ETI 4448 Applied Project Management

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ETI 4448Applied Project Management

• Prof. Roy Levow
• Session 4

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Building the Work Breakdown Structure (Ch. 4) --
Outline

• The Work Breakdown Structure
• Uses for the WBS
• Generating the WBS
• Six Criteria to Test for Completeness in the WBS
• Approaches to Building the WBS
• Representing the WBS

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Work Breakdown Structure

• A hierarchical description of the work that must
  be done to complete the project as defined in the
  Project Overview Statement.
• Inputs
• POS
• Requirements Document
• Terms
• Activity Chunk of work
• Tasks Smaller chunk of work. Activities are
  made up of tasks
• Work Package Complete description of how the
  tasks that make up the activity will actually be
  done

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Decomposition

• The process of breaking down work into a
  hierarchy of activities, tasks, and work packages
• Uses
• Estimate Duration
• Determine Resources
• Schedule Work

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Uses for the WBS

• Thought Process Tool
• Architectural Design Tool
• Planning Tool
• Project Status Reporting Tool

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Generating the WBS

• Top-Down Approach Start with goal and continue
  to partition work until it has been sufficiently
  defined
• Team Approach Variation
• Subteam Approach Variation
• Bottom-Up Approach First-level tasks are
  identified. Then groups are formed around
  first-level tasks where these groups brainstorm
  the activities needed to complete the first-level
  task.

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WBS for Specific Projects

• Small Projects Consider mindmapping
• Diagram relating components radiating out from
  central element (Ref Wikipedia article)
• Large Projects Intermediate WBS
• Adaptive and Extreme Projects Iterative WBS

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Six Criteria to Test for WBS Completeness

• Status/Completion is measurable
• The activity is bounded
• The activity has a deliverable
• Time and cost are easily estimated
• Activity duration is within acceptable limits
• Work assignments are independent
• Seventh Criteria Project managers judgment
  that the WBS is not complete

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Exceptions to the Completion Criteria Rule

• Stopping Before Completion Criteria Are Met
• Decomposing Beyond Completion of the Criteria

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Approaches to Building the WBS

• Noun-type In terms of the components of the
  deliverable
• Physical Decomposition
• Functional Decomposition
• Verb-type In terms of the actions that must be
  done to produce the deliverable
• Design-build-test-implement
• Objectives
• Organizational In terms of the units that will
  create the deliverable
• Geographic
• Departmental
• Business Process

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Representing WBSTree Structure
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Representing WBSIndented Outline
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Representing WBSWaterfall Structure
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Estimating Duration, Resource Requirements, and
Cost Ch. 5

• Outline
• Estimating Duration
• Estimating Resource Requirements
• Estimating Duration as a Function of Resource
  Availability
• Estimating Cost
• Using a JPP Session to Estimate Duration,
  Resource Requirements, and Cost

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Estimating Duration

• The difference between Duration and Work Effort

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Resource Loading Versus Task Duration

• Crashing the task adding more resources to
  preserve duration
• Diminishing returns
• Crashpoint adding more resources INCREASES task
  duration
• Considerations
• Not always feasible (Can nine women have a baby
  in one month?)
• Communication overhead increases
• Risk increases

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Variation in Task Duration

• Varying skill levels
• Unexpected events
• Efficiency of work time
• Mistakes and misunderstandings
• Common cause variation

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Six Methods for Estimating Task Duration

• Similarity to other activities
• Historical Data
• Expert Advice
• Delphi Technique
• Group of experts individually estimate duration
• Then, average of the estimates is calculated
• Do it two more times
• Three-Point Technique
• most optimistic estimate, most pessimistic
  estimate, and most likely estimate, which are
  then averaged
• Wide-band Delphi Technique
• Combination of Delphi and Three-Point techniques

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Estimation Life Cycles

• Early estimates will not be as good as later
  estimates.

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Estimating Resource Requirements

• Types of resources
• People
• Facilities
• Equipment
• Money
• Materials

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People as Resources

• Skills Matrices
• Skills needed inventory
• Skills currently on hand inventory
• Skill Categories uniform listing of skills
• Skill Levels level of expertise in a particular
  skill

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Resource Breakdown Structure
Used to estimate resource and costs by showing
the positions needed for a particular project
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Estimating Duration as a Function of Resource
Availability

• Three variables influence Duration Estimate
• Duration
• Total amount of work (hours/days)
• Percent per day that person can devote to task
• Methods for Estimating Duration
• Assign as a Total Work and a Constant Percent/Day
• 40 hours / 0.50 80 hours
• Assign as a Duration and Total Work Effort
• 5 person days / 10 days 0.5
• Assign as a Duration and Percent/Day
• 10 days X 0.50 5 person days
• Assign as a Profile (when using multiple
  resources)

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Estimating Cost

• Resource Planning
• Trading money for time (depends on skill level)
• Part-time workers (think of ramp-up time)
• Dont overschedule resources
• Cost Estimating
• Order of magnitude estimate
• Estimate is 25 above and 75 below final number
• Budget estimate
• Estimate is 10 above and 25 below final number
• Definitive estimate
• Estimate is 5 above and 10 below final number

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Cost Budgeting and Cost Control

• Cost Budgeting Assign costs to tasks on the WBS
• Cost Control Two major issues
• How often report of costs is needed
• Depends on risk and need to spot developing
  problems
• Use of a cost baseline to spot cost variances
  when you receive actual figures

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Using Joint Project Planning Session to Estimate
Duration, Resource Requirements, and Cost

• Advice from the author
• Get it roughly right
• Spend more effort on front-end activities than on
  back-end activities
• Consensus is all that is needed

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Constructing and Analyzing the Project Network
Diagram Ch. 6

• Outline
• The Project Network Diagram
• Building the Network Diagram Using the Precedence
  Diagramming Method
• Analyzing the Initial Project Network Diagram
• Using the JPP Session to Construct and Analyze
  the Network

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The Project Network Diagram

• Definition A pictorial representation of the
  sequence in which the project work can be done.
• What is needed to construct diagram
• Tasks
• Task Duration
• Earliest time to start task
• Earliest expected completion date for the project

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Gantt Chart

• Older than the project network diagram
• Rectangular bars that show the duration by length
• Placed along a timeline in sequence
• Does not indicate what task needs to be done
  before and after a task
• Does not indicate if the project planning is most
  effective or efficient

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Advantages of the Project Network Diagram

• Planning Visual overview of the project that is
  easy to use for scheduling
• Implementation Software exists that
  automatically updates task dates and duration
• Control Project manager can better schedule
  tasks and spot variances

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Building a Network Diagram

• Early Method Task-On-the-Arrow (TOA)

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Building a Network Diagram

• Precedence Diagramming Method (PDM)

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Using PDM

• First, every task in the WBS has a task node

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Using PDM (Cont.)

• Second, determine the sequence of tasks
• Every task has at least one predecessor and at
  least one successor
• EXCEPT
• Start Task has no predecessor
• End Task has no successor
• Diagram the connections

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Using PDM (Cont.)
Diagramming connections between tasks
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Using PDM (Cont.)
Four Kinds of Task Dependencies
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Constraints Determine Task Dependencies

• Technical Constraints
• Discretionary
• Best-Practices
• Logical
• Unique
• Management Constraints
• Interproject Constraints
• Date Constraints

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Lag Variables

• Pauses or delays between tasks
• Can be intentional
• Also created by constraints

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Creating the Initial Project Schedule

• Compute two schedules
• Early schedule use Forward Pass
• Late schedule use Backward Pass

Forward Pass
Backward Pass
Whats different?
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Critical Path

• The longest duration path in the network
  diagram
• The sequence of tasks whose early schedule and
  late schedule are the same
• The sequence of tasks with zero slack or float
• The Critical Path Determines
• the Completion Date of the Project

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Calculating Critical Path

• First method add up all of the paths
  durations. The longest one is the critical path.

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Calculating Critical Path (Cont.)

• Second method Compute the slack time
• The amount of delay (in time units) in starting a
  task that will not affect the project completion
  date
• Difference between late finish and early finish
  of a slack time
• Do not include holidays, weekends, and similar
  such time
• Two types of slack
• Free slack amount of delay for a task without
  causing a delay in the early start of immediate
  successor task(s)
• Total slack amount of delay for a task without
  delaying the project completion date

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Analyzing the Initial Project Network Diagram

• Crashing the schedule necessary when the
  initial project network diagram shows a projected
  completion date that is later than the requested
  completion date.
• Strategies
• Examine the Critical Path to see if you can move
  tasks off the Critical Path
• Partition tasks into parallel subtasks
• Concerns
• Increase in risk
• More communication and coordination needed

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Example of Schedule Compression
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Management Reserve

• Padding task duration
• Individual task level
• Project level
• Bad at the task level
• BUT, good at the project level
• Accounts for risk
• Incentive (management reserve time not used can
  be the basis for bonus)