Project Planning

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Project Planning Control
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• Chapter Coverage
• What is a project?
• The project planning and control process
• Network planning Critical Path Method (CPM)

3

• Projects
• A project is a set of activities with a define
  start point and a define end state, which pursues
  a defined goal and uses a define set of resources.

4
Stages in project management
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• Stage 1 Understanding project environment
• The project environment comprises the factors
  which may affect the project during its life.
  See slide 16.6

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• Geo-social environment
• Geography
• National culture

• Econo-political environment
• Economy
• Government

The Project

• Business environment
• Customers
• Competitors
• Suppliers/sub-contractors

• Internal environment
• Company strategy
• Resources
• Other projects

Examples of factors that may affect the project
environment
7

• Stage 2 Project definition
• Three different elements define a project
• Its objective the end state that project
  management is trying to achieve
• Its scope the exact range of the
  responsibilities taken on by the project
  management.
• Its strategy how project management is going to
  meet its objective.

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• Project objectives
• The hierarchy of objectives
• At the top of the hierarchy is the overall
  objective or goal of the project, lower levels of
  the hierarchy are the objectives of each part of
  the project (big projects consists of many
  parts).
• Objectives of each part must be related to its
  overall objective.

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• Objectives must be clear
• Good objectives are those which are clear,
  measurable and, preferably, quantifiable.
• One method of clarifying objectives is to break
  down project objectives into three categories
• Purpose to prevent production from failing to
  meet output as forecast.
• End result a report which identifies the causes
  of lost production, and which recommends how the
  target output can be met.
• Success criteria the report should be completed
  by 30 June. The recommendations should enable
  output to reach at east 70 tonnes per year. Cost
  of the recommendations should not exceed
  RM200,000.

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The three project performance objectives
Quality
New aircraft project
Music festival
Fixed grant research project
Time
Cost
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• Project scope
• Identifies the work content and the outcomes.
• Boundary setting exercise divides work content
  for each part of the project.
• Important for managing contractors commercial
  and legal aspect of the scope of supply.
• Can change during the course of the project.

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• Project strategy
• Defines in general how the organization is going
  to achieve its project objectives and meet the
  related measure of performance.
• Two ways
• Define phases (time based sections) of the
  project.
• Set milestones at which specific reviews of time,
  cost and quality are made.

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• Stage 3 Project planning
• Fulfills four distinct purpose, it determines
• The cost and duration of the project.
• The level of resources needed.
• Helps to allocate work and monitor progress.
• Helps to assess the impact of changes to the
  project.
• There are five steps

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Stages in the project planning process
1
2
3
4
5
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1. Identify activities Work breakdown structure
1. Serve breakfast in bed
11. Butter the toast
5. Place boiled egg in egg cup
2. Pour juice in glass
16. Arrange tray
17. Fetch tray, plates and cutlery
12. Toast bread
15. Fetch butter
3. Fetch juice
4. Fetch glass
6. Boil egg
10. Fetch egg cup
13. Slice bread
8. Bring water to boil
7. Fetch egg
14. Fetch bread
9. Fill pan with water
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2. Estimate times and resources
Table 16.1 Time and resources estimates for a breakfast-in-bed project Table 16.1 Time and resources estimates for a breakfast-in-bed project Table 16.1 Time and resources estimates for a breakfast-in-bed project Table 16.1 Time and resources estimates for a breakfast-in-bed project
No Activity Effort (person) Duration (secs)
1 Serve breakfast in bed 1 120
2 Pour juice in glass 1 5
3 Fetch juice 1 10
4 Fetch glass 1 10
5 Place boiled egg in egg cup 1 3
6 Boil egg 0 240
7 Fetch egg 1 10
8 Bring water to boil 0 180
9 Fill pan with water 1 8
10 Fetch egg cup 1 10
11 Butter the toast 1 10
12 Toast bread 0 30
13 Slice bread 1 30
14 Fetch bread 1 10
15 Fetch butter 1 10
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Typical subjective probability distribution for
an activity time estimate
Accuracy of estimates comes with experience!
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3. Identify relationship and dependencies

• All activities will have some relationship with
  one another.
• Dependent or series relationship or
• Slice bread Toast bread Butter toast
• Fill pan with water Bring water to boil Boil egg
• Parallel relationship

1

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4. Identify schedule constraints

• Resource constrained only the available
  resource level are used in resource scheduling
  and are never exceeded hence, project completion
  might slip.
• Time constrained priority is to complete the
  project within a given time.

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Making breakfast - Do activities at earliest
time
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Making breakfast Minimizing staff
requirements
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5. Fix the schedule
Making breakfast Maximizing toast quality
4
3
Staff required
2
1
0
0
1
2
3
4
6
7
8
9
5
Time (mins)
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• Stage 5 Project control
• Project monitoring current expenditure to date,
  amount of overtime authorized, inspection
  failure, progress of activities etc.
• Assessing project performance Compare planned
  and actual expenditure
• Intervene to change the project when the project
  is out of control in the sense of cost, quality
  levels or time, intervention is required.

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• Network planning
• Use of Gantt chart is the simplest technique that
  supports project planning and control.
• More elaborate and detailed techniques are
  collectively called network analysis.
• We will consider a network analysis method called
  Critical Path Method (CPM)

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• Critical Path Method
• Represents the project activities
  diagrammatically.
• Project activities are represented by arrows (See
  16.26).
• At the tail (start) and head (finish) of each
  activity is a circle which represents and event
  (See 16.27).
• Rules for drawing a network diagram
• An event cannot be reached until all activities
  leading to it are complete - (16.27 event 5 is
  not reached until c and e are completed).
• No activity can start until its tail event is
  reached - (16.27 activity f cannot start until
  event 5 is reached).
• No two activities can have the same heat and tail
  events (16.28 activities x and y cannot be
  drawn as first shown, they must be drawn using a
  dummy activity (no duration and shown as a dotted
  line)

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Activities and network for a simple project
Activity duration (in days)
Immediate predecessors
Activity
a Remove furniture None 1 b Prepare
bedroom a 2 c Paint bedroom b 3 d Prepare
kitchen a 1 e Paint kitchen d 2 f Replace
furniture c, e 1
Prepare bedroom
Paint bedroom
Remove furniture
Replace furniture
Prepare kitchen
Paint kitchen
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Network diagram for simple decorating project
EET the very earliest the event could possibly
occur if all preceding activities are completed
as early as possible. LET the latest time that
the event could possibly take place without
delaying the whole project
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Activity on arrow Using dummy activities
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• Critical Path
• Network diagrams have more that one sequence of
  activities which will lead from the start to the
  end of the project these sequence are called
  paths.
• Each path has a total duration which is the sum
  of all its activities.
• The path which has the longest sequence of
  activities is called the critical path.
• It is called the critical path because any delay
  in and of the activities on this path will delay
  the whole project.

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Network analysis for simple decorating project
With earliest and latest event times
3
3
3
c
b
3
2
2
5
6
a
f
1
1
6
6
7
7
1
1
d
e
1
2
4
4
2
Chapter 16, Page 575
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Worked Example

• The chief surveyor of a firm that moves earth in
  preparation for the construction of roads has
  identified the activities and their durations for
  each stage of an operation to prepare a difficult
  stretch of motorway (see table below). The
  surveyor needs to know how long the project will
  take and which are the critical activities.

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Road Construction Activities
Activity Duration Preceding activities
A 5 -
B 10 -
C 1 -
D 8 B
E 10 B
F 9 B
G 3 A, D
H 7 A, D
I 4 F
J 3 F
K 5 C, J
L 8 H, E, I, K
M 4 C, J
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Network Diagram For Motorway Project
G
18
20
A
H
3
D
5
8
7
E
L
B
10
10
27
27
35
35
10
10
8
F
I
9
4
C
K
M
1
5
19
19
4
J
3
22
22
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The End