Project Management

1
Project Management

• Project Planning
• Estimating
• Scheduling

2
Project plan

• Define project constraints
• Make initial assessment of project parameters
• Define project milestones and deliverables
• Incrementally apply the project management
  process loop

3
Loop

• Draw up project schedule
• Initiate activities according to schedule
• Wait awhile
• review project progress
• revise estimates of project parameters
• apply revisions to project schedule
• re-negotiate project constraints and deliverables
• if problems arise, initiate technical review and
  possible revision
• until project completed or cancelled

4
Project Planning / Scheduling

• Project milestones
• Stage deliverables
• Option Analysis
• Determine organization and project specific goals
• Determine project options
• Map options against goal fulfilment
• Convert to polar graphs

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Option analysis
6
Project scheduling

• Separate total work into tasks
• Requirements analysis coding testing is 212
• Work out tasks, timings and dependencies
• make out activity network / activity bar chart
• PERT charts
• include pessimistic, likely and optimistic
  estimates
• Show critical path (i.e. shortest time)
• Staff allocation is also necessary

7
Critical Path Analysis

• This is used to determine how long the project
  overall will take.
• The activities involved in the project are
  defined and then sequenced.
• The sequence of the activities is determined by
  the dependencies in the project.

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Activity Sequencing

• Involves reviewing activities and determining
  dependencies.
• Mandatory dependencies inherent in the nature of
  the work hard logic.
• Discretionary dependencies defined by the
  project team soft logic.
• External dependencies involve relationships
  between project and non-project activities.
• You must determine dependencies in order to use
  critical path analysis.

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Project Network Diagrams

• Project network diagrams are the preferred
  technique for showing activity sequencing.
• A project network diagram is a schematic display
  of the logical relationships among, or sequencing
  of, project activities.

10
Sample Network Diagram
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Step 1

• Find all of the activities that start at node 1.
• Draw their finish nodes and draw arrows between
  node 1 and those finish nodes.
• Put the activity letter or name and duration
  estimate on the associated arrow.

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Step 2

• Continuing drawing the network diagram, working
  from left to right.
• Look for bursts and merges.
• Bursts occur when a single node is followed by
  two or more activities.
• A merge occurs when two or more nodes precede a
  single node.

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Steps 3 and 4

• Step 3.
• Continue drawing the project network diagram
  until all activities are included on the diagram
  that have dependencies.
• Step 4.
• As a rule of thumb, all arrowheads should face
  toward the right, and no arrows should cross on
  the network diagram.

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Example Make a cup of tea

• Activities
• Get a cup.
• Fill the kettle.
• Pour the tea.
• Put a teabag in the teapot.
• These activities are in the wrong sequence,
  because, we cannot pour the tea until the teabag
  and the boiling water have been in the pot for a
  couple of minutes.

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All activities?

• Not all activities are documented
• Get a cup.
• Fill the kettle.
• Pour the tea.
• Put a teabag in the teapot.
• We need to get a teapot and milk.
• We need to boil the kettle.
• We need to allow the tea to draw.

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Sequencing the activities

• 1. Fill the kettle.(20 sec).
• 2. Put the kettle on to boil (2 sec).
• 3. Get a teapot (7 sec).
• 4. Get a cup (4 sec).
• 5. Get milk (10 sec).
• 6. Get teabags(3 sec).
• 7. Put boiling water and teabag into the teapot
  (15 sec).
• 8. Pour the tea(3 sec).

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Sequencing the activities

• 8 cannot be done until all of the other things
  have been done.
• 4 and 5 can be done any time before 8.
• 6 must be done before 7.
• 1 must be done before 2.
• 2 must be done before 7.
• 3 must be done before 7.

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Network path
2
20 sec
2 sec
1
7 sec
3
7
15 sec
Start
3 sec
6
8
10 sec
5
4 sec
4
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Critical Path Method (CPM)

• CPM is a project network analysis technique used
  to predict total project duration.
• A critical path for a project is the series of
  activities that determines the earliest time by
  which the project can be completed.
• The critical path is the longest path through the
  network diagram and has the least amount of slack
  or float.

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Finding the Critical Path

• First develop a good project network diagram.
• Add the durations for all activities on each path
  through the project network diagram.
• The longest path is the critical path.

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Simple Example of Determining the Critical Path

• Consider the following project network diagram.
  Assume all times are in days.

a. How many paths are on this network diagram?
b. How long is each path? c. Which is the
critical path? d. What is the shortest amount of
time needed to complete this project?
a. How many paths are on this network diagram?
b. How long is each path? c. Which is the
critical path? d. What is the shortest amount of
time needed to complete this project?
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More on the Critical Path

• If one or more activities on the critical path
  takes longer than planned, the whole project
  schedule will slip unless corrective action is
  taken.
• Misconceptions
• The critical path is not the one with all the
  critical activities it only accounts for time.
• There can be more than one critical path if the
  lengths of two or more paths are the same.
• The critical path can change as the project
  progresses.

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Critical Path
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Software Cost Estimation

• Hardware costs
• Travel and training costs
• Effort costs
• can be calculated by
• Algorithmic cost modelling
• Expert judgement
• Estimation by analogy
• Parkinsons Law (whatever is there will be spent)
• Pricing to win
• Top-down estimation
• Bottom-up estimation

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Algorithmic cost modelling

• highly parameterised algorithms
• were originally based on no of lines of code
• now based on Function point analysis
• External inputs and outputs
• User interactions
• External interfaces
• Files used by the system