Project planning tool

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Project planning tool
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Objectives

• Understand the reasons why projects sometimes
  fail
• Describe the different scheduling tools,
  including Gantt charts and PERT/CPM charts
• Calculate completion times, start dates, and end
  dates for a project

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Keys to Project Success

• Successful systems must satisfy business
  requirements, meet users needs, stay within
  budget, and be completed on time
• The essential objective is to provide a solution
  to a business problem

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Keys to Project Success

• Some reasons for failure
• Unclear requirements, targets, or scope
• Shortcuts or sloppy work
• Poor design choices
• Insufficient testing or test procedures
• Lack of software change control
• Changes in culture, funding, or objectives
• Unrealistic cost estimates
• Poor monitoring and control of progress
• Inadequate reaction to early signs of problems
• Failure to recognize activity dependencies
• Personality conflicts and employee turnover

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Project Planning

• A project plan is an overall framework for
  managing costs and schedules
• The planning process involves
• Activities (tasks)
• Events (milestones)

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Project Planning

• An activity, or task, is a basic unit of work
  that is planned, monitored, and tracked
• An event, or milestone, is a reference point that
  is used to manage the project
• Every activity has two events one marks the
  start of the task, the other marks the end
• Events must be easily recognizable

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Project Scheduling

• The project manager must know
• The duration of each task
• The order in which the tasks will be performed
• The start and end times for each activity
• Who will be assigned to each task
• Assignments should not overload or under-utilize
  team members
• A level workload is desirable

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Scheduling Tools

• A project manager can use several graphical
  planning tools
• Gantt charts
• PERT/CPM charts

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Scheduling Tools

• Gantt charts
• A Gantt chart is a horizontal bar chart that
  illustrates a schedule
• Time is shown on the horizontal axis and
  activities are arranged vertically
• The position of a bar shows the start and end of
  a task, and the length of the bar shows the
  tasks duration

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Scheduling Tools

• Gantt charts
• Tasks can be combined into activity groups to
  simplify the chart
• Various methods exist for tracking progress
• Shade the completed portion of a bar
• Use a triangle or arrowhead as an indicator
• Use a second bar to show the completed work

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Scheduling Tools

• PERT/CPM
• The Program Evaluation Review Technique (PERT)
  and the Critical Path Method (CPM) were developed
  separately but now are referred to as PERT/CPM
• A PERT/CPM chart displays a project as a network
  diagram, with activities shown as vectors, and
  events represented by nodes

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Scheduling Tools

• PERT/CPM charting conventions
• The vectors representing tasks connect the nodes,
  which indicate milestones
• The activitys estimated duration is shown below
  the vector

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Scheduling Tools

• PERT/CPM charting conventions
• The vectors representing tasks connect the nodes,
  which indicate milestones
• The activitys estimated duration is shown below
  the vector
• Tasks that must be completed in a specific
  sequence are called dependent, or serial, tasks

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Scheduling Tools

• PERT/CPM charting conventions
• The vectors representing tasks connect the nodes,
  which indicate milestones
• The activitys estimated duration is shown below
  the vector
• Tasks that must be completed in a specific
  sequence are called dependent, or serial, tasks
• Dummy activities can be used to show task
  dependencies

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Scheduling Tools

• PERT/CPM charting conventions
• A project can be represented with a Gantt chart
  and a PERT/CPM chart
• Significant differences exist between the two
  methods, and each method has strengths and
  weaknesses

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Scheduling Tools

• Activity duration
• A weighted formula can be used to estimate
  activity duration
• The formula calculates a weighted result based on
  three separate estimates (optimistic (O),
  pessimistic (P), and most likely (M))

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Scheduling Tools

• Earliest completion times
• The earliest completion time for an activity is
  called the ECT
• The ECT is the minimum amount of time needed to
  complete all the activities that precede the event

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Scheduling Tools

• Earliest completion times
• Working from left to right on the chart, the ECT
  is calculated by taking the ECT of the preceding
  event and adding the duration of the immediately
  preceding task
• If the event has more than one preceding task,
  use the largest ECT of the preceding tasks,
  including any dummy tasks
• The ECT is shown as a number in the upper-right
  section of the event node symbol

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Scheduling Tools

• Latest completion times
• The latest completion time for an activity is
  called the LCT
• The LCT is the latest time at which the event can
  occur without delaying the overall project

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Scheduling Tools

• Latest completion times
• To determine an LCT, you reverse the procedure
  for an ECT
• Work from right to left, and subtract the LCT of
  the following task
• If the event has more than one following task,
  use the smallest LCT of the following tasks,
  including any dummy tasks
• The LCT is shown as a number in the lower-right
  section of the event node symbol

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Scheduling Tools

• Slack times
• The slack time for an event is the amount of time
  by which an event can be late without delaying
  the project
• The slack time is the difference between the LCT
  and the ECT, if any

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Scheduling Tools

• Critical path
• A critical path is a series of events and
  activities with no slack time
• At least one complete path will exist where every
  node has equal ECTs and LCTs
• If any task on the critical path is delayed
  beyond its LCT, the entire project falls behind
  by that amount of time
• Project managers focus on the critical path in
  order to keep the project on track

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Scheduling Tools

• Comparing Gantt charts and PERT/CPM
• PERT/CPM charts show all task dependencies, and
  are better for scheduling, monitoring, and
  controlling projects
• Gantt charts graphically display the timing and
  duration of activities, and can display task
  completion status effectively
• PERT/CPM charts are more complicated than Gantt
  charts, especially for larger projects

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End of Lecture 6