations
• Calculate project lengths and assess significance
• Reconcile programme with resources
• Assign jobs

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Software for analysis and scheduling

• Why use a computer?
• Speed and flexibility
• for large projects!
• Ease of review and distribution
• Multiproject scheduling
• Off-the-shelf products
• Serious software
• MS Project

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Managing progress

• The need for review and updating
• Collecting data
• Role of good communications
• Dealing with real-world crises
• The importance of accuracy and honesty
• Corrective actions
• What-ifs and risk analysis

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Managing costs

• Cost reporting vs cost control
• Cost management factors
• many and varied!
• The Total Cost approach
• Holistic, cooperative
• Difficult?
• Budget milestone monitoring
• Achievement analysis
• Requires quantification of work done
• Importance of work breakdown in cost management

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Managing quality

• What is quality?
• On time on budget?
• Fitness for purpose?
• Customer satisfaction?
• Contractual quality definitions
• Quality systems
• Quality plans
• The importance of commitment

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Closure

• When does a project end?
• The end of a continuous process
• Lifecycles
• Handover
• Signoff
• Records
• Archives
• Retrievability
• Post mortem?

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OK...

• Take a teabreak!

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Todays seminar

• Short QA session (if required!)
• Practical exercise on Network Analysis/Diagramming

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Thats it for today!

• Happy diagramming?